 Hi and welcome to IMTV, the international Marxist television channel brought to you by Socialist Appeal, Socialist.net. This week on our third episode we're going to be discussing the situation in Palestine and Gaza and to join us for this discussion we've got Francesco Murley, a regular writer at Marxist.com, the website of the international Marxist tendency and as I say we're going to be discussing what's going on in Israel-Palestine where on the border between Gaza and Israel recently we've seen mass protests taking place commemorating what's known as the Nakba, the mass exodus of Palestinians in 1948, 70 years ago when the state of Israel was founded. Dozens have been killed in what is the deadliest massacre of Gaza since 2014. So to begin with Francesco can you just outline a bit about these protests, why have they taken place? The protests were in commemoration of the Nakba and for the right of all refugees to return to their homes, 70% of the population of Gaza is made up of refugees on different moments, people who were displaced in 1948 or 1967 or in other moments during the many wars and many aggressions to the Palestinian people. So this is a very important question for all Palestinians but especially for the people living in Gaza. The second main reason for this protest was the enormous pressure on the Gaza people put by the blockade which has been in place over the last 12 years. It's an economic blockade, people cannot move freely out of the Gaza Strip and Israel controls effectively all the main levers of the economy in Gaza from telecommunications to even the water supply, energy supply, the import and export of any goods, spare parts, medicines, drugs, all these things are controlled by Israel which is asphyxiating about 2 million people living in the Gaza Strip which can be effectively described as open air prison now and for the last 12 years this increasing pressure by the Israeli authorities has brought about a collapse of the infrastructure in Gaza. So for example now most of the water is polluted because there are no investments or possibility to improve the sewage networks in the Gaza Strip. Also water supply is infiltrated by salt, by marine water so even the most basic needs of the Gaza population are completely jeopardized by this blockade which has been put in place for 12 years now. So you've talked about the blockade of the last 12 years but also the protests commemorating what happened 70 years ago with the foundation of Israel and this forced kind of eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Can you explain a bit about the background to the foundation of Israel in 1948? State of Israel was declared on the 15th of May 1948 and as a result of this process and terror unleashed against the Palestinian population about 700,000 to some figures talk about 1 million people even but about 700,000 Palestinians were pushed out of their villages, their towns, their land and pushed out of Palestine effectively and all the Palestinian properties were seized by the Israeli army and many cities were destroyed in order to avoid the possibility of the Palestinian population to go back to their homes and that created the establishment of Israel created the huge Palestinian question that we are now dealing with, that we are now facing with for the past 70 years. Now the population of Palestinians originated by the refugees fleeing from the advance of the Israeli army, what would become the Israeli army is numbered in about 7 million people which is displaced around in the neighboring countries or in a spread around the world. So how do we go from the situation of the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority to the situation today where you've got the West Bank and Gaza divided with Fatah dominating over the West Bank and Gaza dominated by Hamas politically, how is that situation? So the establishment of the Palestinian Authority has changed the whole situation, the Oslo and Madrid Accords were the culminating result of these diplomatic efforts by the Palestinian leadership but basically where the outcome, like a secondary outcome of a massive revolt of the Palestinian people, the second Intifada started in 1987 which was the revolt of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories in the West Bank, in Gaza and Jerusalem as well, a mass insurrection against the Israeli occupation, which after 20 years of this occupation signaled that there was an important change in the consciousness of the Palestinian people. This revolt went on for 5 years with more than 1,000 people, Palestinians killed and had a huge impact also on the Israeli youth and working class, especially at the beginning. So the negotiated outcome was based on the recognition by Israel that they couldn't hold on the occupied territories in the same way as before. They needed under the supervision and pressure by US imperialism, which kind of catered the Accords, had to rely on the Palestinian leadership in order to police and discipline and control the Palestinian population in the occupied territories. The outcome was the creation of the Palestinian Authority with the establishment and the handing over of the police operations to Palestinian police, for example, and the establishment of some sort of state, semi-state apparatus, Palestinian apparatus around the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Since then what happened is that the Palestinian Authority has failed completely in developing into an independent state because there was no possibility whatsoever for the Palestinian leadership to develop the economy of Gaza and the West Bank, even divided geographically as they are. There are constant economic and military pressure by Israel who stayed completely in control of the economy, of the infrastructure, of every lever of power, and the Palestinian leadership got increasingly discredited, the Palestinian leadership of the PLO especially, and Fatah in particular, including even Arafat, who was the first president of the Palestinian Authority and he was elected with 87% of the votes, huge massive support for Arafat. But in the space of 20 years the whole situation has revealed what we, Marxists, warned the Palestinian people at the time and that there was no possible solution for the Palestinian national liberation struggle by just establishing a kind of puppet state in the hands of Israel. That was expressed in the elections in 2006 where Hamas took over the majority in Gaza and that is the beginning of the present situation where Hamas has a big control over all the activities within Gaza, is in a frontal confrontation with the Israeli state, but at the same time obviously repressing its own population inside Gaza and especially the repression is aimed at those forces that are not under the control of Hamas, like for example the trade union movement or socialist organizations which historically have an important base in Gaza and the confrontation between Hamas and the Israeli state has helped Hamas to strengthen his position in Gaza and become the predominant force now. So as you said the Palestinian struggle obviously is something that's watched by the whole