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The war lasted for thirty seven days. It is now the time for a cease-fire in the Middle East where peace agreements with the stench of gunpowder resemble letters written on ice… Until a new war…

Qana, Baalbeck, Gaziye, Saida, Tyre (Sour)… While we used to know only Beirut, we have learnt the names of many provinces, cities of Lebanon within these thirty seven days. The names of all these districts which have turned to ruins by helicopters, bombers and rocket launchers, run over by tanks have been imprinted on our minds.

Over one thousand Lebanese people died, three thousand workers were injured within these thirty seven days. The Israel army deprived one million people of a population of four million from their homes in Lebanon.

Parallel to these attacks, 117 Palestinians, majority of which were civilians, were murdered in Gaza enclave on the 28th July, in the operations called “Summer Rain” by the Israelis.

Israel’s attack in the past thirty seven days was not unique, though violent. Because numerous instances of massacres and carnage by the Zionist Israeli state have been experienced since 1948 i.e. the date when Israel was founded.

It is not without reason that the Palestinians recall the foundation of Israel as el-Nakba, the great disaster. Seven hundred thousand Palestinians were exiled from the territory annexed by Israel that was founded in 1948 through war. These seven hundred thousands people, who had to be settled in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria as refugees, were half of the Palestinian population at the time. And the number of the refugees who wait to return to the homeland impatiently in the refugee camps that surround Israel has reached four million.

Israel did not invade Lebanon for the first time. The Litani Operation is another instance for Israeli violence. Israel who invaded Lebanon in 1978 with the claim of removing the Palestine Liberty Organization killed hundreds of workers and exiled three hundred thousand workers.

How about Sabra and Shatilla? Is it possible to forget about this massacre approved by Israel who would annex Lebanon once more for eighteen years this time? Israel not only ignored the Falange militia to attack the refugee camps Sabra and Shatilla but also provided all sorts of support. At the end of the attacks, 1500 Palestinian refugees lost their lives within thirty six hours, not in thirty six days! General Ariel Sharon who was the minister of defense during the attacks became the prime minister of the country in 2001.

In 1987, when the Palestinians rioted turning their stones to guns, Israel fired Gaza and West Bank in order to oppress the intifada. Within five years one thousand Palestinians were killed. And in order to oppress the el-Aksa intifada that exploded in 2000, 3500 people were to be murdered by Israel.

Israel not only took approximately ten thousand Palestinians prisoner in order to prevent the riots but also prisoned Gaza and West Bank where the Palestinians were squeezed inside walls.

No instance is required to understand Zionist Israel tortured the workers in the Middle East bloodthirstily since the practices of the Zionists in the Middle East are as much known as the murder applied by the Nazis to the Jewish.

However there is one thing that is not so clear; that is first the Zionist Israel state has to be destroyed in order to bring peace to the Middle East. Many oppose this on the basis that the ones who most frequently advance it are reactionary Sheri’atist currents or recalling the massacre suffered by the Jewish.

 

Zionist Israel State Should be Destroyed

Because Israel is one of the states that have divided Palestine. Israel is a part of the project of taking Palestine prisoner by dividing it into pieces of the imperialists who brought their hypocritical peace in the Middle East. It is not a coincidence that the foundation of Israel and Jordan becoming a state and being separated from Palestine through the appointment of a king were simultaneous events. It is not an accident either that the first mass murders toward Palestinians were applied by means of this reactionary state.

Because Israel is a Zionist, in other words a sheri’atist state. Despite all the democracy gildings on it, Israel is a state that oppresses all the non-Jewish workers and that set Palestinian workers against Jewish. Zionist Israel aims at broadening its borders as a result of its sheri’atist logic sometimes through war, sometimes encouraging the settlers, sometimes creating security regions.

Unless this Zionist state is destroyed, the religious wars that makes Palestinians kill one another will not be prevented nor will it be possible to stop these wars which prevent the class war. Distributing the Palestinians of different religions and sects within the borders of different theocratic states is the shortest way to the war continuous.

Because Israel plants the seeds of the war not only in Palestine but also in the whole Middle East. Israel, one of the states that threaten the divided Palestine, continuously battles with other states and powers in the same region in order to broaden its territory and secure it. Israel attacks the states around it with the pretext of defending itself and annexes the territory of these states sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.

The existence of Zionist Israeli state provides other reactionary currents to emerge in Palestinian territory and has the reactionary currents and states that use the religion as a means for politics pursue their existence.

It is obligatory for the Zionist Israeli state to be destroyed in order peace to arrive at the Middle East.

However Zionist Israeli state should be destroyed by a proletarian riot that mobilizes all Palestinian workers including the ones in Israel, rather than the Sheri’a armies that battle against the Israeli state. Only then it will actually be destroyed and vanished.

