Spanish State - Madrid - October 24, 2023
Statemen by the International Workers' Organizer, voice of the FLTI, and the Truth of the Oppressed, paper of the socialists of Syria, Magrheb and Middle East
In a debate with the islamophobic and social democrat position of the left parties that condemn the legitimate right of an occupied nation as Palestine to military action against the Zionist occupant...
The Palestinian organization Al-Yudur
is right
Within the Spanish youth movement there is an increasing feeling and predisposition to fight with the Palestinian people and Gaza in particular against the State of Israel. Many students have taken to the streets calling for a national students strike. A new generation of students rises up against the Zionist-fascist state of Israel. Their struggle reminds us of the latest Chilean uprising in Santiago against the Pinochetist regime, in which the youth played a central role in the fight against private education.
This time, hundreds of thousands of students in the Spanish State, fighting for Palestine, anticipate that the spark of a possible worker uprising against the infamous regime of the monarchy and NATO that, together with the EU, sponsor the Zionist state, occupant of Palestine.
During the preparation of these actions of struggle at the Complutense University in Madrid, left parties such as the PTS (and its groups Contracorriente and Pan y Rosas) and Izquierda Revolucionaria - El Militante (Revolutionary left – The Militant) have opened a crisis within the movement supporting the Palestinian people.
The group Complu ELAI (Space free of Israeli Apartheid), the solidarity network for Palestinian prisoners Samidoun (Steadfast), Palestinian youth Al-Yudur (Roots) and the Palestinian women movement Alkarama (Dignity) denounce that, when a 300 students rally supporting the Palestinian cause was coming to an end, a minority led by Contracorriente, Pan y Rosas and Izquierda Revolucionaria - El Militante self-proclaimed an assembly and called for a general strike for October 26th without the support of the Palestinian organizations that were leading the solidarity with the Palestinian people at that university. These organizations are calling for an assembly for October 25th to decide the following steps in their struggle.
With this ultimatum policy, left parties have fractured the solidarity with the Palestinian people. This cannot happen. Every ultimatum policy trying to take over global mass actions “from above” ends up curbing their development and radicalization.
Even though these left parties may have differences with the Palestinian organizations leading the solidarity with their people at that University, they can’t take over the spaces to fight and unite actions against Zionism, which they do, as we will demonstrate, in order to impose their program. This is beyond the fact that they have the right to express their program as so do we, who disagree with their position as we consider it to be “left-wing” Zionism.
The real discussion on the Palestinian question that underlies the organizational maneuvers of the reformist left
To tell the truth, this split in the unity of action is nothing more than the expression of a programmatic position raised by the PTS, as different Stalinist currents of the European and world left are trying to do, in order to condemn the action of Hamas and give condolences to the “civilian” dead on October 7.
As we have been stating from our paper “The Truth of the Oppressed”, we are not willing to give any condolences to fascist Zionist settlers armed to the teeth who occupy the Palestinian nation. We don’t call to condemn the military self-defense of the Palestinian people and their organizations, which are defending themselves against a genocide that has already been taking place for 75 years.
And we say this beyond the political and military differences we have with these organizations. We debate this issue, but from the trenches of the Palestinian nation at war and on a unity front of military action against Zionism with the organizations that defend it.
This debate was underlying the open crisis in the student movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people at the Complutense University in Madrid.
The student group Contracorriente and Pan y Rosas, and their allies from Izquierda Revolucionaria - El Militante, with their divisive policy of condemning the legitimate right of Hamas to confront the occupation forces of their nation, have not even stopped to think that a student strike is not the same if it is carried out and promoted by the Palestinian student struggle organizations at the head that without them. It is not only about preparing a strike by the student movement, but also that, supported by it, the student body can act as a spark that ignites the prairie and goes to look for the working class of the Spanish State to conquer a general strike to confront the Borbon monarchy, which with NATO and the US, supports the Zionist-fascist state of Israel.
