Al-Hakim, Comrade George Habash
It is a great honour to speak on behalf of the IWA(GB)
at this memorial meeting in memory of Al-Hakim (the healer/the wise
one), Comrade Dr George Habash, founder of the PFLP.
I
want to take this opportunity to bring greetings from the Indian Workers
Association (Great Britain) to the Palestinian people and their organisations
in struggle.
In
particular, on this occasion, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, but not forgetting Hamas, the democratically elected representatives
of the Palestinian people, so recently excluded from the farcical negotiations
of Annapolis.
I
bring greetings, also, to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. We will
never forget its late lamented leader Yasser Arafat, whose shoes have proved
too big to fill by its current leadership, but whose role in the struggle will
undoubtedly persist and be reinvigorated as its cadres learn the lessons of the
current situation.
The
Principle Charter of the IWA(GB), printed on the membership card of every
member, states that the central mission of our organisation is to oppose racism
and imperialism, and to support the right of nations to independence and
self-determination.
Racism
weakens the British working class, makes it incapable of organising to defend
its common interests.
Likewise,
national chauvinism, anti-Islamism and religious bigotry are tools used to
lessen our sympathies for the victims of our imperialist ruling class; to keep
us hitched to the war chariot of imperialism.
Lenin
said: “The revolutionary movement in the advanced countries would certainly
be a sheer fraud if, in their struggle against capital, the workers of Europe
and America were not closely and completely united with the hundreds upon
hundreds of ‘colonial’ slaves who are oppressed by capital.”
Learning
from the history of India’s struggle against British imperialism, we see that
the most progressive members of the British working class – in particular the
then newly-formed CPGB – supported the Indian people’s struggle for national
independence. They did so because it was their struggle.
Israel, an apartheid state
In
my youth, the IWA(GB) was active in the struggle against the racist Apartheid
system in South Africa. We remained so until that system of Bantustans,
systematic discrimination, torture, and marginalisation was torn down. And it
was torn down, notwithstanding the ongoing struggle of South Africa’s poor black masses for true economic and political emancipation.
And
we continue to be opposed to the zionist project in Israel; a project which is
no less racist than apartheid South Africa. A project which, like the apartheid
regime in South Africa, has proved expert in the use of apartheid walls,
fortified settlements, ‘Jewish only’ roads, checkpoints and passbooks, as well
as in the more traditional forms of state oppression such as prisons, police
and army (Israeli Defence Force, if you will!)
All
of these means have been used by Israel to divide the remaining Palestinian
nation (living on just 22 percent of historic Palestine) into a series of
around 170 Bantustans, barely able to engage in social and economic intercourse
with each other.
It
is no exaggeration to talk of an entire nation imprisoned.
Israel
is no less willing than apartheid South Africa was to torture, kill and maim
innocent men women and children – all in the name of ‘defending human rights’
(of its citizens) and ‘fighting terrorism’. How hollow those phrases have come
to sound on the lips of the zionists!
Israel is no less willing to expel the
oppressed majority from their homes, exclude them from the best land and the
economic fruits of their labour – solely on the basis of their race.
And Israel is certainly no less willing to trample on the rights of its neighbouring states: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon again (and again!) – to invade and bombard them –
all under the protective wing of, and with massive subsidies from, US, British
and EU imperialism. Indeed, the US alone gives $3.2bn in subsidy annually to
the zionist state.
The Holocaust industry
Despite
all this, people are often offended when criticism is extended to Israel; they are quick to label critics of zionism as ‘anti-Semitic’. This tactic, used to
undermine criticism of Israel’s actions, goes to ridiculous lengths: “All
Arabs are anti-Semitic,” they will say (adding, in parenthesis, that “they
have plenty of room, they should just clear off”, and ignoring the fact
that both Arabs and Jews were fraternal Semitic tribes in origin!)
The
Jewish people have suffered, we are told – and historically this is true. But
does that justify present ongoing crimes against the wholly innocent
Palestinian people? Of course it does not!
God
promised this land to the Jews, the zionists will say; they are God’s ‘chosen
people’. This is a somewhat less convincing argument, but at base one of racial
superiority, not dissimilar to the nonsense perpetrated within living memory of
the ‘Aryan master race’.
