[The following statement was published in the October 24 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly paper of the Argentine PST (Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores - Socialist Workers party, a sympathizing section of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
In the October 10 issue of Avanzada Socialista, we made the following statement on the Middle East: "We call on the Jewish companeros not to be caught up in the racist and reactionary November 12, 1973
demagogy of the Israeli state and imperialism, and to support the just war of the Arabs against one of the most reactionary states in history- Israel.
"We appeal to the Arab companeros to support the Jewish workers in the struggle against their bosses and imperialism, to support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, and to have their own state in the framework of a Federation of Middle Eastern Socialist States." This position, in general terms, is the one we maintained in La Verdad at the time of the "Six-Day War" in 1967.
The leadership of our party has again discussed this question and revised our position regarding the right of the Jews to self-determination and to a state of their own in Palestine.
We realize that the most correct formula is to support the creation- in the territory today occupied by the Zionist state—of a single, nonracist, secular Palestinian state offering extensive democratic guarantees to all its inhabitants.
A secular state means that it would not be based on any religion or support any "official" religion, including Islam and Christianity. A secular Palestinian state would not be based on the "Old Testament and the prophets of Israel," as the present Zionist state is, nor on the Koran (the scriptures of the Islamic religion supposedly written by Mohammed under divine inspiration, which govern the constitutions and laws of several Arab states). At the same time, it would guarantee every one of its inhabitants full freedom to practice any kind of worship they may choose or to have no religion if they prefer.
Such a secular Palestinian state would abolish the racial privileges, discrimination, and persecution that exist today in the Zionist state and would guarantee all its citizens— whether of Arab, Jewish, or Druze origin - equal democratic rights. That is, the right to speak and teach their native language and to publish periodicals and books in it, equality in public and private employment as well as in wages, and equality in elections to public or trade-union positions.
Some readers might raise the following objections: "We agree that Dayan, Golda Meir, and their gang have to be gotten rid of, but why do we put forward the slogan of a single Palestinian state? Obviously, this would guarantee the Arabs' right to self-determination, since they would be the majority in such a Palestinian state. But isn't this going to impinge on the right to self-determination of the Jews, who must not be thrown into the same bag as Dayan and his gang?"
The answer is very simple: Revolutionary Marxists defend the right to self-determination of the oppressed and not the oppressors.
The right to self-determination is a concrete problem, not an arithmetical question of majorities and minorities. We defend the right to self-determination of the "Catholic" nationalist minority against the pro-British "Protestant" majority because the first are oppressed by the second. For the same reason, we support the Black majority in Rhodesia, South Africa, and the Portuguese colonies against the white minority that enslaves them in the most savage way. What should we propose, for example, in the case of South Africa? Self-determination for the Blacks ... and also for the whites who even deny that the Blacks are human?
The case of Israel is similar to those of Rhodesia, South Africa, or Algeria before the revolution. As in these cases, the imperialists "imported" a colonializing minority, and it robbed millions of Palestinians of their land as well as their national and human rights. Just as in South Africa, where the Blacks are shut up like cattle in "native reserves," millions of Palestinians live in the poverty of the "refugee camps" in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Furthermore, the Palestinians have been the victims of massacres perpetrated by the Zionists or their Arab accomplices, the reactionary governments of Lebanon and Jordan. The Palestinians who remained in Israel have been subjected to a system of Nazi-like terror. The so-called "Administrative Regulations" law - patterned on the racist Apartheid laws in South Africa - confines them to certain places that they cannot leave without passes; it establishes zones that they cannot enter or reside in, these being reserved for the Zionist "master race." It puts them at the mercy of "commissioners"
with full powers to arrest, transfer, and deport the inhabitants of the Arab areas, to take possession of any article or object belonging to an Arab, to carry out raids at any moment, impose restrictions on employment or businesses, confiscate any land or house, and so on. Violations of this "law" (of the jungle) come under the jurisdiction of military tribunals. And this is only one of many racist laws applied to the Palestinians.
Who, then, are the oppressors, and who are the oppressed? Who have the right to self-determination? Here the matter is simple and concrete. The first and immediate need is to restore to the oppressed people their land and their national and democratic rights. And at the same time, all Jews who want to live in peace and brotherhood with the Arabs, without exploiting them, and who do not want to be cannon fodder for Dayan and the Yankee imperialists, must be guaranteed equal democratic rights as citizens of a nonracist, secular Palestinian state.