I'll start with one needed clarification: Zionism should be considered not only as theory but also as practice. Lenin and Trotsky were against Zionism as a program of building an exclusive national state on the land of Palestine, a program that denies the existence of an Arab people and wishes to get national independence by relying upon imperialism, e.g., world capitalism.
Thus, Zionism is a reactionary theory in the sense of carrying forward nationalistic agenda; however, like any other national liberation movement, Zionism should be supported in the sense that it stands for liberation of the world Jewry from hundreds of years of oppression culminated in the horrifying holocaust. To be a "Zionist" today may mean not to side with the Israeli policies committed by the Israeli regime, but simply to stand for the right of the Jews to have their own state.
Zionism was never a monolithic movement; for instance, the Peace Alliance (Brit Shalom) group, founded in 1925 and headed by the famous Jewish philosopher Dr. Martin Buber, and the well-known scholar Prof. Gershom Scholem, stood for bi-national state in Israel/Palestine. They were Zionists. They were tiny minority. Nonetheless, they represented a progressive wing of the Zionist movement. We should all pray that the Zionists of our epoch will adopt the path paved by Scholem and Buber.
Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a religious neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher and well-known fighter against Israeli occupation who died in 1994, explained that for him Zionism is nothing but "the aspiration for national independence to the Jewish people". He was also in a tiny minority. But he was a Zionist. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the most known fascistic and racist Jewish statesman who was inspired by Italian romanticism, was a Zionist. It would be absolutely absurd to put all of these people in one place. They represent opposite tendencies within one ideological current. One side deserves the support of every conscious socialist and revolutionary.
Fatah, Hamas or the working class?
The origins of the Fatah lie in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which was a democratic, secular and unions-oriented organization. Marxists were always criticizing the PLO not only for his actions against innocent Israeli civilians but also for his refusal to reach a compromise that would put an end to the conflict with the Zionist movement. Thus, prima facie, the decision of the Israelis and the Palestinians to end the ongoing bloodshed in the September 1993 Oslo Accords reflected an objective step forward. However, the Two States solution was never realized as the two leadership had no courage to leave the past behind and move to genuine solution in which Palestine and Jerusalem will be divided into two sovereign states.
In fact, both sides were not capable of carrying forward the needed solution as they were affiliated with the national bourgeoisie of their nation. They had interests that were not common to the masses of their peoples. They were motivated by nationalism, mutual hatred, memories from their bitter past and hidden aspirations to accomplish the program they formally decided to abandon.
The historic analysis that the bourgeoisie cannot liberate the masses and realize self determination was once again proven. This is not the place to analyze why the second Intifada had erupted or why the two people did not reach an agreement that will put an end to hundred-year conflict. It is evident that only the masses will be able to bring true peace and that only a movement from below will force the leaderships to create a new order that will enable the rapid growth of workers' movement across the region.
The Fatah and the Hamas do not represent, objectively, the future of the Palestinian masses. No one can trust bourgeois leaderships. However, despite all errors committed by the Fatah, it remains the sole leadership that is capable of liberating the masses from their enslavement by the Israeli occupation. Although Fatah is a bourgeois party, it has roots among the masses. The PLO, as popular front, includes the Democratic and the Popular Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as the Palestinian People's Party. In spite of being nationalistic, it stands for democracy in the bourgeois sense, for a society in which parliament, secular constitution, trade unions and free press play a crucial role.
The Hamas represents a reactionary wing of the Palestinian national bourgeoisie. It wishes to build an Islamic society without democratic norms, it is oriented to Iran, it bases itself on the laws of the Sharia, it refuses to acknowledge the rights of women, gays and religious minorities, it refuses to advocate even the basic rights given by the bourgeois democracy and it wishes to fight Israel up to the bitter end.
The question is not Fatah or Hamas; that's the terminology of those who have confidence in the nationalist bourgeoisie. The question is what would be the fate of the workers and youth under the rule of Hamas. Thus, we all have witnessed that Hamas was actually ready to gamble with the lives of the masses by sending them to break the Israeli siege through breaching the border with Egypt. They did not care that the Egyptian regime, which was never sympathetic toward the Palestinians, might shoot fire and kill dozens of innocents. They made an experiment; maybe the masses will be martyrs, maybe not. Their entire thought is characterized in religious concepts. Of course, they did not cease the firing at Sderot and gave the Israelis a splendid opportunity to starve the poor Palestinians and create humanitarian crisis.
