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Greater Israel in Fast Lane to Apartheid (Part II):

Masses Need Communism, Not Multi-Ethnic Democracy

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Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), losing mass support, are pushing Palestinian statehood in UN bodies.  Since 1948, liberals worldwide promoted a “two-state solution” for Israel/Palestine.  One state or two, capitalist state power maintains the bosses’ ability to exploit the working class. 
Israeli rulers now scorn the “two-state solution.” They cynically negotiated it while consolidating their long-term land-grab in areas originally designated for Palestine.  With US support, they are imposing new sanctions on the PLO for trying to join the International Criminal Court.  A single, apartheid “Greater Israel” is emerging. 
Some hope to transform this apartheid Israeli state into a democracy, as in South Africa.   But South Africa is still a capitalist hell. So would be a democratic “Greater Israel” for Israelis and Palestinians or even a separate Palestinian state.
Israeli fascists have infiltrated the military.  They are trying to consolidate Greater Israel.  They are physically intimidating Jewish Israeli “two-state” supporters, Arab Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories. 

Israeli Apartheid got this far only with the full backing of US capitalism.  Zionism always depended on “great powers.” Before the US, it was the Ottoman Empire (1890s), the British (1917), the Soviet bloc (1948), and the French (1955-1967). 
The US now provides money, military technology, weapons, intelligence, biased coverage, and diplomatic cover at the UN.  It allows tax exemptions for private donations to settler organizations.  It permits US citizens to join the Israeli military.  
US imperialism, with Israel’s help, dominated the Middle East for almost 60 years.  It built a huge network of military bases.  It supported oppressive regimes and fought deadly wars directly and by proxy. 
But even its massive military superiority hasn’t secured its bloody grip.    Recently, Israel has been useless to US military efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, and elsewhere.
Now the Israel Lobby’s influence is declining.  Its leaders are losing support.  Many younger Jewish-Americans detest Israeli policies.  The Christian Zionist movement is cooling.  A movement for “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) is growing on college campuses and among mainstream Protestants.
More importantly, a consensus is growing among US imperialists around a military “Pivot to Asia-Pacific.” They are attempting to disengage from the Middle East.  At some point a declining U.S. will no longer sustain Greater Israel. 

What happens to Israeli apartheid then?  Rival imperialists are already taking advantage of weakening US imperialism to extend their reach in the Middle East.  China’s large purchases of Israeli weapons systems signal an emerging military relationship.  However, its priority is securing petroleum reserves and shipping routes, not propping up Israeli apartheid. 
Palestinian activists and supporters now focus on winning equal civic (but not economic) rights within Greater Israel.  Mainstream support for BDS shows that some US rulers, along with Chinese and other imperialists, want Greater Israel to become a multi-cultural democracy wedded to global capitalism, like South Africa. 
Imperialists hope this would stabilize the region and ensure the “peaceful” exploitation of Palestinian and other workers. 

Escalating wars highlight the urgency of communist revolution.  Liberal Zionists argue that a single democratic state would have a non-Jewish majority and threaten their ethnic state.  They want a two-state solution to segregate Jews and Arabs.  But this unlikely scenario would create massive armed resistance from hundreds of thousands of Israeli “settlers.”
“Two states” could easily become dual fascism: one state run by ultra-orthodox Jewish fascists and the other by Islamic fascists.  This threat is already motivating a growing out-migration of secular Israelis and Palestinians to Europe and elsewhere. 
An isolated, highly militarized Israel might launch a devastating “last stand.” That would lead to wide-scale destruction within and beyond its boundaries.  This is on top of the Syrian civil war, Iraqi instability, multiple refugee crises, and an Iran emboldened by Russian and Chinese imperialism.  It could spiral into a larger regional war – or even world war. 

The real lessons of South Africa were starkly revealed in 2012 when the police of the African National Congress massacred 34 striking Marikana platinum miners.  Multicultural capitalism is still deadly for workers.  The black South African masses still live as super-exploited wage-slaves in grinding poverty. 
That’s why growing numbers of industrial workers and youth in South Africa are joining the International Communist Workers’ Party.  Palestinian and Israeli workers and their supporters must learn from their bitter experience.  Israeli apartheid must be destroyed by mobilizing the masses for communism, not for “democracy” or “human rights.”
The alienation of masses from established nationalist-capitalist parties creates a big opportunity to mobilize for communism.  That is our urgent, immediate task. 

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