Norman
Finklestein noted in his book, The Holocaust Industry, how imperialism,
having adopted zionist Israel, has used its own past crimes (against the Jews)
to attempt to divert criticism from the very real terrorist crimes of modern
day zionism.
For
this service, Mr Finkelstein too has been labelled anti-Semitic and a
‘self-hating Jew’ by the orthodox zionist clique.
The
words of Theodor Herzl, quoted by Harpal Brar in the introduction to his book
Imperialism in the Middle East are instructive in this regard:
“[F]or
Europe we shall create there in Palestine an outpost against Asia, we shall be
the vanguard of the civilised world against barbarism . . . England with her
possessions in Asia should be most interested in Zionism . . . The shortest
route to India is by way of Palestine. And so I believe in England that the idea of Zionism, which is a colonial idea, should easily be understood. “
And
this from Arthur Balfour, British foreign secretary, in 1917:
“The
four great powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong,
good or bad, is rooted in age-old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes
of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs
who now inhabit that ancient land . . . Whatever deference should be paid to the
views of those living there, the powers in their selection of a mandatory do
not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them.”
Israel, then, in the words of its founder,
is a colonial idea. The suffering of the Palestinian people is in aid of oil
and empire.
Those who make the wounds
At
this point, I would like to introduce the testimony of Comrade Norman Bethune,
a Canadian surgeon who went to the aid of republican Spain and then served in
the medical corps of the Chinese communist eighth route army fighting Japanese
colonial fascism in the 1930s.
After
spending another long night operating on the wounded soldiers, just behind the
front line, he described his night’s work: amputating legs, opening abdomens
and sewing up perforated loops of bowel, debriding the jagged wounds of the
young soldiers’ shattered limbs; fighting blood loss and infection, everywhere
infection.
And
he extended his medical care to the young Japanese soldiers too, noting their
similarity to their Chinese brothers; their workers’ hands.
‘Who
is responsible for these crimes?’ he asked himself. Should we not seek the
guilty party by looking for those with a motive – as we would solve any other
crime? Who stands to gain by sending a million Japanese soldiers to butcher a
million more Chinese?
“Behind
all stands that terrible, implacable God of Business and Blood, whose name is
Profit. Money, like an insatiable Moloch, demands its interest, its return, and
will stop at nothing, not even the murder of millions, to satisfy its greed.
Behind the army stand the militarists. Behind the militarists stand finance
capital and the capitalist. Brothers in blood; companions in crime.
“What do these enemies of the human
race look like? Do they wear on their foreheads a sign so that they may be told,
shunned and condemned as criminals? No. On the contrary. They are the
respectable ones. They are honoured. They call themselves, and are called,
gentlemen. What a travesty on the name, Gentlemen! They are the pillars of the
state, of the church, of society. They support private and public charity out
of the excess of their wealth. They endow institutions. In their private lives
they are kind and considerate. They obey the law, their law, the law of
property. But there is one sign by which these gentle gunmen can be told.
Threaten a reduction on the profit of their money and the beast in them awakes
with a snarl. They become ruthless as savages, brutal as madmen, remorseless as
executioners. Such men as these must perish if the human race is to continue.
There can be no permanent peace in the world while they live. Such an
organisation of human society as permits them to exist must be abolished.
“‘These men make the wounds’”.
The current situation
Years
of colonial humiliation inflicted by Israel have been punctured by growing
periods of militant Palestinian struggle, exemplified by the 1987 Intifada (or
uprising).
Following
the first gulf war and collapse of the Soviet Union, Yasser Arafat negotiated
with Yitzak Rabin to accomplish the historic Oslo Accords of 1993, which could
have acted as the basis of a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinian
people. At that time, the PFLP did not agree with the compromise, but the
Palestinian people were thirsty for peace and an accommodation.
Rabin,
in fact, was shot dead by zionist extremists for his ‘betrayal’ two years
later.
Constant
delays, foot dragging and failures to implement the promised changes
(culminating with Ehud Barak’s total intransigence at Camp David in July 2000)
led to the exhaustion of Palestinian patience and a return to more militant
forms of struggle.
