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“We should not give up on Germany”

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 75 years Nakba, the new Israeli protest movement, and discussing Palestine in Germany


04/03/2023

Questions: Phil Butland, Emily Baumgartner and Gregory Baumgartner

Hello, Ilan, thanks for speaking to us. Could you start by briefly introducing yourself?

My name is Ilan Pappe. I’m a professor at the University of Exeter in Britain, where I’m the director of the European Centre for Palestine studies. I’m also a historian, and a social and political activist.

The main reason we are talking today is that this year the 75th anniversary of the formation of the State of Israel. One of your books called the event, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Could you explain what you meant by this?

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is actually the project of the settler colonial Zionist movement to take over the Palestinian homeland. At the right historical moment, from its perspective, it was able to take over much of the land and expel many of the native people from their land.

Before 1948, the Zionist movement did not have the power to implement such a massive expulsion of people. But once the British mandate was over, and they had built an adequate military capacity, they used the particular circumstances of the end of the British mandate to implement a huge operation of mass expulsion, or ethnic cleansing.

People were expelled in huge numbers because of who they were – Palestinians – not because of what they did. By the end of that operation, half of the Palestinian population became refugees. Half of their villages were demolished, and most of their towns were destroyed. In my understanding of the definition of ethnic cleansing, whether it’s a scholarly, legal, or moral definition, the planning, execution and ideology all justify describing the Israeli action in 1948 as ethnic cleansing.

In many ways, as I point out in the book, this has never ended, because the ethnic cleansing of 1948 was incomplete. And in many ways, it continues until this very day, if not on the same magnitude as the 1940s. But it still very much informs the Israeli actions against the Palestinians until today, wherever they are.

One of the tragedies for me about the Nakba is that the people who were doing the ethnic cleansing and creating refugees, were themselves refugees. People fleeing Nazi Germany, obviously didn’t want to stay in Germany, but they were also being largely denied access to the UK or the US. Did European Jews have any alternative to fleeing to Palestine?

The people who devised and oversaw the ethnic cleansing arrived in Palestine, much earlier – before the Holocaust. And when they arrived in Palestine in the 1920s, they still had options to go elsewhere.

It is absolutely true that since the rise of Nazism and fascism, Britain and the United States closed their doors, and quite a lot of the Jews who came from Central Europe and from areas that the Nazis occupied, had very few options. Palestine was one of the only places they could go to, but they were not the main force that decided on, and or perpetrated the ethnic cleansing. Most of the crimes committed in 1948 were committed by Zionists, many of whom, such as Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Alon or Moshe Dayan, had been born in Palestine.

But definitely, one of the reasons that Jews came in large numbers in the 1930s to Palestine was that the West closed its gates for Jews who escaped from Europe. But I don’t think that most of the people who perpetrated this ethnic cleansing, were themselves victims of Nazi or fascist oppression.

Who were the people coming to Palestine? The Left was excited about communal Kibbutzim. After the Soviet Union was the first country to recognize Israel, many felt that there was something socialist about young Israel. How accurate was that belief?

The early Zionists were people came from Eastern Europe. And some of them were definitely inspired not only by the ideas of nationalism and colonialism, but also by the ideas of socialism and communism.

We know for example about the most important group that came to Palestine in the 1920s. This core group went on to grow the leadership of the Zionist community until the 1970s, and they were part of a more international socialist movement. Some of them even took part in the 1905 attempt to overthrow the Tsarist regime in Russia.

So yes, it was a fusion of three or four elements. One was socialism. The second was a nationalism which defined Judaism not as a religion but as a national identity. Thirdly, modernism. It was very important for them to build the idea of the modern Jew. No less important was colonialism – the idea that you are entitled to take any part of the world outside of Europe, regardless of who lives there.

But most of the Zionist settlers preferred not to live in socialist Kibbutzim, and therefore moved to the cities. By 1948, only a very small percentage of the Jewish settlers lived in those communes. But they were very powerful societies in terms of defining Zionist policies and strategy.

I think the most important thing was that they really believed–albeit wrongly–was that universal ideologies such as communism, and socialism, did not contradict settler colonialism. But of course, these two perspectives on life do not go together. One cannot be a socialist colonizer. Albert Memmi used to call it the Leftist Coloniser. And actually, you’re much worse in your criminal attitude because you are trying to use enlightened ideas to justify the actions on the ground.

How do you think they were able to square the circle? How could they justify to themselves this mixture of socialism and colonialism?

They still do it, it’s what we call the Zionist Left – which is not a force any more in Israeli politics, but used to be. This group squares not only socialism with colonialism, but also liberalism. The way you do it is by asking for exceptionalism. You say that in any other case, colonizing people, displacing them, and ethnically cleansing them is a crime. But in your case, there is a justification.

Whatever the justification is, you have to understand that there was no other way of doing it. At first, I am sure they found it difficult. But with inertia, and the educational system and indoctrination, they began to believe in it themselves.

No less important is the international reaction. Israelis might have felt differently, had the international socialist movement in Europe said to them: “wait a minute, that doesn’t work. In the age of decolonization, you cannot do what you’re doing”. Or if liberal Americans had said to them: “I’m sorry, but what you’re doing is against our moral values”.

However, they were lucky that the West decided that to accept this idea that you can have this exceptionalism when it comes to Israel and to Jews.

We are talking about a time when India and parts of Africa were being liberated. The Left stood firmly on the side of the anti-colonial movement. And yet–as you say–many of the same people turned a blind eye or even put Israel forward as a socialist paradigm. How did this happen?

In 1975, the United Nation finally had a huge membership of decolonized people. This was unlike the United Nations of 1947, which did not have one representative from the colonized world and legitimized the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine.

In 1975, the decolonized people were the majority in the United Nations. And one of the first things that they did was to pass a resolution which said, Zionism is racism. You cannot be a liberal or socialist Zionist. If you are a Zionist, then you’re not different from someone who supports apartheid in South Africa. That was the message of the United Nation resolution in 1975.

