Zionism and the State of Israel

[p021] ZIONISM AND ISRAEL. THE STATE OF ISRAEL was set up with the declared object of solving the Jewish problem by the establish- ment of a Jewish State, which Jews the world over could look to as a guarantee of their security. In prin- ciple, of course, no socialist has ever objected to, or opposed, the establishment of a Jewish national home. But the Israeli assault on Egypt, so soon after the nationalization of the Suez Canal, with the active sup- port of all the die-hard reactionary social forces in Britain and France, cannot by any stretch of the imagi- nation be regarded as preparing the ground for a settle- ment between the Jews and their Arab neighbours in the Middle East. Are the Jews in Israel and the Jews Labour Party formed a government, to be followed two years later by the MacDonald betrayal and split. Is this the road for the future, too? Is the MacDonald experi- ence inevitable? This question is beyond the scope of this article and anyway its answer cannot take the form of a blueprint prediction. Undoubtedly the first form of political expression of the movement must and will be the election of a Labour Government. But it would be foolish to allow the workers to remain tied to the old illusions. The clash with monopoly capitalism and its interests will be overcome only by the victory of one side or the other, the elimination of capitalist control or the crushing of the workers’ movement. From the strike struggle there already emerges a growing awareness of the tasks ahead and a feeling of the strength of the workers’ forces. But this rather diffuse awakening must be given more solid expression in the rebuilding of the militant wing of the trade unions. This new ‘Minority Movement’ must take up again the tasks left unfinished by its predecessor: the democratization of the trade union movement; the granting of official status to shop stewards; the clearing out of the bosses’ men from among the leadership and the consequent establishment of rank-and-file control over all levels of the trade union apparatus. This will mean yearly elections, the right of recall of all dele- gates and officials and the same kind of pay for full- time officials as is received by the man on the job. The trade unions must be changed from bureaucratized re- formist unions, designed to plead for concessions from capitalism, into revolutionary mass organs for its over- throw and for workers’ power. There are many obstacles on the road to power and Marxism does not pretend to lay down a priori the exact form it will take in Britain. Nor are there any exact historical parallels which can serve as a substi- tute for accurate political thinking. The further develop- ment of the movement will establish a synthesis of the theoretical achievements of the Marxist movement, transmitted through its Press and its cadres, and the growing desire of the working class to throw the ex- ploiting class off its back. This synthesis will help to forge the revolutionary tendency which will engage in struggle against the bureaucracy—the indispensable preparation for the final battle against capitalism. THE STATE OF 81 E. S. Hillman who look to Israel as the guarantor of their own well- being more secure, in the long run, as a result of the Israel attack on Egypt or not? The facts No one can doubt that today there exists a wall of hatred between the Arab countries and the State of Israel. Moreover the combined Anglo-French-Israeli assault on Egypt has enormously strengthened the deep- rooted belief of the Arab masses that Israel and the imperialist powers have one fundamental policy in common: opposition to the legitimate and historically

[p022] necessary advance of Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It is difficult for any socialist who has hitherto regarded Israel in some shape or form as the ‘solution’ to the age-old Jewish problem to remain unaffected by the perilous position that the Jews in Israel are now placed in as a result of the Suez adventure. Two points stand out: 1) Israel’s political and economic future is depen- dent more than ever upon the continued support of her Western allies, however unreliable they may be. 2) The security of Israel’s frontiers is dependent not upon the goodwill of the Arab peoples, but upon the extent to which Britain, France and the United States find their strategic and economic interests in the Middle East (oil, rights of navigation through the Suez Canal, military and air bases) coinciding with the con- tinued existence of Israel. It would, of course, be a gross over-simplification of the facts to argue that the State of Israel is only the forty-ninth State of the United States, or even a mere satellite of France or Britain. Israel has, since the Declaration of Independence (June 1948) manoeuvred between the old imperialist powers. Israel has even flirted with the idea of involving the Soviet Govern- ment to help guarantee her existence and security against the rising tide of Arab nationalism. But, after we have added all the necessary