The Palestinian organizations of the Spanish State not only issued a statement against the divisive policy of the PTS followers in Madrid, but the Palestinian youth Al-Yudur has been responding with strong arguments against the total capitulation to the State of Israel of the currents of the pro-Zionist reformist left that exist internationally, and in particular of the collaterals of the PTS in Madrid.
From the paper “The Truth of the Oppressed” of Syria, a member of the Collective for the Re-Foundation of the 4th International/FLTI, we strongly condemn the divisive policy of these currents and call to recompose the unity of action around unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people, for the destruction of the Zionist-fascist State of Israel, for the expulsion of the occupier of the Palestinian nation and its settlers supported by billions and billions of dollars from the US so that they can occupy the Palestinian land. We unconditionally recognize the right to generalized arming of the oppressed and occupied nation. We promote the general disarmament of the 800,000 Zionists, aged from 18 to 45, who, armed to the teeth, expel the Palestinian peasant from the land, surround the oppressed people in true ghettos like that of Warsaw, and who, with their union centre, the Histadrut, act as a fascist force of control and death of the Palestinian workers.
We demand that all armed organizations of the Palestinian people to be declared belligerent armies, since this is what they are.
To condemn any of the Palestinian resistance organizations, in moments of military clashes, when they are attacked by all imperialism worldwide, regardless of the differences that you may had with their policy or their program, is to call for open proscription to these organizations of the Palestinian people and end up accusing them, in fact, of “terrorists.” This is the argument used by the Macron, Biden and Netanyahu front, who have declared war in Gaza against an occupied people, massacring them, demolishing their cities.
Weapons for Hamas! Weapons for the PLO! Arms for the Palestinian people!
May the Palestinians stripped of their lands in Lebanon and Jordan, breaking the control of the coward Arab bourgeoisies, enter the fight with their brothers in Gaza!
Enough of pacts and collaboration of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO with the occupier! Weapons, for the workers and the poor people of the West Bank! If genocide and military defeat are imposed in Gaza, tomorrow we will witness the tragedy of the demolition to rubbles of Nablus, Ramallah and the entire West Bank.
To give condolences for the death of Zionist “civilians” and condemning the legitimate military action of stopping the bandits who steal the land of the Palestinian people at gunpoint, is to cover up the Zionist State of Israel for what it is: a US fortress and the imperialist oil companies to take care of the oil routes from where they loot all the peoples of the Maghreb and the Middle East.
The PTS and its collaterals treat counterrevolutionary settlers, armed to the teeth, as “civilian population” and take away the right to self-defense from the Palestinian people however they decide. A shame
The politics of the PTS followers in Madrid of Contracorriente and Pan y Rosas is nothing new. It was explicit before millions of workers and young people in the electoral campaign in Argentina. When the presidential candidates debated in the elections in Argentina, where everyone condemned Hamas as a “terrorist,” the candidate for the Left Front and leader of the PTS, Myriam Bregman, sent condolences to the Zionist “civilians” killed by the action of Hamas. This is a complete capitulation to Zionism by an Islamophobic left, which goes in favour of the “anti-terrorist front” policy with which they were massacred yesterday in Syria (with the excuse of ISIS) and are massacring and demolishing the whole of Gaza to rubble today. And she did this before millions and millions of young people and workers in Argentina.
From the paper The Truth of the Oppressed of the Syrian socialists we affirm that in Israel there are no “civilian” Zionists. They are settlers who are occupying a land that is not theirs, at gunpoint, armed to the teeth from the ages of 18 to 45, with salaries of U$D 4,000 a month paid by the US. The Zionist who goes to Israel knows that he/she is going to kill a Palestinian to steal his land.
The social-imperialist left does not want to recognize the character of a belligerent force that Hamas has, as well as that of every Palestinian resistance organization that faces, with weapons in hand, the Zionist occupation, supported by the US and imperialist Europe. This is even what the Geneva Convention establishes when people fights against an occupation that invades their nation.
The social-imperialist left, while condemning Hamas, paints those who work the stolen land at gunpoint and with massacres of the Palestinian people as “pacifists” and “civilian peasants.”