The
Al-Aqsa Intifada was triggered in September 2000 by violation of the Haram
al-Sharif compound, where the Al-Aqsa mosque (Islam’s third holiest shrine) and
the Temple on the Mount (deemed holy by Judaism) are situated. Sharon marched
on the mosque, accompanied by some 2,000 armed security personnel and IDF
thugs, in order to send the clear message that Israel would never give up East
Jerusalem, or indeed the idea of a greater, ‘Eretz’, Israel. The following day,
Israeli gunships opened fire on Palestinian worshippers, killing 10 and
injuring more than 200.
A
sea of anger followed, bringing an increase in reprisal attacks within Israel and Palestine. Not only was there a rise of retaliatory attacks on Israeli army and militia,
but reprisals were increasingly directed at the US puppet-master, as
exemplified by the attack on the USS Cole as she lay at anchor in Yemen.
Israel has taken to Nazi-style punishment
bombings of civilian flats and districts in Gaza and the West Bank. We are
regularly subjected to the horrific spectacle of seeing her rain bullets, bombs
and rockets on innocent Palestinian civilians, using the latest and most
sophisticated jet fighters, attack helicopter gunships and field artillery guns
to kill and maim Palestinian civilians en masse.
After
the sad Death of Yasser Arafat on 11 November 2004, Mahmoud Abbas was selected
as the new leader of the PLO, and swept to victory in presidential elections.
Unlike his much-lamented predecessor, however, he was clearly much swayed by
the influence of the US, and has failed to steadfastly uphold the minimum
demands of Palestinian people for a two-state solution, namely:
·
A Palestinian state on 1967 Borders (22 percent of historic Palestine);
·
East Jerusalem as its capital;
·
The release of all political prisoners;
·
The right of return for all refugees (now grown in number to 5
million);
·
An end to the building of settlements inside the 1967 borders of Palestine;
·
The destruction of the apartheid wall (which, incidentally, is
robbing another 20 percent of meagre Palestinian territory, along with many of
its precious water and other resources).
Palestinians
lost faith in the former PLO leadership and voted for the principled and
uncompromising stance of Hamas in the parliamentary elections of January 2006.
US
and Israel have encouraged Abbas to split the unity of the Palestinian people,
so jealously guarded by Arafat – and, indeed, by Dr George Habash and the PFLP
– and continue to disregard their own allegedly cherished principles of
democracy by refusing to recognise the results of the January 2006 election.
So
displeased were the US and EU by the defiance of the Palestinians that they
halted all aid to Palestine following Hamas’ election victory, finally hitting
on the perverse tactic of reinstating partial aid in June 2006 (after
international pressure in light of the suffering they were causing), but
insisting that this should flow through the discredited Abbas leadership, in a
further cynical bid to starve the Palestinians out of supporting Hamas.
While
the US is intensifying its genocidal wars against the long-suffering peoples of
Iraq and Afghanistan, and as Iran is feeling itself under increasing threat,
Israel is being re-affirmed as a pillar of US military strategy: that country’s
‘largest aircraft carrier in the Middle East’.
Annapolis
conference and the siege of Gaza
To
divert attention at this crucial time from the suffering of the Palestinians,
Iraqis and Afghans, not to mention the power games being played out in Pakistan
and across the region, the representatives of some 47 countries were invited to
attend international ‘peace talks’ on the future of Palestine in Annapolis, the
capital of Maryland (US).
Both
the democratically elected Hamas government of the Palestinian people and the
Iranian government were conspicuous by their absence, however, making a mockery
of the entire proceedings.
Mass
demonstrations throughout Palestine took place to express the anger of the
people and oppose the talks. In the words of Khaled Meshal, Hamas leader:
“While
the Palestinian people are divided, no-one is authorised to give up an inch of
land, exchange it or give up the right of return.
“Strategically,
the US is setting the stage and covering up for the upcoming American war in
the region . . . There are preparations for an American war on Iran, and
perhaps other parties – Syria, Lebanon and Hizbollah. Therefore America is distracting us with a false game and is preparing for the real one.”