qualifications and re- servations, the central fact remains; Israel’s foreign policy has been contained within the framework of the involvement of the imperialist powers (either separately or in combination) in the affairs of the Middle East. For this reason, the existence of the State of Israel and the fate of its Jewish population is bound up entirely with the continued influence of imperialism in the Middle East. The rapidly changing status of the Arab States over the last few months makes it very difficult to see how Britain and France can maintain their footholds in Iraq and Iran for any length of time. Israel’s rodle The Government of Israel is directly attempting to entice the United Nations to fill this ‘vacuum’ generated by the humiliating and painful defeat suffered by Anglo-French imperialism over Suez. It is still pursuing its policy of involving the United Nations—which essen- tially today means the United States of America. For a United Nations ‘police’ force could never exist without the military backing of the USA. Israel conceives this United Nations force as a shield from the hostile actions of the surrounding Arab States. Occupying the Gaza Strip and a strip of territory between the Israel and Egyptian armies and policing the Gulf of Aqaba, this United Nations force would separate the belligerents and impose on Egypt and the other Arab States a ‘settlement’ to the advantage of Israel and bring peace to the Middle East. This argument, whose apparent simplicity commends it, has now been taken over by leading spokesmen in the Labour Party such as Hugh Gaitskell and Aneurin Bevan. In Tribune of February 1, 1957, a joint article by Aneurin Bevan and Ian Mikardo summarized, with modifications, Israel’s case: 82 Egyptian belligerent rights over the Gulf of Aqaba should be denied to her. The Gaza strip should be ad- ministered by the United Nations. The passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and of all other shipping should be guaranteed. It may be necessary that these should be accorded to Israel before she withdraws her troops, but it is essential that both operations should proceed simultaneously. Private assurances by Egypt are not sufficient. They are not binding, for they are not recorded and can be easily repudiated or not admitted. _ Granting the status quo in the Middle East (that is, the continued exploitation of the Arab States in the interests of the imperialist oil companies) peaceful co- existence between States and treaties imposed upon or accepted by governments, represent only the present relationship of economic, political and military power between the Arab States freeing themselves from their former oppressors, and the imperialist powers trying to hold on to their spheres of interest. Treaties agreed by the contending states in dispute merely sanctify the status quo. The core of the problem is simply left un- touched. The creation of an armoured shield of a United Nations force round the body of Israel in order to protect her militarily and to ensure the free navigation of her shipping through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, means not the triumph of the Arab peoples over imperialism, but their rebuff. The commando raids But what about the repeated violations of Israel’s frontier by Egyptian and Jordanian irregular units? Should not all this be stopped? The Fedayen raids ex- press only the bitter resentment the Arabs and parti- cularly the Arab refugees, feel towards Israel. On every issue concerning the Arab world Israel has taken the side, not of the Afro-Asian bloc in the United Nations, but of Britain, France and the United States. Israel voted with France to prevent the Algerian question being debated in the United Nations. Yet France is the most brutal, decrepit and widely-hated of all the im- perialist powers. Israel opposed the withdrawal of Bri- tish troops from the Suez Canal Base, a withdrawal carried out by an unwilling Tory Government. Yet the Israel Government is led by a Labour. and professedly Socialist party. Israel opposed the withdrawal, align- ing her avowedly Labour and Socialist Government with the views of the last-ditch Suez rebels of the Tory Party, led by Captain Waterhouse. The Israeli Labour movement The Israeli Labour movement has been ill-served by these politics. The three important (and, together, decisive) Labour parties in Israel’s political life — Mapai, Mapam and Achdut Avodah — have had, and still have, within their grasp the whole future of Israel and, with it, the destiny of Jewry in a hostile Arab world. They have the power to make a notable and historic contribution to the solution of the Jewish pro- blem in the Middle East. This would mean linking up. unconditionally, the Israeli Labour movement with the revolutionary anti-imperialist changes now taking place throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The Israeli Labour parties have no interests separate from the interests of the Arab workers. They have the same interests as the land hungry fellaheen of Nasser’s Egypt.

