1

Introduction
What is this document about and why is it important
I took on myself a rather strange task: to review the history of the
Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), Israeli section of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International, although Michael Warschawski
(Mikado), its founder and leader, ignores the fact that it ever existed and
the United Secretariat of the Fourth International never criticized him. I
refer mainly to the omission of the RCL in his autobiographical book, first
published in French: Sur la frontier (Editions Stock, 2002), and translated
to English in 2005 with the title On the Border (Pluto Books/South End
Press). I strongly endorse the review of the book by Moshe Machover, a
founder and leader of the ISO (Matzpen) of which Mikado was a member
prior to his split from it.1
The RCL was active in Israel from 1972 to 1994. I joined it in the mid-80s
and was an active member till its end. However, in his autobiographical
book Mikado presents himself as a member of the Israeli Socialist
Organization (ISO), better known by the name of its journal, Matzpen
(Compass) till its demise. Twelve years later, in 2005, International
Viewpoint, the magazine of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International (henceforth IVP) published an interview with him by Wilno,
who repeats Mikado's disregard of the RCL (see below).
The ISO was founded in 1962 by the late Akiva Orr and Moshe Machover,
who has continued to elaborate on its political principles and analyses
until the present. In his autobiography, Mikado speaks on behalf of the
ISO without mentioning the fact that he joined it in 1968 and split from it
in 1972, when he founded the RCL as the section of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International. As Moshe Machover emphasizes
in his well-based criticism of Mikados' book: "The splinter group led by
Mikado, the Jerusalem-based Revolutionary Communist League,
claimed the name Matzpen for themselves and published their own
rival journal, Marxist Matzpen. Thereafter, the RCL was usually referred
to in Israel as Matzpen Jerusalem, while the original group, the ISO, was
1 For a sharp criticism of Mikado's book, including his misleading description of
the ISO - the Israeli socialist Organization (Matzpen), see Moshe Machover "A
Peace Activist on the Border" in Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and
Resolution: Essays by Moshe Machover, Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books,
2012, pp. 249-257.

referred to as Matzpen Tel-Aviv"2 (see below the details of the split and
Mikado's untrue presentation of the ISO-Matzpen).
On the other hand, Mikado speaks about the Alternative Information
Center (AIC) as his life enterprise. However, since he does not mention
the split from the ISO (Matzpen), the reader gets the impression that he
founded the Center while being a member of the ISO.
In fact the ISO (Matzpen) had no connection whatsoever to the
foundation of the AIC or to its activities. It was the RCL which decided on
its foundation following Mikado's Initiative in 1984, twelve years after
the split from the ISO. In its first years, the AIC was subordinate to the
decisions of the RCL Central Committee and its Political Chamber
(Halishka Hapolitit). But step by step it became independent of the RLC,
although the members of the RLC were involved in its activities. Some of
them (like Sergio, me, Ingrid and Mikado) were employed by the AIC.
With the years, especially after the Oslo Accords (1993-95), the AIC has
gradually changed in both political and administrative terms. It has
abandoned its initial identity as a radical internationalist, socialist and
anti-Zionist political organization. Instead, its discourse and activities
came close to those of an NGO which focused mainly on the violation of
human rights in the territories occupied in 1967 and in Israel "proper". It
thus shared the general NGOnization trend that has emptied
organizations of a radical political content.
The French government recognized the human rights essence of the AIC
and granted it the yearly Human Rights Award prize of 2002. Mikado
received the prize on behalf of the AIC from the French PM Jean-Marc
Ayrault in a ceremony which took place on 10 December 2002 (the
French version of his book came out in that year). The pride of the AIC in
receiving the prize from Frances government, which is committed to the
US-Israel policy of oppression of the Palestinians, is reflected in the AIC
announcement of the prize under the headline "France Honours the Work
of the Alternative Information Center" (see Appendix I).
2 Moshe Machover, Ibid. See also the excellent article on the ISO (Matzpen) by
Doug Enaa Greene, Matzpen: Revolutionary anti-Zionism in Israel, Links:
International Journal of Socialist Renewal, December 23.
http://links.org.au/node/4213. For information on Matzpen, its history and
political positions, see http://www.matzpen.org/english/. See also Moshe
Machover, Israelis and Palestinians (above).

Not only the fact that he was the founder and leader of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals section was erased from
Mikado's
autobiography; he also turned his back on socialist
internationalism in general. Instead, he adopted the ideology which
Machover justly depict as "not so much Israeli-Hebrew patriotism which
he criticizes for its tribalism but a diasporic Jewish identity, an
ideology that (for lack of a better term) may be described as ethnopatriotism". According to Mikado's own statement in On the Border,
already in the 80s socialist internationalism seemed rootless to him:
For the activists, [not" comrades" and without specifying who they were]
those meetings [with Arabs or Palestinians] were not encounters
between enemies or negotiations before their time. They were
discussions between comrades of different countries. [...] there was a
high price to pay for that internationalism. [It] involved voluntarily giving
up an identity, a step that rather quickly proved to be politically sterile
and personally destabilizing. [] Having chosen to be citizens of the
world, or members of an international class, we willingly cut off the roots
that bound us to our society and our culture. (p. 39)

Replacing socialist internationalism, to which Mikado had formerly

subscribed, with ethnic-based identity, inevitably led to emphasizing
"the border" between Jews and Palestinians. Since the early 90s Mikado
openly called to remain on the Jewish side of this border (and not cross it
to the other side).
But if this common overriding commitment to socialist internationalism
is lacking, a person who actively embraces Jewishness as a primary
identity and a Palestinian nationalist are not full partners in a common
struggle. The two remain politically separated by "The Border" even
when trying to bridge it. And in such circumstances an intimacy in
personal relations that does away with ethnic or religious belonging, and
which one can call friendship, is almost impossible to achieve. (p. 63)
International Viewpoint (IVP) has not published a response to Moshe
Machover's review on Mikado's book, published by Haymarket - the
Chicago publishing house of the sister Trotskyite organization, the ISO.
Nor has it refuted Mikado's erasure of the RCL from the history of
Trotskyism in Israel. It has continued to publish Mikado's articles - often
in contradiction with the publications of comrades, including me, who
are committed to Socialist Internationalism in their approach to Zionism
and the "conflict".

As regards the RCL in Israel and Mikado, the United Secretariat of the
Fourth International failed to fulfill its leadership role: it did not reject
Mikados positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Zionism or
support the revolutionary opinions of other contributors to International
Viewpoint. This may have made it difficult for the United Secretariat of
the Fourth International followers to adopt clear-cut positions on the
apartheid nature of the Jewish-Zionist state, the Zionist lefts role in
portraying its ideology and policies as well as on the collaborative
essence of the Palestinian Authority.
I quote a lot from Machover's review of Mikado's autobiography.
However, since his criticism does not deal with the RCL and the AIC nor
with their relationship with the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International, I see it as my obligation to rescue the history of the RCL
from its intentioned distortion by its past leader and from its indirect
confirmation by the IVP. Inevitably I focus largely on Michael Warshwski
(Mikado) himself because he founded and led the RCL and the
Alternative Information Center and controlled almost exclusively the
connections with the United Secretariat.
I hope that this presentation of the political activities and positions of the
RCL and the AIC, including their relationship with the Bureau of the
United Secretariat of the Fourth International, will help comrades adopt a
clearer revolutionary perspective on the central issues of the IsraeliPalestinian "conflict" than that transmitted to them by the United
Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals leadership.

The ISO, the Split and the Foundation of the RCL

I met Akiva ORR and Moshe Machover, two of the four founders of ISO
(Matzpen), almost immediately after it was established in 1962 and
became its enthusiastic supporter until the present.
Talking with them shattered at once my Left Zionist worldview which had
been crystallized while serving in the Palmach during the 1948 war and
my position as the secretary of Mapam (an acronym for the Unified
Workers Party), in the Knesset in the years 1952-4.
The ISO was the only political organization in Israel which saw Zionism
as a colonial enterprise and the state of Israel as a tool for the
embodiment, enforcement and expansion of it. Matzpen's anti-Zionism

stemmed from being socialist and anti-imperialist. Israel was depicted as

the lesser partner of British and later US imperialist interests in the
region, which, with the collaboration of the corrupt Arab regimes,
oppressed and exploited the peoples of the region.
This analysis prepared me to reject the various peace plans which
started to appear soon after the '67 war - including the Oslo Accords
which, unlike the RCL, I strongly condemn.
I first met the RCL members in 1982 in the different protest groups which
were active in Jerusalem, namely the committee for Solidarity with Bir
Zeit University, the Committee against the War in Lebanon, Enough with
Occupation and Women in Black. I became very close to them politically
and socially and participated in their discussions on political issues.
Thus, in 1984 I supported the RCL decision to establish the Alternative
Information Center under the direction of Mikado, and was elected as
member of its Board.
In 1985 I officially joined the RCL, which I saw as truthfully committed to
the Marxist socialist and anti-Zionist world view. I supported their past
decision to join the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, which
was the main reason for splitting from the ISO (Matzpen), since I
identified myself as Trotskyite. I did not appreciate enough the political
openness and anti-sectarianism which characterized the ISO (Matzpen),
as emphasized by Machover: "Eschewing the sectarianism that cripples
the radical left almost everywhere, Matzpen included members (both
Jews and Arabs) of various Marxist persuasions, united by thorough
internationalism and, consequently, opposition to Zionism".
But the main reason for joining the RCL was the important role it played
as a group in the protest movement against the occupation of the
territories conquered in 1967 (as opposed to those conquered in 1948),
which already in mid-80s became almost its main activity. I remained in
close relationship with the late Akiva Orr and with Moshe Machover and
their partners Lea and Ilana, who moved with their families to London in
mid 70s. They remained involved and even led the discussions and
decisions which took place among the remaining comrades in Israel, and
they also continued to write in Matzpen Magazine and to represent it
among the Marxist Left supporters in England. Machover has continued
to the very present elaborating on the political principles of Matzpen and
its theoretical foundations from the 60s and 70s, elaborations which
appeared in the Weekly Worker and other publications.

