Read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/9623
Missing the point on Palestine
Submitted by AWL on 22 November, 2007 - 10:15
Author: David Broder
I was disappointed by Rhodri Evans’ response to Daniel Randall’s article about the Palestinian trade union movement. While Daniel’s piece displayed his support for the “third camp” of independent working-class forces in Palestine, the tone of Rhodri’s letter (“Lacking a dimension on Israel-Palestine”) was to emphasise our criticisms of initiatives to organise Palestinian workers rather than focussing on their vital role in opposing both Israeli expansionism and clerical-fascist Islamist forces.
Rhodri is right to say that we should not have illusions in the politics of the Stalinist leaders of the Workers’ Advice Centre initiative — he cites their failure to adopt a “two states” position on Israel-Palestine as his greatest concern here. But Rhodri sidesteps any reference to Fatah-controlled trade unions which, although of course standing in favour of a “two-state” solution, are in tow to a bourgeois-nationalist party riddled with corruption.