[p023] All are victims of the same international system of class rule which gives rise, in its decline, to anti-semitism in the metropolitan imperialist countries and oppression of the Arabs, Africans and Asians in the colonial coun- tries. That the Jew should find himself counterposed to the Arab in the Middle East is itself a tragedy brought - about by the ultimate expression of declining capitalism —Hitlerite Germany. The ‘Zionist solution’, which propelled the rem- nants of European Jewry left after the holocaust of World War II to Palestine, was inevitable after many countries had closed their frontiers to Jewish refugees. The Jews in Israel have become the tools of the very forces which drove them towards the quasi-revolution- ary ‘Zionist solution’ of their problem of survival at the end of World War II. The revolutionary zeal and courage of European Jewish youth, sustained by the memory of hundreds of years of persecution and strug- gle, spurred on by the heroic deeds of the Resistance against Nazi tyranny (e.g. the 1943 Warsaw ghetto rising led by Mordechai Anilewicz) found an outlet in evading the vigilant eye of the British mandatory power in their ‘illegal’ passage, in ‘illegal’ overcrowded ships, to Palestine. The “building up’ of the State of Israel through the Kibbutzim (collective farms) was regarded as a specifically Jewish method of construct- ing socialism, a socialism indissolubly linked with the materialization of a ‘ghost nation’, the Jewish ‘nation’. The Kibbutzic youth became the backbone of the new generation in the Israel Labour parties, contribut- ing much to the practical implementation of Zionist Socialist policy and to its ideological development. Undoubtedly the theoretical and ideological problems thrust right into the forefront of Israeli Labour thinking have been complicated by the rapid turn of events following the Suez crisis, above all, by the uncertainty of Israel’s position in the Arab world. Zionist Socialism in theory The Zionist Socialist ideology which makes it diffi- cult for Jews to think through the fundamental pro- blems of Israel’s Labour movement, is an ideology fus- ing Zionism and Marxism. Its founder, Ber Borochov (1881-1917), aimed at constructing a Zionist Socialist ideology opposed both to the bourgeois Zionism of the Herzl-Weizzman school, and to the internationalist Jewish socialist school. For Ber Borochov, Zionism and Socialism were not separate ideologies, incompatible one with the other. He saw them as complementary. His Marxist training and revolutionary experience (he participated in the early Russian Social-Democratic movement in Tsarist Russia), made him acutely aware of the existence of the class struggle not only in Gentile society but in the Jewish community itself. His experi- ences in Germany, Austria and particularly in Hun- gary, with their then largely assimilated Jewish bour- geois communities, led him to make some shrewd and penetrating observations about the Jewish community itself. He wrote, for instance, in 1906: The Jewish bourgeoisie finds its interests best served by assimilation, and were it not for the ‘poor Ostjuden’ (the poor Jewish immigrants from Russia to Central . Europe), the Jewish upper bourgeoisie would not be dis- . turbed by the Jewish problem. The continuous stream of immigration of East European Jews and frequent pogroms remind the upper bourgeoisie of Western Europe only too often of the miserable lot of their brethren. The East 83 European Jewish bourgeoisie is, of course, more directly affected by the status of Jewry (as the pogroms strike at all Jews indiscriminately). The West European upper bourgeoisie, however, considers the entire problem to be a gratuitous and unpleasant burden. And yet, it cannot find a safe retreat from our East European masses. Since the Jewish upper bourgeoisie would like, above all else, to lose its individuality and be assimilated completely by the native bourgeoisie, it is very much affected by anti- semitism. Anti-semitism menaces both the poor helpless Jews and the all-powerful Rothschilds; the latter, how- ever, understand very well where the source of trouble lies; the poverty-ridden Jewish masses are at fault. The Jewish plutocracy abhors these masses, but anti-semitism reminds it of its kinship to them. Two souls rest deep within the breast of the Jewish upper bourgeoisie —.the soul of a proud European and the soul of an unwilling guardian of his Eastern co-reli- gionists. Were there no anti-semitism, the misery and poverty of the Jewish emigrants would be of little con- cern to the Jewish upper bourgeoisie. It is impossible, however, to leave them in some West European city (on their way to a place of refuge) in the care of the local government, for that would arouse anti-semitic ire. There- fore, in spite of themselves, and despite their efforts to ignore the Jewish problem, the Jewish aristocrats must turn philanthropists. They must provide shelter for the Jewish emigrants and must make collections for pogrom- ridden Jewry. Everwyhere the Jewish upper bourgeoisie is engaged in the search of a Jewish solution to the Jewish problem, and a means of being delivered of the Jewish masses. This is the sole form in which the Jewish pro- blem presents