A l f r e d o M . B o n a n n o this edition was redesigned and republished by after the fall press and distribution frederick, maryland [email protected] Elephant Editions London, UK [email protected] anti-copyright 2009 steal this (and everything!) 1 70 PALES TIN E, M ON A M OUR by Alf red o M. Bo na nno 69 2 No need to comment on the mistake of thinking that things would be any different if in place of a right wing government in Israel there was a left. It would be the same, perhaps in a less rigid way more fitting to the weak position of this anomalous State on the Co nt ent s chessboard of international equilibrium. That clears the chatter of those who consider possible an alternative to the Israeli situation while leaving the unshakeable theocentric Introduction - 4 characteristics of this State standing. Either the theocentric Israeli Still Now, With No Title at All - 6 State must disappear, giving life to a federalist kind of formation that The Crux of a Problem That Cannot Be Solved - 11 is open to the possibility of a communitarian cohabitation with Arab A Strange Idea - 19 Palestinians and eventually with other peoples, or the Jews will be The Insurrectional Struggle in Palestine - 21 moving towards a catastrophe once again. The Palestinians Continue to Die - 24 Against the Israeli Colonisers - 26 But perhaps the Shoah is precisely what they are waiting for, The Horror of Growing Accustomed to Horror - 27 according to the forecasts of their profits. How can you disavow No to the Palestinian State! - 28 them? After the Horror, Disgust - 31 Let's Boycott Israeli Products - 34 A Molotov in Turin - 35 New Palestinian Initiatives - 38 How to Become Like Those of the Past - 39 Not Just Buttons - 40 The Palestinian Police - 42 From Marx to Uri - 43 The Obvious Aspect of the Unthinkable - 44 The Miracle of the Worse - 46 The Reasons for Fundamentalism - 48 Behind the Ghost of Carpentras - 51 Who is the Jew? - 53 The Kibbutz Movement - 59 Communes, From Experimentation to Survival - 62 Untitled - 65 Postface - 67 3 68 P o st fac e Int rod uct io n The two latest decisions of Netanyahu's Israeli government were to No one can understand what is happening in the land of Palestine, extend the Jews' settlement from the East to places west of the city of not even those who have followed the bloody course of events Jerusalem occupied by the Arab Palestinians, and to continue to involving the people who have lived there for so long. They face each favour new settlers in the occupied territories. other with hatred and suspicion, not just men and women, children and old people, but the very dust of the roads and the mud that On the purely political level of international politics, these two covers them on rainy days, the asphyxiating heat and the stench of decisions were resolved in clear violation of the Oslo agreements, the sultriness. which does not surprises us in the least. There is not one agreement with the United States and the European Union, that Israel has not The 'official' terms of the controversy are well known. The Israelis failed to comply with in its strategy of its own reinforcement and the chased the Palestinians off their land, but this happened so long ago destruction of the Palestinian people, and we make no particular that some of the people born in huts in the camps are now fifty years note of that here. old. Ridiculous arguments between States have resulted in pieces of land being returned to people who had been driven away, but it is But these two decisions, at a time when world political signals impossible to live on them. In Israel if you don't work you go hungry. seemed to be advising Netanyahu to soften his falcon politics, lead us The colons of the second Zionist wave got rich through the to understand, better than any theoretical discourse, what this exploitation of a cheap Palestinian work force and the free use of government is about, what price the Israeli State is disposed to pay fields in territories that should now constitute the new State of to stay true to its own military and religious programmes. Palestine. But not only does all this fail to grasp the essence of the problem, it does not even begin to describe it. Perhaps it made sense The only move that the powerful United States have managed to at the time of the first popular insurrection of the people of the make (the Jewish lobby in that country remains strong and continues 'territories', that of the stones. Now things are moving towards an to condition this kind of decision) was that of bland dissent from this increasingly ferocious 'Lebanisation'. war politic, declaring themselves extraneous to it (at least in words) and suggesting to the European Union to do something to dissuade Neither party wants to retreat as this would lead to internal conflict, the Israelis from going ahead, without however taking extreme a destructive civil war that would almost certainly give the measures such as an embargo similar that applied to Libya and Iraq. adversary victory on a military level. In fact, at this moment the West Bank and Gaza are under a statute of And so they continue to attack each other in a never-ending cycle. dependence on Israel