Since
19 September 2007, Gaza has been officially dubbed ‘enemy territory’ by Israel, and its 1.5 million inhabitants have been under siege. The following statistics
paint a graphic picture of life as it currently stands inside the world’s
biggest ever death camp:
·
80 percent of
Gazans are reliant on food aid, receiving just two thirds of their recommended
daily calorific intake;
·
90 percent of
Gazans are living below the poverty line;
·
Electricity has
been cut off and diesel supplies stopped;
·
Water supplies from
Israel have been cut off, with the result that 210,000 people have access to
water for just two hours a day;
·
Medicines and
essential supplies are being denied.
·
The 900 supply
trucks that formerly entered the territory daily have been reduced to a mere 15
per day (1.5 percent).
The
people of Gaza are being collectively punished for supporting Hamas; for
supporting the party that maintained military pressure on Israel at a time when the Palestinian population was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the willingness
of the Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, to toe the
line of Israel and the US.
On
17 January, all borders between Gaza and the outside world were completely
sealed, preventing any relief from this Israeli-created hell. This proved to be
the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back as far as the inhabitants of Gaza were concerned. With absolutely nothing to lose, they rebelled en masse and, on 23
January, the Egyptian border was breached, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
crossed into Egypt to buy essential goods.
The
Israeli authorities are rightly worried that the next such breach might see
masses marching into their confiscated homeland within Israel itself.
Meanwhile,
the constant military violence against the imprisoned people of Gaza has never ceased. Even since the farcical Annapolis ‘peace’ talks, 117 people have
been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, bringing the total killed since the
beginning of the second Intifada to 6,067.
The
silence from the ‘international community’, so prepared to take part in the
‘peace process’ for Palestine, has been deafening. While claiming to be unable
to sit and talk with Hamas, which is apparently ‘too violent’ (ie, is taking a
steadfast anti-imperialist stand against Israeli oppression), the various
imperialist powers appear to have been no such qualms about having Israel at
the conference while it continues violently to oppress the Palestinian people.
There
have been no demands on Israel to end the siege, or calls by the self-styled
‘champions of human rights’ and ‘humanitarian watchdogs’ of the US and Britain for a major outcome of the so-called peace conference to be at the very least the end
of the siege. What a sham!
One-state solution
For
any negotiations on the future of Israel/Palestine to be successful, they must
be on the basis of the minimum programme of the Palestinian people: full
Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders and the right of return for Palestinian
refugees.
This
programme was set in motion at Oslo and stopped in its tracks at Camp David (by the total intransigence of the Israeli and US negotiators). Israel has shown that it is unwilling or unable to take that route; therefore the Palestinians have
no choice but to resume their campaign of armed resistance in pursuit of a
single Palestinian state over all of historic Palestine.
According
to Uri Avnery, an Israeli commentator:
“At
long last there exists in the world a consensus that peace in our region must
be based on the co-existence of the state of Israel and the state of Palestine. Our government has slipped into it and is exploiting this agreement with
another aim altogether: the rule of Israel in the whole country and the turning
of the Palestinian population centers into a series of Bantustans. This is in
fact a one state solution (Greater Israel) in the guise of a two state
solution.”
Olmert
himself has stated:
“[I]f the day comes when the two
state solution collapses, and we face a South African style freedom struggle
for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is
finished.”
Israel as it is cannot continue – either it
must grant the minimum demands of a Palestinian state, or, by its
intransigence, it will indeed get the one-state solution, but not that which it
desires – historical Palestine will be reborn!
Dr George Habash
Comrade
Habash was born to the Christian Arab community in Al-Lid (Lydda), Palestine. Sent to Jaffa (now Tel Aviv) and Jerusalem for secondary education at orthodox
Christian schools, he excelled in his studies. From there he passed to Beirut where he entered the American university, going on to study medicine.
In
the words of Comrade Habash:
“Politics
was out of my mind, and it never occurred to me that I would get involved in
it, and that it would become my whole life.
“This condition of mine remained constant up till the
beginning of my fourth year in the university, my second year in the school of
medicine. When one day a friend in the university . . . approached me and said
that there was a professor in the university – meaning Dr Constantine Zureik –
who was conducting small closed cultural circles, talking . . . about Arab
nationalism and about the Arab nation and how and why it should resurrect. He
suggested to me the idea of attending these circles . . .
