Reform & Revolution Steering Committee Statement

[Below we publish three articles. The first is a statement from Reform & Revolution’s Steering Committee. Following that are two contributions arguing different views. While there is broad agreement in Reform & Revolution on the first statement, there are differing views within our caucus on the national question in Palestine and Israel. While we all are against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians and all fight for Palestinian self-determination, there are disagreements over if the Israeli-Jewish working class also has a right to self-determination, including the right to choose their own state. You can find the first contribution to the debate here, “From the River to the Sea”, and the second one here, “One Land, Two Peoples”]  

DSA’s Role in the New Solidarity Movement

The horrific atrocities by the Israeli army in Gaza has sparked an unprecedented Palestinian solidarity movement around the world. While smaller in the US than in some other countries, it is by far the largest ever in US history and has led to the biggest left-wing protests since Biden became President. 

DSA has been at the center of this movement from day one. DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) stood up against the establishment’s pro-Israeli consensus, issuing a statement on October 7 that correctly emphasized our support for Palestinian liberation. They have also demanded that DSA Congressmembers vote against any military aid to Israel. DSA Congressmembers have been the foremost politicians opposing Israel’s assault on Gaza, triggering a major clash with the Democratic establishment. DSA chapters have been actively involved in protests and a regular target of right-wing media attacks.

The conflict is politicizing millions, opening the door for many to draw anti-imperialist and socialist conclusions.

The conflict is also politicizing millions, opening the door for many to draw anti-imperialist and socialist conclusions. A strong socialist voice is vital for the success of the movement and to fight for the largest numbers to get organized for an ongoing fight against imperialism and the capitalist system that underlies it.

However, the political challenges posed by this war will require a significant development of DSA’s political approach to be able to argue a principled anti-imperialist position while advancing policies and tactics that can win the most support in the working class.

1) DSA needs to be more visible and bring socialist politics into the movement 

Basic things are needed to provide a higher DSA profile and to openly spread a socialist message: regularly updated DSA leaflets to distribute at rallies and events, DSA posters, and DSA banners with relevant slogans. 

The most efficient and politically coherent way to do this would be the NPC and national staff offering these materials. National leadership should also be openly encouraging chapters to intentionally work to recruit and re-activate members. This can be done through letters to chapters, the work of our field staff, and holding national meetings with chapter leaders to exchange experiences and discuss the best ways to help the movement and build DSA within it.

Unfortunately, DSA’s national leadership has so far not done nearly enough to equip DSA with a clear political message and organizational tools along these lines. 

2) Democratic discussion on our political message 

The war on Gaza has created a politicized atmosphere and major debates in DSA and the wider left. There is a pressing need for democratic debates within DSA, which unfortunately the NPC has not organized. This should be addressed with a series of national meetings of DSA activists to learn more and debate key issues. A structured debate through a DSA members bulletin would also help. 

This underlines the necessity for a larger national leadership body, as Reform & Revolution and others argued at the last National Convention, with representation from chapters able to regularly meet, discuss major questions, review the work of the NPC, and help chapters learn from our collective experience. 

Some fear this would divert resources from local work. Much more significant factors, in our view, that are undermining chapters are their de-politicization, atomization, and informal methods for generalizing from the successes and failures of other chapters.

3) We need principled anti-imperialist politics while avoiding ultra-left mistakes

Here is a summary of our views on the main political issues under debate:

DSA Congressmembers

All of DSA is correctly united in support of the call of the three DSA Congressmembers (Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) for an immediate ceasefire. However, we should not repeat the opportunist mistake that DSA previously made in supporting Bernie Sanders without criticizing his positions that were inconsistent with socialist politics (i.e. much of his foreign policy). 

Currently, it appears very likely that all the DSA Congressmembers will vote against Biden’s request for $14 billion in new military aid for Israel. Yet in a CNN interview on October 17, AOC indicated she supports further US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, an even worse position than her “present” vote the last time Congress allocated funding for the Iron Dome in 2021. The strength of the Palestinian solidarity movement means it is unlikely that DSA congressmembers will vote for military funding this time, but AOC’s past actions and recent statements are a warning of significant problems that lie ahead.

While Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush have been politically stronger, their approach still has limits. Their messaging around this war has reflected more of a progressive and humanist framing rather than an anti-imperialist socialist approach.  

DSA should fully support their ceasefire resolution and other good positions, but it is repeating an opportunist mistake of prioritizing short term gains by limiting ourselves to simply repeating their message. Instead, the NPC should consciously work to raise, within DSA and in broader society, the call for a ceasefire in socialist terms. 

The focus of socialist representatives should be on building mass pressure on the ruling class rather than relying on moral appeals to governmental leaders to be humane. Instead of appealing to international law and the “international community” (a polite euphemism for the major imperialist powers that dominate world affairs), socialists need to explain the only solution will come from below – a mass uprising of Palestinians and workers of the Middle East, with an appeal to the Israeli workers, and workers around the world to join the struggle. 

Capitalism has plunged the Middle East into bloody wars, and imperialist domination. The only way out is to radically transform the whole region on anti-capitalist, secular, and democratic lines. 

Tlaib has said she stands for “peaceful co-existence” between Israelis and Palestinians – a sentiment all progressives and socialists should support. But socialists have a crucial role to play in explaining that such a worthy goal is in sharp conflict with the reality of capitalist rule. 

Capitalism has plunged the Middle East into poverty, dictatorship, religious fundamentalism, bloody wars, and imperialist domination. The only way out is for the working and poor people of the region to take power and radically transform Israel, Palestine, and the whole region on anti-capitalist, secular, and democratic lines. 

Ceasefire

An immediate ceasefire would mean a halt to Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians, including thousands of children. However, we should not encourage illusions that a return to the status quo ante of October 6 is a solution. Unless there is an end to the underlying oppression of Palestinians and the colonial policies of the Israeli state, a ceasefire would only be a temporary pause before a new round of atrocities, conflict, and war breaks out.

The starting point of any just solution is to end the siege of Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, end discrimination against Palestinians in Israel, and secure the right of return for the Palestinian diaspora. This requires a democratic socialist framework that can utilize the resources of the region to provide everyone with high-quality housing, good jobs, education, and healthcare, and can begin to end the myriad forms of exploitation and oppression that torment the Middle East.

Winning Mass Support in the Working Class

To build sufficient pressure to force the US government to call for an immediate ceasefire and end military aid to Israel requires winning support from wide sections of the US working class. The experience of this movement has shown key obstacles that must be dealt with to build that majority support. 

There is significant fear among ordinary people that criticizing Israel is anti-semitic. This reflects genuine opposition to anti-semitism but is also cynically exploited by the ruling class to justify their imperialist policies. There is also overwhelming opposition to Hamas’s targeting of civilians on October 7 and, linked to this, fears about the security of Israeli Jews.

Some on the left refuse to clearly oppose Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians and employ extreme rhetoric against Israel. This reinforces the concerns of many people, making it easier for our enemies to isolate us. By making clear our opposition to the October 7 massacre of civilians and Hamas’s politics we are more able to win support on the key issues: immediately ending the Israeli war on Gaza, ending US military aid to Israel, and most of all, the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Crucial in addressing these questions among regular people has been the role of Jewish Voice for Peace and other left-wing Jews who have been at the forefront of many of the protests and actions. Their efforts have helped to distinguish between legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state and illegitimate anti-semitism. This has given confidence to many others to speak up despite the establishment’s efforts to smear Palestinian solidarity as anti-semitic.

The experience in the labor movement is also illuminating. A number of unions have rapidly come out for an immediate ceasefire, and even some against US military aid for Israel. In almost all cases these resolutions have been consistent with the approach R&R has argued is needed to win mass support – explicitly opposing Hamas’s killing of civilians, calling for the release of the hostages, and opposing anti-semitism – while not losing the main focus on stopping the Israeli brutalities against Palestinians. 

While the majority of activists trying to address a mass audience have adopted this approach in practice, it is important we draw out clear political conclusions. If messaging is decided on a pragmatic basis we are far more prone to opportunistically pander to prevailing sentiments, as opposed to anchoring our tactics with principled politics.

