Also putting quotes around "indigenous" to imply there's no settler colonial relation
The Morning Star is usually a decent publication but this is a massive miss. I don't know who anything about the author of this particular article but i hope they don't reflect the views of the newspaper as a whole.
Setting aside the weirdness of putting indigenous in quotation marks, we need to address the fundamental problem with the 1947 partition plan which is that it was purely an imposition of the imperialist powers in which the actual population living there had no say. Any borders drawn by an outside power for post-colonial states are fundamentally illegitimate. It denies the Palestinians self-determination in order to erect a Anglo-European colonial bridgehead in West Asia. That's the first and most glaring problem.
The second is that you can see just by looking at a map how little sense this partition makes. Let's pretend for a second that a Zionist "state of Israel" wasn't a fundamentally genocidal settler-colonial project that could never be satisfied with the 1947 borders. A Palestinian state with these borders will never and would never have been viable, chopped up into separate pieces which do not connect to each other. And they knew this when they drew up this map because they did not chop up the "Israeli state" in the same way - they made it territorially contiguous! Also, what possible justification could there be for giving the Negev desert to the "Israeli state"? In no universe do they have any claim on that region either demographic or historical. It is and was Bedouin territory. The only reason they were given it in the partition is to allow the imperialist powers (of which the "state of Israel" was always conceived as a proxy) access to a Red Sea port while denying one to the Palestinian state.
You don't even need to be a Marxist to see all of this, you just need to use a little common sense. Morning Star really dropped the ball on this one. If you want to advocate for a partition then at least do so in sensible borders that take into account sea access, resource distribution (in particular access to fresh water sources) and military defensibility. Those of us who advocate for full decolonization will still vehemently disagree but at least you won't look like an idiot who has no understanding of what it takes to make a state viable in the real world.
Don't get me wrong, I buy Morning Star often as it is an important paper as the only daily voice for Socialism in Britain, however this article is undoubtedly a reflection of the overall revisionist turn that has been repeatedly taken by the CPB(which has voiced support for 2-states) and the British left in a wider sense.
As i said, if they want to advocate for a "two state solution" they should at least do so with borders that make sense. Ultimately it won't make a difference because a "two state solution" is an impossibility as long as one of the two is driven by Zionist ideology. All that advocating for a "two state solution" and seeing it get trashed again and again by the Zionists does is convince the world that it is impossible to reason with these genocidal fanatics. At some point even the densest British revisionists should get this.
In the meantime they should be focusing on what actually urgently needs to be done which is stopping the genocide and siege of Gaza, and ending the occupation of the West Bank (and of the Golan Heights!). How they managed to write a whole article about Palestine and not mention either of these things is beyond my comprehension. Speaking in the abstract about "peace and equality" is just not enough. Clearly they don't like the term indigenous but are British "socialists" now even too afraid to say the words apartheid and occupation?
British people seem incapable of reason at this point lol, I don't wanna live here anymore but I can't abandon my shared responsibility to fix this shitfuck of a nation.
I don't wanna live here anymore but I can't abandon my shared responsibility to fix this shitfuck of a nation.
Exactly my thoughts.
I think part of fixing the left in the UK is removing trots infulence from it by creating parrell sources of information and news.
Trot outlets and the daily star often serve as curious leftists first entry into communist-adjacent politics, and they do a utter shit job of it everytime; from throwing trans people under the bus to spending there political energy and capital appealing to angry socialist boomers over the age of 60
Definitely agree - but I also think the British left should focus more on building class power in oppressed communities(in a geographical sense, but also focussing mainly on imperialised communities like racially oppressed people who are more likely to support Socialism than labour aristocrats) rather than trying to recruit university students and flogging any kind of newspaper or magazine or book in the city centre where mostly just well-off shoppers are found. The masses must be convinced to trust us - we cannot simply just expect them to listen just because it's in broadsheet print.
Re-building communist power in unions is also important, as is trying to stop them from becoming increasingly establishmentarian.
Agreed on both points, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a trot org when I was trying to find a ML party to throw my political weight behind in the UK; I live in one of the most deprived areas, there idea of organizing was handing out there own newspaper in the deprived area, right outside a methadone clinic; the paper they wanted me to hand out was anti-china, anti-russia and anti-cuba confusingly.
I suggested they focus on rent instead and didnt contact them again lol.
honestly if a 2 state solution means no more Palestinians being murdered i support it too, tho i cant even imagine how that would work, i dont see israel stopping as long as they exists.
isn't hamas asking for 1960s borders?
no israel only palestine would be justice but if palestinians themselves don't think it's a viable demand
It is not viable now, and half justice is better than none. But Palestinians don’t want to give up their historic rights or pretend that Israel isn’t built on top of mass graves.
There’s a lot wrong with this partition plan. Chief among them, the Negeb has always been Arab, even back in the 9th century BCE which Zionists like to base their land claims on.
Zionists are not done expanding. If they ever succeed in ethnically cleansing Gaza they will just move on to the next land they want to conquer.
