Vol. 73/No. 8      March 2, 2009

Panelists were Lichi D’Amelio, from the ISO; Raja Abdulahq, a Palestinian student at City College and member of Al-Awda—The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; and Dan Fein, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City mayor. They kicked off what became not just a discussion, but a debate over the road forward for working people in Israel, Palestine, and the United States.

In between the opening presentations, video clips of the damage caused by the Israeli assault on Gaza were shown, including an interview with a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pilot who opposed that assault.

D’Amelio said Israel’s assault on Gaza “was not just about rooting out the leadership of Hamas elected by a landslide in 2006 in democratic elections, but about destroying infrastructure and punishing the Palestinians for voting in Hamas.” Despite the misgivings many on the “left” have about Hamas, she said, it is the representative of the Palestinians in Gaza because it has not made concessions to Israel.

“Our task here in the U.S. is the same as for working people in the Middle East and throughout the world,” said SWP candidate Fein. In the midst of the deepening worldwide economic and financial crisis, “only working-class revolution to take political power out of the hands of the billionaire ruling families offers a way out.”

Fein denounced the Israeli government’s blockade of Gaza and the Egyptian government’s complicity. He demanded the opening of all Gaza borders, granting freedom to travel, and massive aid to the Palestinians there.

The biggest challenge facing the Palestinians, he explained, is forging a revolutionary leadership. Fein said that Hamas and Fatah are obstacles to the Palestinian struggle for land, water rights, labor unions, women’s rights, and for freeing political prisoners.

“Neither Hamas, nor Fatah, nor the Palestinian Authority offer a road to liberation. The Israeli capitalist state will be overthrown by Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside Israel, along with Israeli workers, fighting together for a democratic, secular Palestine,” he said.

Fein noted that the Palestine Liberation Organization put forward the perspective for a democratic, secular Palestine for Jews, Muslims, Christians, and non-believers in 1970 but no longer does so.

The socialist candidate also pointed out that anti-Semitism—Jew-hatred—is an obstacle to building a working-class movement and must be opposed.

“The capitalist class uses Jew-hatred to divert us from targeting capitalism as the problem that must be eliminated,” Fein said.

Abdulahq said that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “live in a prison” and were resisting Israeli “ethnic cleansing.”

During the discussion period many students and others exchanged opinions and at times sharply debated the issues. Tom Baumann of the YS said it was important to differentiate between the Israeli government and the Israeli people and pointed to the importance of fighting for a democratic, secular Palestine where everyone would have equal rights. “The best way we can help the Palestinian struggle is to work to make a revolution in this country,” he said.

Hannah Fleury of the ISO said that the Israeli state is similar to the apartheid regime that existed in South Africa before its overturn. She called for a boycott of Sabra hummus, saying that the Israeli-owned company gives money to the IDF.

ISO spokesperson D’Amelio, in her closing remarks, more openly stated her support for the political positions of Hamas.

“I have read the speeches of Khaled Meshal [the head of the Hamas Political Bureau in Damascus],” D’Amelio said. “There is little in what he says that I disagree with.”

D’Amelio said that while some Israeli Jews could break with the Israeli state, “let’s be clear. Many homes of Palestinians are still standing inside Israel and there are Jews living in them. The right of return means that Jews in those houses must leave.”

While there needs to be a revolution in the United States, that is not posed today, she said. The most important thing to do in the United States today is to build a movement against what she called Israeli apartheid, including campaigning to get universities to divest in companies with ties to Israel.

Responding to one participant who had pointed to the lessons of the Cuban Revolution and its importance today for the struggle in Palestine, Abdulahq said, “Unlike in Cuba there is no Palestinian bourgeoisie. All Palestinians are working class.”

“There are no Israeli workers in Israel,” he added, arguing that Palestinians do all the work in Israel, along with immigrants from Africa and Russia.

Abdulahq said he is for a “unitary state” run by Palestinians.

“We should begin with the workers and peasants and what’s in their interests,” said Fein, just before Abdulahq and D’Amelio gave their closing remarks. “Hamas is a bourgeois party, based on charity and demagoguery. The challenge is to build a movement to overthrow capitalism. This is a world perspective, a class perspective. This is what is needed in Palestine.”

The video of the Israeli pilot who opposed the assault on Gaza, Fein said, shows that it is possible and necessary to win Jewish workers in Israel to a common struggle with Palestinian workers.  
 
 
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