Chris Cutrone, from his recent essay “Israel, Palestine and the Left”
[…]
What both “Ceasefire now!” and “Defund Israel!” have in common, whatever their merits and defects, is that they are demands on the capitalist state, and moreover on its political parties — specifically, demanding these things of one Party in particular, the Democrats.
But the Biden Administration has indeed called for a ceasefire: it wants different tactics and even strategy of Israel. Most importantly, it wants Israel to give “land for peace,” end the settlements in the West Bank, and, most pertinently, not to devastate Gaza or displace the Palestinians there. Or so at least they say.
Why not believe them?
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Why was a two-state solution not achieved in the aftermath of the Cold War in the 1990s?
It’s actually very simple:
The Palestinian “political leadership” has refused to officially accept the existence of Israel as a state.
After many wars, uprisings, terrorism, etc., the Palestinians lost and the Israelis won.
The stronger were victorious and the weaker were defeated. Case closed. History’s pronouncement is undeniable — and irreversible.
The Israelis expected a peace treaty of surrender by the Palestinians, which the Palestinians have refused. So Israel has continued its war against an enemy that has refused to surrender.
But the Palestinians have been defeated. This is not going to change. Ever.
Indeed, the recent Hamas attack was an act of desperation in a condition of defeat. This doesn’t justify or condone it — indeed it convicts it of futility and wanton, pointless destructiveness. Hamas has admitted as much, as they say they expected an Israeli overreaction and the destruction of Gaza and the Palestinians there, which they thought at best would create a wider regional war and at worst would make the Palestinian question impossible to ignore by the international community. Hamas spent everything it had in one final bid for political relevance. So it’s all in the end a public-relations stunt.
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Hamas is a capitalist group. What does this mean? It accepts capitalism and is not in any way a challenge to it. It is a particularly Right-wing form of capitalism. It is a criminal gang. They are indeed terrorists. Terrorism is by its very nature capitalist and not socialist politics. Capitalist crime. — Crime is capitalist, not socialist. It is the capitalism of the weak, not socialism. And the weak shall not inherit the Earth. They never have.
Hamas are the Kapos in the concentration camp, recruited from ordinary criminals to rule over the rest, and hoping to slip away and survive through the mayhem. They were literally chosen by Israel to rule the Gaza Strip. The game of “military transactions” (Hegel) played between Israel and Hamas, no matter how violent and gruesome, is merely negotiating the terms of capitalism, through extremely sensationalist marketing propaganda — in images as well as deeds. And the bargaining-chips that are played consist of ordinary people’s lives — as victims and not agents, objects and not subjects of bloody capitalist politics. As the workers always are.
Hamas has aimed and aims to divide the civilian population along religious or ethnic lines. This means dividing the working class. They wagered — and lost — the lives of Palestinians in ways capitalist politicians always do. Hamas’s leadership are literally billionaires whose individual personal wealth rivals that of Donald Trump. But what have they built? Their wealth is skimmed off the misery of others — as with all gangsters. They will retire comfortably, while their fighters are slaughtered.
Today’s “Left” are a parody side-show of capitalist gangsterism, cheerleading the slaughter.
What is required in Palestine or Israel is the working-class political unity of Jewish and Arab and Muslim and Christian and other (for instance, “foreign/guest”) workers in the struggle for socialism. This is entirely contrary to either Arab nationalism — such as that of the PFLP — or Islamism — as with Hamas. It is also contrary to Zionism. It is against the nation-state — the nationalist basis for politics.
So long as capitalism persists and is not overcome in socialism, globally, there will be social and geographical divisions that invite political divisions to which the working class and other people will become inevitably subject. There will be war, inter-national state and/or civil, “legitimate” or otherwise. Always capitalist war.
But original historical Marxism said, “No war but class war!” — refusing the terms of capitalist warfare. — I know that this is regarded as “ultra-Leftism” and “Marxist purism” and “dogmatism,” but still. I prefer to maintain my self-respect as a dogmatic Marxist than pose in the mirror as a wannabe gangsta, mouthing the words to someone else’s rap. “Intifada until victory!” will be a very long time. Forever. Never.
But we can still refuse to endorse and support the capitalist politics that actively seeks to exploit and enforce such divisions and warfare: Hamas and other dominant Palestinian political forces as well as Zionism are clear examples of such destructive politics, whose devastating and anti-social results we are seeing now as well as for the past century.
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