The opportunist danger of watering down socialist politics under popular pressure is shown by how most DSA representatives treat the violence of the Israel state and Palestinian resistance groups as the same – a false equivalency between the oppressor and the oppressed.

An opposite mistake is made by sections of the left who are against opposing Hamas and its targeting of civilians (for example see the messaging guidance in the former DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group’s Toolkit, which borrows heavily from the National Students for Justice in Palestine Day of Resistance Toolkit). Many others in DSA, while not adopting their practical conclusions, share the underlying political understanding which leads to these conclusions. 

Over time such a contradiction is not sustainable. Our current practical work needs to find a new political understanding that is consistent with it, or the current political assumptions that many have will tend to lead to a change in their practice.

Hamas and October 7

The NPC immediately issued a statement on October 7th which stood out for its clear support for the Palestinian struggle in contrast to many on the progressive left (for example Bernie Sanders and AOC). 

However, there was controversy within DSA about it saying “We unequivocally condemn the killing of all civilians.” We are glad that this was included as it signaled sympathy to Jewish people and the vast majority of workers who were appalled by the massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7.

The capitalist establishment tries to smear Palestinian solidarity protests as “pro-Hamas” because they recognize it is one of the best ways to marginalize us.

Some in DSA opposed this, arguing it was a concession to Zionist framing. We do not agree with this line of thinking, which rather than fight Zionist framing, actually gives it ample ammunition to use against us.

The capitalist establishment tries to smear Palestinian solidarity protests as “pro-Hamas” because they recognize it is one of the best ways to marginalize us. While centering the Palestinian struggle, we should make clear we oppose Hamas’s politics and their targeting of civilians. For example, the R&R statement following October 7 went further than the NPC statement, saying: 

We oppose the right-wing, pro-capitalist, religious politics of Hamas. Their targeting of civilians is wrong and counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. We reject the weaponization of people’s grief by the Israeli state to launch a horrific assault on Gaza.

We believe the objections to statements opposing the killing of civilians from sections of the DSA International Committee, Red Star, Marxist Unity Group, and the former DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group are mistaken. 

Many of these comrades identify as communists, yet they ignore Lenin’s position. While intransigently fighting national oppression, Lenin argued (using some terminology now outdated but common for his time) in his Theses on National and Colonial Questions for the Second Congress of the Communist International that communists must oppose

attempts to give a communist coloring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties… are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.

The same Theses also states “the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc.”

The most effective strategy for winning liberation will come from the building of a mass movement from below of the Palestinian people.

Such an approach is even more necessary today given that the character of bourgeois national liberation forces in Lenin’s time were far more progressive than Hamas is today. In Gaza, Hamas carries out pro-capitalist policies along with undemocratic repression of independent unions, left-wing political opponents, feminists, and LGBT+ people. 

The right-wing character of Hamas is not only bad for the working people under its governance, but also is a significant liability for the Palestinian solidarity movement, reducing its appeal to working people around the world, and weakening anti-occupation movements in Israel. 

Ghazi Hamad, a spokesperson of Hamas, declared on November 2 that Hamas was prepared to repeat its actions on October 7 “a second, a third, a fourth” time. This provides fuel to the Israel far-right to rally Israeli Jews behind their call for brutal measures to crush the “terrorist threat.” Further, a large majority of Israeli Jews perceive Hamas’s targeting of civilians in the context of its history of anti-semitism. 

It speaks volumes that the Israeli regime itself funded Hamas in its early days as a counterweight to Palestinian communist and secular nationalists who they believed were a greater threat. More recently, Netanyahu explained his government’s calculation that Hamas weakens the prospects for a Palestinian state when he stated in 2019 that “[a]nyone who wants to foil the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of funds to Hamas.” (Haaretz)

How can the IDF be defeated?

How can the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) — with its massive military superiority over the Palestinians, including nuclear weapons — be overcome? 

The history of resistance to imperialism, such as the Vietnam War and the defeat of South African apartheid, shows it is not simply a military question, but that politics is decisive. The US was defeated in Vietnam because of the political determination of the Vietnamese people to fight to the death for their national and social liberation, along with the political collapse of support for the war within US society. 

