Palestinian Liberation Struggle: Contradictions Within
- Anand Singh
The gigantic scale of continuous Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people and the sheer asymmetry between Israeli might and the power of the Palestinian resistance often compel the analysts to focus their attention exclusively on the Israeli policies of promoting settler colonialism and setting up an apartheid regime and the role of the ideology of Zionism. The victim of these atrocities—the Palestinian population—is often portrayed as a monolithic entity. The truth, however, is that Palestine is also a class society and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine has different level of impact on different classes. The toiling masses, which constitute the majority of Palestinian population residing in West Bank, Gaza and not to forget the millions of Palestinian refugees living in different countries of Middle-East, are most severely affected by the occupation. They are the ones whose lives and livelihood are devastated by the continued occupation, the apartheid wall, the check points and West Bank and the siege of Gaza, and they are the ones who are mostly killed and injured in the Israeli bombings. On the other hand, there is a section of Palestinian population which is less affected by the occupation and there is yet another narrow section whose interest is increasingly getting aligned with that of the Israeli colonialists. This stark reality of Palestinian society has deeply influenced the Palestinian liberation struggle. Hence, it is important to explore it so as to examine the sources of weaknesses in this struggle and the future possibilities.
The Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is well known for its unpardonable capitulations and its moderate stance. Recently Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was at the receiving end of people’s anger when a picture went viral over social media in which he appeared to cry at the funeral of leading Zionist figure Shimon Peres who was responsible for the massacre and dispossession of countless Palestinians. Increasingly Fatah is being dubbed as a puppet of Israel and US and its weakness is attributed primarily to the personality of Abbas and corruption in the ranks of Fatah. Such characterization, however, misses the point that Fatah and Abbas have a social base. Without investigating this social base, any effort to examine their weakness would be a wild goose chase. The fact is that Fatah and Abbas represent the interest of the Palestinian bourgeoisie which is sought to be befriended by Zionists in order to perpetuate their occupation of Palestine.
Although the brutal Israeli occupation has ensured that there are no major industries in Palestine, there exists a Palestinian bourgeoisie which consists of traders, small businessmen, landlords and owners of firms in other countries of the Middle-East. These bourgeois elements constitute the social base of Fatah and many of them are fused with the Palestinian Authority. This narrow section of Palestinian bourgeoisie has grown steadily particularly since the infamous Oslo accords of 1993. In fact, one of the prime objectives of Israeli Zionists and US imperialists behind signing the Oslo Accords was to perpetuate the occupation by enhancing their control over the Palestinian economy by controlling the resources and movement of people and goods in Palestine and forging ties with the Palestinian bourgeoisie by giving them nominal autonomy.1 The Palestinian economy is largely dependent on the imports from Israel and the aid from US, EU and the Arab countries. The close link of the Palestinian bourgeoisie with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority helps them in getting import licenses and government contracts which ensure their prosperity vis-a-vis the suffering of the toiling masses of Palestine. Of late, there is a neo-liberal emphasis on building more and more industrial zones in the occupied territory with Israeli and foreign capital in partnership with local money bags, which again is an attempt to co-opt the Palestinian bourgeoisie and in the process, perpetuate the occupation of Palestinian territory and the enslavement of the Palestinian masses. These material benefits ensure the alignment of the interest of Palestinian bourgeoisie with that of the Israeli colonialists, which happens to be the source of its capitulation and betrayal of its representatives in the PLO to the cause of Palestinian liberation.
In fact, the beginning of the process of the betrayal of the Palestinian bourgeoisie with the Palestinian liberation movement coincided with the process of the capitulation of the bourgeoisie of the ‘Third World’ countries of Asia and Africa after coming to power. When the global tide of anti-imperialist movements led by the radical bourgeoisie of the colonial countries was at its peak, the Palestinian liberation movement also had radical edge. The radical nationalist bourgeois leaders such as Abdel Gamal Nasser of Egypt, Habib Bourguiba from Tunisia, Sukarno from Indonesia, Nelson Mandela from South Africa, Amilcar Cabral from Guinea-Bissau, Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, Julius Nyerere from Tanzania, were the sources of inspiration for the Palestinian struggle. However, by 1980s, most of the ‘Third World’ countries had gained independence and their bourgeoisie had begun making compromises only to adjust themselves in the global capitalist system by becoming the junior partner in the appropriation of surplus at the global level and a major partner in the appropriation of the surplus at the national level. With this capitulation, their radical edge also got blunted and their heroism became the thing of the past. The collapse of USSR and the diminishing of inter-imperialist rivalry expedited this process. These global developments were the signs of the new phase of history wherein the ‘Third World’ bourgeoisie had lost all their progressive potential. It was in this very phase that the Palestinian bourgeoisie also bent down on its knees and signed the infamous Oslo Accords. Needless to say, the shameless treachery of the ruling classes of the Arab world also contributed to the weakening of the Palestinian struggle.