I continued to support the positions of the ISO and to see it as a guide

for Socialist revolutionaries, in Palestine and worldwide. My being a
Trotskyite did not prevent me from feeling a comradely fraternity
towards them. Precisely because the ISO (Matzpen) was not committed
to any specific tendency in the radical socialist left I could fully support
its positions.
However, through a long list of lies and distortions, Mikado has tried to
make it look as if the group he joined after the 1967 war the ISO
(Matzpen) was from the start a wholly or largely Trotskyist organization.
As Machover rightly claims: "The story he tells on pp. 2425 about the
creation of Matzpen (when he was still a schoolboy in Strasbourg) is
carefully crafted to give wings to that canard. [...] Indeed, this myth is
widely repeated in Trotskyist circles." Moshe Machover exposes this
myth: "The truth is that when Matzpen was founded, in 1962, it had not
a single Trotskyist member. A handful of Trotskyists, led by the Arab
Marxist intellectual Jabra Nicola, joined the group more than a year later,
on the understanding that they could keep their individual ties with the
Brussels-based [United Secretariat of the] Fourth International, provided
they did so openly; but the group as such would not affiliate to that
organization. The majority resolutely opposed such affiliation, and we all
agreed that it was important to keep the broad non-sectarian unity of
various shades of Marxist opinion." "Jabra Nicola", says Machover, "was
the one Trotskyist comrade who, with his profound understanding of the
Arab East, made a valuable contribution to Matzpens political theory." 3
This fruitful cooperation as well as the profound respect for Jabra did not
change the non-sectarian character of Matzpen. Moreover, this was a
solid proof of its openness.
Identifying the ISO (Matzpen) as a Trotskyist organization permitted
Mikado to ignore completely the split he led in 1972 - four years after
joining Matzpen - and his founding of the RCL as the United Secretariat
of the Fourth Internationals section in Israel.
Here is Machover's take on the "non-existent split" from the ISO:
"Mikado was apparently convinced not only that the world revolution was
at hand, but also that it was going to be orchestrated by the Brussels
HQ. He therefore pressed for the ISO (Matzpen) to affiliate itself to the
3 See articles included in Part 1: "The Palestinian Struggle and the Arab East:
Jabra Nicola and his Heritage", Moshe Machover, Israelis and Palestinians:
Conflict and Resolution, Haymarket Books Chicago Illinois, 2012.

[United Secretariat of the] Fourth International. As he could not gain

sufficient support for this move, he engineered a destructive sectarian
split as a result of which, instead of one non-sectarian group whose
size was just above the critical mass that enabled it to make a significant
mark on the Israeli political scene, there were now two groups of roughly
equal size, both below that critical mass. By then Jabra Nicola had
moved to London and was in bad health. Opposed to the split, he was
unable to prevent it. [...] As mentioned, the splinter group led by Mikado
claimed the name Matzpen for themselves. Mikado deliberately avoids
telling the reader that after the split (and until the demise of the RCL
after Oslo) there were two groups using that name, and make it clear to
which of the two he is referring. He suppresses all mention of the split he
engineered and of the official name of the group he founded and led.
This economy with the truth" says Machover, "is designed to create the
false impression that there was always one Matzpen, and it was a
Trotskyist group".
The RCL and the Alternative Information Center
Unlike the ISO (Matzpen) the RCL had a Leninist hierarchical structure in
which the Central Committee and especially the Political Chamber made
the political decisions. The latter consisted of three members: Mikado, Eli
Aminov and Marcelo Wexler. In closed meetings they made the political
decisions, which were communicated to the comrades. I was not aware
of the absurdity of keeping a "democratic centralist" structure in a group
that at its peak did not count more than 25 members.
Already before the 1993 Oslo Accords, the RCL repeatedly called for the
recognition of the PLO as the "only representative of the Palestinian
People". It did not challenge its nature and policies as did the ISO
(Matzpen). (See below Mikado's support in 2008(!) for the Palestinian
Authority and its two-state solution, arguing that it represents the
Palestinian People). Hence the cooperation of the RCL and the AIC in the
late 80s and early 90s, prior to Oslo, with representatives of the
Palestinian bourgeoisie, Fatah supporters like Faisal Husseini and Sari
Nusseibeh. The aim of the joint group which met weekly in Husseinis
offices in East Jerusalem was to struggle together against the 1967
occupation. I portrayed the cooperation with those who supported the

1988 PLO decision to recognize the Zionist state as an implementation of

the strategy of "Popular Front".4
For many years the RCL avoided adopting an unequivocal position on the
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict". This permitted Eli Aminov to
"benefit from the doubt" and to issue in Hebrew a document headed
"The Second Palestinian Uprising and the Democratic Solution" in which
he called on behalf of the RCL for a Secular Democratic State. He gave it
to the members but got no reaction either from the leadership or from
the discussions about it in our weekly meetings.
When finally the general meeting did decide for a One Democratic State
solution, the slogan appeared in the RCL magazine Marxist Matzpen in a
distorted form. Out of nowhere appeared a vague addition to the
decision, namely, "A Secular Democratic and Bi-National State." The
addition reflected Mikado's ethnic-Jewish self-identity, which we were not
aware of, and his not as yet explicit resistance to openly call for any
solution other than that of two states. This explains why, despite
Mikado's and the RCLs prominent position in the protest movement "Dai
Lakibush" (Enough with Occupation), we tailed after the communists and
Shasi (smol sotzyalisti israeli -Israeli Socialist Left) members and did not
object to the newly introduced norm of ending every pamphlet against
the occupation with the call for the two-state solution.
The motives for this opportunistic position were not just "tactical," as I
was then inclined to believe. Mikado and the RCL majoritys support for
the Oslo Accords as well as Mikado's publications afterwards confirm that
he was committed to the two-state solution which was never officially
accepted by the RCL.
I did not know then that the Fourth International supported the two-state
solution. The first time I was informed about it was only in 1997, when
I was invited to an alternative conference commemorating 100 years
since the first Zionist congress, which took place in Basel. The
conference was organized by Birgit and Urs, members of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International, by comrades from other places in
4 News From Within, Vol. XVII May 2001 (less than a year after Toufic and me
were fired) was dedicated to the death of Faisal Husseini. See Michael
Warschawskys "Abu el-Abed", in which Mikado expresses his deep admiration
for Husseinis political positions as one of the Fatah leaders. It reflects his
departure from any internationalist revolutionary positions as well as class
distinctions in each of the "global" entities, "Jews" and "Palestinians."

Switzerland and by some comrades from Germany. It had a wide

attendance of activists in the solidarity with Palestine movements- a
large majority of whom supported the one state solution. The panel on
the solution included among others, Yakov Moneta, the long-time, wellknown Trotskyist from Germany, a PFLP member from a Palestinian
research center in Lebanon, a Swiss comrade and me. I spoke for the
one state solution which the others in the panel agreed with. And so did
many of the participants who spoke from the floor.
Salah Jaber (Gilbert Achcar) then a member of the bureau of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International, carried on a fierce debate with
me from the floor in which he supported the two-state solution and
sharply criticized my position.5
I mentioned above Mikado's confession that already in the 80s he felt
that the internationalist perspective was rootless and that he replaced it
with an ethnic-based self-identity Judaism. However, during the years I
spent close to him in the RCL and the AIC I never heard him expressing
5 In his July 2012 article "Standing the Test of Time," Weekly Worker, no. 923,
19 July 2012, Machover summarized Matzpens four principal positions - two of
which are related to the resolution of the "conflict".
<http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/923/standing-the-test-of-time/> Through
the 2000s I supported Machover and Matzpen's position on the solution, which
reads: The imbalance could only be redressed, and Palestinian liberation
would only become possible, as part of a revolutionary transformation of the
region, by an Arab revolution led by the working class, which would overthrow
the repressive regimes, unify the Arab east and put an end to imperialist
domination over it. The resolution could therefore not occur within the
confines of Palestine, established by the British imperialists and their French
allies following World War I. "Thus, we did not advocate a so-called two-state
solution in a repartitioned Palestine, nor a one-state solution in a unitary
Palestine. Instead, we envisaged incorporation of the two national groups - the
Palestinian Arabs and the Hebrews (so-called Israeli Jews) - as units with equal
rights within a socialist regional union or federation of the Arab east." However,
when Michael Letwin asked me on 11 February 2013 if I agreed to be among
the initial signatories of the "Jews for the Palestinian Right of Return and One
State" I was only glad to support wholeheartedly the new movement. My
departure from the Machover/ISOs position was expressed in my critical article
against Machover's position. (See Tikva Honig-Parnass, One Democratic State
in Historic Palestine: A Socialist Viewpoint, International Socialist Review, Issue
#90 <http://isreview.org/issue/90/one-democratic-state-historic-palestine>, in
which my article was presented as a response to Machover's old article in ISR
rather than as a response to his then recent article in Weekly Worker).

10

explicitly that feeling. In retrospect, one can say that the words were
already written on the wall when he first announced his thesis "on the
border". This happened in a mass meeting in support of him in which
Faisal Husseini sat on the stage together with Mikado and me. The
meeting took place after Mikado's conviction by the District Court for
helping a terrorist organization in 1989. Since then, "on the border"
became the credo of the RCL and the AIC. From the beginning it was not
just a slogan intended to relieve Mikado and the AIC from the alleged
accusation of serving the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It
actually stemmed from Mikados political ideology, which he shared with
the bourgeois leader Faisal Husseini.
In the three years between 1989 and 1991, when the appeal to the
Supreme Court was pending, Mikado was banned from entering the AIC
office. In those years, including the five months he spent in prison, I
replaced him as the AIC director.6
From then on, the retreat even from the "on the border" ideology
increased gradually. The support for the treacherous Oslo Accords of
1993 by Mikado and the RCL's majority signified a major step towards
abandoning a genuine internationalist worldview.
The Oslo Accords
The catastrophic essence of the Oslo Accords was clear to me from the
moment its details were made public. I was fortunate to insert my article
against it in the September 5 issue of News From Within, the AIC
monthly which I edited. The headline of my article "The Oslo Agreement
- No Recognition for the National Rights of the Palestinian People" - was
displayed in large letters on the cover. My second article, which
6 In 1989 Mikado, as the director of the AIC, was accused of "providing services
for illegal (Palestinian) organizations" and sentenced to twenty months in
prison, with a 10-month suspended sentence. The judges ruled that a
typesetting of a booklet had come from members of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine. The booklet described torture and interrogation
techniques employed by Israel's security apparatus, with advice on how to
withstand them. The AIC was closed for a month and had to pay a high fine.
Mikado's attorney appealed to the Supreme Court, which in turn reduced his
sentence to eight months in prison, of which he spent four and a half months
due to the rule of reducing a third of a sentence for "good behavior" .The Court
determined that that Mikado was unaware of the booklet's origins, but guilty of
"closing his eyes" to the evidence.