The vicious apartheid system in South Africa was brought down primarily due to the mass revolutionary struggle of the Black working class in the 1980s and early 1990s, in which the building of mass unions was key. While the movement did engage in armed struggle, the apartheid regime was not militarily defeated, but moved to reach an agreement with the ANC leadership to end apartheid while protecting their capitalist interests.

As revolutionary Marxists, we argue the most effective strategy for winning liberation will come from the building of a mass movement from below of the Palestinian people. 

We stand for a new mass uprising of the Palestinian people, supported by the international working class, along the lines of the First Intifada.

The First Intifada (“uprising”) in the 1980s saw tens of thousands of bottom-up committees of Palestinian resistance, constituting a democratic mass uprising against Israeli oppression. We stand for a new mass uprising of the Palestinian people, supported by the international working class, along the lines of the First Intifada. 

Such a movement would have a combined character – democratic in its struggle against oppression and for statehood, and social in its demands for a better life for Palestinian workers and the poor. Its dynamic would be towards fighting for freedom, housing, jobs, and education for all, or in other words, a socialist Palestine as part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East.

Marxists are not pacifists. A mass uprising against the brutal IDF requires taking up arms, which is the right of all occupied peoples. 

The reality of armed struggle, however, means it is essential to have a strategy that does not lead to new purges, new mass displacements, or deepened divisions along national, religious, or ethnic lines. Any democratic or socialist future of the region will have to be one based on cooperation between diverse communities. The idea of ethnically, religiously, or nationally “pure” territories is completely antithetical to such a project.

This is why it’s vital to emphasize support for democratic rights for all, especially minorities. This means unambiguously defending the rights of both the Palestinian and Jewish people living in the region, and openly opposing Jewish supremacism and Zionism, as well as anti-semitism and right-wing political Islam. 

Such a struggle can defeat the Israeli state by making clear to the Israeli working class, on the one hand, that there will be no peace until Israeli oppression of Palestinians ends. On the other hand, it would need to drive a wedge between the Israeli ruling class and the largest possible sections of its working class and oppressed ethnic groups. This requires extending an offer of a peaceful future together on the basis of defending the democratic rights of both peoples, Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Class appeals have an essential role to play in splintering working-class support for the far-right Zionist government and undermining the social base of the IDF. 

Zionism was and is based on the brutal displacement of Palestinians, Bedouins, and other Arab peoples from the land they lived on for generations. There is a deeply rooted colonial and racist consciousness within Israeli society which is used to support the IDF and to organize racist oppression on a daily basis. 

At the same time, Israel is a capitalist society deeply divided along class lines. Israel has a history of strikes, including general strikes, and an Occupy-like movement of hundreds of thousands in 2011. There are also major ethnic divisions between Jews from Western, Middle Eastern, African, and former Soviet bloc countries. In the months before October 7, Israel was divided like never before over the efforts of the far-right Netanyahu government to move toward a more authoritarian version of the Zionist project.

Movements within Israel for peace and against the occupation (as has happened on a number of occasions) can undermine morale within the IDF. Such a development would be a significant change in the balance of forces in favor of Palestinian liberation. 

The Tasks Ahead

The terrible atrocities and suffering of this war underline the urgency to fight for Palestinian liberation and against US imperialism. The vast majority of DSA has shown its fighting spirit and radical politics by standing against the pressure to rally around the establishment’s official policy of unthinking support for the Israeli state and throwing itself into the Palestinian struggle.

The Palestinian solidarity movement has the historic opportunity to win unprecedented support in the US working class. But leadership will be key. DSA needs to provide a clear socialist voice and leadership for the movement. We should project a class struggle strategy for building mass support while actively organizing in our unions, building protests, and contributing to direct actions such as blockades of military equipment at ports and mass occupations of politicians’ offices. 

The war has also clarified the reality of the imperialist nature of Joe Biden and the Democratic party.

Most of all, DSA needs to assimilate the lessons from this struggle in the form of clear political conclusions. Socialists must avoid opportunism by basing our program on the objective interests of the international working class, not the temporary sentiments of different sections of society. We also need to learn how to avoid ultra-leftism, always striving to build a mass base in the working class and addressing their actual existing consciousness. 

