The conflict between Israel and Gaza triggered by the Hamas massacre and mass hostage taking within Israel on October 7, 2023 has sparked off mass demonstrations but while this may seem to offer an opportunity to the Left – it’s actually exposing divisions.
Key to this is an unwillingness among some groups to reject Hamas and the adoption of political positions that completely alienate Jewish workers and youth. And worse, could even legitimise anti-semitic attacks.
Then there are others on the “Marxist” Left who have spent so long developing a soft spot for Putin and Iran that they’ve used the Gaza attack as a means of attacking President Zelensky of Ukraine. They don’t directly reference his Jewish heritage but they come close to echoing the kind of anti-semitic sneers that are common in racist Russian media.
Pravda, once the mouthpiece of the Soviet Communist Party, recently engaged in a bonkers piece of propaganda alleging that Zelensky is sacrificing Ukrainians as an act of revenge against Russia for anti-Jewish pogroms over a century ago. Reviving an old trope of Jews always having their own agenda.
Zelensky made the entirely valid point in October 2023 that the Kremlin welcomed the Gaza conflict because it would drain resources and attention that Ukraine badly needs. One “Marxist” website spat venom at the Ukrainian president clearly struggling to stop itself falling into line with Pravda.
Predictable divisions on the Left over Gaza and Israel
For the last three weekends in London, I’ve watched huge demonstrations in support of Palestine wend their way through the centre of the city. Similar marches have occurred all over the western world.
And I can’t deny suppressing a wry smile at the very predictable ideological contortions on display. Just looking at the placards handed out by two or three of the most prominent Marxist influenced groups in the UK is enough to get the gist.
Basically, the comrades are trying to figure out three questions:
- Are they calling for a united “workers” front made up of both Palestinian and Israeli proletarians to oppose all violence and call for socialism as the answer?
- Have they entirely given up on Israel as a progressive force siding entirely with the Palestinian demand for nationhood?
- Are they even prepared to slide under the covers with Hamas?
Orthodox Marxists have rejected Hamas, branding it a right-wing Islamist organisation that endorses sectarian terrorism; that has held no democratic elections for over 15 years; discriminates against women and LGBT people; and does not support workers’ rights.
But some groups that characterise themselves as Marxist have refused to criticise Hamas forming a kind of anti-Israel Popular Front of Islamists and ultra-Lefts. Intoxicated by the sight of huge demonstrations in western cities, they refuse to offer a serious analysis of the way forward for both Palestine and Israel. Instead, they more or less parrot Hamas slogans.
A failure to address or even recognise that BOTH anti-semitism and Islamophobia are on the rise means they probably have nothing to say about the increasing attacks on Jews in Europe – or if they do, it’s very muted.
Shockingly, on October 29, 2023, an airport in the Russian republic of Dagestan saw a mob descend intent on attacking Jewish airline passengers. This was nothing less than an attempted pogrom. The kind of horrific scenes once meted out by the Tsarist Black Hundreds over a century ago and condemned by Communists and Socialists at the time. Today, many on the ultra-Left will pretend they didn’t see it on the news.
Marxists who oppose Hamas
As I noted, some orthodox Marxist groups – that would typically be dismissed as “workerist” by their opponents – seek a way to unite both Jewish and Arab workers to create some kind of socialist federation in the Middle East. Not a realistic prospect but way better than sucking up to Hamas.
These Marxists yearn for a struggle spearheaded by labour and youth organisations such as happened with the Palestinian general strike on May 18, 2021. As one Marxist group put it, Hamas and Fatah were “not the drivers of the movement, they were pushed by it”. Because in truth neither offers a path to genuine liberation. One seeks a theocratic dictatorship and the other is utterly ineffective.
Orthodox Marxists, from what I’ve read in recent weeks, are expanding the meaning of the term “intifada” from a demand for national self-determination for the Palestinian people to a struggle to overthrow capitalism. The economic system being the root cause of division and exploitation in the Middle East.
So for example, we have the Socialist Party – the orthodox Marxists par excellence – calling on the Israeli labour movement to create a new political force opposing the pro-capitalist parties in the Knesset:
“Israeli workers and trade unionists need to organise against them, striving to build working class-based solidarity across communities from different backgrounds. This, together with other workers’ actions and struggles, can help prepare the way for the building of a new political party in Israel based on working-class interests – and with a socialist programme that can pose a real alternative to the cycles of terrible bloodshed.”
Logically, if the call is for a new political force in Israel, the same has to apply on the Palestinian side. Hamas, as I’ll explain below, is not a Marxist or even socialist organisation. And there is no chance whatsoever that the workers unity sought by orthodox Marxists would be achieved so long as Netanyahu is the voice of Israel and Hamas is the voice of Gaza.
Again, the Socialist Party puts forward the orthodox Marxist position:
“Socialists, however, can give no support to Hamas and Hezbollah, parties which are based on right-wing political Islam. They are against workers’ rights, LGBTQ+ rights and equality for women; and their military strategies won’t bring about liberation for the Palestinians, decent living standards for them, or an end to the conflict – none of which are possible under capitalism.”
Ultra-Lefts who say nothing about Hamas
However, some groups that call themselves Marxist or socialist – one in particular that you can guess – have engaged in an ill-advised scorpion dance with ideological Islamism since the 1990s.
During a decade that saw Marxism collapse in influence, they wrote off the European working-class and decided that Muslims, viewed wrongly as a monolithic block, were natural anti-imperialists – especially after the two Iraq wars. Privately, they conceded that their objective was to get chummy with Islamists only in order to cream off the best Muslim activists into their own ranks.
This opportunism may reaped some dividends but I doubt it. And at what cost? A complete failure to offer an honest analysis of the situation.
During the current Israel/Gaza conflict, these un-orthodox Marxists have run articles in their newspapers, online sites, and theoretical journals barely criticising Hamas or presenting the group as the legitimate voice of Palestinians – quoting their representatives and individuals from other right-wing Islamist groups.
These ultra-left groups may reap a few new members among disaffected Muslim youth in the UK and elsewhere but most will see through this cynical recruitment exercise. And as I stated in a book co-authored back in 2016, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, and its many offshoots, see right through these ultra-lefts – toying with them for a while but then discarding them.
And then we have politicians in the UK Labour Party whose inability to utter a single critical word about Hamas (maybe a muted one when under pressure) does no favours to the majority of Palestinians who have been denied a vote in Gaza for 15 years. Their sectarian stance has completely alienated Jewish and Israeli people, driving them rightwards.
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