The mobilization of Israeli peace activists, following the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza (among other crimes, the planned starvation of the people of Gaza), left a very deep impact on the Israeli public sphere.
The main demonstration, in which thousands of people participated, was carried out as a result of a coalition formed by Gush Shalom / Peace Block tendency, led by the veteran journalist and former MK Uri Avneri, the Coalition of Women for Peace, led by members and supporters of the Communist Party, and other groupings, including the Anarchists against the Wall, as well as the Communist Party of Israel and the pro-Syrian Balad party (the National Democratic Assembly) led by exiled former MK Dr. Azmi Bishara, and Abnaa el-Balad movement (the Sons of the Country). It was held near the entrance to Gaza.
The demonstrators chanted slogans against the occupation. Many people who were never politically active, or were tired after years of activism, were joining forces in order to rally against the Israeli policies. Along the main demonstration, protest rallies were held in front of the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, in the cities of Haifa and Nazareth, in front of the Prime Minister Residence in Jerusalem and across the Arab towns in Israel.
The absence of the Zionist peace groups, Peace Now and the Meretz party, was felt and explained by many as a decision of their leaderships to line up with the Olmert-Barak government. The elections that had been taking place in the party, ended in the victory of Olmert's associate and a senior leader in the Kibbutzim movement, Haim Oron MK, vindicated this evaluation.
In a debate that was developed in the Left Bank website (http://www.hagada.org.il/eng/), a Leftist web-journal administrated by activists associated with the Communist Party's political front Hadash, an activist commented on the demonstration. His comments are valuable not only to Israeli Leftists but also to others who wish to study the development of the Israeli Left and draw some perspectives in regard to its future.
The Israeli Antiwar movement: self-criticism from within
In his article, the activist claimed that it was already agreed upon by the organizers that it is impermissible to raise flags. In spite of this agreement, flags were raised – Palestinian flags. Once the flag was raised, continues the activist, there is a need to raise the Israeli flag since it is a matter of representing the interests of the two peoples.
In addition, the activist argues, it is an absurd to draw similarities between the situation in Gaza – difficult as it may be – and the holocaust. He defines this line as "proved rhetoric suicide". "Someone who understands that the situation in Gaza is lousy would understand this even with these comparisons, and if he doesn't – he won't understand the situation through them". The comparison with the holocaust was accompanied with total ignorance regarding the tragic life of the people of Sderot, the poor bombed town, torn into piece by hundreds of rockets. Only Uri Avneri and Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj (the founder and director of GCMHP, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program) mentioned the suffering of the Sderot people.
In his article, another point is being treated: the slogans. According to this activist, there is no room for slogans like "Victory to the Intifada!" or "One Palestine – From the River to the Sea!" A joint demonstration requires that all of its participants will follow its rules and "play the game"; if a united front is formed, its activities should be carried out through agreement. The point is, he argues, that the demonstration was aiming at unifying people around humanitarian basis rather than political one. Nevertheless, in a state of emergency, he continues, no one should be silenced but in order to gain maximum results, discussions on slogans should be held and understandings must be respected.
In the end of his article, the activist points out that it is unnecessary to use terms like "the Bush-Olmert Axis of Evil", something that might place the Left within the camp of Iran and Syria. It is vital to clarify that we're against the occupation, the war crimes, and all the policies against the Palestinians and so on, but not to fall into the trap of the imperialism.
The heated debate that was followed in the responses of the readers only demonstrated how controversial the author's article was. Although some supported his stand, many Leftists with "anti-imperialist" agenda slammed him, saying that he is Zionist and thinks as a privileged Jew in a settler-colonial State.
The Third Camp & the emerging Israeli Left
It is crystal clear that Israeli Leftists, mainly people with socialist consciousness, are really against the war, the occupation and the violation of human rights. Outside the established Left, mainly the collapsing Labor and the crumbling Meretz, there are tendencies and individuals who are looking for unifying agenda. They resist nationalist terminology, their mind is free from ethnocentric or xenophobic ideas, and their ideas are based on ideologies that are sometimes too abstract but are nonetheless quite confident in their loyalty to the internationalist agenda.
Outside the Left in Israel, the Left as we knew it, there are dozens of NGOs, political groupings, unorganized individuals and intellectuals from the academia who are motivated by various philosophies of right. There is a chance to create a change once all of these people, together with the marvelous young people who started a struggle for unionizing the private sector in Israel, will understand that a genuine change can only occur within the political realm. In this initial stage, the question is how to organize these people.
The movement against the war and the activism directed against the leading warmongers in Israel can be expressed in political terms. It is encouraging to know that most of the activists are against neo-liberalism and see the political and the social problems as connected to each other. There is overwhelming majority in Israel for a Two States solution; there is serious opposition against Israeli attack against Iran. There are many people who will not agree to celebrate the 60th anniversary to Israel under the threat of new military escalation; there are hundreds of thousands that would agree to immediate ceasefire. These are the human resources of the new emerging Left in Israel.
New Leftist formation can, under certain conditions, play a positive role in advancing the class consciousness of the Israeli workers and bring them to ally with their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Socialist politics with internationalist policies can gather many Israelis around the perspective of suggested for decades by Israeli peace seekers and peace activists: Two nations, two states, two capitals in Jerusalem, creative solution to the Problem of the Palestinian Refugees and reconciliation between the nations through critical approach to the past. The question is which platform can group people around it.
In starting a thought on the needed platform, and following the article of the activist written in the Left Bank, there is a great need for a distinction between the oppressed and the oppressor. The Palestinians have the right to resist. The Israeli government should be heavily condemned for its crimes. The right to raise the Palestinian flag should be defended. Nationalistic slogans expressed by Palestinians should be understood by the analysis of the political reality as oppressive, producing responses of anger, frustration and fury.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement, the activists within the two nations, must build a unity of political agreement and principled actions, along full control in the rank-and-file activity. Only a leadership that will know how to fight will be able to win more and new activists into the camp of peace, genuine democracy and socialism.
If Trotskyism can be regenerated in Israel after the traumatic experiences that the Trotskyists in Israel were facing (the splits in Matzpen group, the fragmentation of the group during the late 1970s into small splinters associated with the Healyite ICFI, the Mandelite USFI, the American SWP etc.), it has a future only through a program in which Third Camp socialists regard the working classes of the region as the driving force for progress and true liberation and leave behind the tradition of automatic "anti-imperialist" approach in favor of agenda that consider national peace as important vehicle in the long way for a victory of the workers in the class struggle.