U.S. President Trump’s recent move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was a holiday gift to the Israeli ruling class, a big-power blessing of the country’s anti-Arab racism and apartheid. It is also a reflection of the embattled U.S. bosses’ growing isolation in the region and the world. This would lead to even more instability in the Middle East, collateral damage to U.S. allies, and a rise in mass anger and fight-back against the U.S.
In reversing decades of U.S. foreign policy against the advice of his Secretaries of State and Defense, the imperialist-in-chief was transparently playing to his evangelical and Zionist bases, including megabucks campaign donor Sheldon Adelson and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has invested heavily in Israeli settlements (New York Times, 12/6). Trump showed yet again that he has spun out of the control of the main wing, finance capital bosses, who have tried to preserve a charade of evenhandedness in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
With the other 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voting in favor, the U.S. was forced to veto an Egyptian-drafted resolution expressing “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.” Trump threatened to cut off aid to any country that crossed him. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley vowed to “take names” of any countries backing the resolution at a December 21 emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly. According to a Reuters report, “Several senior diplomats said Haley’s warning was unlikely to change many votes in the General Assembly, where such direct, public threats are rare” (12/10). With the U.S. in relative decline against its imperialist rivalry with China and Russia, Trump’s bluster has less and less impact.
Imperialism Creates Israeli Killing Machine
All national borders are drawn to protect ruling-class interests. In 1947, the UN adopted a partition plan to succeed the British colonial mandate over Palestine. This was the original “two-state solution,” which led to the violent ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Arab workers from Israel, the new “Jewish state”; an adjacent “Arab state” that united with neighboring Jordan; and placement of the city of Jerusalem under UN trusteeship.
Although Jewish settlers had owned less than seven percent of Palestine’s territory, the partition gave them 56 percent of Palestine’s land. As Itzhak Galnoor noted in The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement, much of the Jewish state was in the Negev desert, a “vital land bridge protecting British interests from the Suez Canal to Iraq.”
The UN plan enabled British and U.S. imperialists to divide and control workers in the region. Pitting Arab and Jewish workers against one another has served the capitalist bosses by preventing workers from uniting and fighting their common oppressors. Ever since its creation, Israel’s racist Zionist regime has been of strategic significance for U.S. imperialism. It has waged several murderous wars to conquer more and more of Palestine.
As a holy city for three religions, Jerusalem has long been fought over by various murderous empires. Though the Israelis took full control of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967, the city remains a point of intense contention between the ruling classes of Israel and Palestine. All of this plunder and murder has been funded by the U.S. to the tune of $80 billion in military aid. In 2016, another $39 billion was guaranteed to the Israeli killing machine by President Barack Obama.
A few examples of Israeli state terrorism:
Since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, thousands of Arab workers have taken to the streets in protest, from Amman to Istanbul. With the Israelis emboldened to expand their racist occupation into Palestine, more death for Arab and Muslim workers is in store. On December 15, the day after Trump’s announcement, the Israeli military fired on protesters in Gaza and the West Bank, killing four workers and wounding hundreds more (NYT, 12/15).
One Workers’ State
The Progressive Labor Party rejects the bosses’ narrative that Muslims and Jews have always existed in antagonism. We also reject their phony two-state “solution,” which Israeli settler land grabs have made unattainable. Multiple major uprisings, including two Intifadas have shown the bravery and willingness of Palestinian workers to rise up, but all have ended in defeat. The local, nationalist ruling classes offer no hope for workers. The cynical Hamas resorts to terror tactics, while Fatah has sold out.
Only building a mass, international working-class army and smashing religious and nationalist borders will end the suffering of the working class. PLP is organizing to create a world free of borders and racist and sexist exploitation. Join PLP!
U.S. Bosses’ Loss is Russian Bosses’ Gain
The need for the U.S. ruling class to regain lost ground is tied to the successes in the past year of the Russian ruling class in projecting their imperialist influence. The Russian bosses militarily backed Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year proxy war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more.
With the U.S. missing in action, Russia has demonstrated its growing influence in the region by recruiting Turkey and Iran to begin peace negotiations. With U.S. credibility at an all-time low, exacerbated by Trump’s unstable decision-making over the Paris Accord, North Korea, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is likely that this signals a trend for the U.S. to be shut out of more and more negotiations as rival bosses seek new allies and cut new deals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also been successful in drawing traditional U.S. allies Turkey and Egypt into their orbit. Turkey is expected to sign a $2 billion dollar deal this week to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems, in addition to the country’s announcement to create an embassy in East Jerusalem in support of a Palestinian state (Los Angeles Times, 12/14). Russia has negotiated a nuclear deal with Egypt to use its airspace and bases, and has also collaborated on various military training exercises (NYT, 11/30).
Workers Must Reject Nationalism and Religion
We take inspiration from thousands of workers around the world outraged by Trump’s decision. But much of it has a nationalist character. The bosses use nationalism and their construction of borders to convince us that other workers cause their suffering. The root of suffering is capitalism, which is reinforced by both the Jewish and Arab bosses.
The racist, Zionist bosses and the racist, Palestinian bosses will never build a world that serve the needs of the working class. Under capitalism, the only future workers in the Middle East can expect is low wages, checkpoints, collapsing education and healthcare systems, and violent crackdowns to control them from rebelling against those conditions.
Smash Borders with Communist Revolution
Workers on either side of the Israeli/Palestinian walls have more in common with each other than they do with the respective bosses. Worker on both sides face labor exploitation and budget cuts of social programs that are needed for their very existence. Palestinian and Black African workers are attacked most of all because of capitalism’s need for racist super-exploitation.
Palestinian and Black workers in the region have always risen up against racist terrorism, and Israeli workers must follow their lead to smash this profit system. The only hope for eventual peace is for workers to build one world without borders through a communist revolution.