A day of discussion organized by Daam Workers Party

Date: Saturday, 21 October, 10:00 – 17:00

Location: Sindyanna of the Galilee Visitors Center, Kfar Kana (Cana) Industrial Area (north of Nazareth)

The agenda – below

Click here for the Facebook event

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Years have passed since the signing of the Oslo Accords, and a political solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict seems to be getting further and further away. Fifty years of the Occupation of Palestinian territories have created a reality of a single warped state which denies even the most basic rights to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The two-state solution has finally fallen from the agenda, because the Likud government has come out against a Palestinian state. For its part, the Labour Party – the biggest force of the opposition to the Netanyahu Government, has also abandoned the two-state solution, opting to concentrate on social issues instead. The continuation of a distorted coexistence between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Occupier is leading to interminable bloodshed and the deepening of the conflict.

The illusion that it is possible to manage the conflict while simultaneously maintaining a democratic and enlightened Israeli society has blown up in the face of those who wanted to believe it. The conflict permeates Israeli society in all its aspects. The list of these is almost endless: The formation of the tight wing terrorist “Hilltop Youth” , Hebron shooter Elor Azaria’s case, the nationality law and the racist incitement against both Arab citizens and asylum seekers. Then there’s intercommunal (Mizrahi/Ashkenazi) hatred, the open warfare on the High Court of Justice, the religionization of the educational system and the incitement against creative artists. All of these are making life in Israel unbearable for those aspiring to live in an open, democratic and liberal society.

The fact that the government and the opposition in Israel are not working to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn’t going to make millions of Palestinians vanish; the lack of a political solution to the conflict is a time bomb.  The attempt to maintain the current situation in perpetuity is based on a misreading of the global context. Both the Arab and Western worlds are undergoing deep political and economic upheavals.  Trump’s election in the United States and the Brexit victory in the UK are notable examples of the swift and sharp changes that are taking place in the West. The Arab world is in transition from feudal dictatorial and monarchial regimes to modern democracies. It is a complex and difficult transition which passes through revolutionary uprisings of the peoples, brutal repression and bloody civil wars.

What then is the answer to all this?

The solution of one state for the two peoples who live between the River Jordan and the sea becomes relevant precisely because of the nature of the current epoch. First and foremost, it would end the isolation behind walls, promoting a shared life between Arabs and Jews.

The One State Solution for the two peoples is the answer to the failure of efforts to achieve a two-state agreement and the failure of the Arab national project in Syria and Iraq. It is a response to the failure of the neoliberal economic system, and it reflects the technological revolution which brings young people from all over the world to a single culture. The one-state solution is compatible with the revolutionary ideas that emerged in the global protest movement, ideas that were at the basis of the popular revolutions of the Arab Spring which overthrew dictatorships. The old world is disappearing before our eyes, while nationalist and fascist forces are trying to stop the march of history with all their might. These forces include the right wing supporting Trump in America, Putin in Russia, Le Pen in France, Brexit in Britain, and the racist, nationalist government in Israel. Everyone is investing all their power in building walls to stop the forces of change.

But the globalization of knowledge and the new economy know no boundaries; they open a new opportunity to build another world. This is what millions of young people in the United States and the UK, Egypt and Syria want in their struggle to create a new future, a future based on a cooperative economy and globalization for the benefit of the people. That future has no room for Walls, Occupation and the racism of the Israeli Right.

The idea of ​​a one-state solution is revolutionary. It is a utopia that will become a reality in light of the changes that are taking place in the world. In order that it may become reality, we must unite all the democratic forces on both sides of the fence, the opponents of Jewish religious messianism and those who oppose Islamic messianism. This is a protracted process which will inevitably involve thinkers, activists, organizations and movements from Palestine and Israel. The process will begin with exchanges of views, move on to joint activities and go out into the street, eventually culminating in the writing of a clear political program.

The seminar organized by the Daam party in October is an attempt to understand together the possibilities that the future holds, instead of sinking into despair or indifference, playing into the hands of those who wish to perpetuate the present situation. Understanding and knowledge are primary tools for changing reality. Your participation will be in itself a small but important step forward.

Agenda

10:00 – Registration

10:30 – 11:30 Lecture by Yacov Ben Efrat: “The Vision for the Future and the One-State Solution”

11:30 – 13:00 Discussion

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 16:30 Panel on: the One-State Solution – “From Utopia to Emerging Reality” with Dr. Raif Zreik, Dr. Itamar Mann, Jurist Diana Buttu, Muhammad Al-Hilu, Assaf Adiv.

