PARTISAN!

Owen Hsi recounts a discussion he had on Arab nationalism, and contrasts this with the program of proletarian internationalism.

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I am currently on holiday in Greece (as of writing) and had the opportunity to see a public talk on the situation in Gaza. Despite the sweltering heatwave, roughly 100 people turned out to a well-organized public event in the old part of the city which featured a presentation, a bar and live music. Dr. Toufic Haddad was the keynote speaker, providing a passionately presented historical background to Gaza Genocide. He was able to hold the crowd in his hands as he explained the pre-history of the conflict, recounting many of the major events in modern Palestinian history.

He talked about the logic of why Israel created conditions of extreme privation in Gaza and the West Bank, the decline of the PLO, and the perfidy of Fatah in enforcing and policing the blockade – leading to a situation wherein Hamas was able to claim moral and political authority in the occupied territories and prosecute the devastating attack of October 7th, catching the IDF with its pants down and sparking an extremely vicious prolonged military counteroffensive with the deaths of many thousands of civilians. In concluding his well-polished speech that he has delivered in multiple countries, it is Haddad’s opinion that it is our role in the international solidarity movement to ‘unmask monsters’. That we should seek to expose and undermine the nexuses of power in the international network that provides hardware, ammunition and logistical support to Israeli militarism to stop the war and build a lasting social movement.

While he is able to provide a sublime exposition of the modern history of the conflict, where Haddad was weak was his inability to provide an alternative to Arab nationalism and the military tactics of Hamas. Unfortunately, like many others, he sees Hamas as one of the only forces opposing the Zionism of Netanyahu and the IDF and has pragmatically decided to support them. When questioned about the possibility of finding an internationalist political solution rather than a nationalist military program to end the occupation, Haddad responded:

“That it is a ‘colonial mentality’ to believe it is incumbent on the Palestinians to pose an alternative, that actually alternatives have already been tried with the Oslo accords, the non-violence of the great march of return, civil disobedience campaigns et cetera, that the conditions in Palestine have ultimately led to a situation where it is a ‘rational choice’ to take up arms and use coercive force, and that and ‘that it is obvious that leftists support Palestinian national self-determination and the right to use arms for it’.”

His inability to see an alternative besides countering nationalism with nationalism, and military force with guerilla warfare leads him down a major blind alley. Jis unwillingness to condemn the reactionary tactics of Hamas, which have provided the spurious justification for the Israeli counteroffensive and given a mandate for the corrupt Netanyahu government to stay in power, have only reinforced the divisions between the Arabic and Israeli working class, creating a siege mentality and pushing the Israeli working class into the arms of Zionism.

Rather than signing on to the nationalist program of religious fundamentalists, it is a necessary task for the socialist movement to counter-pose the rank nationalism of Hamas with the program of socialist internationalism and unify the Middle Eastern working class across national divisions to end the war.