world and attracts a lot of attention and obviously it's the actions of the Israeli state in particular that attract a lot of criticism. But what we often see particularly here in Britain is that that criticism of the Israeli state of that kind of Zionist project it's often accused of being anti-Semitism, I mean we see here in Britain at the moment with the accusations against the Corbyn movement, lots of anti-Semitism accusations going on when in fact a lot of people are criticizing you know the oppression of the Palestinians not anything to do with Jewish people themselves but can you elaborate a bit on you know what is the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and what are the real origins of Zionism? Well Zionism develops as a reaction against the oppression of the Jewish people especially in Europe starting from the late 19th century and develops as a theory the idea basically that there could be a homeland for the Jewish people back in the original point of origin of Judaism which is Palestine. Zionism is an imperialist project because this Palestine was not an empty land as it was portrayed by the first Zionist writers each step in the setting up of first the Jewish authority and then the Israeli state has been a step of which meant the displacement of the indigenous population of Palestine step after step war after war and this process is continuing with for example even after the establishment of the Palestinian authority there are now about 700 000 and more Jewish settlers Jewish colonizers in illegal colonies set up inside the territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem so from this point of view we criticize Zionism we oppose Zionism doesn't mean that we oppose the Jews as such and we don't see for example the as Marxist the fact that Israel is a capitalist country like any other country in the world which is based on the exploitation of their own working class the working class in Israel is is made of Arab population is made of Jewish workers as well and it's a powerful force in Israel but because of this continuous conflict the Israeli ruling class is able to mobilize the Jewish working class or at least layers of Jewish working class in active support for Israel under the threat they they portray Israel as a besieged fortress which is threatened by all the enemy countries around them by the Palestinians insurgents and so on and so forth so in this way effectively they managed to rally around the the Jewish state at any junction at any at every important crisis where the Jewish state and Israel is under threat or is they portrayed as being under threat so our opposition is not to the Jewish people but it's an opposition to the Zionist imperialist project which has been supported and aided and financed by all the imperialist powers in the world and especially the United States with huge resources dedicated to supporting Israel from the US imperialist point of view Israel is an important stronghold in the Middle East it's a source of problems as well because it creates tensions and conflicts all the time but it is also what they can regard as the most powerful lever they have in the Middle East in terms of both military and economically economic terms Israel is an important country so obviously the oppression of the Palestinians is something that a lot of people feel very passionately about they want to do something internationally to try and resolve the situation to help the Palestinian struggle and I'd say the most kind of famous or most popular tactic internationally has been the the BDS movement the idea of boycott divestment and sanctions on Israeli products on Israeli academics things like that and can you explain a bit more about the BDS movement and and the impact that it's had well the impact is I would say very small almost negligible the only impact this campaign can have is to raise awareness in terms of being as being used as a tool to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people in many ways obviously the declaration of important intellectuals or important figures internationally criticizing the actions of Israel are important in the general movement against the occupation of Palestine and the violence and the oppression of the Palestinian people and so on but as a movement the BDS cannot achieve the aim of cutting out or even creating the critical mass of support for Israel to step down from the present course of action in fact Israel is totally the Israeli ruling class is totally is using the BDS movement as an excuse to strengthen the idea that Israel is under attack and in and that can have for a limited time I would say but still has an impact on the Israeli population so to present Israel as the the country that is under attack not the aggressors and and therefore the BDS the effects of the BDS movement are limited I would say that some forms of boycott could be justified but they have to be thought in a way that it's the boycott is carried out by the organized working class and there was one news item which was the announcement by trade union in Tunisia that they would carry out the boycott of all the trade with Israel in terms of blocking the shipments and blocking the unloading of stuff from Israeli ships and so on if that develops as an international movement of the working class then it can be aimed also at connecting with the legitimate struggles of the workers both on the Palestinian side and the Israel working class in the Israeli working class because there are there are struggles developing obviously also within Israel Israel is one of the most unequal countries we had examples of big waves of protest in the past and that could come again in the future I think one of the most notable examples that you just alluded to that was in 2011 when you obviously had the Arab revolutions the Arab Spring spreading from Tunisia and into Egypt and there were protests at that time I understand in Tel Aviv as well you know what was the impact of the Arab Spring on the situation in Israel and Palestine in 2011 we saw the impact of the Arab revolutions and I think that's important because one of the main levers in terms of justification for the foreign policy and the internal policy and repressive outlook of the Israeli ruling class has always been the threat from the outside and regimes like that of Mubarak or Saddam Hussein or other reactionary regimes were presented as scarecrows as the enemy that the mass of the Jewish workers in Israel would not consider as potential allies in a peaceful settlement but as enemies and therefore the development of the Arab revolution has had the effect of shaking this idea that the Arab people are reactionary they are enemies because most of the Israeli workers and youth could identify with the struggle of the youth in Cairo and their attempt to topple a reactionary and repressive regime so there was a connection there and they could recognize also that Israel is a country where the conditions of life are getting more and more difficult for the working class the level of wages has been under attack for a number of years if not decades now the polarization of wealth is increasing and all