The big question was not what would African and Arab states do–instead focused on–how would the members of the United Nations coming from the West do vis-a-vis such an imposition? And, for whatever reason, Britain and France, and West Germany and later the EU, accepted the Israeli position. This position meant that you cannot treat Israel as a colonialist power, and therefore you cannot treat the Palestinian liberation movement as an anti-colonialist movement.

They accepted the Israeli framing of the Palestinian movement as a terrorist organization, and Israel as a democracy that defends itself. This changed the whole discourse about Israel and Palestine. And it extended the period in which the Left in Israel could think that it had found this amazing way of squaring the circle.

What is really interesting is what happened inside Israel. From 1977 onwards, the Israeli Jewish electorate says, “no, it doesn’t work. You really can’t be both democratic and Jewish”. And we see the result in the November 2022 election [which saw significant gains by the far right – editor’s note].

Israeli voters said: “no, you can either be a democratic state or the Jewish state. This whole idea that comes from Tel Aviv, or the Kibbutzim, that you can be both democratic and Jewish is nonsense.” Unfortunately for everyone concerned, their conclusion was “since we think that there are only two options, either you’re Jewish or democratic, we prefer to be Jewish one”.

That is, Jewish in the way that they understand Judaism, not the way I understand it. Their Jewish state is a theocratic, non-democratic, racist, apartheid state that needs all the power it has, because it still has a problem with the indigenous people of Palestine and those in the neighbourhood who support them.

This is something that leaders of the Left Zionist Movement never anticipated. They could not believe that their own electorate would say: “come on, it doesn’t work, stop, stop lying to yourself and to others. There’s nothing wrong in not being democratic. There’s nothing wrong with occupying someone else’s land and claiming it as yours. And there’s nothing wrong with using violent means in order to sustain your control.”

Do you think that the recent elections, and the new government, represent a qualitative shift in what’s happening in Israel?

It is a culmination of a qualitative shift that already started in 2000. There was a political force which was quite hegemonic in Israel until the late 1970s. They could come to the Social Democratic parties in Europe and say: “we are another social democratic country, no different from you”. And they were the hegemonic power in Israel until the 1970s.

But then the electorate said: “No, we don’t accept you”. Also, Arab Jews said that “because you are European Jews who are treating us in a very racist way, so we don’t want to be part of your version of a European country”. It seems that they are content with a more religious, traditional and racist state. This began in the late 1970s and took time to mature. Losing, or never winning, this Arab Jewish electorate (still 50% of the population) was the biggest failure of the Israeli Left.

From 2000 onwards, there was no social democratic power in Israel to talk about. There are parties who define themselves social democratic, but they don’t have any sizeable electorate behind them. And they have no influence in Israeli politics.

Since 2000, all the governments were either centre-right or right-right. If you look at the Knesset today, there are four members out 120, who define themselves as social democrats. There are more members who define themselves as Palestinian or anti-Zionist, but the vast majority define themselves as Zionists, and nationalist and religious. This is the face of Israel in 2022.

This is not an accident of history. It is an inevitable result of the whole idea of the settler colonial project.

One reaction to this lack of representation in parliament is the demonstrations in Israel which are barely precedented in terms of the size of mobilization against the government. At the same time, these demos clearly have nothing to say about the Palestinians. Do you think that they should be supported? And will they lead anywhere?

My Palestinian friends who are citizens of Israel discussed whether they should join the demonstrations. When consulted, my position was very clear. I said: “first of all, these demonstrators don’t want you there. They prefer not to see any Palestinian-Israeli citizen there. Secondly, the demonstrations are based on the idea that there is no connection between the occupation and the destruction of what is left of the Israeli democracy.”

This assumption of the demonstrators is totally wrong, of course. The two are connected and linked. The changes in the judicial system are meant to enable expansion of settlements and taking more severe actions against the Palestinian. This is the same package. It will take a bit longer for Israelis in Tel Aviv, and the high tech elite, who are worried about the way Israel is going, to see this. Hopefully they might see that there is a connection, but I’m not sure that they will. This is an internal Jewish debate that will have an impact on the Palestinians, but the Palestinians cannot impact that debate.

There is a misconception among some of the critics of Israel, that most of Israel’s money comes from the security services. That is not true. The most important income for Israel comes from high tech. Of course, some of that high tech is connected to security. But the high tech elite in Israel pays a sizeable percentage of the taxes and patriotically retains tens of billions of dollars in Israeli banks, as a statement of confidence in the Israeli economy. Since November 2022, they have begun to take the money out of Israel, and started to look for jobs outside of Israel.

This will undermine the Israeli economy very seriously, because it is a capitalist liberal economy which is based on such flow of money and human capital. It will be very interesting to see the impact on people who usually vote for the right wing, when their socio-economic conditions are affected.

The Israeli Central Bank has already increased interest rates eight times. This means that most Israelis who have mortgages are now paying three times more than they paid a few years ago. For many of them, three times more is half of their salary, and they have no chance of buying these houses.

So they will find it very difficult to pay their huge rent. And this government doesn’t have anyone there who has any capacity to deal with an economic crisis, which hasn’t happened yet, but will happen eventually.

How is the government justifying people having to pay these higher mortgages?

It is very difficult to answer this question logically. Today, the Knesset passed a law that allows Netanyahu to spend huge sums of money on renovating his house and his private aeroplane on the same day that people were told that their mortgage is being tripled. The people whose mortgages are being tripled, are generally people who vote for Netanyahu.

The people who don’t vote for Netanyahu are very well off. This change in the economy doesn’t bother them. But there is a certain psychology here which is not that easy to explain, and is not unique to Israel. Why do the electorate that suffer most from the economic and social policies of the government, continue to support the government?

So far one of the reasons that this occurs in Israel, is due to the government’s ability to tell its supporters that this is the necessary sacrifice for keeping the tribe and the nation together. This togetherness is necessary because we’re facing enemies from within and from without. That’s why they have to blow the Iranian danger out of proportion in order to cement support and divert attention from the socio-economic problems of the society.

So far, it has worked. Every time that they are overdoing these oppressive economic measures, we say to ourselves, okay, now it will burst out. We thought it burst out in 2011, with the social protest movement of half a million people demonstrating in Tel Aviv against the government’s policies on education and housing.