Currents that claim leadership for the Palestinian national liberation struggle such as Hamas and Islami Cihad or currents that battle against Israel from Lebanon such as Hezbollah cannot lead the revolutionary destruction of Israel. As these currents talk about the destruction of Israel, in order to deceive the working masses, they aim at founding a state that would compete with the Zionist Israel in sheri’atism. Actually they are quits to govern one of the neighbor states of Palestine and bargain with the Zionist Israel to divide Palestine. The two-year government of Hamas, the attitude of Hezbollah against the peace forces of United Nations which are the puppets of the imperialists, are the precise evidences that indicate what these organizations have a desire for.

It is not impossible for Zionist Israeli state to be stopped by other reactionary religious currents in the historical Palestinian geography. However this will not provide the destruction of the Zionist state, furthermore it will not result in anything other than the foundation of a sheri’a state not less reactionary on the Palestinian territory. The reactionary Kingdom of Jordan is the most precise and small instance of this.

Exactly for this reason the task of the Palestinian revolutionaries is not to follow the tail of currents that supposedly defends the so called Palestinian question or the ones that struggle against Israel in order to found a Sheri’a state. Similarly the task of the revolutionaries from other countries who desire to be in solidarity with the Palestinian question is not to support these reactionary  currents.

The task of the communists is to create a revolutionary party that will lead all the workers on the Palestinian territory regardless of their religions in the struggle for a United Laic Palestine.

Following the tails of the reactionary currents, rather than the revolutionary path above, is the first step in the direction that leads to further away from the revolutionary aim.

Neither the Sheri’a Nor Zionism

United Laic Palestine!

Revolutionary Party for Revolution!

Long Live the Union of Communists!

 

The Destruction of Two States is a Must for the Unification of Palestine; and The Establishment of a Laic Republic  is a Must for the Palestinians to Live in Peace

Palestine is the name of the region that contains the Israel of the day, parts of Jordan and Egypt territories. After the Second Imperialist War, it became subject to the control of the English mandate, and in 1946 the Kingdom of Jordan was established on the eastern part of the territory. One year later United Nations General Committee decided that “Palestine was to be divided for two states to be established by the Arabs and the Jews”, and in 1948 Israeli state declared its independence on the remaining territory. At the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war the territory supposedly to be assigned for the Palestinians became so small with Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and West Bank that and the number of the Arabic and Muslim Palestinians living on this territory reduced to be one tenth of the previous number.

Only after this, did the United Nations, the international organization of the imperialists, take a step toward the recognition of the Palestinian state. It is known that te boundaries of “what is left from” is being surrounded by a wall but the boundaries of the state called “the Palestinian state” is still uncertain.

Furthermore while Zionist Israel arms and mobilizes all of its male citizens, all the bourgeois states of the world cry for the disarmament of these Palestinians.

When the English realized that they could no longer dominate Palestine, which they assigned for themselves at the end of the First Imperialist Division War, as a single piece, they initially divided it and created the Kingdom of Jordan as a puppet kingdom in the East. Final disintegration of Palestine was realized after the Second World War. As a result of the common plan of the victorious states, a Zionist Israeli state was founded on the Palestinian territory in addition to the Kingdom of Jordan.

This reactionary state established as supposedly a gift of the humanity to the Jews with the pretext that they had suffered from the Nazi cruelty has been causing great pains of the Palestinians and all Middle East people since then.

Currently a third state in addition to the said states is planned to be established on Palestinian territory. And in order this third state to be more reactionary than the existing two, various projects followed one another.

As the aspiration of Palestinians for freedom and peace and their struggle increases, the plans to lay the foundation for reactionary states on Palestinian territory increases as well.

In order the free Palestine where Palestinians to live together without any discrimination of religion, race or sect, the said two states, mainly Zionist Israeli state must be destroyed and all religious reactionary Currents should be prevented.

In order to open the way to this, a communist party that will write on its flag the target of “United Laic Democratic Palestine” and mobilize the Palestinian workers for this struggle is needed. And the salvation of Palestine is one of the necessary and significant terms for Middle East to progress toward peace and freedom.

Hezbollah and Nasrallah

Hezbollah (The Party of the God) was initially used as a word by Mohammad Gaffari who was one of the mullahs struggling against the Shah regime in Iranian territory. This word was referred in the writings of Gaffari badly objected to multi-party regime written in the jail: “There is only one party and it is the party of the God (Hezbollah)”. Hezbollah defined by Gaffari was the movement of those who desired to establish Islamic regime, a kind of unity of feelings rather than an organized concrete party. The movement determined its target to be transforming the multinational administration form in Lebanon to an Iranian style Islamic state.