It is pertinent here to discuss the role of Palestinian Left, particularly that of People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP was founded by George Habash in 1967 after the Palestinians and Arab forces received huge setback the in the wake of the Six-Day war. PFLP, in its heyday, was the second most important organization fighting for Palestinian liberation after Fatah. At that time, the popularity of George Habash, an inspiring orator, was second only to that of Yasser Arafat. PFLP took inspiration from Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought and wanted to liberate Palestine through armed revolution. It believed that the liberation of Palestine is dependent on the liberation of Arab countries from the reactionary regimes imposed by the West and Israel. Many Arab youth from different countries joined PFLP. In 1970, PFLP became famous worldwide when it managed to orchestrate sensational hijacking of two airliners to Jordan, releasing all the passengers and crew before destroying. After these hijackings, PLO was expelled from Jordan.
However, PFLP was ideologically weak right since its inception. Even though it used to take inspiration from Mao, it did not take any firm stand on the question of revisionism of Soviet Party in the wake of Great Debate. Its ideological immaturity is also reflected in the fact that it sought to blindly imitate the Guerilla war tactics of Cuban revolution and the protracted people’s war of Chinese revolution even though the Palestinian terrain and conditions were not at all suited to it. It forged a united front with Fatah in PLO. However, due to ideological weaknesses, it could not expand its social base while Fatah, in the leadership of Yasser Arafat, succeeded to maintain its hegemony over the Palestinian struggle. Arafat was a master strategist as he efficiently combined the armed struggle with mass mobilization and dexterous use of the international fora to put forward the voices and aspiration of Palestinian people. Soon, PFLP suffered from numerous splits and defections. George Habash’s close colleague Nayif Hawatmeh broke away and formed Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine(DFLP). In course of time all the Left organizations were either dissolved or reduced to a group of intellectuals having negligible influence in the Palestinian resistance.
The capitulation of the PLO leadership and the lack of initiative of the Leftist organizations in Palestine to expand their mass base aided the growth of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, in Palestine which originated as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although at the time of the founding of Hamas during the first Intifada, Hamas was supported by Israel to weaken the secular PLO, it soon went out of its control and developed its independent internal motion. The betrayal by PLO at Oslo in 1993 provided Hamas an opportunity to expand its social base. Hamas grabbed this opportunity and succeeded where the Left had failed miserably, i.e. to expand the mass base among the proletariat.
The Israeli occupation of Palestine has also impacted and distorted the growth of proletariat in Palestine. Currently, most of the workers are employed in public sector. Besides a small section of workers work in local private firms and businesses and still smaller section goes to Israel for work. The number of workers who were dependent on the jobs in Israel has decreased drastically since the Oslo accords as Israel has replaced the Palestinian workers with the workers from Asia and East Europe.2 This has led to impoverishment of the working people of Palestine. The situation is particularly acute in Gaza because of the siege. As per a World Bank report, the poverty rate in Gaza is among the highest in the Middle-East, while the unemployment rate—43%—is the highest in the world.3
It is under these miserable circumstances that Hamas expanded its support base among the masses by reform work through a dense network of charitable, educational and medical institutions. The pressure of the social base in turn changed the character of Hamas which was reflected in the composition of its leadership and policies as it does not impose a strict Sharia law on the Palestinian people. At a time when Palestinian people were increasingly getting disillusioned with the betrayal of the secular nationalist leadership of the PLO, the militant spirit and the reform work among the masses by Hamas ensured that people gravitated towards Hamas in large numbers. The same holds true with Hezbollah which has the support base among the refugee Palestinian population in Lebanon. It is indeed a sad irony that in the absence of a genuine revolutionary force, the toiling masses of Palestine are left with no other option than clinging to Hamas and Hezbollah. Had the Left forces not failed to take the initiative during the first intifada and had they made a concerted effort to expand their social base, perhaps the Palestinian resistance would have been much stronger today. Any future breakthrough is dependent on learning this very important lesson from history.
References:
1. ‘The Oslo Illusion’ by Adam Hanie
2. ibid.
3. World Bank. 2015. Economic monitoring report to the ad hoc liaison committee. Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.