It was mesmerising to see how it petered out. A year later in 2012, Israel went to war in Gaza in order to make sure that the demonstrators will go to the army and go to the war and forget about the social protest. The government has no economic solution for the current crisis. It will try to find a way of diverting the attention–whether it’s a war or a crisis–it is hard to predict, but it is very worrying.

If you talk to the younger generation, they were educated in a particularly indoctrinated educational system. It is very difficult to change their perspective. And Israel de-Arabized many of the Arab Jews (the Mizrahim), giving them the sense that being not Arab is the ticket to be part of the new Israel, and something which will help to distinguish them from the “Arabs” of Israel, who were depicted as lesser persons or human beings, and therefore made them second-rate citizens. There is so much work to be done there, for anyone carving for a change from within Israel.

Some things are logical. We understand why some of the North African Jews moved to the settlements from the poor neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. That was understandable. They lived in a slum, and were offered a villa in the West Bank. So they went with the government’s support. The settlements for the Arab Jews in Jerusalem were built near Jerusalem, not inside the West Bank.

But nowadays, I’m not sure how far the Israeli government can go with this. They have no economic solution to the gap between those who have and those who haven’t. This is a situation that they themselves created. And frankly, they don’t even have the wizards of the liberal economy any more.

What you’re saying, indirectly at least, means that Israeli high tech workers and Palestinians have got a common enemy in Israeli capital. Does that mean that there’s a possibility of them coming together against the same enemy?

Not in the near future, because unfortunately, these high tech people are also indoctrinated by the racist Zionist view that the Palestinians are non-Europeans, and not equal partners. But it may shift. I don’t want to sound overly optimistic. but people who work in the Israeli medical system know that 50% of the physicians in Israel are Palestinians, and that many of the heads of the departments in hospitals are Palestinians. Maybe it will help to re-humanize the Palestinians in the eyes of the Ashkenazi elite of Israel. But we have to wait and see, as it has not happened yet.

The real hope for change lies elsewhere. There is a need, which now seems utopian, for an alliance between the Jews who came from Arab and Muslim countries and the Palestinians all over historical Palestine. I know this is not going to happen very soon, and I’m not sure if it’s going to happen at all. But I would invest most of my efforts there.

How can the Palestinians avoid taking the same path as South Africa? As a supporter of the Initiative for the One Democratic State, how would a single democratic state under capitalist conditions avoid just continuing the old power relationships in a different way?

The Initiative is trying to find bridges between the Left and some of the political forces that emerged in Palestine after the 1970s, including the political Islamic forces. We see that there is a lot of common ground, not only to liberate a place from colonization, but to build a new one, which is based on egalitarian social and economic policies.

What we don’t want, is the compromise that Mandela made in South Africa. In order to see the end of apartheid, Mandela was willing to allow the capitalist interests in South Africa to remain powerful in a way that did not solve the most fundamental problems of South African society and economy. It’s better than having apartheid, but it creates new issues.

The way to avoid this post-apartheid reality is to make sure that while you discuss the means for decolonization, you also develop a social and economic post-colonial vision. Applying the means used to decolonize, you might be able to build a more just society. Namely, just not only in terms of the of the relationship between Jews and Palestinians–which is the main aim–but also between classes, between the rural areas within the periphery and the centre, and so on.

It really behoves the Palestinian Left to redefine its identity and goals, and to openly and critically look at the mistakes it made in the 1970s. This is where this energy can come from. On the Left we believe in intellectual, organic intellectuals, and profoundly looking at the problems and finding solutions. But we also need to be in contact with movements and receive the support of the people themselves.

Who do you think has the agency to enforce change? I agree with you that the Palestinian Left needs a better vision. But Palestinians are largely excluded from the Israeli economy and merely going on demonstrations mean you run the risk of being shot by Israeli soldiers. What will it take to change the balance of power?

A lot of people know what needs to be done. But we all are very bad in knowing how to do this. We need to take into account that Palestinian society is the youngest in the world. 50% of the Palestinians are under 18. And this younger generation has some clear ideas of who they are and where they want to go.

Unlike the politics from above, whether inside Israel or in the Palestinian occupied territories where people are divided ideologically and politically, the younger generation is far more unified in its analysis of the reality and its vision for the future. These energies need to find their way into the structures of representation and leadership that can move all of us in the right direction.

We experienced this both in the West in 2008, and during the so called Arab Spring in 2011-2. People were very hesitant to put their energies into organizational issues. They felt that organization creates bureaucracies, and bureaucracies tame down the energy and become corrupt. This is what they see around them in the Arab world, and also in the West.

So there needs to be a fusion of the revolutionary energies that are there. I think the Left always realized that you need organization and representation. You may be influenced by anarchism, but it doesn’t always work as a transformative force on the ground. We can agree that knowing exactly how to transform things is not easy.

One of the most interesting initiatives, which I hope it will include the Palestinians in Israel, is either to re-organize the PLO, or to find a substitute. It is necessary for all of us to have a more accepted representative, democratic Palestinian leadership that will push us all in the right direction. This is easier said than done, of course.

How could a new State be forged, ideally with economic relations which are divorced from the last century of Zionist war-making? How would it function economically, if there’s no war to constantly generate profits?

That goes together with the whole decolonization process. First of all, you dismantle the racist colonialist institutions. These institutions are based in capitalism. The main problem is not so much the militarized high tech, but the question of decolonization.

The energy that would be needed would be in such a different direction to security, that I don’t think you have to worry about it too much. Because either people will go along with this, or they won’t. And if they do, the high tech community would also have to contribute its share for building a post-colonial state and prioritise for instance, projects of absorbing the Palestinian refugees (since the implementation of the right of return would be crucial for a just solution) and be part of the effort for redistributing land and property and working out a credible mechanism of compensation.

The entry point is really the dismantling of colonialist institutions. These institutions are now so closely connected to the capitalist system, that the very dismantling or weakening of them may also begin with changes to the economic nature of the state.

The 2011 protest movements in Israel showed both the potential and limitations. The movement was huge, but it fell apart as soon as anyone mentioned Palestine. It happened at roughly the same time as the Arab Spring, but there seemed to be zero connections made with what was happening in North Africa. Was this inevitable?