11

emphasized the Oslo recognition of the Jewish-Zionist state, was

published in the next issue of NFW.7
In a meeting which took place in the RCL Tel Aviv office, around 25
comrades voted for Mikado' position which supported the Oslo Accord
against my rejection of Oslo.8
Soon after the voting, Mikado initiated a move to exclude me from the
editorial board of our journal "Marxist Matzpen". Sergio Yani was sent to
Paris to present the "majority document" at a United Secretariat of the
Fourth Internationals meeting. When I found out about it, I sent him a
fax demanding to give my "minority" document to the comrades, which
he did. In January 1994, International Viewpoint No. 252 published "A
dossier- debate on Israeli-PLO Accords" (not available online) which
included three positions: the RCL majority position by Sergio Yani and
Michael Warshawski, called "The Struggle Will Not End", my "Bantustan
in the Making" and the United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals
position by Salah Jaber (Gilbert Achcar), "A Retreat under Pressure,"
which was similar to my position.
The RCL "Majority"/Mikado's Document on the Oslo Agreement
The "majority" document written by Mikado assumes that the multiplicity
of unknown factors makes it impossible to determine what would be the
"fate of the new order".
This determination is strange to say the least. The disastrous
consequences of the Oslo agreement were known in advance to anyone
who realized the Imperialist and Zionist colonial interests which
motivated it. But the LRC document lacks an attempt to analyze Oslo in
the context of imperialism and global capitalism, or in relation to Zionist
7 See Tikva Honig-Parnass, The Oslo Agreement: No Recognition of Palestinian
National Rights, News From Within, Vol. IX, No. 9, and Tikva Honig-Parnass,
"PLO Recognition of the Jewish-Zionist State", News From Within, Vol. IX, No.
10, November 1993. (By mistake 1992 was printed instead of 1993).
8 Eli Aminov was against the Oslo Accords but he was not actively involved in
the internal fight which followed the voting on Oslo. Three month later, in
February 1994, he independently printed his article "The RCL and the
Imperialist Settlement in the Middle East: Comments to the Document A Bad
Settlement that Should be Exploited" (published in Marxist Matzpen,
December 1993). But by then (winter 1994) the RLC was about to be ended, so
there was no debate on it.

12

colonialism, whose striving for eliminating the Palestinian people has

been inscribed into its ideology and policies since its inception.9
Mikado's document points to a kind of exchange which took place: the
PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist and, in return, Israel
recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians in the areas
occupied in 1967. The Palestinian Authority was granted the role of
repressing resistance in collaboration with Israel.
In the "majority" document written by Mikado, the PLO headed by Arafat
was not depicted as the organization which betrayed the national rights
of the Palestinian People. On the contrary, it emphasized that, due to the
"balance of power," they did not have another alternative. However, it
says, despite the fact that the Oslo Accord was dictated "by Israel", the
achievements of the Palestinians are significant: The Israeli government
agreed to grant the Palestinians the small area of Jericho and to give
more authority to the self-governing Palestinian area. But, most
importantly, it is Israel's recognition of the PLO which according to
Mikado constitutes an essential turning point in its attitude towards the
Palestinian issue. It allegedly has a tremendous symbolic and political
significance because, despite its weakening, the PLO still represents the
majority of the Palestinian people.
On the other hand, Mikado does recognize the significant achievements
of Israel. Most importantly, the Palestinian willingness for normalization
and cease-fire (meaning abandoning resistance) before the basic
problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been solved. Still, says
Mikado, this should not hinder the support of Oslo. (!)
One of the misleading arguments for supporting Oslo was the statement
that a fundamental change had taken place in the Israeli society;
namely, that it is now ready to make "substantial compromises" far
beyond those that are included in the Accords. Hence, Mikado rejected
any deterministic evaluation of Oslo. Indeed, the Accords expressed
the existing balance of power, but "the way in which they are applied
depends on the balances of power at each state of the process" .Thus
Mikado's document not only did not conclude that the very Oslo Accord
had worsened the relations of forces. It determined that "the Oslo
agreement creates a situation in which the Palestinian People in the
9 The ISO (Matzpen) was the only group, among those in Israel claiming to be
socialist and Marxist, which adopted genuine socialist anti-Zionism and antiimperialism as a framework for analyzing the shameful Oslo Agreement.

13

occupied territories are in a better condition to campaign for their

rights." [...] "Would it not be easier today to organize the political
prisoners and their families in a mass struggle for amnesty? Would I not
be easier to organize a struggle against the building of new Jewish
neighborhoods within the heart of Arab Jerusalem?" Moreover, according
to Mikado the Agreement opened, in the autonomy areas, "new horizons
for popular political and political activities aimed at changing the Oslo
framework itself".
In determining that a new era had opened for the Palestinian struggle,
Mikado disregarded the aim of Oslo, publicized by Rabin: the oppression
of the Palestinian resistance by the Authority itself, which would be free
to act "without B'Tselem and without the Supreme Court" (which
presumably opposes Israel's violation of human rights). Mikado knew
very well that Arafat's order from Tunis in the first Intifada ended Beit
Sahour's popular "tax rebellion," planned to spread the civil
disobedience into other towns. He was also aware of how Arafat had
blocked the activity of the radical forces which led the first Intifada and
its popular essence.
The document ends with a new perspective on the role of a Marxist
revolutionary organization which contradicted that of the RCL in the
past: "The RCL is not an organization of political interpreters, nor is it an
organization of judges of history." Therefore, the RCL first task is not to
denounce the agreement but to do everything in our power to create
those conditions which will enable the Palestinians to defend their right
to navigate this new agreement towards their interests, to "work against
all the barriers that stand on the way of fulfillment of the accord within
the framework of enlightened interpretation."10
According to Mikado, this could be attained through activity within the
protest movement, the struggle for dismantling the settlements, the
Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem, for release of the prisoners
10 This "anti-theory" position was presented by Mikado in a 2013 gathering
commemorating the ISO (Matzpen) foundation, in which many activists from
the radical left participated. Turning to the young activists in "Anarchists
against the Wall," he said that they had to act without the need for Marxist or
any other radical theories. Those youth have been radicalized by long meetings
with the late Akiva Orr (Aki), who indeed stood up and strongly criticized
Mikado while emphasizing that the ISO had never been a "protest" movement
but a revolutionary Marxist organization which aimed to dismantle the present
regime.

14

and for canceling the undercover units. Without achieving those

"democratic tasks", namely a change of the Israeli government's policy,
the accords were doomed to fail, as well as the prospect for peace.
Uri Avnerys Gush Shalom which replaced the relatively more radical
protest movement was signified as the partner appropriate to fulfill the
RCLs tasks.
I would have expected the Fourth International to understand
that
supporting the Oslo Accords is not just a different opinion from my
opposition and their own opposition to Oslo. It should have been
understood that supporting Oslo would necessarily entail disastrous
results for the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist struggles in Israel. This
was already clear from the RCL document, which explicitly called for
revolutionary activists to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority and
Gush Shalom. Hence, in my opinion, the Bureau of the United Secretariat
of the Fourth International should have written a critical response to the
RCL document, instead of just posting it alongside my document and
their own document, as well as depicting those different positions as a
"debate". Failing to do it then and in the coming years, when Mikado's
support of the Oslo process became clear, meant that the Fourth
International did not send an unequivocal message to its members and
supporters among the different Trotskyist movements. The declaration
on Palestine adopted by the International Committee of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International on 24 February 2015 indicates
that its continues to refrain from placing at the center of analysis a
strong condemnation of the Oslo Accords and from portraying them as
the initiators of the disastrous situation of the Palestinians.
Uri Avnerys Gush Shalom and the Palestinian Authority as
partners of the RCL
What best indicates Mikados and the RCL's withdrawal from an
independent socialist and anti-Zionist stance is the call for partnership
with the Palestinian Authority and with Gush Shalom headed by Uri
Avnery, who for years has been at Arafat's command.
The Gush Shalom block was founded with the help of the RCL in 1993,
just a few months before the return of Arafat and the PLO leadership
from Tunis to the areas of Palestinian autonomy. I participated with
Mikado in the meetings with Avnery and others in which the name of the

15

new movement and the nature of its activities were decided. In fact
Mikado handed the leadership of the new movement to Avnery, who
previously had a marginal role in the protest movement (the solidarity
with Bir Zet University and Dai La Kibush), formerly led by the
representatives of the RCL, the Communist party and Shasi. Avnery
indeed was most fit for a movement who would submit to the PAs
policies. The partners to the RCL in the old protest movement (the
Communists and Shasi as well as individual militant activists who were
active in the "old" protest movement) did not join Gush Shalom since
they understood that the independent and more radical dimension of the
protest movement would be eliminated by Avnery and his now-ally
Mikado. And indeed in a very short time their concerns came true. The
Gush Shalom ("Peace Block") became, both in organizational and
political terms, the representative of the collaborative PA within the
Israeli "peace Camp".
The principle which formerly guided the activists in the past protest
movement was to keep direct cooperation only with Palestinian grassroot groups like womens organizations, student committees, trade
unions and residents of refugee camps, without taking into consideration
their political party identity. But under the leadership of Avnery and with
the support of Mikado, this was changed.
In the first meeting of Gush Shalom, I was nominated to head the
committee for connections with the Palestinians in the territories
occupied in 1967. I was sure that the past principle of cooperating with
Palestinian grassroots would be kept in Gush Shalom as well. However, I
was shocked when in the first session of this committee Uri Avnery
announced that he had already been in touch by phone with Arafats
offices in Tunis, which informed him that they had nominated a gobetween on behalf of the Palestinian leadership, a Fatah person from
Jerusalem who would be responsible for organizing joint protest activities
with Gush Shalom.
I still believed that Mikado would support my objections to Avnery's new
policy of adapting Gush Shaloms activities to the PAs policies, but he
did not. His support of it indicated the above-mentioned change in the
RCLs identity as a revolutionary organization which strives to change
the Zionist regime. According to its new priorities, the RCL activist in
Gush Shalom now emphasized the 1967 Occupation (rather than the
1948 Naqba or the Zionist colonization of Palestine in prior decades) as

16

the root of the conflict, and its resolution as a matter of territories and
borders a perspective that the ISO (Matzpen) warned against already
30 years ago. Thus the RCL lost any distinct nature that would justify its
existence and, in mid-1994, it faded away.11
My criticism of the "On the Border" political perspective adopted by the
RLC and AIC, the condemnation of the Oslo Accords and the integration
into the "Gush Shalom" movement, constituted a significant turn to an
independent political thinking, free from the authority attributed to
Mikado in the past. It mainly strengthened my understanding the
implications of Internationalist Socialism for analyzing the "conflict" and
its resolution, which the ISO (Matzpen) had never abandoned.
After the 1993 Oslo Accords, I was gradually removed from positions of
decision-making in the AIC. I continued to edit News From Within during the last 2 years together with Toufic Haddad. In July 2000 Toufic
and I were fired, allegedly due to financial difficulties (see below our
2003 letter to Peter, then director of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
Internationals Amsterdam School which details the real reasons for it).12

11 An attempt to renew the RCL with the same non-revolutionary character

which caused its demise was doomed to fail. In a letter sent to past RCL
members on 7th March 1995 Mikado wrote: "A number of comrades are not
willing to accept the disappearance of an anti-Zionist revolutionary socialist
address from the political map." However, loyal to his position on the Oslo
Accords which befits the conception of a protest organization, he rejected any
"theory" that would guide it: "We are interested in creating a framework of
activists which would contribute to those aims. Matzpen [sic] members may be
its core. But not only Matzpen members, and not necessarily those who were
members of Matzpen, since we have no interest in abstract discussions which
dont connect to praxis, and which are not aimed at activity within and towards
the public which we will define during the discussions."
12 In those years my articles were published in El Ahram weekly and in radical
publications like New Politics and Against the Current. I was often invited by
sections of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in collaboration
with Palestinian solidarity movements to talk about Zionism and the "conflict"
(to Spain, London, Germany, Basel and Amsterdam, among other destinations).
I very often met with delegations or well-known public figures like Edward Said,
who asked specifically to talk with me on behalf of the AIC. I am mentioning
this in order to compare it with the lack of any connections with the leadership
of the Fourth International.

