Palestine deal heralds rise of the Quislings

Socialist Outlook November 1993
Mahmud Hawari

How do revolutionaries in the Middle East view the Israeli PLO agreement? Mahmud Hawari, an activist in the Revolutionary Communist League (Matzpen), the Trotskyist organisation in Israel, visited London soon after the signing of the Oslo Agreement and gave this exclusive interview for Socialist Outlook.

How do you assess the Israel PLO agreement?

The agreement is a qualitative event, which radically changes the political situation in the Middle East. Although it is too early to determine what its outcome will be, and it is in any case very ambiguous, we can make some immediate assessments.

The agreement is bad for the Palestinian people. It was dictated to the PLO leadership by Israel, Egypt and the USA, and there are many reasons why both revolutionary Marxists and Palestinian nationalists - who share an anti Zionist analysis of Zionism, the state of Israel and the Middle East conflict - should oppose it. It does not fulfil the minimum of Palestine national rights and does not bring justice to the Palestinian people.

The Oslo agreement was the product of two counterposed factors. The Palestinian Intifada put an end to the status quo and forced Israel, the Arab states and the international community to put the 1967 occupation and the Palestine national question on the agenda. On the other hand, the 1990 Gulf War expressed a change in the relation of forces in the region, in favour of US imperialism and its allies. The combination of these two factors placed the Palestinian question on the agenda, but with the exclusion of the PLO and with no discussion of Israeli withdrawal or Palestinian self-determination.

The PLO was faced with two options: either to accept the Israeli US diktat and start negotiation with Israel under the most unfavourable conditions, or to refuse, at the cost of confrontation with the Arab regimes. The PLO had no room to manoeuvre, and after some hesitation accepted the diktat.

Why did the PLO have no alternative?

Because of their mistaken policy for the past twenty years or more - since Jordan in 1970, in fact. The PLO wavered between guerrilla war and international diplomacy. Although it relied on mass mobilisation, this was never a central plank of its strategy, and was always subjugated to diplomacy.

The Intifada, which started as a spontaneous movement of the masses, was an indication to Israel and the PLO alike of the potential of a mass popular movement against the occupation and for Palestinian national rights. It was later organised in the framework of PLO bodies, and then taken over by the PLO, which quelled the Intifada because of disagreements between the Unified National Leadership of the Intifada and the external PLO leadership.

How have the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories responded to the agreement?

At first, there was widespread celebration, with mass nationalist demonstrations in support of Arafat, though not necessarily in support of the agreement. There was a feeling that the agreement, which spoke of limited Israeli withdrawal and an easing of the occupation, could bring a change to the grim reality of people’s lives. The demonstrations were characterised in particular by the raising of the Palestinian flag, which is an important symbol; only a few days earlier, Palestinians were liable to be shot for raising it.

However, as time passed and people saw no immediate change, doubts began to be expressed. Would the agreement lead to a solution of such problems as release of political prisoners, the closure of the Occupied Territories, the provocations by Israeli troops and settlers, theft of land and resources. There have been protest marches, sit-ins and strikes.

How is the RCL responding in this situation?

If there were political forces with mass support mobilising against the agreement, we would join this struggle. But there is no progressive force which could present a political alternative able to foil the agreement. No political alternative has been put to the masses. The secular left has suffered since the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has little presence in the streets. It has failed to translate its critical analysis into a strategy. The only policy it has adopted is of a boycott of the agreement. This is a suicidal position, which leaves the arena to Fatah and Hamas.

Even Hamas, which is the best-organised opposition, cannot mobilise the masses against the agreement. Its fundamentalist slogans have managed to bring only a few thousands on to the streets.

The RCL is not an organisation of political commentators or judges of history. Our role should be to assist in the creation of conditions in which the Palestinian people could better defend their rights within the new reality created by this agreement. We have to mobilise the progressive forces in Israel, who accept the agreement, on central issues such as release of political prisoners, easing the occupation, against settlements, for Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem, return of deportees.

At the same time, our propaganda role is to explain the negative aspects of the agreement, and to insist that real peace can be made only by peoples, not by governments or leaderships. We must fight against the racist approach of the Zionist left, which agrees with the Zionist consensus of Israeli arrogance, security, a Jewish majority in a Jewish state.

Does the agreement create a situation in which Palestinian and Jewish workers will be able to struggle together against common class oppressors?

Certainly not in the short term, since these workers are divided by relative privilege and the agreement will not alter this radically. Palestinian workers will continue to be employed in Israel, which will have no reason to improve their conditions. The Palestinians work in sectors such as agricultural labour, construction and services, where they do not interact with Israeli workers. Palestinians do not work in central strategic sectors such as heavy industry, or the military and petrochemical industries.

There can be no merging of the working classes while the national question remains unresolved. Of course, if the state of Israel decides to dismantle and reconstruct itself, then we could talk about the possibility of common struggle. But this is in the sphere of fantasy. We may be facing a new situation if a Palestinian regime is established. This would be a bourgeois, neo-colonialist regime at best. Revolutionary Marxist forces should continue to explain the class aspect of the struggle. The Palestinian working class would have to start to organise against the bourgeois regime, which would be allied with Israel.

How do you see the situation developing?

The agreement is only ink on paper, expressing a particular relation of forces. Its implementation will depend on the developing relation of forces. The Oslo agreement could create better conditions for mobilisation and struggle for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (who are only part of the Palestinian people), and could create a readiness within Israeli society for further concessions to the Palestinian people. But this depends on the level of politicisation of the Palestinian masses, and to a lesser extent of the Israeli masses.

Currently, US imperialism and its Israeli ally are dominant. The occupation continues; the shooting continues. 67% of the land in the Occupied Territories has been taken over for Israeli settlements, military bases and roads. Any form of self-rule on this geo-political reality will not be autonomy, but a patchwork of bantustans. The bantustans are on the way, and the quislings are being called back to run them.

Mahmud Hawari was active in the Revolutionary Communist League (Matzpen), the Trotskyist organisation in Israel.