The war has clarified the reality of the imperialist interests that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party represent. It is time to cast aside illusions about Biden and the reformability of the Democratic Party. While being flexible in our tactics, we must spread the message that workers and the oppressed should place no trust in Biden and the Democrats, and that instead we must build our own independent movements, organizations, and political party. 

The war on Gaza has demonstrated the depths of human depravity. But it also has shown the potential for human solidarity with millions standing up for Palestine. There is no time to lose in the fight against imperialism and oppression. Now is the time to join DSA in building a mass socialist movement, and to join Reform & Revolution to struggle for the revolutionary Marxist politics outlined above.

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While there is broad agreement in Reform & Revolution on the statement above, there are differing views within our caucus on the national question in Palestine and Israel. While we all are against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians and all fight for Palestinian self-determination, there are disagreements over if the Israeli-Jewish working class also has a right to self-determination, including the right to their own state. Below are two articles reflecting different viewpoints in Reform & Revolution on this and other related questions.

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Debate

From the River to the Sea

By Sarah Milner, Ruy Martinez, and Judith Chavarria

Israel and Palestine are Interconnected Societies – an Effective Socialist Movement for Liberation Must Call For Revolutionary Integration

Opposition to the genocide in Gaza – and wider Israeli settler-colonialism – has become a primary dividing line between the left and the capitalist class. In our unions, in Congress, and in massive street protests, DSA stands unified behind the call for a free Palestine. 

This new protest movement for peace and an end to the occupation presents an enormous opportunity. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are skeptical of the Republican and Democratic Parties’ pro-war stances. But experience shows that protests aren’t enough. Without clear organization, it was impossible to channel the energy of movements like BLM and Occupy Wall Street into joint demands and sustained political pressure. Thus, these movements failed to win significant material victories or cohere the left.

DSA is uniquely positioned to make sure this time is different. As socialists, we recognize that mass movements must be developed into independent organizations of the working class with a clear message, an internationalist approach, and a focus on capitalism as the driving force of imperialism. We recognize the necessity of pushing beyond calls for a ceasefire alone. This war is rooted in brutal occupation, settler capture of land, colonial extraction of resources, and the US imperialist order. We must call not just for a ceasefire, but a free Palestine.

Meeting the Moment

To convince people of Marxist ideas, we cannot organize outside of the existing movement. Instead we engage with it, and work to prove ourselves as strong leaders. This means DSA must take the initiative: organizing protests, printing materials, joining and forming Palestine solidarity coalitions, and devoting substantial resources to the struggle. It also means being tactful, but bold with our message. We should argue for socialism as the best route to fight against imperialism, and building socialist organizations as the most effective strategy to end the occupation. 

Some comrades in our caucus argue that the self-determination of an independent Israeli-Jewish state is necessary for winning the masses to our positions. But overemphasis on messaging and political formulations designed to appeal to the Israeli working class cannot take precedence over our engagement with the material reality of movements we’re a part of. The call for a single, secular, democratic and socialist state with full respect for minority rights is the only proposal which puts forward a clear route for Palestinian liberation.

The working class in Israel and Palestine are not classes of two distinct economies, but a single working class economically integrated but brutally segregated.

The “socialist two state solution” is a weak and confusing message. It is an abstract appeal based on an outdated analysis, separated from the material conditions in Palestine, and absent any realistic route through which it could be achieved or advocated for. Were it to be adopted as DSA’s position, it would not serve to develop the movement, but rather to separate us from it; it would not connect to consciousness, but confuse people as our position becomes increasingly untenable.

The Necessity of Integration

Each year, Israel occupies more land in Palestine, exerts greater military-political control, and further entwines the societies and economies. As they do, the lines between two peoples become ever more geographically inseparable. The two state solution is not a message around which revolutionary consciousness can be cohered – rather, we must recognize the interconnected nature of these societies and call for a movement of revolutionary integration. In this way, we tie together the Palestinian right of return, the rights of the whole working class, and the rights of ethnic and religious minority groups. 