and, from the economic point of view, they Each side uses the weapons they have at their disposal: the have transformed themselves into an a bottomless pit that costs far Palestinians blow themselves up with their own bombs, the Israelis more that what the collaborating European States, and Israel itself, bomb houses in the territories from planes. There are the should be disposed to paying at the financial level. pacification maps, the internal agreements, the UN guarantees and Bush's empty rhetoric. But Israel cannot budge a centimetre. Its whole politic, especially over the past few years, seems to the eyes of the so-called objective The problem is developing at its own pace, one that can only be observer, to be suicide, and in fact it is, but it is not so for an Israeli. grasped by someone who is familiar with such situations, and it is becoming chronic. Hatred becomes acute when one lives in conditions like the Palestinians', with prospects like theirs, i.e., none 67 4 at all. There is no hope for their children or for the future of the place VII Backs to the wall, surrounded on all sides at the bend in the road where they were born. And it is not true that this hatred, so ferocious after the bridge, not a chance, and they are happy. and incomprehensible to us, is nourished by fundamentalist extremism. How is it that most of the young people who blow themselves up with their own bombs have completed their studies, have a degree or diploma - sometimes obtained abroad - are family people, have children. What they do not have is hope. They realize that there is nothing for them but a prospect of hatred of an enemy that imprisons, bombs and tortures. On the other side, everyone lives in fear of being blown up as they go to work, dance in a disco, lie asleep in their beds. Here again, blind hatred that sees no alternative is pushing people to demand that the government apply stronger measures. Even the most illuminated of the Israeli labour party formed in Mapai in 1968, (one of the Zionist forces to support the first settlements) have kept quiet for fear of losing their electoral base. Many see the Likud (right wing party which literally means 'consolidation') as the only force capable of leading the country against the Palestinians. To talk of peace in such conditions is just another way to wriggle out of things with clean hands and a dirty conscience. Organised massacres of Palestinians such as those by the Christian-Maronites at Sabra and Chatila in September 1982, or (Black) September 1970 organised by King Hussein of Jordan which lasted until April 1971 resulting in 4,600 dead and 10,000 wounded, are still possible. However, if carried out by Israel or one of its armed intermediaries they would lead to a complete destabilisation of the area. As I write, Israel has attacked some presumed Palestinian posting in Syria; the present time is one of the worst. There is no prospect of peace in sight. The ideal solution, at least as far as all those who have the freedom of peoples at heart can see, would be generalised insurrection. In other words, an intifada starting from the Israeli people, that is capable of destroying the institutions that govern them and of proposing peace based on collaboration and mutual respect with the Palestinian people directly, without intermediaries. But for the time being this perspective is only a dream. We must prepare for the worst. Alfredo M. Bonanno Trieste, 8 October 2003 5 66 Unt it led Still Now, With No Title at All I Too much light that night. We needed the darkness of accomplice There is one thing about the struggle of the Palestinian people that short-cuts, solitary paths, to lift one's hand, to find the courage to lift has touched and fascinated all those who have approached it: on the one's hand and make darkness in one's heart. other side of the barricade are the Jews, the persecuted of all times. II How quell the hatred if that is all there is, along with the forgotten There is nothing strange about this, the persecuted have often lies and weaknesses? Wondrously spellbound, I edge forward with become persecutors. Just think of what happened to the early trembling lantern, full of curiosity, learning, knowing. But it is the Christians in the space of three centuries after they gained power song of the frogs that takes me back into the mud, from where I have and systematically began to repress all dissonant voices. There have not moved for a long time, waiting, like the snake. been many such cases of about turns throughout history. Today's prisons are built on the temples of the past. No political force in III Recurring rituals dilate time in the ceremonial, awaiting the recent times has been able to resist throwing itself into ruthless miracle that transforms steel into love. An idea of beauty, from the repression as soon as it has reached power, no matter how travailed single drops of nitroglycerine. Silence. I put the pieces carefully back its history. But the voice of reason is not enough for us to gain an into the sheaths, it will be for another time. understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. IV The black wing of the crow has glittered enough. Now that