Let me put it this way. In order to change the reality on the ground, our greatest hopes are not for change from within the Israeli society. If someone wants to see a change in Palestine, it would not come from within the Jewish society, but from the ability of the Palestinians to be more unified, and for the Muslim and Arab world to stand behind them.

People or governments in the West standing behind the Palestinian Liberation cause can bring a change. But anyone that waits for change from within Israel as an important component in transforming the situation–will, unfortunately, be disappointed.

Having said this, things are more dialectical. If we see all these things that I talked about–a change in the Muslim world, and in the way that Western governments are acting–this can have an influence on the ability of Israelis to be more assertive and maybe contribute to the change.

I would be very surprised if the current movement will do this. It’s an impressive movement. 100,000 people surrounding the Israeli Knesset on Monday is a show of force. But these people will make sure that the Palestine issue is not connected to their agenda. They will make sure that Palestinian Israelis are not part of this protest movement. And that’s why they will fail.

Maybe one day they will realize that if you want to change the Israeli political system from within, it needs to be done through Arab-Jewish cooperation. You cannot do it without the Palestinians in Israel. But Israel has grown up to be such a racist society, that for the vast majority of Jews, this is an unthinkable scenario.

Who should socialists in Germany and elsewhere be making links with? You don’t see much hope in Israel, and Fatah and Hamas are falling apart with corruption. Who are our partners in the region?

There is a thriving civil society which needs the support from people from the outside. It is very well organized in the West Bank. Even under the Hamas in Gaza, it has enough freedom to act. The same is true about the Palestinian society inside Israel.

And there is a positive development. Jews are no longer creating their own civil societies. They understand the limitation of the power. So if you are an anti-Zionist Jew, you are now joining a Palestinian NGO instead of creating your own. Some of the Palestinian national movements inside Israel used to say: “let the Jews develop their own critical mass and we will develop ours.” Now there is an understanding that it has to go together.

You can see it in Balad, the most important national party inside Israel. Although it never prohibited Israeli Jewish citizens from joining now they’re actively recruiting Israeli Jews, both for the party and also through a network of civil society organizations that is connected with the party.

There is also a call from 150 Palestinian NGOs inside Israel and the occupied territories for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign, It is a very important call, and something that socialist and progressive forces in Europe are ready contribute towards. I know how difficult it is in Germany, because of the legislation and the declaration in the Bundestag. But nonetheless, that should not deter us.

There is also an interesting new initiative. The PLO has started international anti-Israel apartheid committees everywhere in the world. This can form a new energy for the BDS movement or enhance the BDS movement even further. I think these initiatives are very important. You cannot rest. They need to be maintained.

One last question. You will be speaking in Berlin again in May at the Marxismuss conference. The subject is 75 years Nakba, but it’s also an opportunity to addressing some of the problems that we have in Germany. Our problem is not just the Bundestag resolution, but a self-censorship and lack of self confidence amongst the German Left regarding Palestine. How important you think is it to talk raise the issue of Palestine with a German audience?

Very, very important. Germany plays a very important role in this whole question. Germany’s justified guilt is manipulated in order to immunise Israel. Germany is an extremely critical political force in Europe. But it does not dare to take any bold actions as a political system, that would benefit the Palestinians and alleviate their suffering under Israeli oppression.

It’s very important to find a way of convincing the German public that they should not be intimidated. I come from a German Jewish family. I know very well what happened in Germany. We should not be intimidated by that particular chapter in history. On the contrary, that chapter means the Germans should be even more sensitive to the suffering of the Palestinians.

Germany should not deny the past, but instead say that this past requires a moral position on Palestine, not just on Israel. The Palestinians are a link in the victimisation chain that began in 1933. People in Germany who produce knowledge about Palestine–academics, journalists pundits, and definitely politicians–cannot act like they are part of the Israeli propaganda.

I know they are intelligent scholars, journalists, and politicians. It really breaks my heart to see them saying things that they know are not correct. The only reason they’re saying it is because of political, academic, or journalistic utility. They don’t want to be condemned as antisemites. This is more important in Germany than in any other country.

We have a great assignment of convincing them that, supporting the Palestinians is being anti-racist and anti-colonialist, and therefore cannot be an antisemitic act based on the mistaken belief that antisemitism is racism. This is easier said than done. But I think that academics should play a very important role here–in being accurate, in being accurate professional, in not abusing what they do as academics.

Germany always respected its academics, journalists, writers, intellectuals–but when it comes to Palestine, they behave like people with no backbone avoiding the desire to seek out the truth. And this is something that I think they should contemplate. Hopefully we can help them in this process.

We’re nearly out of time. Is there anything you’d like to say before we finish?

We should not give up on Germany. I’m beginning to give up on on the chances of changing Israeli society, but I’m not giving up on the younger German generation. We should still look at Germany as a place where there are processes that have not yet matured. And Germany’s is building itself all the time.

“Power devolved is always power retained”

Interview with Colin Macpherson, one of the organisers of next week’s march for Scottish independence in Berlin


02/03/2023

Hello Colin. Thanks for talking to us. Could you start by introducing yourself. Who are you, and why are you interested in Scottish independence?

I am Colin Macpherson and have been living in Germany for 35 years, initially in Munich and now in Straubing. I first became interested in Scottish independence as a teenager. When the Iron Curtain fell, all of a sudden, new independent countries were being created, many smaller than Scotland. And my feeling was why can they do it and Scotland can’t? This was of course towards the end of the Thatcher years and all the devastation they had inflicted on Scotland. With technological advances over recent years it has become much easier to keep up with what is happening in Scotland and this has made it possible for me to become far more involved in the campaign.

On 11th March, Germans for Scottish Independence are organising an Independence demo in Berlin. Why are you demonstrating here?

Our group’s aims are to raise awareness of the independence campaign in Germany and show our colleagues in Scotland our support. Berlin is the obvious choice to maximize publicity.

Who are you expecting to take part on the demonstration? Who is involved in your campaign?

