Background to the life of Comrade Habash
George Habash was born in 1926 in Palestine in the town
of Lydd, which became Lod after the Israelis ethnically cleansed it at the time
of partition in 1947.
At
the time when George Habash was born, Palestine was a British ‘Protectorate’, a
euphemism for a British share in the spoils of war, specifically the first
world war. At the end of the war, the former Ottoman Empire was divvied up
between the victors, with Palestine falling to the British, who had for decades
been cultivating a special relationship with Palestine’s Jewish minority and
with the world zionist movement, which had its eyes on Palestine as the centre
of a Jewish homeland.
British
interest in Palestine dates back to Britain’s conquest of India, Palestine
being both astride a main overland route as well as adjacent to seas over which
any rival power – say, Germany or Russia – would need to cross were it intent
on challenging British dominion over India. Hence the necessity of ensuring
that Palestine was in the hands of authorities allied to Britain.
This
explains the attraction to the British of the proposal put to them by the
zionist, Theodor Herzl, that if they were to help the zionists establish their
‘national home’ in Palestine, they would secure for themselves a loyal Jewish
Ulster in the heart of the Middle East.
As
economic turmoil gripped capitalist Europe, Jews were made scapegoats in a
number of countries for the miseries heaped on the working class and peasant
masses by crises integral to the capitalist system, while Jews in their turn
were urged by the oppressors and exploiters to embrace zionism as the solution
to the problems of persecution and discrimination that they faced – racism as
the ‘solution’ to racism!
Chaim
Weizman (Herzl’s successor) was able in 1917 to negotiate with British
imperialism that in exchange for zionist support in the first world war, the
British would support the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine – at a
time when the Jews living in Palestine were outnumbered by more than 10:1 by
the Arabs.
By
this time, British interest in the Middle East had gone beyond the question of
access to India. The scramble for oil had begun.
Oil
was by then clearly going to be the key for future industrial and military
development. The British navy had finally been persuaded to ditch sail and
steam to rely exclusively on oil – indeed, its continued maritime supremacy
depended on its doing so. So control of the sources of oil, overwhelmingly to
be found in the Middle East so far as the Europeans were concerned, was a
question of life or death for capitalism.
While
relying heavily on the installation of compliant puppet regimes in all the
various countries that produced oil or were conduits for its transportation to
the centres of European imperialism, British imperialism also supported the
‘zionist Ulster’ as a useful back-up. The point about an ‘Ulster’ is that its reactionary regime is actually supported by its exploited masses, who feel that
they have a common interest with the regime against the far broader masses of
the population (Irish Catholics in Ireland and Arabs in Palestine).
Puppet
regimes, on the other hand, tend to be deeply unpopular among their own people
and, as a result, it is not too difficult to foresee that a time may come when
it is no longer possible for an imperialist power to rely upon them.
It
is obvious, therefore, why the British happily backed zionist plans to colonise
Palestine.
“The
advantages to the British Empire are obvious. The security of imperial
interests can be better assured by a large European population than by a few
battalions that can be spared”, remarked Lord Melchet, the founder of ICI, in this connection.
In other words, what better fate for world Jewry than to be cannon fodder in
British imperialism’s efforts to control the vast Arab population of the Middle
East?
Following
the end of the first world war, huge numbers of Jewish people were admitted by
the British for settlement in Palestine. Between 1931 and 1944, for instance,
the Jewish population almost trebled, from 173,000 to nearly 529,000.
The
Palestinian Arabs fought tooth and nail against this process of immigration,
understanding that, notwithstanding the weasel words of the Balfour Declaration
to the effect that in establishing Palestine as a national home for the Jewish
people, nothing should be done ‘which might prejudice the civil and religious
rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’, the newcomers had no
intention of coexisting peacefully with their Arab neighbours.
Quite
apart from the fact that the Palestinian people had never been consulted on the
question of their country being the national home of the Jewish people, the
declarations of the zionists themselves (whose ideology was behind the Jewish
immigration) showed that what they wanted was an exclusively Jewish state where
the fate of Arabs was at best severe discrimination and second-class
citizenship and at worst ethnic cleansing – and that in their own, Arab,
homeland!
In
the 1930s and 1940s, the Hitlerite barbarities against the Jewish people of
Germany and eastern Europe gave further impetus to zionism, as hundreds of
thousands of Jews escaping that barbarity were herded by US and British
imperialism to Palestine – although most would have preferred to relocate to
the US or safer parts of Europe.
In
1947, its dirty work done, British imperialism announced that it was
withdrawing from its Mandate, leaving it to the UN to determine the future of Palestine.
The
UN, as is well known, partitioned Palestine into an Israeli state and a
Palestinian state – again without any consultation whatsoever with the Arab
population. The Jewish state was to have a population a quarter the size of the
Palestinian state, but, even so, there were slightly more Arabs left in the
Jewish state there than there were Jews at that time.
Of
course, imbued as they were with zionist ideology, there was no way that the
zionists were prepared to tolerate having to live side by side with Arabs in
their so-called Jewish state, which in any event they considered to be
inadequate in extent. They had been inculcated with the idea that the Jewish
state needed to be ‘Goyim-rein’ – free of non-Jews.
More
than that, the zionists had been armed to the teeth and trained militarily by
their British imperialist allies throughout the 1930s and 1940s, while Arabs
had been systematically disarmed. The zionists even had their own armaments
industry. With nobody to protect their interests, the Palestinian Arabs did not
stand a chance.