The Morning Star is not a state, it is a newspaper. It does not need to appear diplomatic.
China I can understand because this is a diplomatic solution, but it's not like they haven't had their fair share of dogshit foreign policy in the past.
The two state solution with the Zionist entity isn't really a solution of any kind. Same as Korea being divided not being a solution.
It's worse than the division of Korea. At least that was geographically viable. This is not. See my comment below.
The vast majority of communist parties internationally support the two state solution as laid out in - I believe it's - the 1967 U.N resolution on the issue that had unanimously agreement by the security council
The Soviet Union supported it. The PRC supported it. The PLO supported it.
It is the Marxist-Leninist line to fight for a two-state solution. If you are a member of a party, it is a part of democratic centralism to uphold your party line even if you disagree with it until you can bring it up for discussion at your party congress when it holds elections.
Hate to tell you this but you're choosing to stand contrary to the international Palestinian liberation movement on the side of the ultra-Left. I get it but that's the way is at this point and time.
I don't care. Right and wrong aren't determined by sides. Israel has no right to any part of Palestine except might. If you want us to accept might is right then it is separate argument.
You are more than entitled to your opinion, I am simply informing you that it runs contrary to the concrete objectives set by both the Palestinian liberation movement and the Communist international movement as far as I am aware of them at this current time.
The PLO doesn’t speak for all Palestinians. All Palestinians I have ever known reject the UN partition plan.
What organization or coalition speaks for all Palestinians that stands in antagonism to the PLO and reject the U.N partition plan?
They don’t have to be organized to have an opinion or a right. I don’t know what organization today can represent this. But Palestinians want to free all of Palestine not just their halfway state per UN plan.
The moral choice for anti imperialists should be a complete rejection of Zionism and the 2-state solution. Whether realistic or not shouldn’t be a question. The Palestinians may accept compromises today because the reality forced them to. The UN partition plan was forced on Palestinians.
With respect to your lived experiences, I simply no longer find this conversation fruitful as your statement is too amorphous for me to engage with it with the ernesty you deserve.
This concludes our conversation. May you go in peace.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
Decolonisation = ultra left 🥴 PFLP supports single secular state, Hamas said they would accept 1967 borders but it's by no means ideal for them.
PLO and Hamas both recognize the difference between Utopian idealism and concrete reality of what is currently unachievable and what is currently achievable
It isn't utopian idealism. There will be no justice until there is a single, secular state in which Palestinian refugees across the world can have the right of return
It currently is as it does not address current concrete conditions that are known in more intimate detail by the people present in the region.
They know better than us as it is their lived experience that we must let guide our hands and not our fantasies that we dictate to them from above.
Do you think people in Gaza don't want the Zionist entity to be dismantled in it's entirety? The only way to end the antagonism of settler colonialism is to overthrow the perpetrators, otherwise it will end up in the same place indigenous Americans are
With what state? What army, airforce, navy? The only way that can be seen forwards from the current crisis is for Palestine to regain their footing in the internationally agreed upon two-state solution. Would you deny the Palestinian people righteous relief from the concentration camps and their right to rebuild their state and determine their path from there?
Do not think that I am blind to the inherent contradiction that lies at the heart of the existence of the Fascist government they are currently locked in a struggle with right now, that at the given opportunity they would achieve their own one state solution through genocidal ethnic cleansing. The contrast between us right now is whether or not we are keeping our eyes on concrete, achieveable objectives that can be worked towards with concrete human beings composed of flesh and blood vs ephemeral objectives being worked towards with ethereal beings that are revolutionary from head to toe.
We communists must have concrete revolutionary policies, and not politics of theatrical revolutionary gestures.
I would absolutely support a 2 state solution as the first step in advancement of Palestinian regional power. It would not tackle the fundamental issue however, nor do I even remotely believe Israel would give up their west bank settlements and give the Palestinians a state willingly.
I am glad we are in mostly agreement. I also have zero faith in the fascist state willingly conceeding their ill-gotten gains they've snatched into their jaws, but through the work of the brave revolutionary guerrillas fighting on the ground, and the work of revolutionary peace activists across the far corners of the earth continue to work in tandem step then those jaws will relent and the most joyous first step of national liberation shall be achieved.
From there the future becomes more theoretical and unpredictable, but one thing I would say for certain is that the Palestinian state at that future time must emulate the Soviet Union in a race to rebuild and prepare for a likely greater darker force of reaction.
Couldn't they get into serious legal trouble by supporting full decolonisation? I'm not sure about the laws in Britland but I've heard that there's been some harsh escalation of persecution for "supporting terrorists" whatever that means.
Outwardly supporting Hamas has sadly gotten a few people arrested but I don't think supporting a secular, one state solution with right of return would
I think the issue is people seem to conflate "The Two State Solution" (TM) as proposed in the 1993 accords or whatever which majorly sucked for the Palestinians, and a two-state solution, i.e. a fair agreement for Palestinians.