Our group started off in 2013 as a Facebook page and so it remains very loosely structured and a broad church – mainly Germans in Scotland, Germans in Germany, Scots in Germany and Scots elsewhere. Often, but not always, there are personal links, either having spent time in the other country or having friends and family there. We expect that the attendance will reflect that and look forward to welcoming both people who have travelled from other parts of Germany and from Scotland. Amongst others Kevin Gore will be providing music and Neale Hanvey MP will be speaking.

There have been a lot of demonstrations for independence in the last few years. Have they been effective?

One could argue no because Scotland is not independent yet. I prefer to see them as being part of the reason that despite the referendum result in 2014, independence is still firmly on the agenda. While unlikely to persuade people who are not yet convinced of independence, they serve to increase awareness and show that we are not getting back in our box.

Many progressive people look at the nationalism of the conservatives and neo-Nazis and say that they are against all nationalism. What is different about Scottish Nationalism?

I prefer to speak of the independence movement, and indeed some have suggested that the SNP ought to change its name to avoid such confusion. The former promote a sense of being better than others based on nationality or ethnicity. In Scotland things are far more inclusive and it is not about being inherently better than anyone else, merely that the people of Scotland are better placed to make decisions which affect the daily lives of people in Scotland.

Aren’t you better off uniting with the English workers currently striking against the Tory government?

The two are not mutually exclusive, but it is also not that simple. Current strikes in the NHS or education, for example, are devolved issues. So, while the Scottish Government has a finite budget with limited powers to raise further funds the strikes in Scotland are not directly strikes against the Tory government. In the future we would hope that the fairer society we would like to see in an independent Scotland would also prove beneficial to workers in England and elsewhere by showing how the current system can be changed.

How has the case for Scottish independence changed since Brexit?

Brexit was probably the best example to show the need for independence, both on Scotland being dragged out the EU against its will and the refusal of the UK government to even consider a bespoke solution reflecting the will of the Scottish electorate. It has certainly contributed to many in Europe being more sympathetic to the idea of independence. At the same time I think that we should guard against equating independence with EU membership – that should be a decision made by the people of Scotland after independence.

In 1999, Scotland was given its own parliament. Yet, the Westminster government recently refused to allow the Scottish parliament to pass the Gender Recognition Act. Just how much autonomy does Scotland currently have?

Along with the recent Supreme Court decision and the Internal Market Bill that is a whole new question which is yet to be answered. In theory many areas are devolved, but once the can of worms is opened, that laws can only be passed which the Westminster government agrees with, it becomes dangerous territory. While we can welcome many laws passed by the Scottish Government it remains to be seen what the future brings – we are already seeing threats to block the bottle return scheme. Ultimately power devolved is always power retained.

Has the recent resignation of Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon strengthened your campaign or weakened it?

Independence is never about one party, far less one person, although the glee with which Unionist politicians and media greeted the announcement suggests they see things differently. The arguments in favour of independence have not changed, however the campaign still needs the politicians as the vehicle to Scotland regaining independence. Much will depend on who wins the leadership election and how they engage with the wider movement.

Finally, how can people in Berlin practically support your cause?

Spread the word and come and join us on March 11th. We gather at the Brandenburg Gate to set off at 11 a.m. and move on to Alexanderplatz for the rally.

The bloody implications of sending NATO weapons to Ukraine

There are not 2 different NATOs. If you ask US imperialism for weapons, you end up providing succour for its other crimes


01/03/2023

On 4th August, 1914, the German SPD – a mass party which was committed to Marxism – voted for war credits, enabling Germany to enter the First World War. The vote was almost unanimous. Although 17 SPD MPs expressed private opposition to the war credits, only Karl Liebknecht voted against them, and even he abstained on the original vote. (Rosa Luxemburg would have taken a similar position to Liebknecht, if the German parliament had allowed women to be MPs).

On 25th July, just 10 days before the Bundestag vote, the SPD executive issued a statement demanding that “the German government exercise its influence on the Austrian government to maintain peace; and in the event that the shameful war cannot be prevented, that it refrain from belligerent intervention.”

But when push came to shove, the largest party of the European Left collapsed under the prevailing hysteria for war. When Lenin read about the vote, he assumed that it was a forgery published by the German general staff.

The SPD justified its vote for war as follows: “It is for us to ward off this danger and to safeguard the culture and independence of our country. Thus we honour what we have always pledged: in the hour of danger, we shall not desert our Fatherland.”

In retrospect, many see this vote by the SPD deputies as an aberration, but it is one of many examples of committed Leftists being firmly against war – right until the moment that war breaks out, when they fall in behind their own ruling class. I feel that the current clamour for weapons for Ukraine is part of a similar process.

I was politicised by the anti-war movement and have been having these discussions all my adult life. While debating Putin’s invasion, I am experiencing some arguments which are worryingly familiar. In this article, I want to go through some of the most common arguments for sending weapons and show how they fit a pattern that has always been used by our rulers and media to justify imperialist war.

“Putin is the new Hitler”

One of the most common arguments for sending Western arms to Ukraine is that we must stop the “new Hitler”. Comparing your opponent to Hitler invokes Godwin’s Law and makes it difficult for anyone to seriously question what you are saying. No one with an ounce of humanity wants a return to Concentration Camps. If Putin is the new Hitler, he must be stopped, even if it means allying with our own rulers.

Around a year ago, I wrote an article which contained the following: “Try putting “new Hitler“ into a search engine. Apart from Putin, you’ll find results for Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Egypts 1950s president Gamal Abdul Nasser, Muammar Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein, a coach of the Independence Community College football team, and many more.” Interestingly, if you try a similar exercise today, the first few pages will be almost entirely full of articles about Putin.

In 1999, Germany took part in the illegal NATO bombing of Serbia – the first external deployment of the German military since the Second World War. Then, as now, Germany had a belligerent Green Foreign minister. At a special party conference, Joschka Fischer justified the bombing with the slogan “Nie wieder Auschwitz” (Auschwitz never again). Instead, thousands of civilians were killed or injured by NATO bombs.