The settlement process brings large sections of the Israeli working class into material support for settler colonialism, and Israeli society is lurching rightward as settlements grow – creating national consciousness not for the 1948 or 1967 borders, but for seizing all of Gaza and the West Bank. There is also increasing Israeli control over the economy of Palestine. Since the siege of Gaza began, Israel (and its ally Egypt) has had effective control over the imports and exports of Palestine. The working class in Israel and Palestine are not classes of two distinct economies, but a single working class economically integrated but brutally segregated. By confronting these dynamics directly, we target the heart of the conflict, and draw the clearest possible contrast with the root of capitalist exploitation in Israel and Palestine. 

Alongside economic integration, a call for revolutionary integration also discerns the existing geographic overlap. Socialist principles oppose ethnic cleansings and ethno-states, and two socialist states must not preserve a majority through banning the immigration or residency of a population. How, then, could Israel maintain a Jewish majority in perpetuity if Palestinians were free to exercise their right of return, or even simply free to move into Israel? The only way to preserve an Israeli-Jewish majority is through population controls – apartheid.

Revolutionary integration recognizes the segregation, dispossession, and exploitation of Palestinians as existing at the heart of Israeli society, and situates the call to overturn that segregation at the center of building a socialist movement. 

The Way Forward

A clear position on Palestinian liberation also requires criticizing the tactics of the current right-wing leadership of the military resistance in Palestine. Our role in fighting for Marxist politics is to help develop the strongest movement possible, and we cannot ignore that Hamas’ attacks on civilians, its religious fundamentalism, and its incoherent, ultra-nationalist, capitalist politics weaken the fight for Palestinian liberation. Hamas is very unlikely to lead a successful liberation movement. 

The military-political defeat of Zionism is a task which primarily belongs to the broader resistance movement within Palestine. It requires dynamic tactics, internationalist messaging, and a significant socialist role in the resistance movement. By sharpening our message and training our attack squarely on the apartheid system that upholds this brutal imperialism and colonialism, we empower socialists to connect to and build that movement. 

As the war advances, as the two state solution increasingly becomes a clear dead end, and as the complicity of our country becomes unavoidable, the opportunities for a socialist anti-imperialist movement will grow. By staking out a clear and consistent analysis, we will be best situated to convince others in the struggle, as well as the wider working class, of our vision for a liberatory movement in Palestine and the world.

Sarah Milner (she/her) is a member of Portland DSA. She is on the Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution and the DSA Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign Commission.

Ruy Martinez (he/him) helped found Harvard YDSA in 2020, edited The Activist, and served as the electoral working group chair in Austin DSA. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution caucus. 

Judith C. (they/she) is a member of the YDSA chapter at Florida International University and DSA’s Reform & Revolution caucus. She is co-chair of the Miami DSA Bodily Autonomy Working Group.

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Debate

One Land, Two Peoples

By Philip Locker

The Right to Self-Determination of Both Peoples is an Essential Weapon for Winning Palestinian Liberation

The idea of a “two-state solution” has been deeply discredited as a result of the total failure of the Oslo Accords. After 30 years, there is still no credible prospect of an independent Palestinian state. Israeli settlements and military checkpoints have grown dramatically throughout the West Bank. The legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority has collapsed, with it rightfully being seen as jail wardens for the Israeli military.

Most progressives, and even some radicals, supported the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, as did many Palestinians and Israelis. But revolutionary Marxists opposed it, arguing that an agreement brokered by imperialism – against the background of the PLO leadership embracing capitalism following the collapse of Stalinism – would inevitably fail to deliver Palestinian liberation.

While most Social Democratic and Kremlin-aligned Communist Parties supported the creation of Israel in 1948, the Trotskyist Fourth International stood against the stream and opposed it as a crime against the Palestinian people.

However, 75 years have now passed since then. Several generations of Jewish people have been born in Israel and have developed a national identity. Any idea that they will “return home” is fanciful – or, if taken seriously, would require a war of ethnic cleansing that the current balance of power virtually rules out. The Israeli ruling class leans heavily on this exact fear among Jewish people to whip up opposition to Palestinian national aspirations, raising the specter of a one-state solution with a Palestinian majority under the leadership of Hamas.