itself to the Jewish upper bourgeoisie.! These observations go right to the heart of the Jewish problem as seen by the Westernized Jewish . bourgeoisie. A little more than fifty years after this essay was written, his analysis retains all its validity. Only because of the fact that the large American Jewish bourgeoisie is now the dominant financial, political, ideological supporter of bourgeois Zionism does the picture presented by him need modification. The Zionist Socialist solution to the Jewish pro- blem was simple: the mass immigration of the Jewish petty-bourgeois, professional people, artisans and workers to Palestine. There the internal class struggle of the Jewish nation could adequately develop, so pre- paring the ground for the victory of the newly-created Jewish proletariat, which would gain control in Pales- tine. In other words, Borochov’s Zionism flowed from his concept of historical necessity; the economic and political position of Jewry in a capitalist world driving the poor and oppressed of Jewry to a revolutionary socialist conclusion in Palestine, a socialist conclusion indissolubly linked with the creation of a Jewish nation in the fullest sense of the word. Zionist Socialism in practice The economic and political structure of the present Israeli State is founded on this Zionist Socialist ideology — at least in theory. In practice, however, the utopian Zionist Socialism of Ber Borochov has now become transformed into its opposite. Instead of the poor, dis- possessed Jews driven to Palestine in desperation (the doors of Western capitalist countries having been closed. to them) forging an alliance with the young Jewish agricultural workers, an alliance directed against those who wanted to create a Zionist State dependent upon philanthropic (i.e. bourgeois-Zionist) support, the Zionist Labour leaders have been able to win the Jewish masses to support of just such a bourgeois-Zionist pol- Ber Borochov, Selected Essays in Socialist Zionism, pp. 45-6.

[p024] icy. It must be admitted nevertheless that because of the utopian, quasi-revolutionary character of Boro- chov’s theories this outcome was inevitable. The State of Israel came into existence in June 1948, not independently of and in opposition to the bourgeois-Zionists, whose attitude to the Jewish masses Borochov had correctly analyzed—but at their instiga- tion. Now that the Israeli Labour movement has created its own political and even economic power through its trade union, the Histradut, with its countless associated enterprises and through the Kibbutzim, which domi- nate the agricultural life of the country, it has in its hands, in theory at least, the opportunity of realizing Borochov’s revolutionary socialist dream. But in prac- tice all these powerful instruments of economic and political power, including the collective farms, are tied to the World Zionist Organization, which, with its energetic fund-raising campaigns and its organization of investments in Israel, holds the Israeli Labour parties to ransom. One single genuine socialist step in Israel would be quite sufficient for Israel’s economy to be strangled by the powerful financial interests behind the Right-wing Zionist parties, whose base is conveniently situated thousands of miles away in New York or Lon- don, and which represent the interests of the Jewish capitalists not only in Israel, but also in America and Britain. This fact is very well understood by Israeli Labour leaders like Prime Minister Ben Gurion, who has, until very recently, championed the cause of national unity to the point of insisting that all political parties in Israel, except the Right (the Cherut) and the pseudo-Left (the Communist Party) should participate in the running of the Government. The Heath Robinson economy of Israel is artificially sustained by outside financial assistance and is incapable of achieving any- thing like the degree of stability of the economies of even Britain or France. Israel’s economy is such that, while it exports only citrus fruits, textiles, fruit juice and cut diamonds, it has to import foodstuffs, wood, iron, steel, machinery and crude oil. This distorted, unbalanced econoy, cut off as it is from the Arab market and wholly depen- dent for its continued existence on outside capitalist aid, is of course, the result of the attempt to create a specifically Jewish socialist economy in isolation. In- stead of concentrating on the problem of creating an economy integrated with the Arab world, Israel’s lead- ers have built up Israel on the shaky foundations of the capitalist economies of tne United States, France and Britain. The future of Israel’s economy, if it continues along these lines, is, to say the least, problematical. Israel and the future Along the road which is now being charted by Israel’s Zionist leaders there is no future. Israel’s permanent economic crisis has already struck at the poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Yemen, Iraq, Morocco and Iran. Eventually it will strike at the privileged ‘labour aristocracy’. This ‘labour aristocracy’ includes the members of some of the older, more prosperous collective..farms, who represent the main forces. behind the present Zionist Socialist coali- tion. The Jews now