A “Joint statement by Palestine activist groups in Australia” says two things clearly:
- A temporary ceasefire is no solution.
- Our protests will continue.
Having said the blindingly obvious, it offers no strategy and no proposal to discuss having a strategy.
Instead it claims that:
Our demands are clear:
- Israel must end its Genocide in Gaza, stop the bombing, withdraw from the strip and lift the siege.
- Israel must release all Palestinian political prisoners.
- Israel must end the occupation of all Palestinian territory.
- Palestinian refugees must have the right to return to their homeland.
- The Australian government should cut off all political, economic and military ties with Israel until these demands are fulfilled.
Ok, at least “Stop the Genocide in Gaza” is a step beyond the previous inspirational posturing:
Ceasefire now!
End US military aid to Israel!
Build an international movement to end the occupation!
But there really isn’t time to wait for people who think such “demands” are “clear” to get to the point of even being able to participate in discussion about strategy.
Only item 5 could conceivably be imagined to be relevant to actually changing reality.
In principle, Australia joining the boycotts etc that have produced so little results for so many decades could eventually contribute to adding some real pressure that results in some actual change.
But does anyone seriously suggest that such long term pressure will make much difference to the catastrophe unfolding right now that has resulted in such a large protest movement?
Items 1 to 4 don’t even pretend to be anything more than posturing.
What is to be Done?
- Admit we have not got a strategy.
- Open serious discussions on policy and tactics at every protest and other activity.
- Exchange written proposals and circulate them widely.
- Pay more attention to proposals you don’t agree with than to your own. Take other ideas seriously.
I don’t agree with the 5 demands and am taking them seriously by responding.
What are we up against?
There is no point addressing “demands” to either Israel or the USA. They are the enemy. We are looking for ways to prevent them doing what they are doing.
Protests are intended to result in action that effectively prevents what would otherwise happen and results in something better happening instead.
That should not need saying. It is taken for granted by anybody joining in. Unfortunately it isn’t the way some “veterans” of protest movements think. Some of them don’t see a connection between protesting and winning, so they just posture.
There are several possible outcomes that Australian protests, as part of a global movement could help prevent:
-
Genocide. As documented in links at end of this article, experts who do not use that word lightly believe the loud expressions of genocidal intent could become actual genocide. The destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and health system has already made it difficult to update the death toll. Many more than the 14,000 listed deaths could be under the rubble. It would not take long for Israel to kill 10% of the 2.2 million population if they decide to do so and there is no force in place ready to actually stop them.
-
Ethnic cleansing. This is now openly advocated by much of the current Israeli government – for Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and Arab citizens of Israel. The most serious danger is in Gaza where the population forced south could now be forced into Egypt. The danger of Genocide arises primarily in the course of the measures that might be taken to force expulsion.
-
Months, not weeks of mass murder. That is the publicly declared policy which may or may not slide innto Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide. It is clearly explained by former US Centcom commander General Petraeus and confirmed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu backed by US President Biden:
US General Petraeus: Israel’s war on Gaza to last for ‘months, not weeks’
Former CIA Director David Petraeus says Israel will resume the war on Gaza if it doesn’t want Hamas to rebuild itself.
Israel has not explained what it seeks to accomplish in its war on Gaza beyond the destruction of Hamas, according to US General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and former commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Petraeus tells host Steve Clemons that the US has no choice but to remain a “steadfast ally” of Israel, lest China and other countries point to Washington’s abandonment of its friends.
In this wide-ranging conversation, the former CENTCOM commander added that “there are no hands going up in the region” to volunteer to manage Gaza after the war.
Who will manage Gaza after the war?
Even if we complacently assume that “pressure” from the global protest movement will “somehow” prevent the current catastrophe sliding into Ethnic cleansing, Genocide or a wider regional war there is simply no reason to expect that “protests” will prevent Israel, backed by the USA, from continuing the slaughter in Gaza for “months, not weeks”.