17

Following the failing of the talks between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak
and the outbreak of the second Intifada in October 2000, we began
issuing the Between the Lines (BTL) monthly for the next three years.13
The Bureau of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International was
aware that the differences between Mikado and me had widened
tremendously since Oslo (I twice complained at length about Mikado
when meeting Salah Jaber/Gilbert Achcar in 1995 in Paris and in 1997 in
Basel). However, they never attempted to approach me directly in order
to learn about the political rift between us (maybe this avoidance
indicated their shared some of Mikado's principal perspectives albeit in a
softer version, as reflected in the 2015 document below.) They also knew
that Toufic and I were fired and that we started issuing Between the
Lines, which continued to defend the political positions of News From
Within positions -far removed from those of Mikado and the AIC. But they
did not deem it necessary to inform the comrades about it or to keep in
touch with me - a past central comrade in the RCL and a supporter of the
United Secretariat of the Fourth International, or with Toufic, a supporter
of revolutionary socialist organizations, including the Fourth
International.
The 2000 Decade
All through the 2000 decade Mikado did not retreat from his basic
position towards the Oslo Accords and its implications - supporting the
Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian bourgeoisie on the one hand
and the Zionist Left on the other.
Despite of this, International Viewpoint continued to publish Mikado's
articles and his publications in the AIC magazine, read by many among
the radical left, without criticizing them.
Loyal to International Viewpoints "pluralist" policy, very few of my
articles were published, usually submitted by other comrades, in which I
emphasized my anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist position in regards the
"conflict". Also a number of articles by others were published, written by
radical socialist and anti-Zionist comrades of the Fourth International or
13 See Tikva Honig-Parnass and Toufic Haddad, Between the Lines (Haymarket
2007). The book includes most of the articles written by anti-Zionist Jews,
Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of the territories occupied in 1967.
Toufics and my own articles analyzing current events in Palestine are included
as well.

18

sister organizations, like David Finkel or Sherry J. Wolf, which expressed

positions similar to mine.
In 2001, (three years before the death of Arafat) the betrayal of the PA,
including the police role played by Arafat in collaboration with Israel's
security forces, was already well known. Nevertheless, Mikado still
adhered to his pro-Oslo positions, seeing the Palestinian bourgeois
leaders as allies in the struggle against the 67' Occupation. The May
2001 issue of News from Within was dedicated to Faisal Al-Husseini, who
had died from a sudden heart attack. In his article, Mikado praised him
for his cooperation with the Israeli "Peace Camp," including its Zionist
supporters, and criticized the Palestinian Left parties who depicted this
as a false "normalization" against which they fiercely fought. Mikado also
agreed with Husseni that this cooperation was "the core of the future coexistence":
"Quite a few Palestinian activists are ready to meet, dialogue and
collaborate with Israelis. But I know very few Palestinians who really have
an internalized vision of coexistence and reconciliation, not as a second
best option or really out of a pragmatic consideration, but because it is
good and beautiful in and of itself. Faisal Husseini was one of those who
had this vision. It is not by accident that Faisal Husseini invented the
concept "our Jerusalem". Unlike many Israeli peaceniks and Palestinian
nationalists, he was able to think and to dream a collective, bi-national
"we." The huge faith in a joint future led Faisal Al-Husseini to invest all
his energies in the political process which started in Oslo. Despite the
fact that he was skeptical regarding the peace process he knew that its
failure would open the road to a historical setback in the relations
between the two peoples and maybe even to the permanent closure of
the window of opportunity opened in the mutual recognition at Oslo. 14

Many of the comrades and supporters who happened to read this News
from Within article had just a month before read my article in
International Viewpoint in which I condemned the "Zionist Left" whom
Mikado depicted as the political partner to the Palestinian struggle. I
emphasized that the assumed differences between left and right Zionism
had been revealed as fake. The Zionist left shares both the ideology and
policies of the right, as well as its position towards the solution of the
"conflict":
14 Michael Warshawsky, "Abu el-Abed", News from Within, Vol. XVII, Number 4,
2001 (edited then By Jeff Halper, who claimed he was not anti-Zionist, and
Nassar Ibrahim, after Toufic and me were fired towards the end of 1999.)

19
"Therefore it is important once again to refute this imaginary perception
which misleads many, preventing the growth of a true Left which
struggles for social and political transformation of the Jewish-Zionist
state, which is an essential condition for a just peace. [] Both blocs,
Left and Right, do not embody any significant difference in economicsocial interests, as is classically attributed to social democracy vis-a-vis
conservative or right wing in Western Europe. Both politically
represent the Ashkenazi (European Jewry) economic, military and
political establishment. Thus, from the 1980s on, they accepted the
dictates of the US and the World Bank and began a policy aiming at
integrating Israel within the processes of capitalist globalization. [...]
[However] "while their similar attitudes towards the economic policy are
expressed openly, (although the argumentation is different), this is not
the case with the political process. In regards to peace, the agreed
deception about the 'most severe rift in Israeli society has been kept
and sustained by both camps."15

In 2002 the same confusing double messages recurred.

In May, International Viewpoint published in the same issue (No. 340
16 May 2002) an article by Mikado ("A Destructive Fury") and an
interview with me which was first published in the German Imprekor
("Behind Israels offensive"). Both relate to the bloody military attack on
the West Bank towns led by the Likud-Labor unified government
("Defensive Wall Operation," March 29 April 2002).
The difference between our answers to a similar question is telling.
In the interview with me I was asked: "What is the aim of the current
military attack on the Palestinians?" My answer was:
"The current brutal military offensive, typical to Israels Orwellian double
talk, indicates the opening of a new stage in the long process that aims
at destroying the Palestinian national movement embodied in the
Intifada strugglers and `liquidating the existence of the Palestinian
people on the land of Palestine (Haidar Abdel Shafi in an interview to
Yossi Algazi, Haaretz, April 2). This strategic aim of the Jewish-Zionist
state is in accord with the US imperialist interest in eliminating any
independent nationalist regime or political movement in the Middle East
15 Tikva Honig-Parnass, "Disappearance of the Israeli Left, Reappearance of the
Good Old Zionist Consensus," International Viewpoint, Tuesday, No. 330, 3 April
2001. <http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article684> This article
is taken from Between the Lines, vol. 1, no. 5, March 2001 (the address of the
review is PO Box 681, Jerusalem).

20
(as well as in the third word in general) which by definition constitute a
barrier to the capitalist globalisation project in the area. [...] The Oslo
Agreement, initiated and executed by a government led by the Labor
party, which represents the Israeli capitalist class, was an attempt to
implement these US-Israeli aims. However, the Israeli military operation
which has begun two weeks ago, signals the end of the former stage of
the Oslo process."16

In his article Mikado answers his own question: "What lies behind this
destructive madness?" as follows: "As far as the government is
concerned, it is the result of an ideology that mixes ultra-nationalism,
hatred of Arabs and messianic fundamentalism (the presence of Shimon
Peres only confirms the confusion of those elements in international
social democracy who believed the Israeli Labour Party were anything
other than national socialists)."17
Mikado avoids mentioning Zionism and colonialism in his
characterization of the ideology behind the massacre. Nor does he
emphasize that the attack is but a link in the continuous policies of both
"Left" and Right governments aimed at implementing the Zionist project.
He indeed mentions the "presence of Shimon Peres," but avoids saying
explicitly that Peres was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs on behalf
the Labor party which participated in Sharon's national unity
government, with Benjamin Ben Eliezer as its Defense Minister. This
means that Labor was equally responsible for the "madness."
By the same token Mikado avoids taking a clear position on the PLO
collaboration with the US and Israel, aimed at liquidating the Palestinian
anti-colonialist struggle, which was the real purpose of the Oslo Accords.
Hence he is disappointed that "no international pressure" on Israel has
developed. Moreover, Mikado still supports the US-led "steps towards
peace" since Saadats visit to Jerusalem and blames the Israeli
government for ignoring them, while continuing its bloody policies "As if
16 Tikva Honig-Parnass, "Behind Israels offensive," International Viewpoint,
Tuesday, No. 340, May 2002. <http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?
article447>
1717 See Tikva Honig Parnass on the strategy of launching every few years a bloody
destructive attack on Gaza: "Zionist Left Support for Bloody Assaults on Gaza Signifies
Its Erasure from Israels Political Map", in The Palestine Chronicle, October 1, 2014
<http://www.palestinechronicle.com/zionist-left-support-for-bloody-assaults-on-gazasignifies-its-erasure-from-israels-political-map/>

21

nothing had happened since the war of 1973, neither the coming of
Sadat, nor the peace with Egypt, nor the Madrid Conference, nor the
Oslo process, nor peace with Jordan nor the Saudi plan."18
In his autobiographic book On the Border (2002,2005), Mikado continues
to justify his support for the Oslo Accords by misleadingly determining
that they included an explicit promise for an independent Palestinian
state (p. 152). Theres no need to repeat that such a promise was not
made, not even a promise to stop building settlements.
Mikados recurrent attempts to exculpate the Zionist left from
responsibility for the brutal policies against the Palestinian people have
continued as well. In this case, he exempts them from initiating and
supporting the colonization of the territories occupied in 1967 from the
start. He tells us that only after the assassination of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 [t]he previously minority ideas of the right had
become official policy, particularly with regard to the settlements (p.
165). However, the truth is that the colonization was initiated
immediately after the war by the Labor-led government and spread at a
steadily accelerating pace under all Israeli governments since then
including the Labor-led government headed by Rabin. While that
government was negotiating the Oslo Accords, as well as after signing
them, the colonization continued relentlessly.
International Viewpoint did not publish a critical review of Mikado's book.
Nor did they relate to Moshe Machover's criticism of its 2005 English
version.19 No doubt their avoidance contributed to the confusion of
comrades and non-members who read the book, as well as to their
difficulty to adopt unequivocal positions against the Zionist state,
especially against the Zionist lefts potential to making "peace."
Relations with the United Secretariat
Internationals Bureau and comrades

of

the

Fourth

18 Michel Warschawski, "A destructive fury," International Viewpoint, Tuesday,

No. 340, May 2002, emphasis mine.
<http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article446>
19 For a sharp criticism of Mikado's book, including his misleading description
of the ISO - the Israeli socialist Organization (Matzpen), see Moshe Machover
"A Peace Activist on the Border" in Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and
Resolution: Essays by Moshe Machover, Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books,
2012, pp. 249-257.