Within this context it would not be a mistake to claim that the idea of Hezbollah contributed to the Homeyni regime established in Iran in 1979 in the form drawn by Gaffari. Because the emergence of Hezbollah as a concrete organization type in Iran was realized only in Homeyni era. Since the date of its emergence, it recognized Homeyni as the greatest authority as well and took its basic political decisions consulting with the regime in Iran.

The territory where Hezbollah was born organizationally was mainly Lebanon. In this country that was founded in 1920 under French mandate the political power was in the hands of the Christian Maruni minority. After the French left the country in 1946 the political power remained in the hands of this group as well. The discomfort felt by the Shiite in the territory due to the privileges provided by the said circumstance led them to get organized. The first concrete steps of this were taken with the Amal Organization founded by Imam Musa Sadr in 1974. Amal Organization that followed a line of struggle that made use of the political means defined by the existing regime for a very short time inclined to armed struggle with 1975 Lebanon Civil War. The struggle conducted by the Shiite under the leadership of Amal Organization in this process formed the basis for Hezbollah.

Upon Israel’s occupation of Lebanon with an operation named the Gallilei Operation in 1982 on the ground of the Palestinian camps, Homeyni sent 3000 of his trained guards to Lebanon secretly. Those 3000 guards started the organization of today’s Hezbollah in Lebanon. They got mainly organized in the regions of Baalbeck and Beka of Southern Lebanon. The region of Beka was the region where Hasan Nasrallah, current general secretary of Hezbollah undertook the responsibility of Amal Organization. These years were a period when disintegration occurred in Amal Organization at the same time. In the same period Nasrallah and 500 people with him left Amal and participated in Hezbollah. Since then one of the two organizations that represented the Shiite in Lebanon has been Hezbollah and the other Amal. Exactly 10 years after the foundation of Hezbollah, Nasrallah became the general secretary of Hezbollah.

Nasrallah who determined the objective of the organization as “eliminating the Zionist existence” declaring the existence of Israel illegitimate and illegal at the beginning, later he stated that Israel could pursue its existence in territories where there are no disputes.  In a declaration he made in 1999, he stated that the target of the organization was restricted to 3 basic articles: 1. withdrawal of Israel from Southern Lebanon 2. Evacuation of the Golan Heights 3. Returning of Palestinian refugees… The movement defended the freedom of the Palestinian sentenced in the Israeli prisons as well.

From time to time Nasrallah presented anti-Semitist declarations as well. He explained that the target of the organization was the elimination of the Jewish saying: “If the Jewish come together in Israel this saves us from the trouble of chasing them all over the world.”

However, Hezbollah softened this view in the course of time and declared that Zionism and Judaism should be distinguished, that anti-Zionism did not mean to advocate the Jews to be homeless.

Nevertheless, the liquidation policies of Hezbollah toward the revolutionaries in Iran, particularly in the first years of the mullah regime gaining the power are known, though they have been forgotten from time to time. Similarly the time of Faddalah who is recognized as the religious leader of Hezbollah, till 1966 in Iraq passed inside the Islamist movement struggling against the nationalists and the communists.

In order to see the attitude of Hezbollah against the socialists, it is sufficient to recall the two leaders of Iran Kurdistan Democratic Party to have been murdered as a consequence of the assassinations by Hezbollah. Hezbollah was used by the Iranian state as a subcontractor to eliminate the opponents of the regime. They murdered IKDP leader Abdurrahman Ghassemlou in 1988 in Vienna and murdered Sharafkandi who led the party after Ghassemlou was killed – and together with him Humayun Ardalan, the Germany representative of the party and Fattal Abduli, the European representative of the party and Nuri Dehkurdi by raking in Berlin where they had gone in order to watch the congress of Socialist International in a restaurant owned by a Lebanese businessman.

Hezbollah had close relations with Hafez al-Assad who was the head of the Syrian state from 1971 to 2000. However, Hezbollah was supported politically and economically by Islamic Republic of Iran rather than Syria. According to the sources with USA origin, Iran provides Hezbollah with annual monetary support of 60 to 100 million dollars. In this period 3000 Hezbollah militant was trained in Iran in order to be expert on guerilla war techniques, rocket and missile use, marine wars and conventional weapons, 50 pilots were trained. This almost arouses the idea of an army trained to become the armed forces of a state. As a matter of fact against the attack of Israel on Lebanon, Hezbollah appearing to be the official armed forces of Lebanon stiffens this impression.

How Hamas changed after they, not the PLO, had the power in Palestine is a good example for the role estimated for Hezbollah.