“That was at the end of June/July 1948, when zionists
had been trying to complete the uprooting of Palestinians from their homes and
land, which at the time had reached its peak. The year ended and the university
closed its doors. I told myself that I should go to Palestine and to Al-Lid in
particular. Zionist forces uprooted the people of Yafa to temporally settle in
Al-Lid. But my parents asked me to stay in Beirut, and sent me money; my mother
was always worrying about me a lot. My arrival surprised the family and my
mother said, ‘What do you want to do, son?’ And my sister for her part added
asked: ‘What could you do?’ I wondered whether I could fight. I had already
started studying medicine and probably I could help in this field. There was in
the hospital a doctor of the Zahlan family, and I started assisting him.
“Al-Lid,
like other Palestinian Arab cities and villages was in severe condition of
confusion and worry. Zionist airplanes were bombarding Palestinians and
frightening them. Conditions were severe and horrible.
“I
was involved in my work when my mother’s aunt came to the hospital and told me
that my mother was worrying about me and asked me to return home. I refused and
insisted on remaining in the hospital, but she insisted and I in my turn
insisted on doing my duty. When I continued refusing then she told me that my
elder sister, whom I dearly loved, had passed away. On my way back home I saw
people in the streets in a severe condition of fright, and the injured,
including some that I knew, lying unattended on the sidewalk.
“We
buried my sister near our house, as reaching the graveyard was impossible. Three hours later,
zionist terrorists attacked our house shouting and ordering us to leave in
Arabic, ‘Yala Barah, yala barah ukhrojo’; ‘Go out, leave’. My mother and I,
along with my sister’s children – including a baby whom we carried – walked
with our relatives and neighbours. We didn’t know where to go. The terrorists
were ordering us to walk, and we walked. It was a very hot day, and it was
Ramadan. Some of those around us were saying ‘This is resurrection day’ and
others said ‘This is hell’. Upon reaching the end of the town we saw a zionist
checkpoint to search the people. We didn’t have any arms or weapons. And it
seemed that our neighbour’s son, Amin Hanhan, was hiding money; fearing that
they steal it from him, he refused to be searched. The terrorists shot him dead
just in front of us. His mother and his younger sister rushed to him and
started wailing. His younger brother, Bishara, was a friend and classmate of
mine, and we used to study together.
“You
ask me why I chose this path, why did I become an Arab nationalist? This
zionism claims to speak about peace? This is the zionism I know, saw and
experienced.”
In
memory of Comrade Norman Bethune
I think the words paid in tribute to Dr Norman Bethune
by Mao Zedong go a long way to explaining the reasons British workers should
support the Palestinians in struggle.
They
are also a fitting tribute to Comrade Al-Hakim, Dr George Habash.
“Comrade
Norman Bethune, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was around 50 when
he was sent by the communist parties of Canada and the United States to China;
he made light of travelling thousands of miles to help us in our war of resistance
against Japan. He arrived in Yenan in the spring of last year, went to work in
the Wutai Mountains, and to our great sorrow died a martyr at his post.
“What
kind of spirit is this that makes a foreigner selflessly adopt the cause of the
Chinese people’s liberation as his own? It is the spirit of internationalism,
the spirit of communism, from which every Chinese communist must learn.
“Leninism
teaches that the world revolution can only succeed if the proletariat of the
capitalist countries supports the struggle for liberation of the colonial and
semi-colonial peoples and if the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies
supports that of the proletariat of the capitalist countries. Comrade Bethune
put this Leninist line into practice.
“We
Chinese communists must also follow this line in our practice. We must unite
with the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, with the proletariat of
Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and all other capitalist
countries, for this is the only way to overthrow imperialism, to liberate our
nation and people and to liberate the other nations and peoples of the world.
“This
is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow
nationalism and narrow patriotism.”
Mao
ended his tribute to Dr Norman Bethune with words that apply equally well to
Comrade Habash:
“Now
we are all commemorating him, which shows how profoundly his spirit inspires
everyone. We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With
this spirit everyone can be very useful to the people. A man’s ability may be
great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure,
a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to
the people.”
Comrade
Habash was such a man.
Long live the memory
and example of Comrade Al-Hakim, Dr George Habash!
Victory to the Intifada!