22

Our firing from the AIC motivated many comrades and readers of News
from Within and Between the Lines to contact us and express their
support for our political positions. In 2002 the Basel comrades (Birgit and
Urs) invited me and the PFLP representative in Belgium to a weekend
seminar on the One Democratic State solution. After long discussions,
which led the comrades to accept the one state solution, the PFLP
member reiterated in his summary speech his support for two states
solution. The renowned Trotskyist theoretician and trade unionist activist
Jacob (Yaakov) Moneta has long been my close political friend. I happily
accepted his request to take the train from Basel to his home in
Frankfurt and meet him and two other German comrades from the
United Secretariat of the Fourth International. They were concerned
about the prestigious standing which Mikado had enjoyed among the
United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals leadership, and about the
fact that the comrades had not been informed about the crucial political
differences between us. They pleaded me to address the Bureau with my
criticism on Mikado and to send a copy to them, so that they could
interfere and ask for a meeting with me. In the meantime Peter, who, as
mentioned, was then the director of the Fourth Internationals
Amsterdam School, and young comrades from and around the School
and from other places in France and Switzerland, started pressuring the
Bureau to agree that I and Toufic should oversee a weekend seminar
organized by the School, in which we would present our views on
Zionism and the "conflict."
The negotiations went on for many months, albeit never directly with us.
The Secretary refused to confirm the Amsterdam plan and instead
suggested that we participate with Mikado in one panel included in a
seminar organized by them, in which we would present our views on the
issues on Zionism and the "conflict".
The reasons for our refusal to this proposal are detailed in the letter
below:
Dear Peter
There are several issues we find of significance and that you should
know of which relate to our decision not to participate in the seminar.
The matters at hand are detailed and are somewhat complex, though
we see of no other way to address them other than going through them
so you understand where we are coming from. Additionally, the events

23

relate in different ways to both of us, though it is clear we believe how

they relate in the given context.
The first part of the letter includes a detailed report of the structural
changes in the AIC which put an end to its collective nature, and of its
increasingly centralized, hierarchical and anti-democratic structure (see
Appendix II).
The second part, presented below, discusses the political positions of
Mikado and the United Secretariat of the Fourth International vis--vis
Zionism and Palestine, as well as towards the abuse I and later also
Toufic experienced during the years we worked in the AIC.
Second: The political positions of Mikado and the FI vis-a-vis Zionism
and Palestine
First: The AIC was founded under the auspices and control of RCL and
with the moral and political support of the FI. With the disappearance of
the RCL (mainly due to Mikado's intention and behavior), all Marxist,
revolutionary political follow-up of the Center disappeared. Mikado took
over as a hierarchical director, and turned the AIC into a regular
bureaucratic capitalist formation with an enormous gap in salaries
(where he and his friends (read: loyalists and those to whom he owed
political kickbacks on the Palestinian side) enjoyed high salaries and
decision making power, far above me (Tikva), and double that of Toufic).
Furthermore I (Tikva) was pushed outside the system of decision makinga step which had both political and personal motivations.
The first to be fired was Ingrid Gassner a former member of the FI in
Austria who is married to a Palestinian (Mohammed Jaradat) and who
had built while at the AIC the now flourishing center for the Right of
Return- BADIL. After her came the turn of me and Toufic After 13 years in
the AIC (and the years before when I (Tikva) was a member of the board)
I was literally thrown to the street- without pension and without being
able in my age to find a job, and after years of service to the cause and
to building the AIC and indeed its very name and credibility it once
enjoyed. []
Since then I have not met Mikado (or Sergio who was full partner to this
scheme), nor have we confronted him on this shameful behavior towards
us. The FI also never bothered to ask about the case. Can you imagine
Toufic and me (Tikva) meeting with the man who dismissed us from the

24

wonderful political work we have done and prevented me from having

any decent income in my age? Dont you think that by this we shall be
conferring legitimation and decency to this person, and aid and
contribute to reducing the entire rift between us to just "a political
debate", which is in itself a "legitimate difference of opinions between
revolutionary comrades within the framework of the political basics they
share?
2. The political rift between me (Tikva) and Mikado (as well as between
him and another comrade of RCL - Eli Aminov) which continued later with
Toufic as well, had begun before Oslo, which was its expression. The rift
was due to Mikados gradual distancing himself from the political line of
the RCL, which emphasized the "joint struggle" of the Palestinian Left
and anti-Zionist Jews for the democratization of lsrael-Palestine. We saw
in Zionism and the Jewish-Zionist state of Israel a form of apartheid
regime (although we did not use then this term) which serves US
Imperialism in the region and the struggle against it as central to our
agenda. Our intervention in the Israeli "Peace camp was aimed
primarily to mobilize understanding and support for OUR positions,
through cooperation with grass roots/non-bureaucratic bodies in the
occupied territories. We never saw in the '67 Occupation the root cause
of the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" as the Zionist left peace camp did,
and who deliberately separated its "opposition" to the 67 occupation
from the historic causes of Zionist colonization and of the form of
Apartheid which characterizes the Jewish state.
However under the leadership of Mikado, RCL gradually became
immersed in the Peace camp and neglected the distinctness of RCL
positions and organization. This was reflected in Mikados celebration of
Oslo as "an historic turning point." Mikado has never really conducted
any self-criticism of this position and never admitted that Oslo (which is
a code name for the entire mechanism of "peace talks") has been a plan
initiated by the US and Israeli bourgeois to implement a Bantustan state
with the cooperation of Arafat, and NOT a rather promising plan which
was mis-implemented and only violated by Israeli governments.
Oslo accepted the Jewish-Zionist nature of the state, gave up the notion
of the unity of the Palestinian people, neglected the second rate
citizenship of the Palestinians within Israel and abandoned the demand
of the ROR as a pre-condition to any peace settlement. Awareness of
that brought about the escalation of the national consciousness among

25

Palestinians in Israel and advanced their demands to not only individual

political rights ("equality) but for national collective rights as an
homeland group- which challenges the very foundations of the JewishZionist state
Whoever does not see Zionism and the Jewish state as central in the
fight against the '67 occupation is lagging behind the demands of the
Palestinians in Israel an actually sabotages their struggle. Moreover
he/she is thus supporting the continuity of the Jewish-Zionist state and
Imperialism. Upon these issues there can be no discussion.
Indeed, the FI has never come up with an official position on Zionism
and the Jewish state. Nor did it adopt a position on the PLO, Arafat, the
PA and the Palestinian resistance. At the same time, it is imprecise to say
that the FI has no position on Zionism and Palestine. The complete
disappearance of "the conflict" from every International Viewpoint issue,
since long is in itself a position and constitutes a message to the FI
members saying that Palestine, Zionism and the resistance is NOT in the
center of the FI agenda because it is not significant for its main
campaign against globalization and imperialism. On the other hand it is
known that the French section does have a position- sharing that of
Mikado - and that it is very influential in the FI secretariat
What happened to the FI that it claims that it is now searching for a
position on these issues? 10 years have passed since Oslo, 4 years since
we have been fired from the AIC and began issuing BTL- our essentially
different Magazine than what NFW is today. If there would have been a
real readiness to determine a position- the FI should have invited us to
listen and understand our grievances and differences of opinions. We are
doubtful about the motivation of the FI, knowing that the seminar was
decided upon as a result of the pressure that came from comrades who
side with our political positions. Moreover, we doubt the readiness of the
secretariat itself to be "convinced." And even if it were, the seminar
forum and content as it is, is definitely not the suitable framework for us
to convince or to reach any decision. These issues relates to basics
which should be self-evident to any genuine revolutionary movement. It
is not about a list of different, eclectic issues (as the forum is designed)
which are important for the comrades to enlarge their knowledge about.
The structure of the seminar is thus doomed to result in more confusion
thus legitimizing the non- position of the FI.

26

Furthermore, the FI cannot act as though it has not been preferences to

Mikados position throughout these years. We genuinely believe in your
sincerity regarding your appreciation of our participation in the seminar
Peter, but we also not blind to the fact that even now, as the seminar is
designed, the FI is ignoring many of these conflicts we have mentioned,
supporting the FI priorities it has upheld over the years and in so doing
making our participation impossible.
Given these circumstances, it is not us who risk losing anything we
have never gotten. It is the FI who preferred to ignore things and did not
take any initiative concerning the positions of comrades on Zionism and
the Palestinian issue.
Comradely yours,
Tikva and Toufic
The Bureau of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International did not
respond to our letter, nor did they make efforts to convince us to change
our mind about participating in the panel. They thus continued their
evasion of any direct contact with us since we had been fired. Avoiding
any direct contact with me and Toufic indicates their lack of inclination to
seriously engage in a deep analysis of Zionism and the Palestinians,
including the self-criticism which this would inevitably entail.
During the years that followed our letter, Mikado continued to publish his
articles with no criticism by the Fourth International. I have chosen to
shortly discuss his article from 2008) irreversibility" which reflects his
continued full retreat from revolutionary socialist positions. Indeed, the
article
was
published
in
Alternative,
the
AIC
magazine
(alternativenews.org) and not in International Viewpoint. But the fact
that it was read by Moshe Machover, and resent to his mailing list
together with a sharp critical review, indicates that the Alternative
readership included many among the radical left as well as among the
International Viewpoint comrades. The prolonged un-revolutionary
tendency of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International and
International Viewpoint comes into view while reading this article. Four
years after Arafat's
death Mikado still supports the treacherous
Palestinian Authority a creation of Oslo and depicts it as
representative of the "Palestinians."