the Jews have always been at the centre of attention and given rise to light is coming I see the far off window clearly, a breach in the almost either suspicion or sympathy, usually the former. Thrown out from totally destroyed building. A shadow mourns the death of his friend, wherever they happened to be as a consequence of insinuation and then he gets up and looks at the sun low on the horizon before dying dreadful accusations, they always gained the sympathy of anyone in turn. with any feelings - anyone, that is, who is against pogroms, mass murder, the massacre of innocents and summary judgements based V Too slow, she ended up sitting on the ground, adjusting the little on impressions and hearsay. The mental rigidity of the Jews, their dress over her infirm legs. Immobile amongst the fallen leaves of the vision of life based on religious righteousness that sees the rest of high branches, she didn't seem to be breathing. The shador hid the the world as impure or sinful, has often put such sympathies to the inexorable tears. test. But the enormity of the historical debt owed them, which in the second world war grew to the point of becoming a methodical procedure that surpassed anything that had ever been dreamed of VI In the end we remained alone, waiting. We had to telephone, till then, revived these sympathies and constituted a new force of before it was too late. The other was silent, looking at the lighthouse international cohesion capable of supporting the case for Jewish not far away, the lighthouse of dreams, closed from all sides. High settlements in Palestine. sunlit walls underlined the jarring lack of light. Life was dying in there; if life is hope there was none left in there. Only the logic of the torturers. Israel became a focus of international support for many reasons. The massacre in the Nazi concentration camps, the socialist and libertarian character of the early settlements, the theories of the first VII Good causes are not recognised. If you stare them in the face, kibbutzim based on libertarian communism, the original peaceful they are no longer good. They suffocate with undesired justification, cohabitation with the Arabs in response to the latter's traditional beg to stay on the surface not push the knife in, or cry. hospitality. Then interests emerged, particularly at the end of the Second World War. They were based on the world's division into 65 6 two opposing blocks, with American interests on one side and Soviet militarised, super-industrialised and imperialist society pacifically.' ones on the other. It was a question of economic concerns in a (A. R. Buenfil, 'I tempi delle comuni' in Volonta no. 3/1989, p. 108- geographical area that was rich in oil fields, thus attracting the 109.) There, this passage being ideological and superficial, attention of the great imperialist States. philosophically dictated and dimly mechanistic, amounts to the most limited and insignificant stuff that can be said on the subject at the The Israelis accepted their role as gendarme of the western project present time. All that not being possible, there being nothing to of world dominion, and started to keep an eye on the movements of peacefully put in place of society or the State that defends itself the surrounding Arab States. The latter often fought each other militarily like an old woman holding on to her chair. We are left with about the management of the immense revenue from oil and became the question: what should the diversity of communitarian life be, players on the international chessboard, sometimes supporting, given that it cannot be simply the commune alone, which is not sometimes contrasting the opposition of the great States. It was the diversity at all? The communes of the last century and their Zionist movement along with the great Jewish-American and supporters were aware of this problem and addressed all their international, but mainly American, lobbies that pushed the Jewish efforts in that direction. For example, free love became a problem people along this road in the land of Israel. This lead to an extremism within the problem, a Utopia within the technical problem of keeping hitherto unequalled in the whole of political-religious history. The the community going. lobbies, which were capable of conditioning American politics, particularly during the long years of Republican power, forced the [1989] United States to push the small but fierce Israel into the role of policeman of the Middle East. All this rekindled anti-Semitism at world level, leading to an indigestible collection of anti-Jewish theories. In this concentrate of stupidity we find such historical revisionism as the theory that the Holocaust never existed, or that Arab nationalists are incapable of considering Israeli people as possible brothers and peaceful cohabitants of the same territory. For their part, the latter have survived a thousand years of persecution and massacres, yet have not benefited from past experience. They have become hostages in the hands of a theocratic State, one of the worst kinds of organisation to emerge from the mind of man. Fear of being cast into the sea to take up the path of exile yet again