Ending the slaughter requires that somebody capable of providing an interim government of Gaza volunteers to do so. Israeli and US waffle about the Palestinian Authority or Arab governments or anybody “in the region” doing so are just to shift the blame. There is no such possibility.
Likewise Hamas and its allies are not going to be capable of governing Gaza.
Only an interim authority from outside the region that has no interest at all in remaining there could credibly govern while Gaza recovers. The humanitarian aid that is being mobilized needs such a government to replace the Israeli occupation force. Otherwise it will be compelled to act subject to directions from the Israeli occupying force whether on orders from occupiers outside the strip or within it.
So any strategy to actually stop the current catastrophe has to include a strategy for persuading somebody to volunteer for the job of interim government of Gaza.
Empty posturing will not persuade anybody to take on that job.
My tentative view on who could do it and how pressure from the protest movement could be effective is explained in the previous two posts:
Briefly:
- Only the EU has the resources to do it, whether or not the USA vetoes a UN Security Council resolution to “authorize” it.
- Demands, denunciations and UN General Assembly resolutions cannot compel them to do it. They need to understand that it is in their own interest to volunteer.
- They know that only a well armed force could exercise a “Responsibility to Protect” in Gaza. Israeli armed forces will give orders to anybody that does not arrive well armed and they will have no choice but to act according to those orders.
- The only EU member with an expeditionary capability that could be mobilized rapidly to the Eastern Mediterranean to break the blockade by sea is France.
- But non-EU members Britain and Turkey also have serious deployment capabilities that could form a joint military escort for the necessary humanitarian intervention.
Is it possible?
Not if there is no movement fighting for it.
Has anybody got a proposal that offers better prospects?
How could the protest movement contribute?
My suggestion is that instead of pointless “demands” we should have a very clear focus on ending Israel’s sense of impunity and highlighting the positive international duty to intervene.
In Australia’s case the biggest contribution the Australian government could be compelled by public opinion to make would be to actually let charges of crimes against humanity proceed in Australian law courts.
Along with other countries generally friendly to Israel that could have a real impact in speeding up an EU decision to do what must be done.
An inability to even prosecute implies an inability to do anything else. There is no point asking a government that won’t even prosecute crimes against humanity to do anything more serious to prevent them.
C21st Left 
Hi Arthur,
It’s very well put, and I’ve sent it on to friends.
I especially liked being reminded of this:
“ Protests are intended to result in action that effectively prevents what would otherwise happen and results in something better happening instead.”
I’ve spent the day reading the Textbook. I’ve changed my mind about the first part – it’s not bad (I don’t know what put me off the first time) although if Lewis was doing it now he’d no doubt use some more recent examples.
I’ve written to an academic, Terry Bodenhorn, who reads Chinese and has written a very interesting paper about Ai Siqi and the reconstruction of Chinese identity which I read last night. I asked him if he knows of a good translation of Ai Siqi’s “Dialectical Materialism”, and “Popular Philosophy”. The ones from Internet Archive are probably computer translations
I did some checking and doesn’t look as though Nick Knight is still with us . All the links I can find are to Griffith University, but they’re now dead ends. I’ll ring the department next week to see if anyone knows if he’s still around.
By the way, I read a review Knight wrote of a book about Ai Siqi that Joshua Fogel praised. Knight said it was terrible because the author dismissed dialectics completely and had no interest in it. After reading that I canceled my order for Fogel’s book on Ai Siqi and Chinese Marxism.
Craig
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Comment here seems to be result of neural misfires due to associations between this post and correspondence re a previous post:
But I do think others might find “the Textbook” relevant to the issues here:
Click to access txtbkMarxPhilwIndx.pdf
Textbook of Marxist Philosophy, by M. Shirokov, 1941. $7. Cover. This 400 page book was prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy and is a comprehensive exposition of dialectical and historical materialism.
An orientation towards ideas intended to result in action that changes the world is central to the philosophy explained in that book – and completely alien to the world outlook of what pretends to be “the left” at present.
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