27

Mikado supports the two states solution and rejects the one
democratic state perspective. However it is the arguments he uses
which indicate a complete departure from an internationalist socialist
perspective. They are critically presented below:
1. No independent socialist stance
Mikado: "The Palestinians are the only ones to be allowed to make or to
reject this choice, certainly not the Israelis, even when the latter claim to
defend the rights of the Palestinian people. This is what selfdetermination is all about."
Machover Rightly says: "Mikado has completely abandoned any
independent socialist position on the issue, and is simply committed to
supporting any formula that the Palestinians happen to demand. He
speaks about the Palestinians as an undifferentiated entity. But what he
clearly means is that one ought to endorse the position of the current
Palestinian leadership. Far from taking an independent socialist position,
this amounts at best to tail-ending Palestinian bourgeois nationalism. But
in fact it is worse: it consists in tail-ending a corrupt and abject
Palestinian leadership. It amount to supporting its position against that
of the leftist Palestinian opposition."
I have mentioned above Mikado's self-claimed retreat from an
internationalist perspective to the new political notion of a Jewish ethnicbased self-identity. Now we are witnesses to its full disastrous
implication: denying legitimacy to Israelis supporting a different position
than that accepted by the Palestinians. He thus argues for supporting
the Palestinian Authoritys two-state solution, imposed on the
Palestinian leadership by the oppressors the US and Israel in the
name of a false notion of the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
2. Praising Arafat's "Realpolitik"
Mikado:
In 1988 the PLO, at its National Council in Algeria and under the
leadership of Yasser Arafat, adopted its historical compromise, which
was based on an equation composed of two elements: a solution to the
conflict with Israel and the time factor. What is better, asked the
President of the PLO, the full realization of the national rights of the
Palestinian people in a century, or a small independent state now? The
opinion of the President and, after a tough political discussion, of the

28
great majority of the PNC, was to spare decades of suffering, death and
destruction for the next Palestinian generations at the price of a painful
and unjust compromise with Israel, in which the Palestinian people
renounce implementation of their legitimate rights on more than threequarters of their land.20

3. False interpretation of Palestinians in Israel.

The most dishonest argument for supporting the two-state solution is
the interpretation Mikado gives to the struggle for equal right carried on
by the Palestinians in Israel. He misleadingly interprets this struggle as if
it indicated a renunciation of their claim to unite with their brethren or
acceptance of the Jewish Zionist nature of the state of Israel.
The comparison between the Palestinians of the Galilee and the
Palestinian of the West Bank is very revealing in this instance: after six or
seven years of Israeli occupation, the Palestinian population of these
territories occupied and annexed by the Israeli state stopped aspiring for
secession, and changed their political demands to those for equal rights,
democratization and full citizenship. From that moment, the occupation
of the Galilee and the Triangle became irreversible, i.e. accepted
against their willby the primary victims of the Zionist conquest. 21

What a chutzpah! During the first seven years after the 1948 Naqba, the
remaining Palestinians lived under a harsh military government (which
lasted till 1966) and thousands of them were enforced into concentration
labor camps while their most of their lands were confiscated. Desperate
for the simplest human needs, the only fight they could carry on was for
minimal conditions for survival. Can that devastated, traumatized and
atomized community be portrayed as making a decision to compromise
their national aspirations and replace them with "demanding equal
rights"?
Mikado distorts the meaning of the struggle for equal rights which
presumably contradicts that of the Palestinians in the territories
occupied in 1967. He should know better, since he, together with me
and other comrades, actively supported the founding of the National
Democratic Assembly (NDA), headed by Azmi Bishara, which challenged
20 Michel Warschawski, "The One State Solution and Irreversibility,"
Alternative, 15 April 2008.
<http://alternativenews.org/archive/index.php/blogs/michaelwarschawski/1142-the-one-state-solution-and-irreversibility-1142>
21 Michel Warschawski, Ibid.: "The One State Solution and Irreversibility,"

29

the Jewish state. They demanded that Palestinian citizens be recognized

as a national group living in their homeland, not as minorities - thus
challenging a central premise of Zionism.
This perspective combined the Palestinian struggle for full equality with
a challenge against the Jewish state and its Zionist essence. It has been
adopted in principle by the majority of the Palestinian intellectual and
political leadership in Israel, as reflected in the four position papers
released in 2007 by leading Palestinian organizations.22
Not less significant is Mikado's disregard for the PLOs responsibility for
the only possible struggle left for the Palestinians in Israel. He ignores
the fact that it was the Palestinian leadership headed by Arafat which
recognized the Jewish state and gave up the claim to represent the
Palestinians in Israel.
2015: Similarity between Mikado's interview in International
Viewpoint and the United Secretariat of the Fourth
Internationals Decision on Palestine
It is indeed distressing to find out that by 2015 International Viewpoint
still continues to publicize Mikado's wrong perspective on Zionism in
general and Left Zionism in particular. As I claimed above, the confusion
caused by the Fourth International's avoidance of any criticism of
Mikado's views, presented in his multiple articles in International
Viewpoint, will inevitably result in many comrades adopting his stance.
Moreover, the 2015 Declaration of Fourth International on Palestine
explains this avoidance as elaborated below
Interview with Mikado
The interview conducted by Henri Wilno, a member of the Nouveau Parti
Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France and the Fourth International, was
published in International Viewpoint in March 2015 under the selfcontradictory headline "Jews and Arabs: the Revolutionary Perspective of
Living Together". Listing the references to his 21 articles published in the
International Viewpoint during the last 15 year at the end of the
22 See detailed review of those papers in Tikva Honig-Parnass, False Prophets
of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine, Haymarket Books,
2011, introduction, p. 7, and on the NDA and Bishara, see Tikva Honig Parnass
and Toufic Haddad, Between the Lines, Haymarket Books, 2007, chapter 6 and
7.

30

interview, can't but be understood as a recommendation of the opinions

presented in them.23
In introducing Mikado, Wilno repeats his concealing the fact that he led
the split from ISO (Matzpen) and founded the RCL the local section of
the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. Wilno also reiterates
the distortions of the political positions of ISO which Mikado introduced
in the service of his re-invented personal and political history.
Michel Warschawski has been politically active in Israel for many years.
He retraced his biography in one of his books, Sur la frontire (Stock,
2002). [...] In 1968 he joined the Israeli Socialist Organization, which had
been founded in 1962 by expelled members of the Israeli Communist
Party and older activists influenced by Trotskyism. [] Although
composed mainly of Jewish activists, Matzpen tried both to mobilize
Israeli Jewish youth and to develop ties with the Palestinians of Israel
[actually Matzpen was an internationalist organization, open to both Jews
and Palestinians] as well as Palestinian left organizations [mainly with the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine while the RCL had ties
with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] and those of Arab
countries.24

Thirteen years after Mikado's autobiography was published, his

deceptive history of the Trotskyist movement in Israel is still adopted by
a central comrade of the French section without any reservation by the
International Viewpoint editorial.
Not less distressing is the fact that International Viewpoint still publishes
Mikado's misleading account of the Zionist left, which hides its central
role in laying the foundation of the colonial settler state of Israel, in
articulating its hegemonic fascist ideology and in legitimizing the
apartheid regime both inside Israel and in the 1967 occupied territories.
This central role continued after the loss of the political hegemony to the
23 In the same International Viewpoint issue was published the Declaration of
Fourth International on Palestine, adopted by the International Committee of
the Fourth International on 24 February 2015 (No. 482, March 2015).
<http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3904> which I criticize
below.
24 Israel, Jews and Arabs: the revolutionary perspective of living together.
Michel Warschawski interviewed by Henri Wilno, International Viewpoint, No.
482, Monday 9 March 2015 <http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?
article3911 >

31

right in 1977. The Labor Party participated in most of Israeli

governments at least 15 years hereafter. Also the liberal intellectuals
who supported Labor or Meretz and their bloody policies have long been
depicted as the "consciousness of the nation". Their determined support
of a Jewish state a central premise of Zionism underlies the
hypocritical "peace camp" and the false peace process initiated by the
Zionist Left, as well as the brutal policies aimed at retaining the aspiredfor Jewish majority.25
Disregarding the Zionist left's centrality in building the apartheid Jewish
state puts in doubt any claim to anti-Zionism. One can't analyze or
understand the nature of the colonial settler state of Israel and its
current policies while ignoring the enormous impact of its chief creators
on them. This significant evading stance is reflected in Mikado's answer
to the interviewers question on the source of the current escalating
fascism in Israel.
Q.: In something you wrote in the summer of 2014, you speak of
"fascism" in Israel. What are the roots of this process? Is it just the
product of the state of war? Can we say that it is now the far right that
governs?
A: I am speaking of a long process that dates back to the campaign of
hatred and delegitimization that preceded the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin in 1995. [] So we have had twenty years of continuous power of
the Right, which has changed the situation, not so much in the field of
the colonial policy towards the Palestinians, but in the internal regime of
25 See my book False Prophets of Peace, Chapter 2, "Jewish Majority Spells
Racism". Haifa University progressive sociologist Sammy Samooha What is a
Jewish state for me? It is of two foundations: The first is a Jewish majority. But
not a coincidental majority. [] It is a planned majority, an ideological majority;
a majority which was planned throughout history, a part of the [Zionist]
national aspirations, part of an intentional policy which entailed the expulsion
of Arabs in 1948 and many other additional decisions (quoted in p. 42 of my
book False Prophets of Peace). In the same page I quote Yossi Beilin, the former
chair of the Meretz party and one of the initiators of the Oslo Agreements and
of the Geneva Initiative: If this state is not the state of the Jews and there is
not within it a Jewish majority, it [the state] does not interest me (Shahar Ilan
and Amiram Bareket, To Win Hitler, an Interview with Avraham Burg, Haaretz,
June 8, 2007). The leftist author Sami Michael, the current president of
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) says he would rather leave the entire
region if he belonged to a minority in the state (David Grossman, Sleeping on a
Wire, Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchd Publishing House, 2002, p. 97).

32
the State of Israel. [...] Racism has been unleashed, in political discourse,
in the streets and in legislation which culminated in the proposal to
amend the "Basic Law - Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people. [...]
The assassins of the Prime Minister took power and have in fact been in
power since then. [] If for a year I have been talking about fascism, it is
because on top of everything I have just mentioned we have to add
violence against democratic activists and organizations, from small
fascist groups or even passers-by. Far-right government + draconian laws
+ violence aimed at terrorizing any words of criticism = fascism. 26

Mikado reiterates his claim that the Zionist right is responsible for the
rise of fascism in Israel, since its ascent to power after the assassination
of Rabin. However it was the Zionist Labor movement which, after the
establishment of the state, applied the constructive socialism of the
pre-state period to the new reality of the sovereign settler state. Namely,
they replaced socialism with full-fledged statism (a state-centered
approach), which was to become Israels dominant ideology and praxis.
"The states laws, symbols, and particularly its army were positioned at
the heart of societal values, enjoying a halo of sanctity and serving as
the basis of a civil religion, as depicted by the late renowned
sociologist Baruch Kimmerling." This state-centered approach, says
Kimmerling, created close to fascist perceptions of the role of the state,
its institutions and agencies which succeeded to repress the
development of a civil society in Israel for many years.27
Indeed, as Machover emphasizes, Mikado's position on Zionism seems to
have softened. According to it, Zionism acquired its colonizing character
following the 1967 war, rather than being a colonizing project from its
inception.
Appendix I:

http://www.infor.co.il/img/PressMessage/2012%5C11%5C10%5Cpm96957_1110
20323.DOC
26 Israel, Jews and Arabs: the revolutionary perspective of living together.
Michel Warschawski interviewed by Henri Wilno, International Viewpoint, No.
482, Monday 9 March 2015 <http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?
article3911 >
27 See my book False Prophets of Peace, p. 63, quoting from Baruch
Kimmerling, Immigrants, Settlers, Natives : Israel Between Plurality of Cultures
and Cultural Wars, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2004, Hebrew, p. 151

33

FRANCE HONORS THE WORK OF THE ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION

CENTER
The French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault will grant the French Republic Human
Rights Award for the year 2012 to the Alternative Information Center.
The Prize honors the work of the Alternative Information Center on the
issues of human rights. It is given to the organization for its activity in
espousing the immunity of the Army's and settlers deeds in the occupied
territories and their responsibility for the violence against the
Palestinians.
Michel Warschawski (Mikado) will receive the prize on behalf of the AIC in
a ceremony which will take place in Paris on December 10, 2012.
Warchawski a long-time activist in Matzpen and the radical left, a
founder of the organization [SIC!], is active in human rights in general
and the Palestinians' rights in particular. His book On the Border was
recently translated to Hebrew.
According to Michel Warschawski, "The Alternative Information Center,
has never aspired to receive awards for its work. However, this honor
emphasizes the State of Israel' responsibility for its deeds."
Two years later, on July 2014, in the midst of the carnage in Gaza, the
IVP published Mikado's article in which he admits that he "thought a
moment about returning this prize to the French authorities in response
to the ban by Franois Hollande and Manuel Valls government of a
protest in Paris last Saturday against the crimes committed by the Israeli
army in Gaza". However, later on, when he saw that "thousands of
protestors had ignored this unjust order of their politicians, I told myself
that the prize AIC had received in honor of the struggle against injustice
was actually given by France, not by the prime minister. France should
be proud. It was Valls and Hollande [not PM Jean-Marc Ayraultt] who
brought shame upon themselves. See Michel Warschawski, "The shame
of France", International Viewpoint, 31 July 2014.
Appendix II:
First, the AIC:
You should know that Mikado fired both of us after 13 years of service in
the AIC (Tikva) and just under 2 years (Toufic).