The comparison with Fascism is used to shut down debate. All opponents of war are dismissed as Putin-apologists, just as in the past we were accused of being apologists for Saddam. For example, in 2002, an article in the left wing magazine Mother Jones argued: “The left-wing sectarians who promote ‘NO SANCTIONS, NO BOMBING’ don’t want the US, or anyone, to lift a finger on behalf of the Kurds.” The implication is that US imperialism could be a force for good, if only we let it.

“An illegal invasion must be punished”

On April 2nd, 1982, Argentinian troops invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands. Three days later, Margaret Thatcher sent a British Task Force to the South Atlantic. The British media was overwhelmed by patriotic fervour.

Before the war, Thatcher was well behind in the polls with 27% support. In May 1982, support for the Tories rose to 51%. Some have argued that the “Falklands Factor” was responsible for her 1983 election victory, and thus, indirectly, for the defenestration of British living conditions which followed.

Thatcher was significantly helped by the supine behaviour of Labour leader Michael Foot. Foot, a veteran peace campaigner, made a bellicose parliamentary speech in defence of war, and supported the Task Force, saying “I know a Fascist when I see one” (Godwin’s law again).

Similarly, the immediate justification of the USA’s first Gulf War against Iraq was not to protect US imperial ambitions in the oil region, but Saddam Hussein’s illegal invasion of Kuwait. Shortly before the invasion, Iraq had also murdered the Observer reporter Farzad Bazoft.

Terrible acts, but not the reason the US sent troops. Lawrence Koth, former US assistant defence secretary, openly said: “If Kuwait grew carrots, we wouldn’t give a damn.” Until the Gulf War, the US had been arming Saddam in his fight against Iran.When NATO poses as a knight on a shining charger, it is usually to solve problems which they caused in the first place.

The point of these comparisons is not to retroactively justify military adventures by right wing governments, but to point out that when our rulers say that they are defending national autonomy, they are not to be trusted. We cannot expect the people responsible for the My Lai massacre, the assassination of Pierre Lumumba and the overthrow of Salvador Allende to act outside their narrow imperial interests.

“Opponents of war are marching with Nazis”

This is the most serious allegation, as there is a grain of truth in it. Politicians like Oskar Lafontaine have made explicit overtures to the far right. At the recent anti-war demo organised by Lafontaine’s wife Sahra Wagenknecht. Wagenknecht said that AfD flags and symbols were unwanted, but her response was insufficient, based on the mistaken belief that the Left can win over AfD voters by refusing to criticise the increasing Nazi control of the party.

It has been a scandal that the first big German demonstrations against delivering weapons have been organised by people who have been ambiguous about excluding the far right. The political Left should take much of the blame for not building a serious anti-imperialist pole, while the German government has doubled the military budget and let inflation hit double figures for the first time since 1948.

People who are struggling to survive are angry. 44% of Germans oppose the decision of the political centre to deliver weapons (as opposed to 41% who support it). These people are open to political leadership from Left and Right. This is why it was important that people from my LINKE branch in Wedding and others attended Saturday’s rally with a banner and placards saying “With AfD and co there is no peace.”

This is not the first time that the far right has tried to appropriate social movements for themselves. In 2003, when Germany’s Red-Green government introduced its attack on the social state (Agenda 2010), Nazis were able in individual cases to march to the front of the demos. Something similar happened with the protests against globalisation. Encouraged by some Spiegel columnists, right wingers tried to hijack the movement against TTIP.

In both cases, the reaction of the political Left was not to hand the protests over to the far right, but to build a movement which rejected right wing ideas, culminating in trade union backed demonstrations which mobilised half a million people against Agenda 2010 and 250,000 against TTIP.

“There is no alternative to uniting with our rulers”

David Jamieson makes the perceptive point that: “the general demoralisation of the left, and its loss of belief in making a meaningful challenge to established power hangs over the entire debate about the war … The retreat of parts of the left behind their own states’ policy in the west was facilitated by setbacks, such as the collapse of the Sanders and Corbynite projects.”

It is not that Leftists want NATO and the military industrial complex to (literally) fight their battles for them. Rather, the current mood of pessimism means that some do not see an alternative. Somebody must do something, and if we lack the power, it will have to be someone who does. But the idea that we must do something, no matter what, is not always the best solution. If your house is on fire, you don’t help the situation by pouring petrol onto the blaze.

Supporters of weapons delivery insist that we must take a side between Putin and NATO. One of the most articulate proponents of this argument us Andrei Belibou, in a recent theleftberlin article which asks: “How can Putin be “fully responsible” for a war that has a double character? How can Ukrainians engage in “legitimate self-defense in a proxy war“? ”.

But it is quite normal to expect that different people act through different motivations. This is why Liz Fekete is quite right to ask the following rhetorical questions: “Could it be that the war is many things at once: a heroic fight for self-determination on the part of the Ukrainian people caught in the crosshairs of empire: a cynical proxy war on the part of NATO?”

There is a – I would argue naive – belief that NATO will deliver heavy weapons without conditions, that Ukraine will liberate itself, free of any interference from the West. Appeals for weapons are not being made to workers’ collectives, but to the military industrial complex. Their interests are not our interests.

“This is about human rights, not social politics”

NATO and the German military are not benign forces for peace which we can use for our own purposes. They are a central part of Western neoliberalism.

Early globalisation supporter Thomas Friedman explained: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist – McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”

Liz Fekete sees a link between the militarism which supported early neoliberalism and the current situation: “where once we had Samuel Huntingdon’s ideological framework of a clash of civilisations (between Islam and the West) to justify the ‘war on terror’. Today we have that clash as between Russia and the West … It justifies NATO’s rapid and vast intervention, the introduction of sophisticated lethal weaponry and the sharing of battlefield intelligence.”

There are not 2 NATOs – one which benevolently helps oppressed countries, and another which overthrows governments in the Global South, and invades other countries at will. A NATO which feels empowered by the Left calling for military intervention will act on it’s own agenda, not ours. They are not, and cannot be, our partners.

The main beneficiaries of the militarisation are not Ukrainians who will be pounded by more heavy artillery, but the weapons industry. A recent Financial Times article carried the headline Defence industry shares soar on western backing for Ukraine. As Billy Bragg sang: “War: What is it Good For? It’s good for business”. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have already issued a joint statement, saying that they had agreed to focus on investment opportunities.