The lie of the progressive character of a “Jewish working class” organized in the fascist worker-bourgeois union centre, the Histadrut
Lately, to support Zionism and its state of occupation on the left, this left proclaims the existence of a “Jewish working class.” This is another lie. The “Jewish working class” is nothing more than an arrogant labour aristocracy with wages of thousands of dollars, associated in the Histadrut with murderous bosses closely linked to Wall Street bankers.
Do they claim that the “Jewish working class” would unite with Palestinian workers in the same fighting organizations, when they have no common interest? But if the Palestinian working class is in concentration camps, in ghettos, they earn less than U$D 200 and need work permits to pass through the Zionist checkpoints to go to work every day, a permit for which the Histadrut charges them 10% of their wage. The “Jewish working class” has its fate and privileges tied to the Zionist-fascist State of Israel, and that is why it defends it with weapons in hand, and is the mortal enemy of the absolute majority of the Palestinian working class.
We fight for the unity of workers of all religions in occupied Palestine, but what every Jewish worker with class consciousness has to do is join the Palestinian unions and must hand over the rifles that are given to them since they are 18 years old to the Palestinian armed self-defense organizations. In occupied Palestine, you are either an armed settler stealing land, or you are a heroic partisan fighting for a free Palestine from the Jordan River to the sea, with its capital in Jerusalem.
This is what Trotsky defined about the white labor aristocracy in the Apartheid regime of South Africa colonized by England in the last century, an occupation regime with which the black nation was oppressed and occupied and the workers of the region were super-exploited. Trotsky's position was clear: “In any case, the worst crime on the part of the revolutionists would be to give the smallest concessions to the privileges and prejudices of the whites. Whoever gives his little finger to the devil of chauvinism is lost.
The revolutionary Party must put before every white worker the following alternative: either with British Imperialism and with the white bourgeoisie of South Africa, or, with the black workers and peasants against the white feudalists and slave-owners and their agents in the ranks of the working class itself.” (Leon Trotsky, Remarks on the Draft Theses of The Workers Party of South Africa,1935)
This is what we propose in Palestine, as in South Africa occupied by England in the last century, where the fate of white workers and their privileges was linked to the domination of British imperialism and the white bourgeoisie. The same as with the “Zionist working class”. It is only in this way that they will retain their privileges. Making the slightest concession to a tiny minority of rich workers, associated with the Zionist capitalists who subjugate and enslave the Palestinian workers, would be the greatest crime on the part of the revolutionists. This is what the majority of the reformist left does internationally. No concessions to the “Jewish working class” and its worker-bourgeois union center! No submission to the State of occupation of the Palestinian nation!
For our part, we say to the “Jewish worker”: “Either with the murderous Zionist-fascist State of Israel, or with the Palestinian workers and their fighting organizations.” There is no other alternative for a “Zionist working class” that supports the State of Israel.
This is a question of basic principles, and is based on our recognition that Palestine is an occupied nation and will only be liberated by destroying the Zionist-fascist State of Israel.
Of course we have political differences with the Palestinian bourgeoisie and with the military strategy of Hamas. But we have these differences and we maintain them within the trench of the Palestinian nation, at a military front confronting the invader. We disagree with the policy with which Hamas tries to break the siege on Gaza, of small military blows to open negotiations and obtain supplies, food, etc.
We believe that the way forward is to make an appeal, putting to good use the mass influence that Hamas has, to the Palestinian people in Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank (where it also won the elections in 2006 against the PLO), to unite the nation that was deprived from their lands and live in concentration camps and ghettos, to set up a political and military board to expel the State of Israel and conquer a Palestinian National Assembly, which would declare a free, secular, democratic and non-racist Palestinian nation. Such an action would be an electric shock for millions of exploited in the Middle East who, overpassing the coward Arab bourgeoisies, would enter the fight alongside their brothers and sisters from martyred Gaza.
But this is our opinion on what the path to success is. We raise it while unconditionally supporting the right of Hamas to carry out military actions against settlers armed to the teeth, supported by one of the most powerful armies in the world and by the United States, whose navy fleets are already in the Mediterranean Sea.