34

The official reason Mikado fired us (together with 2 other

employees) was due to a financial crisis at the AIC. This however was
only the excuse provided for public consumption. In fact, no sooner had
he fired us - and in so doing deliberately removing the entire editorship
of (News from Within) he promptly hired a new editorship to take our
place. Soon enough, NFW was back in publication telling the magazines
readers, that we (Tikva and Toufic) had done a great job as former
editors.
- The magazine's editorship which replaced us at NFW (Jeff Halper)
refused to call himself an anti-Zionist (The AIC itself does not call
themselves anti-Zionist anymore).
The financial crisis which supposedly led to our firing, also was
engineered by Mikado himself. Mikado removed himself from the AIC
as director in January 2000 though only after not having done any
genuine fundraising for it. This despite the fact that virtually all the
contacts and connections with the financial sources were with him via
his personal connections with donors .His replacement (Ronit Chacham)
became director of an organization 150,000 S in debt. She proposed
reforms to the organization which she thought could help solve many of
the outstanding problems within the organization - both financial and
organizational. The only problem was, her reforms threatened the
corrupt regime erected by Mikado before he left and which was
composed of personal benefactors and non-transparent political
kickbacks. This regime had in fact been imposed upon the staff the
previous two years, and resulted in the staged liquidation of any internal
resistance under Mikados guidance. Ronit's reforms and support of the
worker's demands expressed in the workers committee document
submitted to the board (as a new director) were rejected by the board
which was composed of other Palestinians and Israelis with personal and
political relations with the very benefactors of the Mikado regime.
Realizing that the AIC was a front for protecting nepotism (and with no
revolutionary content to it), Ronit submitted her resignation bringing
about the situation of Crisis
- Mikado returned onto the AIC setting, and promptly fired us and two
other employees. Three of the four employees fired (excluding Tikva)
were the heads of the AIC staff committee - elected by the staff- and had
been active in organizing the staff of the AIC to protest the unfair labor
practices and corruption (political and financial) within the organization.

35

It was not by accident that the heads of the staff committee were fired
something we also feel directly spills over from the personal into the
political.[..][
We have not spoken of these things in 4 years, despite the fact that
we know we were deliberately wronged. Upon the founding of BTL, we
made it a point to leave these issues out of the readerships concern,
despite the fact that the AIC lied about our firing, directly benefited from
the image and work and readership we had built for NFW and AIC, and
covered up why we were no longer around to international contacts and
comrades
- Furthermore, we worked for 3 years on BTL, on an entirely voluntary
basis because of our dedication to the cause and to the events on the
ground. We did all this without the involvement of the IV international
who did not raise a telephone to inquire what was going on.
- It is ironic that the AIC now tries to carve a niche for itself in the
"globalization crowd, considering it is a thriving example of the
NGOization and corruption promoted by globalization amongst the left,
and which has deep infectious roots in Palestine / Israel - to the extent
that the national movement has very much become an industry bought
and sold on the global market place.
Criticism of the Declaration of the United Secretariat of the
Fourth International on Palestine (24 February 2015)
The following declaration on Palestine was adopted by the International
Committee of the Fourth International in Amsterdam on 24 February
2015:
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3904
Trying to grasp the real meaning behind the cautious, wary, indistinct
and somewhat blurred language of the Declaration has revealed to me
the fact I had not realized before writing this essay; namely that the
United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals soft Zionism and what it
implies for its approach to the "conflict" are rather similar to those of
Mikado. Let me mention a number of the issues it raises:
Oslo

36

The Declaration refrains from explicitly depicting the tremendous

significant of the Oslo Accords as determining all that came later. Oslo is
mentioned offhandedly in paragraph 3: "These dynamics had already
been manifest before the Oslo accords of 1993-94" and in paragraph 6
when speaking about the conflicts that Hamas was exposed to as ruler
of Gaza under Israel's control. Instead the main target for criticism is the
"Peace Process"
This avoidance serves the subsequent failure to submit a truthful
analysis of the "conflict" which would lead to an anti-Zionist campaign
from a revolutionary socialist perspective. This is inevitably reflected in
the tasks outlined for supporters and followers
The end of Israel's direct rule in the Palestinian centers?
Repeating the Oslo misleading differentiation between "direct" and
"indirect" rule is indeed amazing. Paragraph 2 says: "This period [the last
two decades which the declaration reviews] has seen an end of the
direct Israeli military occupation of the main Palestinian population
centers." The United Secretariat of the Fourth International reports this
Oslo bluff as if it had any significant meaning or had been implemented
since then.
I would expect the United Secretariat of the Fourth International
leadership to go further than using the official deceptive language of
Oslo and emphasize that by now there is one Israeli regime throughout
entire historical Palestine. The small area of the alleged Palestinian
autonomy granted in Oslo has been a farce from the beginning. The
military direct rule of Israel (daily kidnapping and arresting, killing and
wounding of "civilians"), the control of exit and entrance of people and
products, not to mention the economic strangulation by Israel, ridicules
the "not under direct control" according to the United Secretariat of the
Fourth International.
Indeed, the very mentioning of this fraud among the supposed most
significant events and development that took place in the last two
decades is astonishing, to say the least.
The Palestinian Authority
The declaration refrains from explicitly portraying the Palestinian
Authority as the creation of Oslo in which Arafat renounced the national
rights of the Palestinian People. This was exactly in accord with his

37

position since 1988 when the PLO recognized the Jewish state. As
mentioned, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International continued
for years after 1988 to see the PLO as representative of the Palestinian
people and supported the 2 states solution.
Now the document tries in an indirect way to confer some justification
for their past support of Arafat and the PA he chaired. In paragraph 3
and 4 the alleged divisions within the PA are accentuated. It gives a
misleading impression that these divisions are about fundamental
demands which relate to Palestinian national rights. However these are
but petty differences: '"on the one hand, those who advocated trying to
maintain an implausible balance between struggling against the
occupation and collaborating with the occupation authorities, and, on
the other hand, those who supported unqualified integration into the
colonial system."
In other words: a debate about the extent of surrender. However, dealing
with these trivial "divisions" in the PA has some logic for the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International: it implies attributing more
radicalism to the first group, who supposedly are more loyal to old Fatah
and Arafat's legend. The Declaration does not stress the submissive
essence of those presumably seeking for a "balance" between
independent strategy and collaboration with Israel. It seems as if it were
preparing the reader for what comes soon: an indirect attempt to
somewhat exonerate Arafat (and Oslo) by putting most of the blame on
Abu Mazen and his PA, for playing the role of an "auxiliary of the Israeli
occupation forces and the reorganization of the Palestinian security
services under US tutelage (paragraph 4). What a soft, weary language!
(The only time the PA after Arafat is identified as traitors is in paragraph
5, in the context of explaining the victory of Hamas and even then they
make efforts to clean the supposed "nationalists" in Fatah).
All this blurs the required explicit unequivocal emphasis on the betrayal
of the PLO already in Oslo, to which all the past and present PA members
are partners and supporters. The cleaning of Arafats name by stressing
the collaboration of Abu Maazen amounts to blurring the historical
surrender of Oslo. But this was predicted by those who did not want to
close their eyes to the disastrous developments determined by Oslo
Accords. In 1994 Israel got rid of Arafat only because he did not deliver
all the goods -- the insignificant ones which did not indicate any real
retreat from Oslo.

38

Israeli society and the Left

The document avoids the widely used term "Zionist Left," which implies
the recognition of the role the Zionist Labour movement played in laying
the infrastructure to the apartheid state of Israel, the Oslo Accords and
its role in conferring legitimacy to the appalling policies of the Right.
Instead it states that "The Israeli centre and centre-left" have shared
responsibility for these developments, either by participating in coalition
governments or through their silent complicity in these policies (clause
10).
The Bureau thus blocks the United Secretariat of the Fourth International
and other radical Left organizations from understanding the nature of
the Apartheid colonial settler state of Israel as embodying the Zionist
project in the spirit of the Zionist Labour movement. It thus prevents
them from articulating clear critical positions towards the "Peace Camp"
and its leaders in Israel and abroad (as seen in their unspecified
"solution" below).
I only have to reiterate what I have written above: One can't analyse or
understand the nature of the colonial settler state of Israel and its
current policies while ignoring the enormous impact of its chief creators
on them. Ignoring it indicates a position towards Zionism in general and
not only towards the "Left" - a soft Zionist perspective similar to that of
Mikado.
Tasks
The United Secretariat of the Fourth International chose to open this
section with the "tactic step" taken by the PA 3 years ago: turning to
international organizations for human rights, particularly the UN. The
latter aims at pressing the UN to adopt a resolution imposing a calendar
for Israeli military withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967, etc.
"The failure of this last attempt shows the limits of the tactical shift."
We have no hint of the United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals
position on this naivety, to say the least. It doesnt criticize sharply the
"diplomacy" tactic or denounce its hypocrisy. Instead the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International adopts a kind of "neutral" or even
forgiving stance towards the PA, which aims "to change the relation of
forces" by turning to the capitalist imperialist institutions. Are these
institutions supposed to freeing their people from the oppressing regime

39

built with their consent in Oslo, of which they have been daily partners
since then? Seeing this initiative as a task of a revolutionary movement
only distances the reader from the main issue: stop collaboration and
support the resistance!
The Boycott,
Movement)