Conclusion

I do not believe in a kinder gentle NATO intervention which is concerned about human rights. Despite the NATO propaganda it is not, and never has been, a “defensive alliance”. It is utterly absurd to expect that the very institution that forged the conditions for the current crisis is able, let alone willing, to solve it!

War is the product of a nationalism which binds us to our rulers, and asks us to trust them against a common enemy. This does not further our cause. A quote sometimes attributed to Lenin says, “a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends”. The Ukrainian government is already conscripting unwilling workers, including the disabled into its army.

In an age of nuclear weapons (or the illegal phosphorous bombs which Zelenskyy recently demanded), the possibility of mass deaths is very real. And the people responsible for the destruction will stay safe in their palaces.

If we reduce our role to advising our rulers and generals – people who have never acted in our interests – we do not help the fight for peace and against oppression in Ukraine, or anywhere else. Putin is not our friend. NATO is not our friend. The German government is not our friend. Let’s stop feeling we have to choose between different agents of capitalism. No war but the class war.

Thanks to Hamja Ahsan, Rob Hoveman, Bernado Jurema, Carol McGuigan, Rosemarie Nünning and Anna Southern who gave feedback on a draft version of this article.

Joint assessment of the “Rise Up for Peace” rally

A translated statement from three Die Linke politicians on the “Rise Up for Peace” demonstration in Berlin and the need for Die Linke to become active as an anti-war party.


28/02/2023

The Rally “Rise Up for Peace” was a great success. The organizers claim 50,000 participants. This is a much more realistic figure than the 13,000 the police stated. This is a notable achievement, not only given the damp cold weather, but especially given the defamation the rally was subjected to from various sources in the run-up. Minister for economic affairs Habeck warned the night before on a popular TV programme “Brennpunkt” against participating, and his warnings were repeated in newspapers, on the web and on radio. The rally is a reflection of the growing discontent in the population at large with the government course in the war in Ukraine and their fear of escalation. If we add the many other, much smaller protests, which took place all over the country, then this could be the beginning of a new anti-war movement.

The composition of the rally was, similar to the large peace demonstrations in the past, mixed. Many middle-aged people and older, but also many families, largely from the eastern parts of Germany around Berlin, but also from other parts of Germany. According to our estimates several hundred members of Die Linke (“The Left Party”) from all party groupings and shades and various parts of Germany (Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony and Hesse) participated as well as activists of the Linke-SDS and the youth organisation Linksjugend Solid in Berlin.

Several organisations of the extreme right tried to mobilize for the rally and some individuals and small groups were present, however they were not able to dominate the picture in any way. Right-wing journalist Jürgen Elsässer had in the run-up tried to turn the rally into a right-wing event. He made his appearance together with a small group of his hangers-on. Since the stewards alone were not able to stop him, other participants including members of Die Linke surrounded him with big banners saying “No peace with the AfD” and “Solidarity not racism – Refugees welcome – take in Russian deserters” and confronted him with chants “Nazis piss off”. Right up to the start of the official programme we used our megaphones to explain to the people within reach who Elsässer is and that the chant “Nazis piss off” was not aimed at them but at him. After a while he indeed left the demonstration under police protection.

The initiators of the peace rally had in advance stated that the AfD and right-wingers were not welcome. The stewards communicated this at the various points of entrance to the rally were, however, slightly overwhelmed and didn’t act in unison. Parts of the peace movement underestimate the danger posed by the extreme right, we therefore need to argue firmly and clearly that the AfD, Compact & Co. (Elsässer’s magazine) do not stand for peace, but for further armaments, militarism and war and that they need to be consistently excluded from the peace movement.

Die Linke made itself visible with a sprinkle of flags, two large banners on sticks (one against arms supplies and war, the other against the right) as well as 120 placards made by two Left boroughs on their own initiative and other leaflets produced by various borough organisations. A central leaflet such as the one produced by the borough of Wedding against war, arms supplies and the AfD would have been useful. Even more so an invitation to a Left rally 14 days later.

This rally was not a “cross front” event. Individual fascists did feel encouraged to participate and there are people within the peace movement who are open to cooperating with fascists and say so openly. So the movement is full of contradictions and this is indeed a problem. But the leadership is not a cross front, but a momentary coalition. It is therefore paramount that Die Linke take an active role, in practice and politically. Whether a peace movement is successful or degenerates into a cross front depends on who intervenes and with what arguments in order to give the movement direction.

In our eyes it was a big mistake on the part of Die Linke, based on a complete miscalculation of developments, not to intervene centrally in fighting for a left orientation to the demonstration instead of limiting themselves to comments from the side lines. We demand that the party begin a discussion on how to become an effective participant in the building of a movement against the war and what role it can play within it.

The participation of Nazis is indeed nauseating. However, if we desist from participating in protests as soon as rightist try to capture them, we open ourselves to blackmail. Participation in this rally gave us an opportunity to actively fight the right. We must not leave the peace movement up to itself, especially in view of the massive pressure we are subject to in the media. The Easter marches and the Liberation Day in May will confront us with similar challenges whether we like it or not.

The Left is needed. Many participants at the rally, who felt intimidated by the scorn poured over it by the media and the talk of how divided the party is, were relieved to see our visible presence on the day. Our participation also showed that it is possible to unite the party in action. We need to turn the party into an active anti-war party!

By Christine Buchholz, member of the steering committee of the Die Linke, Ulrike Eifler, member of the national trade union council of the Die Linke and Jan Richter, member of the steering committee and of the national trade union council of Die Linke.

Translation: David Paenson.

At theleftberlin.com we aim to publish voices from across the left and give international leftist the chance to access political debates happening within Germany in English. If you wish to reply or challenge anything published please contact us.

Negotiations and Escalations

Whose peace is the Manifesto for Peace about?