coming from the Arab countries will soon find themselves voicing the same grievances as: the Arabs who are the main official minority in 84 Israel. The class struggle continues to express itself in Israel in spite of the class collaborationist policy of the Zionist Labour leaders. In Israel, as in all capitalist countries, the same questions eventually push them- selves to the front — which class in society shall bear the burdens of the economic crisis? Israel will be least able of all the capitalist countries to prevent these questions coming to the forefront of her political and: economic life. The internal contradictions of Israeli Labour thinking, with its attempts to solve the Jewish problem independent of, and in opposition to, the rise of Arab nationalism must sooner or later lead to a questioning of Israel’s basic policy. Israel has only two choices. She must either continue on her course of antagonizing and inflaming the Arab world with her pro-Western policies, or tie her destiny to the Arab world. The first course leads to suicide, the second would represent a major contribution to the solution of the Jewish problem. For Israel’s Labour parties a re-estimation of Borochov’s theory has now become an urgent question. The present Israeli Labour leaders have consigned ‘Borochov to the same ‘religious’ status to which the German Social-Democratic leaders have consigned Karl Kautsky. Borochov founded the Israeli socialist move- ment, but was ‘perhaps too dogmatic in defining the class struggle as the exclusive force in historical de- velopment’, to quote one of Borochov’s friendly critics. In spite of the utopian character of Borochov’s theories, they did proceed from an acceptance of the class strug- gle. Moreover, he insisted on class-consciousness as the basis of revolutionary, proletarian Zionism. He scorn- fully rejected any collaboration with the bourgeois Zionists and opposed, on the grounds of socialist prin- ciple, the participation of his party (Poale-Zion — the Workers of Zion) in the Zionist Congresses of his day. A new evaluation of Ber Borochoy Israel’s Labour parties have this major task ahead of them: to make a new evaluation of Borochov’s ideo- logy, to separate his revolutionary class outlook from the unworkable and utopian aspect of his ingenious synthesis of Marxism and Zionism. Once the class struggle is recognized as the ‘exclusive force in histori- cal development’, the. Jewish problem will be seen in its proper historical setting. Israel’s Labour movement will then have in its hands the key to the solution of its immediate problems. A number of important political conclusions will follow. First, the recognition of Egypt’s right to nationalize the Suez Canal. Second, the recog- nition and support of the Arab peoples in their strug- gles against imperialism and colonialism (opposition to the Baghdad Pact and the establishment of military bases in the Middle East). Third, support for Algeria against France. This means the identification of the Jewish Labour movement in Israel with. the just and legitimate demands of Arab nationalism. This new out- look would mean the integration of the Arab minority and the Arabized Jews from North Africa, the Yemen, Jraq and Iran into Israel’s political and social life and particularly their participation in its socialist parties and trade unions, in co-operation with Arab socialists and trade unionists in Egypt, Syria, etc. It would mean the removal of all bars to full social and political rights for the Arabs in Israel; full support for Jewish and Arab workers in their efforts to secure higher wages to

[p025] combat the economic crisis; and withdrawal from the World Zionist Organization. Along this road the Jewish Labour movement has the power to transform the situation in the Middle East and to make a historic and lasting contribution to the settlement of the Jewish problem. Jew and Arab ‘will once more become partners, friends and comrades in the development arid planning of the vast, untapped mineral and oil resources of the Middle East. Schemes like the Jordan Valley Authority could change the dry and barren deserts into fertile irrigable land. The Kibbutzim, imprisoned in the warped capitalist eco- nomy of Israel, could well become the organizational form of a rapid agricultural development of formerly barren and waterless stretches of country. But all this needs a comprehensive economic plan for an Arab Federation of States. Jewish technicians and engineers could play an important part in allying their skill to imaginative planning in the former lands of the absentee oil moguls. Of course this contribution to the solution of the Jewish problem could be only a contribution. The Jew- ish problem, which is not only limited to the capitalist countries but finds an expression in the Stalinist re- gimes, is only part of a world problem; how to end the continued exploitation of man by man. Jew and Arab, Jew and Gentile have this common problem to face. The reconstitution of the foundations of world capitalist society on a socialist basis offers the only final solution to the basic economic and political problems that face all mankind — not least of all the Jewish people. The Law of Uneven and Combined Development—[1I