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Israel: social disintegration & insecurity
In April, MARTIN FREEMAN visited Maavak
Sozilialisti, the CWI organisation in Israel. "It is the only
non-Zionist socialist organisation capable of reaching both Jewish and
Arab working-class communities", says Martin. Social polarisation and
the break-up of the old Zionist state will lead to more pronounced
class-struggle, though this will be complicated by the national question
and the security issue.
FOR SOMEONE visiting Israel for the first time, what
strikes most is the obsession with security. Security agents and scans
are everywhere, from the airport to bus stations, at the entrance of
supermarkets, restaurants and even pubs. The ruling establishment uses
the issue as a way of diverting attention from social issues. Since the
Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority (PA) was formed in March
this year, the United Nations has reported that 17 Palestinians have
been killed by the IDF (Israel Defence Force) in Gaza, amongst them two
children. Another 64 Palestinians have been injured, including eleven
children. The brutal attack by IDF on the prison in Jericho on 14 March
was a further provocation. It looks as if the Israeli establishment
wanted to provoke further suicide bombings as a way of diverting
attention from its extreme neo-liberal policies.
In the past there was a large state sector,
Histadruth (the union federation, which in the past was also a major
employer) controlled the social-security network, with a high standard
of health care and retirement benefits. The Zionist state had strong
elements of economic interventionism, with state investment and
subsidies and a systematic financial inflow from the Jewish community
abroad, fuelling capitalist profits but also building a strong social
base amongst the Jewish population, mostly at the expense of the Arab
population. Since the early 1990s, most of the state sector including
health care has been sold off. Neo-liberalism has led to increased
exploitation, with a strong increase in the number of manpower agency
contracts. Although the economy has grown by 4.4% in 2004 and 5.2% in
2005, the number of people officially below the poverty line increased
to 24.1% compared to 21.5% in 2003 and 16% in 1991.
I visited Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Rishon. You could
feel the frustration everywhere, especially in the outskirts. Security
agents don’t escape flexibility and underpayment. Soldiers hang around
with their weapons lurching on their side. Nearly half of the youth
avoid their military service. Social security payments have been
relentlessly whittled away — cut by 35% in a single decade. Health care
and prescription drug coverage have been slashed, along with funds for
pensioners’ housing and assisted living. Even 40% of the holocaust
survivors, 170,000 pensioners, are living below the poverty line. This
was what people meant when they said to me that ‘Zionism doesn’t exist
anymore’, meaning the state and the establishment have abandoned buying
a social base in society amongst Jewish workers. The racist, provocative
policy toward the Arab population, however, has not halted, but
increased through a policy based on the separation of both communities.
The destruction of welfare explains the enthusiasm
brought about by the election of Amir Peretz as the head of the Labour
Party. Since then the party has attracted 30,000 new members. However,
internal life and rank-and-file activity are non-existent. The campaign
for the elections on 28 March was run on the basis of professional
advertising and Peretz abandoned his previous promises concerning
pensions and the minimum wage. He also appointed a neo-liberal professor
as his spokesperson on economics. Nevertheless, the Labour Party still
won 19 seats. The potential for a more left-wing formation, however, was
expressed in a distorted way through the sudden success of the
pensioners’ party. It actually got more votes from youth than pensioners
and obtained seven seats. This party, seen as being on the left, is
headed by a formerly unknown ex-chief of Mossad (the secret service)
who made his fortune in deals with Cuba, and some retired union
leaders.
Likud, the party that dominated Israeli politics
since 1977, suffered a massive setback. This partly reflected anger at
the neo-liberal policies carried out by its leader, Binyamin Netanyahu,
as former finance minister. It also expressed the urge to abandon the
idea of a ‘Greater Israel’, which is seen as unrealistic and a threat to
security by the overall majority of the population. The newly created
Kadima (Forward) narrowly won the elections. Kadima was formed by Ariel
Sharon after he broke from Likud last year, and is mainly composed of
ex-Labour and ex-Likud careerists, led by Ehud Olmert since Sharon was
incapacitated by a stroke. Kadima won mainly because of its commitment
to continue the policy of unilateral withdrawal behind the separation
wall. Many Israelis hope this will end the conflict. The other main
victor, the hard-line nationalist, Avigdor Liebermann, expresses more
openly the purpose of this policy: retain control of most of the
settlements on the West Bank but redraw the border to effectively deport
entire Israeli Arab city populations. Olmert already announced that
eventually Israel will unilaterally decide the new borders by 2008.
The election result has forced the establishment to
form an unstable four-party coalition. The government is headed by
Olmert and Kadima. Peretz, who has actually helped to bring social
issues into politics, got the poisoned cup, becoming defence minister.
The pensioners’ party received the ministry of health, and Shas, which
opposes shopping on the Sabbath, received the ministry of industry and
commerce. Even though there is a budget surplus of about $1.7 billion
accumulated over the previous months and minor concessions are not
excluded, everything points to a continuation of neo-liberal policies.
Wages are decreasing (-1.7% in February) while food prices are
increasing (bread +7%). New battles along class lines will eventually
burst out. This leads many in Israel to tell us they agree with us on
the social issues. But because, at present, they see no alternative to
the existing Israeli capitalist state as the defender of a Jewish state,
and they are offered no positive alternative by the Palestinian
political elite, they argue at the same time that we should not take up
the security issue, nor the national question.
We understand why people prefer not to take up the
security issue, but we can’t agree. It is there, as was proved by the
suicide attack on the old bus station in Tel Aviv on 15 April, a
terrible response to the many provocations by IDF in the previous weeks.
The bomber took nine lives together with his own, mostly working-class
immigrants. Tel Aviv’s old bus station is in a poor working-class
neighbourhood, only 1-2 kilometres away from the financial heart of the
country. Neither Olmert’s unilateral policy, nor the separation wall,
nor the military raids, will be able to stop suicide bombers. The latent
support for the suicide bombers among Palestinians has to be undermined
by the building of decent housing, hospitals and schools and by
delivering electricity and water, in order to reconstruct society. Such
reconstruction requires material, social progress and the satisfaction
of the Palestinians’ demand for self-determination and democratic
rights. The means for such a policy exist, but they are piled up in the
accounts and safes of a handful of capitalists profiteering from the
wealth created by both Jewish and Arab workers.
The Palestinian population should have the right to
defend their communities, including by armed struggle. However, this is
completely different from the blind suicide bombings which are not
weakening but strengthening the Israeli state. Rather than drawing the
Israeli working class away from the state and their capitalist
exploiters, suicide bombings push them behind it. Many Israeli workers
are ready to fight their exploiters, but at the same time they aim for a
secure and peaceful existence. Both communities should have the right to
run their own state in a secure environment with respect for their
respective minorities. This will only be possible if the massive
productive forces are mobilised to create decent living and working
conditions for all. Such a policy demands the removal of the capitalists
and their states and the building of socialist societies. On that basis,
negotiations on the borders, the status of Jerusalem and the return of
Palestinian refugees would become a public and democratic discussion
between the working masses of both communities.
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