has thrown them into the arms of internal and external meddlers: Zionist schemes at local and international level, and the strategies of US world dominion. An evil crescendo has been set in motion that nothing less than a revolutionary process will be able to halt. No discussion is possible and anyone who has experienced the concrete and theoretical reality of the Jews, even for short spells, can confirm this. No theoretical proposal will ever be able to undo the mechanism of encirclement and fear. This situation has remained unchanged, even since the fall of the Berlin wall and the thaw that came about after the dissolution 7 64 its mere existence as a commune separate from the rest of the social of the Warsaw Pact at the end of the twentieth century. Arab system. What we are saying might seem banal but it actually touches nationalist claims in general and those of the Palestinians in on the most important aspect of the problem. The question today is particular cause too much fear, and there is no lack of those who not so much whether to live in a commune or not - something that support the facile but treacherous idea of 'let's throw them all into also has its difficult side - and going against the prevailing model of the sea' on both sides. normality. It means living in a different way, living one's life differently. It does not mean that one simply lives the same life as the The experience of the Palestinian State, or of the 'Palestinian slaves of capital at a different, often worse, pace, making individual authorities' as some prefer to refer to it, also demonstrates this efforts that often amount to super-exploitation under other names impossibility. They failed to propose cohabitation based on and ideologies. reciprocal respect along the lines of the libertarian communes, a sentiment that has not completely disappeared in a certain Israeli I think that the problem of communes needs to be gone into in depth. left. This corresponds in a slightly different way to the tradition of For example, the next step could be to look at the problem from the hospitality and freedom of Arab peoples - in the first place the outside. The commune is all very well, but for what? Now we are Palestinians. Instead they have taken the road mapped out by the reaching the crux of the matter. A productive, agricultural or city politicians of the PLO, in particular Arafat, true killer of the commune, could become a survivalist community. By working at it Palestinian people's real desire for freedom and artificer of a this objective it could more or less be achieved. But what is that phantom State fit only to guarantee the personal power of a little objective exactly? The reproduction of oneself as a working animal; a man afflicted with delusions of grandeur. producer, that's all, only the other side of the ghetto. There must be some ideal in our motivation, something more than a mere call to The dice has been thrown, based on the fear that has intensified in struggle against the State and society. It is vital that this pulsion, this the Israeli field. An extension of the civil war in course right to the utopian thrust, be inherent in the communitarian dimension if we centres of Israeli power could push things beyond the present level are to choose such an instrument. We must have chosen this of conflict. Each side is afraid of the other. The Israelis fear instrument because through it we want to come out from society and Palestinian demands that would threaten their privileges (cheap upset others with our diversity - all others, even those who know labour, houses expropriated from Arabs who were forced to leave, nothing about communitarian organisation. But our diversity cannot State benefits, etc.). The Palestinians fear the Israelis, who want to simply be summed up as belonging to a commune because such an get rid of them, want to throw them off their land (and in large part existence is nearly always so miserable as to incite pity rather than already have done) and force them into exile in the concentration to set an example. It must therefore be something else. camps of the Lebanon and Jordan. Fear is exacerbating the conditions of the conflict. Palestinian suicide bombers packed with The following passage by Buenfil shows how far one is from the dynamite blow themselves up in Israeli markets, buses and schools. problem raised here: 'The ecological society will necessarily be The exalted Israeli religious Right Wing in power have shown that egalitarian and decentralised, not hierarchical. It is in this context the weapons with which they intend to face 'cohabitation' with the that the project of new kinds of social groups, communes and Arab world - exploitation, control, repression, - are just as bad. communities, civil voluntary associations and networks of cooperatives exist. Up until now it was thought that it is best to carry It is impossible to turn the clock back. Too many dead in each family, out such experiments in the country. Instead we must start to in each family group, in every sector of social life. Too much blood, conceive them in the cities, as collectives, consumers' and artisans' too much pain. All that cannot be eliminated