In the same way, we disagree with the Hamas leadership that looked the other way, as the PLO did, while al-Assad and Putin we're massacring the heroic Syrian revolution on behalf of imperialism. Today, life gives its verdict: millions are taking to the streets in support of the Palestinian people in the liberated north, while in the areas of fascist al-Assad every demonstration against Zionism is forbidden, mostly when they call to break the borders of the Golan, which The Assads have been defending for decades.
We disagree with the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank precisely because it refuses to arm the people for setting up partisan brigades and militias that openly enter combat. Instead, it represses the Palestinian people who seek to revolt, as we have seen in Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah.
For this reason we denounce the Palestinian Authority that has just received Macron -who calls for an army to invade Lebanon- and is begging Biden to “rebuild peace and to respect the 'two states'”… They are the collaborationist forces with the occupier. Their cynicism reminds us of the French imperialist bourgeoisie associated with the butchers of Berlin in the France of the Vichy Republic.
We unconditionally support the entry of the entire Palestinian working class into battle and the call of their unions to the workers of the entire world to break the siege on Gaza, not to load any kind of transport or ships with war supplies for the State of Israel, a task that the American working class and the Spanish State are already beginning to make their own.
We affirm that with the independence of poor workers and peasants of the Palestinian nation and its diaspora, together with the oppressed of the entire Middle East, and supported by the international fight of the working class, the Zionist beast, supported by the US navy, will be defeated and the longed-for justice and peace will come. Both of them will only be conquered with a victorious worker and peasant revolution.
As we see, standing with massacred Palestine means not giving any rights (contrariwise to what the pro-Zionist left does) to those who occupy it. From our revolutionary current in the Middle East, we call to organize and carry supplies, solidarity, and go to fight together with the Palestinian resistance.
We have already experienced a genocide in Syria. This should not happen or be imposed in Palestine. Otherwise, a black night will invade the entire region and all the oppressed in the world.
In the discussion with the pro-Zionist left, Al-Yudur is right
In the movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people there must be a clear cleavage. On the one hand, the ones who are for unity with the Zionist occupier and colonizer. Those, as we are, who fight for the expulsion of the Zionist occupier and for the widespread arming of the Palestinian people to recover their nation, on the other hand.
On the one hand, those who support the institutions of the State of Israel and its fascist unions and settlers. On the other hand, those as we do, who affirm that the Jewish youth or worker can only be considered a democrat and anti-colonialist if he/she joins the Palestinian unions and gives his/her rifle to the Palestinian resistance.
We condemn these currents and their small groups that, with pompous “socialist” programs they only hold on holidays, want to manipulate the enormous solidarity of millions that is already traveling around the world, in order to impose their policies. This objectively weakens the international solidarity, since they consider the military forces that are confronting the occupation and genocide in Gaza as vulgar “terrorists.”
The currents that disrupt the unity of action of the students of Madrid are those that ultimately, support critically Zionism. In turn, Zionism also has its “left” agents, who proclaim the existence of “socialist” Kibbutzim and “collective farms” to cover up the theft of land from the Palestinian nation.
"Contracorriente" and "Pan y Rosas" do not hesitate to break the unity of action with the Palestinian youth who lead the struggle and the solidarity of the student movement of the Spanish State with its people, just as they did not hesitate to attack, even with physical threats, the revolutionaries who, as in Bolivia, denounced the policy of this current of giving "condolences" to the Zionists.
These people break the unity of the struggle and seek to attack those of us who consistently fight for the destruction of the State of Israel and for a liberated Palestine, while they salute and send condolences to the fascist settlers who are occupying the Palestinian nation.
We are not forging their positions, which are and have been always public, although now they are trying to hide or disguise them. That is their true position. It became very clear and was recorded in the debate of their presidential candidate in Argentina and in the public statements of the PTS in the Spanish State such as the one published on October 17th in La Izquierda Diario, where they affirm: “We do not share either the Hamas' methods or strategy and we reject its attacks on the civilian population. In this way it is impossible to achieve the necessary unity between the Palestinian Arab population and the Israeli Arab population, as well as with the sectors of Jewish workers who want to confront the State of Israel, breaking with Zionism and the apartheid that it imposes against the Palestinian people.”