Thus
it was that George Habash’s town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv was ethnically
cleansed and his entire family forced into exile at gunpoint, along with
hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs. It was a crime of monstrous
proportions for which there can never be any reparation other than the
dissolution of the zionist state of Israel and the establishment of the secular
state of Palestine, home to Jews and Arabs alike, and upholder of truly equal
rights between the two communities, with a right of return for all those who
fled their homes under the zionist assault, as well as for all their
descendants.
This
ideal of the secular Palestinian movement was always staunchly upheld by George
Habash and by the PFLP, of which he was leader, as well as by the PLO, and it
remains today, as it always was, the only solution to the Palestinian problem.
Of
course, under pressure of the first Palestinian Intifada, the imperialist
powers backing Israel – the US now playing the leading role, having taken over
from the British in the mid 1950s – came up with the ‘two-state solution’ that
offered Palestinians their own state on a fraction (22 percent) of their
original territory – and a state riddled with Jewish settlements at that.
Quite
rightly, George Habash refused to accept this could ever be a solution.
However, he also refused to accept that it might be a step towards a
solution, and, because of this, serious differences arose between his
organisation, the PFLP, at that time the second largest organisation in the
PLO, and Fatah, which was the largest.
Fatah,
under Comrade Yasser Arafat’s leadership, was prepared for tactical reasons to
accept the paltry offer that was on the table. He understood that the masses of
tend to tire of the continual sacrifices demanded by the armed struggle and
that one can lose them altogether for the struggle if one is perceived to spurn
an offer of peace.
For
this reason, although it was a difficult decision, many of us decided to
support Yasser Arafat on this question rather than the PFLP, given the
extremely difficult situation in which the Palestinians found themselves
following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And
it cannot be denied that as a result of the refusal of imperialism and its
zionist stooges to honour their side even of this grossly unequal bargain, the
Palestinian cause has been advanced to a considerable degree. Yes, the struggle
is more acute than it has ever been, and the Palestinian people are suffering
greatly, but at the same time all sympathy for Israel has been lost; Arab
regimes allied to imperialism are on shakier ground than they have ever been;
support for the armed struggle against imperialism and zionism is broader than
it ever has been, and the Oslo process also gave Palestinians access to
armaments and military training.
We
are convinced that the monster Israel is set to vanish as suddenly and
‘unexpectedly’ as, not so long ago, under the irresistible blows of the armed
struggle, apartheid South Africa vanished, never more to rear its ugly head!
George
Habash fully understood always that the fight against imperialism involves the
mobilisation of the broad masses of the people, which in turn demands class
alliances. George Habash and the PFLP, as communists, represent the interests
of the Palestinian working class and seek to be closely allied with the broad
masses of the poor peasantry, aiming at a future socialist state with a planned
economy which will be able to march forward to communism while best serving the
interests of the working class and peasantry alike.
To
achieve that socialist state, however, it is obvious that first imperialism and
its puppet zionists must be expelled from the area, and in this endeavour not
only the working class and poor peasantry, but also almost every other section
of Palestinian society, other than feudal relics dependent on imperialism for
their very survival, have an interest in the anti-imperialist struggle and have
to be encouraged to keep they eye on the ball at any cost (other than
surrender)!
Because
George Habash and the PFLP understood this essential truth, then,
notwithstanding the inevitable differences that were bound to arise between his
organisation and organisations representing other social classes,
notwithstanding that for the moment it seems easier for religious elements to
mobilise the masses than for secular forces, George Habash never allowed
himself or his party to be knocked off course and always stood for maintaining
unity within the anti-imperialist and anti-zionist struggle no matter what.
To
his dying day, he was struggling to bring about a reconciliation between Fatah
and Hamas that would strengthen the anti-imperialist struggle.
At a
moment in history when imperialism, in its death throes, is as an extremely
dangerous wild beast, willing and able to commit any infamy to preserve its
ignoble existence, anti-imperialist unity among all kinds of people who
disagree with each other over all kinds of things, is absolutely essential to
preserve.
We
have to learn to preserve that unity even with people who put forward
ridiculous policies (George Habash was able to do it, even when those
ridiculous policies could secure mass support), even with people who insult us
and hate us. If they are truly against imperialism then we are with them,
whatever they might think of us.
We
will continue to struggle for the acceptance of correct ideas, but, so long as
our opponents are genuinely engaged in fighting imperialism – in practice as
well as in words – nothing they or anyone else can do should undermine our
support for that anti-imperialist struggle.
George
Habash was a role model for this, and, to the extent that those who profess to
admire him are able to follow his precious example, this will result in a
tremendous boost for the anti-imperialist forces and a huge increase in their
power.
To
take one example, Comrade George Habash was a strong advocate of the rights of
women, and would often castigate men in the movement for failing to put their
money where their mouth was, since they would call for female equality in
words, but continue treating women in the feudal way as chattels and inferiors
in practice. The fact is that, notwithstanding the personal weaknesses of some
comrades, it is only communists who demand true equality for women. In the end,
who else can women – half the population – logically support? And what is true
of women is equally true of all the exploited and oppressed masses.
By sticking to a firm anti-imperialist line while defending what
is right, the PFLP will in time be able to gain hegemony over the mass
movement. At the end of the day, only communism offers the masses real freedom,
to build a happy life for themselves, as well as freedom of beliefs, by
destroying all exploitation and oppressive relations.