Divestment

and

Sanctions

Movement

(BDS

The document wrongly stresses that the PA had a motivation for

choosing the diplomatic tactic similar to that of the BDS movement
which begun seven years prior to it. It thus puts them both on a shared
platform of strategies initiated and supported by the Palestinian people.
However, contrary to the PA diplomacy alternative, the BDS was initiated
and supported by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society
organizations in both the 67' and the 48' occupied territories.
In paragraph 14 the United Secretariat of the Fourth International
document presents the goals of the BDS: they focus on rejecting the
compromise which the bilateral negotiations process may entail. BDS is
thus meant to escape from the logic of bilateral negotiations and of an
acceptable compromise. It is also a question of breaking with the logic
of military confrontation with Israel, a dead end for the Palestinians, and
to combine external pressure and the new development of a popular
movement within the country.
The bilateral negotiations, however, are dealing with the 67 occupation
alone, which is contradictory to the perspective of the BDS. Its a telling
attempt to compare the United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals
presentation of the BDS goals with that of the Palestinian founders and
leaders of the movement: Omar Bargouti and Lisa Taraki. Below I will
emphasize those places that contradict the United Secretariat of the
Fourth Internationals document, which omit or use a soft language
compared to the official Palestinian BDS positions (see PACBI , 10
February 2010: Boycott Ariel and the Rest! All Israeli Academic
Institutions
are
Complicit
in
Occupation
and
Apartheid
<http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1175>)
"[..] In this respect, the importance of the 2005 BDS call lies in its
comprehensive approach to the Israeli colonial and apartheid system as
a whole, and its subjugation of the Palestinian people, whether as
second-class citizens inside Israel, subjects under its military occupation,
or dispossessed refugees. This was summarized in the concise demands

40

outlined in the Palestinian BDS call that Israel recognize the inalienable
right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and fully comply
with international law by: respecting, protecting and promoting the right
of return of all Palestinian refugees; [The emphasize is on the RIGHT of
RETURN; unlike the United Secretariat of the Fourth International they
dont add the right to compensations] ending the occupation of all
Palestinian and Arab lands; and recognizing full equality for the
Palestinian citizens of Israel. In this sense, the BDS call effectively
counters the systematic Israeli fragmentation of the Palestinian people
and the reduction of the struggle for freedom and self-determination to
an endless bargaining game over land in the occupied West Bank and
Gaza Strip."
[..]"Central to the Palestinian BDS movements three demands is an
understanding of Israel as an apartheid state. Israel fits the UN definition
of apartheid not just in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; it defines itself as
a Jewish state, not a state of all its citizens. Most importantly, Israeli
laws, policies, and practices discriminate openly against Palestinian--i.e.,
"non-Jewish"-- citizens of the state. The pervasive and institutionalized
racism and discrimination are particularly evident in the vital domains of
land ownership and use, education, employment, access to public
services, and urban planning. The apartheid character has been part of
the design of Israel since its inception. (Reference 11: For more on
Israel's regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid see this
important
BeNC
strategic
position
paper:
>http://bdsmovement.net/files/English-BNC_Position_PaperDurban_Rview.pdf>)
The paragraph is also part of the blueprint of the BDS: The state of
Israel was established in 1948 by forcibly displacing the overwhelming
majority of Palestines indigenous Arab population from their homeland.
Today, these Palestinian refugees are prevented from returning to their
homes and lands from which they were expelled. In contrast, any person
who claims Jewish descent from anywhere in the world may become an
Israeli citizen and national under the so-called Law of Return. Moreover,
Israels brutal war on Gaza was not an anomaly; rather, it represents the
most recent example of the systematic policies of ethnic cleansing that
Israel has carried out against the Palestinian people for more than six
decades."

41

In paragraph 16 the Declaration of unlike the United Secretariat of the

Fourth International states: "The Palestinian initiators of the BDS
campaign rely on the creativity and tactical sense of the international
solidarity movements, so that they take account in each country of the
different possible aspects and levels of BDS suitable to specific national
and regional realities. [..] In different countries and regions, therefore,
different demands can be highlighted"
It is sad to witness the United Secretariat of the Fourth International fully
legitimizing the different interpretations to the BDS radical positions
without mentioning the real position of the BDS towards the various BDS
groups namely, free choice of subjects to fight for. Moreover, I would
expect the revolutionary United Secretariat of the Fourth International
not to be satisfied with tactical considerations and to support the
position of the Palestinian BDS leaders.
We again quote from PACBI , 10 February 2010: Boycott Ariel and the
Rest! All Israeli Academic Institutions are Complicit in Occupation and
Apartheid (<http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1175>):
"Despite the clarity with which the Palestinian BDS movement has
enunciated the goals of the Palestinian struggle, some Israeli and other
advocates of boycott have tried to limit its scope. They have attempted
to limit the goals of the BDS movement by restricting it geo-politically
and confining it to a call to end the Israeli occupation over the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. This "interpretation" of BDS is most dangerous as
it attempts to appropriate the right to redefine the terms of the struggle
in Palestine and to impose an ideologically suspect political agenda that
lets Israel off the hook on the charges of apartheid and practicing the
most pernicious form of racism and discrimination in all the territory
under its control.
"As for the targets chosen for BDS actions, the strength of the BDS
movement lies in the fact that it does not impose specific targets or
tactics on solidarity groups around the world. Based on the principle of
context-sensitivity and respect for the autonomy and integrity of
democratic international groups supporting Palestinian rights, the
Palestinian BDS collective leadership has always believed that people of
conscience and organizations advocating human rights know their
respective situation best and are the most capable of deciding the
appropriate ways and pace to build the BDS movement in their contexts.
Sometimes the tactical targeting of settlement-only products may be the

42

best way for a campaign to progress. At other times, it may be

resolutions at local unions endorsing BDS, or cultural boycott targets,
etc. But even if one were concerned only about Israels
occupation, not its denial of refugee rights or its apartheid
system, this cannot justify a principled focus on boycotting
settlement products only, as if Israels colonies themselves
were the party guilty of colonialism, not the state that
established them and sustains their growth. In no other boycott
context in the world does anyone call for boycotting a manifestation of a
states violations of international law, rather than the state itself. After
all, under international law states are the legal entities that are
supposed to be held accountable for crimes and violations that they
commit".
Indeed, the contrast between the United Secretariat of the Fourth
Internationals presentation of the BDS tasks and the Palestinian BDS
blueprint discloses as in a nutshell that the United Secretariat of the
Fourth International is far from the Palestinian approach to Zionism, left
Zionism and the Apartheid state of Israel.
The gap between the Palestinian popular call for BDS and that of the
United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals is reflected in paragraph
20 regarding the "solution" (see below THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA,
Sunday, 2 August 2015).
The 2005 Declaration does not mention the change in supporting the 2
states solution (as does the one state document) and its "new" support
for a twisted form of one state solution. It does not explicitly identify it as
"one state in all Historic Palestine" or call for mobilization to actively
participate in what is by now a living movement. While it bothers to
detail the need to abolish some of the expressions of the 67' occupation
(dismantle of settlements and the wall among others things) this is not
the case as regards the Israeli apartheid state. It does not call to abolish
its land laws and the "law of return" for Jews. Moreover, the Declaration
does not recognize the unity of all parts of the Palestinian people,
including the right of the Diaspora, the refugees and the Palestinians
inside Israel to participate in the decision-making process for the
implementation of the "solution". (The one-state blueprint says: "In
articulating the specific contours of such a solution, those who have
been historically excluded from decision-making especially the

43

Palestinian Diaspora and its refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel

must play a central role")
The call by the United Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals
Declaration "for a political solution based on equal rights" is but a weak
echo to the One State Solution, if at all. It can mean anything, for
example a bi-national sate.
Also it is rather telling to compare the United Secretariat of the Fourth
Internationals Declaration support for the "the right of return for the
refugees or compensation for those who demand it", with the emphasize
of the One State blueprint on the RIGHT without going into details which
are secondary to it: "The implementation of the Right of Return for
Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a
fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of the respect
for equality."
The blurred approach of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International seems to me rather damaging any prospects for building a
socialist, anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist by radical left on the
Palestinian issue. I feel as repeating the old dictum: May God defend
me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA, Sunday, 2 August 2015: The One
State Declaration
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/one-state-declaration/793>
29 November 2007 (Various undersigned)
Editors Note: The following statement was issued by participants in the
July 2007 Madrid meeting on a one-state solution and the November
2007 London Conference.
For decades, efforts to bring about a two-state solution in historic
Palestine have failed to provide justice and peace for the Palestinian and
Israeli Jewish peoples, or to offer a genuine process leading
towards them.
The two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the
ground, and presumes a false parity in power and moral claims between
a colonized and occupied people on the one hand and a colonizing state
and military occupier on the other. It is predicated on the unjust premise

44

that peace can be achieved by granting limited national rights to

Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967, while denying the
rights of Palestinians inside the 1948 borders and in the Diaspora. Thus,
the two-state solution condemns Palestinian citizens of Israel to
permanent second-class status within their homeland, in a racist state
that denies their rights by enacting laws that privilege Jews
constitutionally, legally, politically, socially and culturally. Moreover, the
two-state solution denies Palestinian refugees their internationally
recognized right of return.
The two-state solution entrenches and formalizes a policy of unequal
separation on a land that has become ever more integrated territorially
and economically. All the international efforts to implement a two-state
solution cannot conceal the fact that a Palestinian state is not viable,
and that Palestinian and Israeli Jewish independence in separate states
cannot resolve fundamental injustices, the acknowledgment and redress
of which are at the core of any just solution.
In light of these stark realities, we affirm our commitment to a
democratic solution that will offer a just, and thus enduring, peace in a
single state based on the following principles:

The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to

those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of
religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status;

Any system of government must be founded on the principle of

equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens.
Power must be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all
people in the diversity of their identities;

There must be just redress for the devastating effects of decades

of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period, including
the abrogation of all laws, and ending all policies, practices
and systems of military and civil control that oppress and
discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, religion or
national origin;

The recognition of the diverse character of the society,

encompassing distinct religious, linguistic and cultural traditions,
and national experiences;

45

The creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege the

rights of one ethnic or religious group over another and that
respects the separation of state from all organized religion;

The implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian

refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a
fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of
the respect for equality;

The creation of a
immigration policy;

The recognition of the historic connections between the diverse

communities inside the new, democratic state and their respective
fellow communities outside;

In articulating the specific contours of such a solution,

those who have been historically excluded from decisionmaking especially the Palestinian Diaspora and its
refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel must play a
central role;

The establishment of legal and institutional frameworks for justice

and reconciliation.

transparent

and

nondiscriminatory

The struggle for justice and liberation must be accompanied by a clear,

compelling and moral vision of the destination a solution in which all
people who share a belief in equality can see a future for themselves
and others. We call for the widest possible discussion, research and
action to advance a unitary, democratic solution and bring it to fruition.
Madrid and London, 2007