This is the classic position of the former Stalinist Communist Parties and the bureaucracy of the former USSR that founded, from the UN, together with the US, the State of Israel in 1948. The new generation that enters the fight in support of the Palestinian nation must know that Stalinism is the co-founder of the State of Israel.
Their arguments were not so different from what this current puts forward today from Buenos Aires and Madrid. The CP passed off the Kibbutzim as “socialist collective farms” and joined the Histadrut, a workers-bourgeois union center, whose terrorist militia, called Haganah, was the vanguard in the expropriation of the land of the Palestinian people. Nothing new under the sun.
That is why we affirm that in this debate, the Palestinian organization Al-Yudur is right and we salute their courageous response to the pro-Zionist left that claims to support the Palestinian people, but is opposed to raise the slogan of “destruction of the State of Israel” for Palestine to be free.
The Al-Yudur current of Madrid responds:
“There are no civilians in Israeli society. They are all occupiers, settlers and invaders on a land that is not theirs. The role that the settler plays in maintaining the regime, through their mere existence, is the key piece of all this. There are no anti-colonial settlers.”
“Resistance is a right recognized by international legislation to peoples who are under colonial domination, by all means at their disposal, including armed struggle. You are condemning our legitimate self-defense.”
“Palestine has the right to defend itself from colonialism. Armed struggle is the right of all peoples subject to the colonial yoke, as international law says. Israel does not have the right to colonize. The only terrorist is the Israeli regime…”
Brave response.
Millions are already taking to the streets around the world. The student movement of Madrid has been at the forefront of this internationalist fight for the Palestinian masses.
From the partisans of the Syrian revolution, we confront the forces like those of Putin and al-Assad that defend the borders of Zionism in the Golan Heights, crushing, drowning in blood, occupying and dividing our nation, doing the “dirty work” for imperialism, and we affirm: It is time for an international mass counteroffensive that surround the Palestinian nation with solidarity to stop the massacre that imperialism is preparing, like yesterday in Iraq and Syria, for the entire region.
The US and Zionism are the terrorists that are demolishing the martyred Gaza house by house, building by building!
The rebellion of the slaves is not a crime, it is justice!
For a day of rage, of international struggle in support of the Palestinian people!
For a National Assembly of the Palestinian people, with delegates from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the entire diaspora in the world, to coordinate and centralize the fight for the destruction of the Zionist-fascist State of Israel!
We revolutionary Marxists affirm that this task can only be achieved by a workers and peasants' government, supported by the armed revolutionary Palestinian masses.
One man, one gun! Weapons for Palestine! We must break the siege of Gaza!
Down with the pacts of the Arab bourgeoisies with Zionism and imperialism!
War to the war of Zionism and imperialism! Let's stop the massacre by al-Assad, Putin and the US against the oppressed people of Syria, and of Saudi Arabia on behalf of imperialism against the rebelled Yemen!
Let us take to all the unions and worker, student and anti-imperialist organizations in the world the call of the Palestinian unions, which is already being taken as their own in London and Catalonia.
Let the ports stop! Neither a weapon nor a supply for the US military apparatus and Zionism! Stop the weapons factories that supply the State of Israel from Tel Aviv to massacre and keep occupied Palestine in ghettos!
Make way to proletarian internationalism! European general strike!
As against the US invasion of Vietnam and Iraq, Open the way for the American working class!
Throughout the Maghreb and the Middle East, the same enemy, the same intifada. We must take Jerusalem by destroying the Zionist-fascist State of Israel!
Editorial Board of the paper “The Truth of the Oppressed”, member of the Collective for the Re-foundation of the Fourth International / FLTI
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Al-Yudur statement supporting Gaza
Zionist massacre in Gaza
Zionist bombings on Gaza
March of students from the Complutense University of Madrid supporting Gaza
Assembly of solidarity with Palestine of the students of the Complutense University of Madrid
Complu ELAI statement regarding attempts to appropriate solidarity with Palestine at the Complutense University of Madrid
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