Almost 10 million people inhabit Israel, 73 percent of them Jewish. About 5.5 million people live in the West Bank and Gaza, most of them Palestinians, and millions of Palestinian refugees reside in neighboring countries. The reality is that there are now two peoples with two very different national identities in what historically was Palestine. 

This is not a symmetrical situation. The Palestinian people are oppressed and Israel is the oppressing power (backed by US imperialism). Socialists are not neutral – we support the Palestinian struggle against Israeli subjugation. 

To achieve victory in that struggle it is vital to address the realities on the ground, taking into account the national rights and fears of both peoples. This is also a point of reference for workers internationally who want to see an end to Palestinian oppression and safety for Jewish people in Israel. For example, acknowledging the rights of Israelis is crucial to being able to pass strong ceasefire resolutions in unions in the US. 

Right to Self-Determination

As socialists, our commitment is not to one or two states, but to: 

• The national and social liberation of the Palestinian people.
• A democratic solution based on equality, not domination and imperialist meddling.
• Ending poverty in Palestine and Israel. The huge wealth of the region must be brought under democratic control to meet the needs of all the people.

It would be clearly preferable if a majority of the working people in Palestine and Israel both choose to form one democratic, secular, binational state. But the unfortunate reality is that after decades of horrific conflict there is deep distrust of “the other side” in both communities. Large majorities of both peoples are totally against any solution that leaves them as a minority, lacking confidence that the other side would protect their rights. 

Palestinians have experienced the Nakba, discrimination within Israel, occupations of the West Bank and Gaza, and the “Oslo peace process” leading to ever-growing settlements. They are determined to have their own state where they are the majority.

After the experience of the Holocaust, the antisemitism of Hamas and Middle Eastern regimes, and the ongoing antisemitism and violent attacks on Jewish people, including in the US today, there are deep fears among Israeli Jewish people about being an oppressed minority. 

Our aim as socialists is to overcome these divisions and build working-class solidarity across national lines. The best tool to achieve this is defending the right of self-determination of both peoples. Lenin fought for this not because Marxists aspire for more nation-states, but to be able to win the maximum working-class unity in the class struggle today, and in an international federation of socialist states in the future.

Defeating Zionism

As explained in the R&R statement above, the driving force of Palestinian liberation will be a mass Palestinian uprising, including with arms. Splitting sections of the Israeli working class away from its ruling class is essential to the success of that struggle. One side of this is making clear to Israeli workers that there will be no peace without justice for Palestinians. This militant stance must be combined with another side – an offer to Israeli workers for a peaceful future where their rights will be respected, including their right to self-determination. 

On this basis it is possible to win the confidence among both peoples that they will not be forced into a state they do not believe can represent them. And such confidence is a necessary prerequisite for Palestinians and Israelis to be able to choose to coexist in one state. 

The insistence that Israel must be replaced with one majority Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” – even with promises that it would be secular, democratic and with full minority rights for Jewish people – instead will drive the vast majority of Israeli Jewish people (and many people sympathetic to the fight against antisemitism internationally) into a deepening resistance against this threat to “their state.” In effect, this strengthens Zionism. 

But how could Israeli Jewish people have their own state where they are the majority – if they wish – without Palestinian oppression? Answering this fully would require a full article, but here we can outline some basic principles. Any state socialists call for must include full rights for minorities. This fully applies to any legitimate Israeli state. It must be fundamentally different from Israel today – democratic, secular and with no oppression of Palestinians or any other minorities. Economically, it would need to cooperate closely with Palestine. 

However, this can still be a state with a Jewish majority if Israeli Jewish people feel they need it (next to a majority Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank with a Jewish minority). This does not include any right to place Jewish people above others, or any policy of expansion or occupation.

To overcome the oppression of Palestinians, there must be a focus on rebuilding their communities by appropriating the wealth of the capitalists. The redistribution of wealth is also the only basis to realize the right of return of all people to their towns and cities, if they wish, by providing significantly increased housing, jobs, and social services.

That is one of the reasons why the struggle for Palestinian liberation is deeply intertwined with overthrowing the Israeli ruling class, the corrupt Palestinian ruling elite, the reactionary capitalist regimes throughout the Middle East, and the expulsion of imperialism from the region.

Philip Locker is a member of Seattle DSA and the Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution.