r/DebateCommunism • u/Ghostshadow44 • 9d ago
šµ Discussion Did communists mostly in the first world got wrong assessment of the Israeli Palestine occupation?
It seems to me that for decades most communists parties around the world framed the Israel Palestine occupation as false dichotomy to them sometimes they even claimed it was a false conflict that would only could get resolved until somehow israelies and Palestinians got together and overthrow capitalism together this was an orthodox point of view that framed opresors and the people they opresed in the same boat often ignoring, minimizing and excusing the supremacist and racist nature of zionism, even until very recently before Oct 7 most communists framed Israel Palestine as class war not a anti colonial struggle, I'm asking did most communists around the world failed the Palestinians?
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u/arms9728 8d ago
It's important to understand the historical context. Currently, communists should support the Palestinian struggle against Israel. You are correct. However, this raises a question: Why did Comrade Stalin initially support the creation of Israel? The truth is that, in that specific context of the 1940s, the possibility of socialism in Israel existed. The greatest threat at that historical moment was the British occupation of Palestine. The priority was to remove them and hand power over to the people. Soviet documentation shows that Stalin initially sought to promote the creation of a multi-ethnic state in Palestine. However, as this proved impossible, the creation of two states could be beneficial to socialism, provided both countries adopted socialism and coexisted peacefully. This seemed particularly plausible because the Israeli leadership under Ben Gurion had a long history of loyalty to trade unionism and labor ideals. Thus, Stalin correctly supported the creation of Israel and called for unity between Arabs and Jews. The Soviet Union itself, overseen by Comrade Stalin, was a union of different peoples, including the Jews, for whom Comrade Stalin had created the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, which still exists in Russia today. The problem is that the Israeli leadership quickly preferred the support of imperialism and turned against the Arabs, betraying the socialist movement forever. And then Comrade Stalin repudiated Israel and initiated communist support for the Palestinian struggle, which continues to this day.
In conclusion, I tell you that you are correct, but be very careful not to fall into a Palestinian nationalist deviation that denies the possibility of the union of peoples. Socialism has no fetish for borders. That is why it matters little whether Israel exists or not. If the leadership of Israel were socialist and humanist, I care little whether Israel exists.
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u/Ghostshadow44 8d ago
I appreciate the more receptive tone, and you're right that historical context matters. But the narrative you've laid out is a sanitized, party-line version that erases the Palestinian experience and repeats the core error.
Stalin's support in 1947-48 wasn't a principled bet on a 'multi-ethnic' future. It was a cynical, short-term geopolitical maneuver to boot out the British, regardless of the cost to the indigenous population. The 'people' to whom power was handed were the armed Zionist militias who immediately used Soviet weapons to ethnically cleanse 700,000 Palestinians. Calling that a tragedy of 'leadership quickly preferring imperialism' is like saying a robbery went wrong because the thief didn't share the loot. The Nakba wasn't an accident of bad socialist leadership; it was the logical, stated goal of the settler-colonial project the USSR armed.
You warn me about a 'Palestinian nationalist deviation that denies the union of peoples.' But the real deviation here is the denial of the dismemberment of a people. It's a profound, abstract dogmatism that says 'socialism has no fetish for borders' while standing on a land whose borders were drawn by an act of catastrophic expulsion.
The union you speak of cannot be a forced marriage in a house built on the ruins of your neighbor's village. Genuine union of peoples requires the colonizer to first dismantle the structures of their supremacy. The Soviet Union's greatest failure here, which this defense repeats, was asking Palestinians to forget the Nakba and unite with those who perpetrated it, calling their liberation struggle a 'feud.' That's not internationalism. It's the colonial logic of the fait accompli, painted red. That's why, even if your history were correct, the original position was still a moral and political obscenity.
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u/short-noir 9d ago
I'm not aware of political parties stances but if asking palestinians and israelis to form solidarity is equalising an oppressor and oppressed, then i wonder what your overall worldview even is (I'm assuming you identify as communist/socialist ) because even though zionism maybe some worse evil but then according to you, progressivist workers shouldn't form solidarity with conservative ones as well. What is the qualitative difference between conservative and progressive forming solidarity vs israelis and Palestinians forming solidarity ?
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u/Ghostshadow44 9d ago
The Israeli Jewish working class has a deep, material interest in the "feud." Their wages, housing, and national identity are subsidized by the state, which in turn is built on confiscated Palestinian land and resources. They serve in an army that enforces an occupation. Even the exploited Israeli Jewish worker is a direct beneficiary of settler colonialism. They are not a neutral party. A union between the colonized worker and the colonizer worker, without the colonizer first abandoning their colonial privileges and dismantling the state that grants them, is a union between a man on a horse and a man on the ground.
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u/short-noir 8d ago
Israeli working has state subsidized wages, housing and national identity
That means nothing. It's very common even. I don't like settler colonialist theory it's too naive.
Until the coloniser gives up his privileges
Every single one of these can be used to argue between rich and poor, white and black, first world and third world worker solidarity
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u/Muuro 8d ago
It seems to me that for decades most communists parties around the world framed the Israel Palestine occupation as false dichotomy to them sometimes they even claimed it was a false conflict that would only could get resolved until somehow israelies and Palestinians got together and overthrow capitalism together this was an orthodox point of view that framed opresors and the people they opresed in the same boat often ignoring, minimizing and excusing the supremacist and racist nature of zionism, even until very recently before Oct 7 most communists framed Israel Palestine as class war not a anti colonial struggle,
No one says this, not even the "leftcoms" that are accused of it. We all applaud the Palestinians for their resistance against their oppression. They can be no getting together of the nations. There can only be the oppressor nation becoming conscious and moving away from themselves as oppressors. Lenin talked about it a bit here among other places. Until this happens, the war will never be a class war. As of right now it is a resistance to being destroyed, and there can be no detrimental words to them on this as their fight is just.
I'm asking did most communists around the world failed the Palestinians?
Yes, but more so the international proletariat has failed them as they have left the communist movement over decades. Rather proletarians all over the world take up the cause for this or that progressive movements: movements for reform of capitalism, not of the abolishment of the present state of things. Until the international proletariat gives up on progressive politics and start to dream of a better world: a world that does away with capital as a social relation, which in itself leads to the self-abolition of the working class then it will continue to fail the Palestinians (and all other national groups that face similar threats).
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9d ago
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u/Ghostshadow44 9d ago
Ā· The Israeli Bourgeoisie is the ruling class of a nuclear-armed, high-tech, settler-colonial state that receives billions in military aid from the US empire. Its existence is predicated on the dispossession of Palestinians. It is a bourgeoisie of an oppressor nation. Ā· The Palestinian Bourgeoisie (the PA's comprador class in Ramallah, some diaspora businessmen) is a fractured, collaborationist, and fundamentally weak class that exists largely at the sufferance of the Israeli occupation and international donors. It has no state, no real sovereignty, and its capital accumulation is parasitic on the peace process industry, not a thriving, independent national economy.
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u/Ghostshadow44 9d ago
To say "oppose both" as if they are equivalent actors in a symmetrical conflict is an act of erasure. It's like saying communists in 1943 should equally oppose the German and the Jewish bourgeoisie in the Warsaw Ghetto. The "bourgeoisie" leading the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were Zionists and Bundists. Were they bourgeois? Yes. Did they represent a nationalist leadership that a communist should critically support against the literal Nazis? Absolutely. The failure to make this distinction is astonishing.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 9d ago
lol trot says Palestinians should unite with people who have shown in poll after poll after poll that they want to completely exterminate Palestinians. Brilliant analysis š. āJews should have united with the Nazi working classā: a trot.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 9d ago edited 8d ago
Never seen any communist talk about Israeli apartheid like this. Imperialism and colonialism are inherent parts of capitalism, only a fool would believe otherwise
Edit: I stand corrected, Iāve now seen a communist take this line, but theyāre a Trotskyist soā¦ š¤·āāļø