Communists Counter School’s Racist Lies

TEL AVIV-JAFFA, December 4 — Forgoing a chance to eat turkey on Thanksgiving and celebrate the decimation of the indigenous in the Americas, PLP members traveled to Israel-Palestine to meet with veteran and new PLP members here. One new member was a Palestinian student. He attends a private “progressive” school, where he is the only non-Jewish student in his class. He asked his teachers if he could invite us to speak to his classmates and, they said yes. What we discovered what a racist education system that eradicated the history of this region.
Teach the Youth the Truth
One visiting comrade was a recent high school graduate herself. She spoke about the racist nature of capitalism. She emphasized that like Black and Latin workers in the U.S., Palestinians and Black workers in Israel-Palestine bear the brunt of racism. But, white and Jewish workers are also exploited. These racist divisions weaken the power of the working class.
It soon became evident that the students in this private “progressive” school were lied to about the conditions in and history of Israel as much as students in public schools, where it is illegal to mention the Nakba (the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians and destruction of over 500 villages in 1948). Not one student had ever heard of the Nakba. Not surprisingly, as the teacher said during the discussion that treatment of Palestinian workers “is not racism” but based on “truth” (read: racist stereotypes of Palestinians). Palestinians are stereotyped as animalistic and bent on killing Jews. In truth, most Palestinian families carefully teach their children to distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Society is so segregated that very few Jews and Palestinians have any contact.
We talked concretely about the history and conditions of Palestinians during the second class. We showed the maps of shrinking Palestinian territory from pre-1948 to the present. Students were surprised! After showing pictures of the destruction of Gaza last summer, we presented statistics of over 2,300 deaths, 70 percent being civilians, including many kids.
The teacher interrupted to say that Israel made no such civilian-combat distinctions since everyone was a soldier, so the statistics should be paid no mind. We proceeded to show slides about how only 20 percent of the land in the West Bank is Palestinian controlled. Over half a million Israeli settlers now live there, and the apartheid wall and over 400 checkpoints restrict movement. That was all we had time for—the staff felt they had had enough of us.
Students were eager to learn the truth. We provided a list of websites in Hebrew where some true history could be learned. The student PL’er here can forge communist friendships with his peers.
Erasing Workers’ History
Later, we wandered around Jaffa, from which 95 percent of the Palestinian residents had been expelled in 1948 when Israel became a capitalist state. It has now been incorporated into Tel Aviv and almost completely “judaicized.” Along the new waterfront parks and shopping areas, there are historical signs. Each one explains the Turkish, then the British, and then the Jewish origins of the area. The Palestinians have been completely erased from history. Their homes and mosques have been razed. Most of the street names have been changed from Arabic to the names of Zionist “heroes” (read: war criminals). While the racist capitalist rulers erase our history, CHALLENGE can be the working class’s paper of record, and will carry on the stories of both the brutal oppression of our class, and our class’s capacity to fight back, raise consciousness, and one day, win!  
Stand Up and Fight Back
The Jamaican ska and reggae musician Jimmy Cliff sang, “stand up and fight back. You got nothing to lose…you’re the youth, you’re the change.” Progressive Labor Party fights racism and aspires to win millions of students like the one in this school to become communist organizers. Our goal is to build a multiracial movement of women and men who fight for an egalitarian communist society. The exploitation of Palestinians and Black workers have enabled the bosses to lower wages and cutback on healthcare, jobs, education, and housing for Jewish workers as well. “At least you are not Black, Muslim,” the bosses say to Jewish workers. The racism that Zionism perpetuates is to prevent workers from fighting back against their common enemy, the capitalists. Our growing Party is taking steps in this direction, organizing study groups and multiracial fightbacks among youth and workers.