About the speakers at the seminar

* Yacov Ben Efrat – Secretary General of the Daam Party

* Dr. Raif Zreik – lecturer in political philosophy

* Dr. Itamar Mann – Lecturer in International Law at the University of Haifa

* Diana Buttu, Jurist, a fellow at the Law School at the University of Windsor, Canada

* Muhammad al-Hilu – one of the initiators of “one democratic state”

* Assaf Adiv – a member of the leadership of the Da’am party

Participation NIS 80 (including lunch)

To register call:

The Visitors Center at Kfar Kana – Hanan Zoabi – 050-4009455, 04-6020680

Haifa and the North: Michal Schwartz 050-4330067

The Triangle: Wafa Tiara – 050-4330036

Tel Aviv and the Center: Roni Ben Efrat – 050-4330038

Jerusalem: Erez Wagner – 050-7596492

Translated from the Hebrew by Sol Salbe

The post One State for Palestinians and Israelis, From Utopia to an Emerging Reality first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Over 60 activists, supporters and members of Daam—Jews, Arabs, and representatives from the occupied territories—participated in the 3rd annual Daam ideological seminar, which took place at St. Gabriel Hotel in Nazareth on the 5th and 6th of July. The military coup that took place at the same time in Egypt demonstrated the relevance of the seminar topic, as well as the gravity with which Daam regards the revolutions in the Arab world. In a region where the only voice that was heard belonged to military and police-backed dictatorships on the one hand, and political Islam on the other, there has been a new voice in the past two years—the voice of the people. This voice has joined others from outside the Arab world—Spain, Israel, US, Greece, Turkey and Brazil, all sharing a yearning for a new economic and civil order, as coined by Daam in its campaign slogan: Equal justice for all.

The seminar reflected the political, social and economic processes that are confronting the existing order. These processes are at times very exciting and at other times horrifically cruel, but the genie of aspiration for justice cannot be returned to the bottle. This is why we are obligated to examine these revolutions and study their successes and mistakes, in order to promote agendas and programs that fulfill their potential.

In his opening remarks, Daam General Secretary Yaacov Ben Efrat said, “Egypt has been a source of inspiration for Daam, as well as a source for learning and understanding the ways in which to conduct social protest and offer a political alternative. From Egypt’s revolution we have learned that from the city square it is possible to pose demands, argue and protest, but not to run a state. One must work hard for revolution. The notion that politicians (or in Egypt’s case, the army) will work for us, and all we need do is to hand them our list of demands on the street or on Facebook, is misguided.

“Real democracy has a price. In Egypt it was necessary to allow the Muslim Brothers to exhaust their political power, when on the one hand they adopted a neoliberal economy and on the other preached Islam as the solution. A political parliamentary alternative should have been created to beat them at the ballot box. The coup that brought down the Muslim Brotherhood has set back the democratic process. How can the liberal and leftist powers speak in the name of democracy when it has been used so selectively?”

Assaf Adiv and oudeh basharat

In another discussion, co-led by Assaf Adiv, National Coordinator of WAC-MAAN, and writer Oudeh Basharat, a member of Hadash, the crisis in Egypt was compared to the revolution in Tunisia, where civil and religious powers are currently attempting to divide control over the country. Where Egypt is concerned, Basharat was in favor of military intervention in cooperation with the liberal forces for three main reasons: (1) the Muslim Brotherhood tried to use democracy only in order to annul it when the time was right; (2) the Egyptian army is a popular army and cannot be compared to other armies (the remark was made before the Egyptian military’s massacre of protesters); (3) knowing the organizational weakness of the liberal forces, it does not make sense to wait until they accumulate enough political power to defeat the Brotherhood.

Dr. (MD) Ali Abu Awad arrived at the seminar as part of a delegation from the Golan Heights to discuss the Syrian question. Abu Awad identifies with the National Syrian Council, the official Syrian opposition calling for the immediate ousting of Assad. A couple of days before the seminar his car was blown up near his house, an attack from which he and his family emerged unharmed. According to Abu Awad, this is not the first case of violence against Assad opponents in the Golan. He described with great pain the complete devastation of Syria, with 100,000 civilians dead, 200,000 injured, 2 million refugees fleeing the country and many more displaced within Syria. Abu Awad expressed lack of faith in US Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative as a political solution. He also claimed that Israel is interested in the continuation of Assad’s regime, referring to the permission Israel gave Syrian tanks to go through the Quneitra pass to continue the slaughter of civilians.

Two discussions were dedicated to questions of nationality and class from the perspective of the protests in Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dani Ben Simchon, a WAC activist, addressed the contradictory situation of poor workers in Israel and the fear of the protest movements to deal with this contradiction:

“The Mizrahi worker class is in a state of inner contradiction. On the one hand, it has built its identity on turning away from its Arab heritage and adopting Israeli patriotism. On the other hand, its traditional party, the Likud, has abandoned its social values, leading a neoliberal economic agenda. They are in deep crisis, facing a dead end.

“The Jewish workers have not yet changed their voting patterns and have not internalized the fact that voting for Netanyahu (or any other right wing party) does not result only in strengthening a political right-wing agenda, but also in the reinforcement of a right-leaning economic policy, which in turn harms them as workers.”