As a matter of fact, Nasrallah, the leader Hezbollah, who had declared that the civilian individuals in the occupied Palestinian territory are as occupiers and invaders as the soldiers and thus they saw no matter for them to be killed, also reported in an interview in 2006 that the American civilian individuals were innocent and it was not just to harm them. Hezbollah prohibited its militants to enter in Iraq any way and to support any Iraqi resistance organization that struggles against USA.

On March 3, 2005, Bush and his administration declared they would deem Hezbollah legitimate provided that it is disarmed; and the resolution of UN Security Council numbered 1559 invited all militia whether Lebanese or not to be disarmed and dispelled.

In this regard though it is true that Hezbollah struggles against Zionist Israel, it is not so true that it struggles for the destruction of the Zionist Israel. Above all it is not true that Hezbollah is anti-imperialist at the same time.

What is certain is that Hezbollah is not the party that will open the way to the liberation of Palestine. On the contrary, it is more appropriate to say that it is suitable for the role estimated for the repentant Islamic Currents in the Big Middle East Project of USA.

What Should Be Understood from Laicism?

Is it possible to think that the religious wars will come to end, if a state on the basis of religious principles is founded in Palestine, which is the cradle of all monistic religions and a territory deemed holy by the competing religions battling with one another throughout the history? Is it possible to prevent that all political struggles are executed using religion as a means?

As a matter of fact, it was not possible throughout the history. On the contrary, the use of religion as a means of politics has continued increasingly in an era when the bourgeoisie became the ruling class and in the era of imperialism when capitalism is in the throes of death. The most developed form of using religion as a means of politics is where the watchdog of class societies are done by the dictatorships which tale shelter in the pretext of fulfilling the orders of the religion.

Laicism which is briefly defined as the separation of religious and state affairs has emerged as an alternative for that. Laicism is generally said and supposed to be the gift of French Revolution. And it is a common convention to take the reference of Laicism from the French Revolution, particularly from the Jacobins. The ruling ideology of the bourgeois dictatorship that rules in the territory where we live is based on this convention as well. Even in these days, emphasizing that the most important and progressive aspect of Kemalist Jacobins is their understanding of Laicism which transferred from the French Revolution and the Jacobins, is one of the most popular beliefs. It is true that the Kemalists transferred and applied the Laicist understanding of the Jacobins exactly as it is. However it is not true that this “Laicism” represents the separation of religious and state affairs as it is often told.

On the contrary this said Laicism expresses a special formulation of religion being a means for politics.

The inspiration source of radically different Laicism understanding of communists is different as well. In order the separate religion and politics; religious affairs and state affairs from each other, initially it is necessary to separate religion and freedom of belief. Without removing all privileges of the institution of religion it is possible to prevent neither the intervention of religious institutions in politics, nor politics making use of religion. Laicism should initially achieve this and should do it without any harm to freedom of belief.

The place where this understanding of Laicism was seen for the first time was again France but it was the France of the Paris Commune. 1871 Paris Commune, the first proletarian dictatorship of the world declared that the church and the state were separated. On its fifth day, on April 21st 1871, the resolution assumed by the Paris Commune with regard to the relationship between the church and the state was as follows:

“The first of the principles of French Republic is freedom;

The first of the freedoms is the freedom of conscience;

to support religion monetarily is insisting something to the citizens other than their own beliefs and it is unethical;

The clergy class is the participant of the crimes committed by the monarchy against liberty;

For these reasons the Paris Commune has decided that:

Article 1. The Church and the State have been separated from each other.

Article 2. The budget assigned for the religious communities has been cancelled.

Article3. All the assets belonging to the religious communities have been deemed to be the assets of the nation.”

Contrary to the ones who support the said Laicism campaigns and conduct hostility to foreigners in the current France, in 1871 the armed workers of Paris did not take any religious or ethnical group as a target for itself.

On the contrary, since the Commune acted wholly with an internationalist spirit, it appointed German worker Leo Frankel as minister of labor, put two Polish men named J. Dabrowski and W.Wrobleski in important military positions. The Muslims of Magrip who had not deemed to be citizens up to that date were deemed to be equal members of the commune. The Commune justified the foreigners being appointed to the official positions with the following words: “The flag of the commune is the flag of the World Republic.” The Versaillesists on the other hand put this as a justification and tried to emphasize that battling against the communards was not to be a war among the French.

At the beginning of the way to the liberation of the ones who live in the Palestinian territory will be a Laic and United Palestinian State such as the above one.

The first of the separation lines of the communists who have to build up the party that will lead to the opening of this way is the separation line it will draw between itself and the all sorts of religious Currents and the opportunists who follow the religious Currents.