the resources put into the army and repression are not used obviously to create better conditions and housing for the Jewish population so that was the base for the 2011 movement which was the mass movement in Israel against the government which was a kind of a consequence of the wave of protests that was developing throughout the Middle East and it was also a consequence of the idea that there is a repressive reactionary government in Israel as well and that this government is carrying out austerity and anti-working class policies which are hitting both the Palestinians and the Jewish workers so there is a basis there for a future development of a mass movement against the Israeli ruling class and that is also the reason why the Netanyahu's of this world are so keen in provoking even more the possibility of future conflicts like for example the idea that Iran now is the big threat and that Iran has is developing nuclear weapons to wipe out Israel and things of this sort which is obviously part of this desperate attempt by Netanyahu and the right wing within Israel to mobilize support around them again against a foreign threat against a massive threat to the very existence of Israel and obviously this trick is working to a certain extent but less and less because people are now realizing even within Israel that society is not heading towards any any better situation it's becoming worse and worse the conditions are getting worse the conflict is getting worse and there is no not much hope in the future but that will turn into a rebellion against the government at some point so what do you think the solution is for the people of Palestine because a lot of the debate on the left especially and it always centers around the question of you know one state or two state are either of these really a solution what what is the way forward for the people well the two-state solution so-called solution is not two states first of all because two states are impossible Israel the Israeli ruling class cannot allow a Palestinian state in the territory of Palestine so what we had was in reality a puppet state which had the main purpose of keeping under control the mass of the Palestinian population in the former occupied territories in reality the occupation has continued so there is no two-state solution the the possibility of a two-state solution is also made impossible by Israel by all this movement of people that they are creating constantly this infiltrating and creating new settlements has basically wiped out the control over their own territory by the possibility of controlling their own territory by the Palestinian Authority all together Gaza is different they withdrew from Gaza but Gaza is not a viable state cannot be a viable state it's a strip of 40 kilometers times five or something like that with two million people in it with no possibility whatsoever of developing their own independent economy and so there is no basis there for a two-state solution one state solution would be the re-annexation by Israel of the whole territory of of Palestine there is now out of I think the dissatisfaction and disillusionment that a lot an increasing share of the Palestinian people have developed towards the Palestinian leadership of Fatah in particular but also towards Hamas and any forces that are kind of connected to the to the management of this situation there is a strong feeling developing now that it would be probably better for the Palestinian people to to be in in one state and to transform the Palestinian national struggle into struggle for equality but the problem is that one state or two-state solution whether that happens under the conditions of capitalism today both from the Israeli point side or the Palestinian side is creating a nightmarish situation because it's just a question of who even if an abstract bourgeois democratic state could be created in Palestine which would allow to some sort of democratic elections and so on and equal citizenship rights for all those who are who are citizens of Palestine even in in that case there would be a conflict a continuous conflict for the control over over this state which is has been transformed over the decades into an ethnic conflict for determining majorities ethnic majorities and so on and that's one of the reasons why the Israeli ruling class cannot allow free status of citizenship to the Palestinian people even if they had to regain control over the occupied territories they are effectively even now so one state or two states under capitalism will provoke convulsions crisis and ethnic and religious conflicts and ultimately a civil war situation so they are not both not solutions for the Palestinian liberation national liberation struggle point of view nor it is a solution for the Jewish working class and youth in Israel so the problem is not so much one state or two state but it's what kind of society and how the resources which are important resources industrially culturally infrastructure wise from all points of view created and accumulated by Israel can be made available and the disposal of the majority of the population of Palestine both Jewish and and Palestinian so that's the main question is a class struggle obviously this the development of the class struggle and the need to overthrow the reactionary regime both in the on the Palestinian side both in Gaza and in the West Bank and in Israel because obviously that's the main reactionary factor in the situation is the Israeli state and control of the Israeli ruling class over society within Israel the struggle against this can only be carried out successfully not so much by an international movement of boycott as we were talking before but by the development of a joint movement of the Arab and Jewish working class in against capitalism in Israel and in Palestine and then the solution from the point of view of how to overcome the inequalities the huge inequalities existing between the Israeli part of Palestine and the Palestinian part of Palestine how to resolve all the questions that have been created this festering wounds which have been created by imperialists in meddling in the Middle East like for example the question of the right for the Palestinians to return to their home home towns home lands which obviously cannot be carried out in the present situation can only in in in the process of overthrowing the capitalist oppressive system in Israel and in Palestine these questions can be dealt with in in a way that they do not open up a conflict between the poor in and those who are the victims of this situation which are the Palestinian people and workers and the Jewish working class as well thank you very much Francesco for joining us today and thank you to our viewers and listeners at home join us next time for IMTV episode 4 when we're going to be discussing the tragedy of the Grenfell fire which happened one year ago in the meantime check out www.socialist.net for more articles and also follow us on youtube for our videos and now you can also subscribe to our podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher and other podcast providers so join us next time and see you there thank you