A Debate on Socialist Palestine Program: How and Why

Israel has been waging war after war for many years, massacring Palestinians. The dramatically changing Israeli-Palestinian maps will come to the mind of anyone interested in the subject. Today, Palestinians are trapped inside small pockets of isolated lands. Poverty, oppression, endless violence, and war remain. Millions of Palestinians have been expelled from their country. Reinforced Jewish immigration and constantly built new Jewish settlements have continuously disrupted the demographic structure in Palestine. The genocide that has been ongoing since October 7 of last year has shown that Zionist Israel will not recognize the right to life for the Palestinian people. 

The Palestinian people have been trying to resist Zionist aggression with their own efforts for decades. The “great powers” ​​and the despotic Arab regimes in the region have always sided with Israel. As the years passed, Israel neither accepted the 1967 borders nor agreed to a two-state solution. While the two-state solution is already completely unjust, Palestinians are the rightful owners of their own land, and Israel has never been satisfied and has always wanted war. Because it was strong and had a strong backing. Palestinians were always alone.

The facts we have mentioned so far are now known to everyone. In this article, instead of telling the issue's history, I will talk about revolutionary principles and program-related points about Palestine.

Palestine, Kurds, and Secularism

Remaining silent about what is being done to the Kurds and crying for the Palestinians is a great inconsistency, to say the least. There is nothing to discuss or forgive in this. The opposite is also true. Defending the rights of the Kurds and not being in solidarity with the Palestinians is also inconsistent. Our friends in the Kurdish national movement should be sensitive about this issue. If the issue is seen from the perspective of “national interest”, one simply becomes nationalist. There are also those who look at the issue from the axis of secularism and keep their distance from the Palestinians because of Hamas. A secular understanding that cannot learn to look at life through the eyes of the oppressed is doomed to lose. Moreover, the Palestinian resistance organizations are not limited to Hamas and Islamic Jihad;  Organizations such as Fatah, Popular Resistance Committees, PFLP, DFLP have a great popularity among the Palestinian people. 

Socialist Middle East is the Only Alternative 

The slogan “Free Palestine from the Sea to the River” is quite famous in socialist circles, but let’s ask how such a Palestine will be possible. What do we say about this? Other than cursing Israel, what should socialists propose and do for the liberation of Palestine? 

In terms of defending the rights of Palestinians, exposing faux Israel, and granting the right of oppressed nations to self-determination; a united and democratic Palestinian state in which Jews live without discrimination should be defended in principle. But the truth is that democratic solutions (i.e. without touching capitalist property relations) have no basis in reality, neither in terms of democratic revolution, nor in terms of the negotiation table, nor terms of national liberation. Negotiation tables run by imperialists have always meant traps for Palestine. This is very clear.  On the other hand, due to the terrible inequality between the powers, it is not possible for the Palestinians to fight and crush Israel and gain freedom. 

So how will Palestine be free? There is only one way, and that is through a regional socialist revolution. Palestine can only be freed with the help of a revolutionary hurricane that overthrows the dictators in the Middle East. Palestine cannot defeat Israel in any other way. Palestine will not be free without a great upheaval, without creating great storms, and there will be no significant improvement in the lives of the working classes in the entire Middle East. For this reason, the struggle for liberation of the oppressed Palestinian and Kurdish people is connected to the struggle for equality and freedom of the Middle Eastern workers.

The Middle East has recently been shaken by very strong popular uprisings, from Egypt to Tunisia, from Iraq to Iran and Lebanon, without going back to the past. In other words, no one can claim that the objective conditions are not suitable for uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East. In fact, new ones are just around the corner. But past uprisings have also shown that results cannot be achieved with bourgeois democratic programs against corrupt despots. Neither jobs, nor democracy; nor prosperity, nor human rights; nor the future, nor secularism; nor women's rights, nor the fraternity of peoples, nor peace can come without touching capitalist property relations. On the other hand, "international socialism" is the only unifying way out for the people against ethnic, religious, and sectarian slaughters; it is the only future alternative for the workers against exploitation, unemployment, and poverty; it is the only way of freedom against dictators; it is the only enlightened future against religious bigotry. Therefore, once the socialists can show themselves, the workers and the youth will flock after them.  And this time, the popular uprisings will be more conscious, more organized, and more daring. It is no coincidence that the uprisings limited to the democratic program against dictators have been oppressed. The effort to form a socialist tradition that combines the class-based rebellions of the working class and the poor people to gain political power is the only programmatic content of today's revolutionary struggle. The crystallization of this is the Socialist Palestinian state that will take place in the Socialist Middle East Federation. This program is also valid for a united Socialist Kurdistan.

The socialist left in Turkey, on the other hand, still adopts the program of a stagist democratic revolution, looks at life with national programs, and gradually breaks away from the class perspective and shifts to identity and cultural politics.

However, there are the necessary opportunities to create revolutionary socialist attraction points in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and North Africa outside the Kurdistan region. In the past, when Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt, socialist youth were the vanguard of the Palestinian cause and created a great movement despite their limited opportunities. The Sisi coup’s crushing of the mass movement in Egypt halted this maturation, but signs of what kind of a wave the class-conscious masses would create were also seen there. 

In short, we cannot face imperialist capitalism without a socialist Middle East and a permanent revolution perspective. National and democratic programs are waiting to be thrown in the trash. Our remedy is anti-capitalism, internationalism, and Bolshevism.