The working class alternative
Marxists do not trust the ruling bourgeois elite; they are confident in the role played by the workers class, armed with the authentic Marxist theory. To be confident in the workers, Jews or Arabs, is to side with anything that will advance their struggle. For instance, the struggle against privatization does not mean that nationalization per se can solve the social and economic problems. But a capitalist economy in which everything lies in private hands is worse than welfare state in which there is a large public sector and unionized labor.
We don't think that Zionism can solve the national question. The view that there is something like "Zionism" which is common to all Zionists is a legend. We don't think that the Fatah can lead the Palestinians to national liberation. But there is no one monolithic Fatah party or one big sealed PLO. We believe that the Israeli society under the reign of advanced Zionists and the Palestinian society ruled by the advanced PLO elements can create a civilized and democratic space in which the working class will be able to develop itself, rebuild its power, empower its unions, create its culture and be pulled to the genuine socialist alternative shaped by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.
Those who regard the Fatah as "collaborationists", "traitors" or just "bourgeois reformists" don't understand that the democratic elements within Palestine fight their struggle for life and death; without them, the entire Palestinian society will be doomed to rule of radical religious fanatics. Apart of persecuting women who refuse to live obediently and murdering gay men, there will be no workers' rights and no democratic culture in which these rights would be capable of developing. Is it really what we, socialists, want?
To be in the Third Camp of the working class isn't just chanting the Internationale but to take a clear side: the side of the democratic, socialistic and secular elements amongst the Palestinian society – and among the Zionist tendencies – or the side of the fascistic clerical movements. In Israel, the clerical right wishes to aid the fascistic Our Homeland Israel party to build a new government with a nationalistic orientation and pro-Republican view that disqualifies ethnical minorities, stands against women's rights and persecute gay and lesbian men and women. What will we say? To which side should provide our critical support?
The idea is not to support so-called "Third World anti-imperialism" like the Iranian regime that was the eastern wall of so many pseudo-Marxists Healyite-style tendencies. The idea is to back the democratic tendencies that have serious support within the working class. It doesn't mean preventing ourselves from drawing sharp criticisms against them. Let's take an example from the past: will we support or condemn the Solidarity group in Poland who fought the Stalinist regime just because it wasn't Marxist all the way? The Fatah is, no doubt, a bourgeois party that made bitter betrayals but it is still a democratic, secular, popular formation. Its demolition will help the fascists among the two peoples in Israel/Palestine.
By the way, would we ask for immediate withdrawal of the Israelis from the occupied Palestinian territories and not for an agreement that will build a Palestinian democratic state, knowing that immediate withdrawal of Israel will leave the masses submitted to the mercies of the Islamic armed forces?
Thus, the logic applied by the sectarians in regard to Iraq is applied also in relation to Palestine: take your troops out; the Islamists will finish the job. Not a solution that will permit a relative freedom to ethnic minorities, sexes, genders and workers, but a chaos from which order of oppression and semi-fascism will rise. This is a twisted logic, a pure formalist approach to complicated reality in which lives of millions are to be considered.
The genuine socialist voice within the international Left was the voice raised by the dissidents who refused to regard the Stalinist regime as workers' state since it was always favoring the working class and its real expressions in political reality. Hal Draper wrote in his Two Souls of Socialism: "When the demonstrations and boycotts of the Southern Negroes threatened to embarrass President Johnson as he faced an election, the question was: which side are you on? When the Hungarian people erupted in revolt against the Russian occupier, the question was: which side are you on? When the Algerian people fought for liberation against the 'socialist' government of Guy Mollet, the question was: which side are you on? When Cuba was invaded by Washington's puppets, the question was: which side are you on? and when the Cuban trade unions are taken over by the commissars of the dictatorship, the question is also: which side are you on?"
Which side are you, comrades?