26/02/2023

One fact is simple and relatively uncontested: on February 24th, 2022, Russia invaded the neighbouring state of Ukraine. A year later, a German petition, which attracted thousands of protesters to Brandenburger Tor on Saturday, finds this situation rightly unacceptable. It calls for “solidarity” with the “Ukrainian people, brutally invaded by Russia.” It also calls for an immediate stop of weapon deliveries to the Ukrainian army. What do the initiators of this petition offer to the Ukrainian people instead of weapons? Negotiations.  Thankfully, these do not propose any “surrender.” But they do mean “making compromises, on both sides.”

After a speedy victory of either Russia or Ukraine is not in the offing, the big question is how and when the war will end. The so-called “Manifesto for Peace,” of Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer, offers no vision of that beyond “compromises.” But the obvious question is not answered: what concrete compromises should Ukraine make? Cede territory? Pay war reparations to Russia? Replace its government and cut ties with the EU and NATO? All of the above?

Another obvious question ignored by calls for “immediate peace” is that of responsibility. There are those who would blame the invasion of Ukraine entirely on NATO’s Eastward expansion. A modicum of common sense helps us quickly realize that Putin and the Russian government are not simple geopolitical automata, and they have enough free will to deserve at least some responsibility for the invasion. Luckily, such common sense is still possessed by German pacifists.

There is, however, a catch. There is a phrasing that we tend to dismiss when it comes to prejudice: folk wisdom tells us that “I’m not racist, but…” will invariably be followed by a racist statement. That “but” does not save what follows. On the contrary, it draws attention not only to the racism, but also to the shoddy attempt at masking it. Ultimately, it points out that even the speaker knew what was said would at least be perceived as racist.

What do we make, then, of a statement such as that of Christina Buchholz? “Putin is fully responsible for the attack on Ukraine. But the war has a double character. It is a legitimate fight for the right to self-determination for Ukrainians against an imperial occupying force. But it is also a proxy war by NATO, the USA and the EU against their imperial competition Russia. Finally, it has led to a dangerous escalation.” Unless they bite the bullet and just call Zelenskyy a fascist, the so-called “anti-war left” hardly needs the qualifier about responsibility and self-defense. Does it save what comes after the “but”? It’s hard to believe. How can Putin be “fully responsible” for a war that has a double character? How can Ukrainians engage in “legitimate self-defense in a proxy war“?

Calls for peace have taken this form – of accepting the simple fact of the invasion, and then immediately following it with a “but.” The magic word that allows them to do that is “escalation.” Russia did invade Ukraine, but Ukrainians/NATO/Zelenskyy/Olaf Scholz then escalated the war. DIE LINKE warns about an escalation of the war driven by weapon deliveries to Ukraine. Marx21 claims that Putin is “fully responsible” for the attack, but is not “guilty alone” of the escalation. Both imperialist blocs, the US and Russia, have contributed to it.

There are two issues here: the first concerns definitions, and the second a simple counterfactual. For the first, we must ask where the line between self-defense and escalation is being drawn? How much resistance can the Ukrainian state and people pose to the Russian invaders before German leftists accuse them of making the war worse? What type of war can be defensive enough for it not to be “an escalation?”

Perhaps the answer will come in the form of foreign intervention. When arms are delivered by NATO, with its undeniable imperialist interests, then this is an escalation. But this is where the counterfactual comes in.

Let’s imagine that Ukraine had not received aid in the form of weapons. What would have happened then? Perhaps Russian dreams of a blitzkrieg would have come closer to being realized. Or, more optimistically, perhaps “resistance from below” in both Ukraine and Russia would have been enough to stop the war.

Except they haven’t, as actually resistance from below already exists. There have been anti-war movements in Russia, and there is no reason to believe that they would have resisted state crackdowns more effectively – if Ukraine had not received external support. And there is also no reason to believe that the bottom-up organizing of Ukrainian resistance would itself have been more successful without NATO and European weapons. How could it? Supporting Ukrainians’ “right to armed self-defense” while also demanding an end to supplying them with actual arms amounts to just closing your eyes and hoping for the best.

In reality empty hope instead of solidarity is all that calls for peace have to offer. Hope that Russia will stop its attack if NATO stops weapons deliveries. Hope that China, Mexico, Brazil or anybody else will manage to diplomatically pacify Putin’s government. Or hope that a compromise of some sort will be an acceptable price for Ukrainians to buy peace.

Negotiations will indeed have to take place at some point for the war to end. The belief that NATO weapons are what stops them from happening, however, puts the burden of the negotiations on the victim, and not on the aggressor. Even while accepting that many Ukrainian wartime actions, as well as the Western response, can be criticized, we cannot deny that the majority of the lives lost and the cities destroyed are Ukrainian. As Buchholz herself notes, this is not a matter of the suffering of “the German people,” with which the “Manifesto for Peace” is concerned, but the suffering of Ukrainians. There are no Ukrainian voices, however, among these calls for peace. Hence the slogan of the Ukrainian counter-manifesto: “Talk with us, not about us.”

The simple fact of the invasion also means that there is only one simple ending to the war – the Russian attack on Ukraine must stop.

Let’s engage, then, in another counterfactual about what could happen to Ukrainians, according to the Saturday protesters’ demands. Let’s say that weapon deliveries are stopped tomorrow. Wagenknecht and Schwarzer’s Manifesto claims that this is the road to peace. But what will that road look like?

One option, the one they hope for, is that Putin’s war is only against NATO’s support for Ukraine, and not against Ukraine itself, and thus that Putin will stop his invasion if the support also stops. Perhaps he might be more open to negotiations… Or, why not – perhaps – he might even give up on his territorial ambitions; stop the violent oppression of Russian queer people; and distance himself from virulent Russian nationalism, while he’s at it.

The second option is that Putin will see this as a sign that his war is unopposed. His campaign of attrition will continue and Ukrainians will eventually run out of weapons and ammunition. At this point the losses will be much higher, the suffering much greater, and Ukraine would be defeated. This might mean peace for some Germans – but the counter-protesters who came out to oppose the Manifesto for Peace on Saturday know that there is no peace under Russian occupation.

Hopefully, most leftists who support the Manifesto are aware of this and have simply placed their bets on the first of these two options. It’s a risky bet, however; a wilfully ignorant one based on a narrow understanding of the war and the extent to which it targets Ukraine and Ukrainians themselves. Much worse, it is a bet with other people’s lives.