“Our acquaintance with the forces active today on the ground—the Ma’abara, Lo Nechmadim, Daphni Leef—shows us that they share a common position: (1) that the political-national questions are to be separated from the social-economic questions, and (2) that they oppose partisan involvement. Despite the fact that these activists are leading important struggles, they continue to ignore the political and class-related aspects of the conflict.

“But the political question has become critical and significant today. In the new conditions, the Jewish worker cannot enjoy social justice without dealing with the class-based aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She must confront the connection between social justice, ending the occupation, and ending the discrimination against Arab citizens within Israel.”

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka compared the approaches of the various Arab parties with that of Daam: “Whereas the nationalistic and Islamic parties see Israel and Arab society as unchanging entities, to which the rules of history do not pertain, Daam claims that the nationalistic Zionist ideology comes with an economic basis, and as such it follows the same social and historical rules that affect other societies. The occupation is yet another burden that deepens the inner contradictions. Israel has two problems: a political-security problem on one hand, and a social-economic one on the other. One cannot view Israel only through the prism of Zionist ideology.”

Khader Shama gave a lecture on the principles of Arabic music and improvisation using the Oud

Dr. Iris Meir, a lecturer at Sapir college, and Nir Nader, an activist at WAC and Daam, dedicated their lectures to the neoliberal realities in Israel and the US. Meir started her lecture with a quote from Democracy in America (1835) by Alexis de Tocqueville, who defined the unique characteristic of American democracy as “equality in social conditions.” Meir then questioned this statement, referring to Hedrick Smith’s present-day book, Who Stole the American Dream? Relying on Smith, Meir surveyed the monstrous social gaps in American society today and the connections between capital and government, which perpetuate these gaps and make social mobility nearly impossible:

“America has seen the rise of a new class—the new poor. These are members of the middle-class who have sunk into poverty, millions of people who have become victims of the long freeze in living conditions since the 1970s. Their numbers are huge. Apart from 6 million people who are perennially unemployed, it was reported in 2010 that 2.6 million more Americans had fallen into poverty. Altogether there are 46.2 million Americans in poverty, the highest number in 52 years.”

Nir Nader and Iris Meyer

“The figures show that America is becoming a caste society. Increasingly, the privileged classes are maintaining their privileges, while the poor remain in the same place. The social mobility that characterized the American dream is long gone. America is classified nowadays as a country with low social mobility. Being born into a low socio-economic class is more of a limitation in America than in any other country.”

Meir also criticizes Smith’s approach: “His call to demand the government to stop working for capital and start working for the people is, in my view, a liberal approach that requires the current system to continue, while asking to implement certain changes to make it function in way that seems more just. In Israel too we have witnessed this kind of approach, which dissolved the 2011 protests and turned them into dust in terms of their political impact.”

“One cannot expect those who serve capital to start serving the working person. In order for work, rather than capital, to have power and representation, these must be built. The protests on the street have to be translated into real, effective, political-party power. This holds for Israel as it does for the US. The Israel of 2013—Bibi’s, Bennet’s and Lapid’s Israel—is almost a carbon copy of the situation I have been describing. The breaking of organized labor, the eroding of the middle-class, employment insecurity, rising poverty—all this in favor of the big capital that has been buying up the country and its politics.”

Michal Schwartz and Orna Akad

The seminar concluded with lectures by Michal Schwartz, Women’s Work Coordinator in WAC, and Orna Akkad, playwright and author. Schwartz described the unfortunate state of Arab women in Israel today.

“The majority of Arab women in Israel live in a rigid, conservative patriarchal system, whose grip on the women has increased in recent years, despite a rise in the level of education and and the decrease in birth rates. The influence of the family is more prevalent among uneducated women who live in the villages, women with a large number of children, but the major group is the most significant one.

“There is no doubt that in terms of living standards and legal rights, the situation of Arab women in Israel is better than that of their Egyptian counterparts. But in terms of activism and leading social and political change, the women in Israel are far behind. In Egypt and Tunisia, women’s participation in the popular struggles has brought them to the front stage of history.”

In contrast with the Arab woman in Israel who is not part of the social struggles, Orna Akkad characterized the Egyptian women as highly active in the ousting of Mubarak. Nevertheless, the situation in Egypt is far from perfect: “For eighteen days, until the fall of Mubarak’s regime, the protesters of Tahrir square, men and women, were united, without attention to differences of gender, religion etc. All came out in solidarity, and with one goal—the overthrowing of Mubarak’s regime and changing the status quo. However, a few weeks after Mubarak’s fall, women protesters that stayed in the square became a target for sexual harassment by men, as well as violence and rape, especially by the military. Many of those women are now active in organizations protecting women from harassment. They do not plan to give up and return to their homes. The revolution allowed them to go on the street and they are not going to let the men take that away from them.”

Translated to English by: Itamar Manoff

The post The Arab Spring and the Consciousness Revolution: Daam’s Ideological Seminar first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.