with a handshake, or cooperatives, new tribes, bands, area associations, workers' councils, some Camp David. In spite of the existence of the Israeli Left, holistic schools and clinics. In this way it will be possible to build a yesterday in power, today in opposition, the most emarginated class parallel society that replaces the competitive nuclear, ecocide, of Israelis, the Sephardim (Jews originally from Africa therefore with 63 8 a darker skin colour but still of Jewish religion), are taking refuge in Communes, From Experimentation extreme Right Wing positions rather than favouring talks and to Survival agreements based on equal rights with the Palestinians. They are afraid they will lose the right to stay in Israel and be forced back to the countries they came from, where most of them would meet Here, at the end of the eighties, there has been a move towards certain death. So it is not difficult to understand why the most communes as an alternative lifestyle running parallel to the extreme members of the Jewish religious organisations are of increasing difficulties of the social struggle. The road to revolution Sephardic origin and constitute the most ferocious henchmen of the seems to be blocked, with no sight of victory for the progressive and army and police employed in the repression. revolutionary forces over the reactionary conservative State. So these communes are not just considered in abstract, they are On the other hand, there are the new Palestinian police - the claiming to satisfy fundamental personal and collective needs, or are politicians of the PLO. These ill-omened offshoots of the new State ethnically and culturally motivated. In a word, they have become a have taken up positions in the government of a people tormented by point of reference for many people, far from the traditional division forty years of exile and persecution, and are putting power in all its between the personal and political. forms into effect. They torture, kill, judge and sentence their own people without hesitation. Comrades in struggle who participated in It cannot be denied that there was a growing need for diversity extremely risky actions up until a few years ago have become judges, behind these alternative desires. As hopes for a radical change in the prison guards, policemen, army commanders, bodyguards, secret social structure disappeared, there was concern not to let oneself be services agents. In the territories liberated by concession of the submerged by rampant restructuring and spreading desistance. Israeli government, the PLO has become the repressive force of a Consequently there has been a tendency to carry on the struggle by State that has not yet reached the maximum of its governing respecting one's own essential needs. capacity, but which has already embarked on the road of all States. The roles are reversing, power is renewing itself but the methods Talking of the Comunidad del Sur, Ruben Prieto says, 'These new remain the same. But for the millions of Palestinians still in the societal formations organise social action to selfmanage funds, camps, the permanent exiles who have had their land and identity production and consumption, as well as various services, or come taken from them, this way of doing things is called betrayal. Hence together on the basis of particular needs. Through all this, in a way their fear of seeing themselves imprisoned in concentration camps marginal (but at the same time opposed to dominant values and the for another half century, betrayed by their own representatives power apparatus) ferment, one can see the emergence of a new (something that is very painful), as well as being under the attack of credible and verifiable utopian discourse. In their most radical Israeli raids and drawn into a political game which they do not realisation, communes aim to promote individual identity and free understand and whose possible outcome they fail to see. organisational forms, a re-evaluation of autonomy, participation and creativity, and lack of faith in any project of development based on Once again the future is being conditioned by fear on both sides, the technologies of capitalist development, with a strong accent on pushing them blindly forward in a clash that is getting worse. The the culture of daily life, action from the base to the vertex and the insurrection of the Palestinian people scares the politicians of Gaza particular to the general'. R. Prieto, 'La Comunidad del Sur' in and the West Bank. More than anything it scares Arafat, as he is 'Volonta' n. 3, 1989, p.56) unable to control it. It scares the Israeli government, but also scares the Israeli people, and this is the important thing. Seeing themselves It is possible to draw very general principles from this passage that under attack in their own homes where anyone likes to feel safe, anyone could agree with, precisely because they are not specific. they are appealing to their governors and asking for stricter controls Basically, what should characterise a commune that is beyond State and more systematic repression. The circle is closing in. interference should be its diversity, i.e. the diversity of its aims, not 9 62