Israel and the Middle East:

The following is an abridgement of Dr. Herbert Apthek-
er’s remarks at the January 12 Jewish Affairs third annual
dinner. Over 400 supporters of the magazine attended the
dinner at New York's Statler-Hilton Hotel.

By Herbert Aptheker

O.. hears certain constantly repeated refrains in the
arguments of those who support the policies of the Israeli
government during the past twenty years. I would like to
examine some of them very briefly.

The need for secure borders. On these grounds, it is
said that the Israeli expansion was not really expansion-
ism but merely the legitimate search for national security.
Consider, however: the borders were extended in 1956 and
again very significantly in 1967. Does Israel now have se-
cure borders? Is its national security now at last assured?
Is there not unanimity that this is not so, that Israel
remains in a state of near-war emergency, that it is drain-
ed every day by the loss of lives, that it is certainly no
more secure now with greatly extended borders than it
was in 1955? Is it not clear that a rational person must say
to himself or herself that a policy pursued allegedly in the
name of secure borders has brought territorial expansion
and new borders but these new ones and this expansion
have brought insecurity and not security, death and not
life, war and imminent war and not peace, and that they
have brought upon Israel the fierce condemnation of al-
most every nation in the world and of the vast majority of
humanity?

Nationalism and nationality. My point here was made
in a letter published in last Sunday’s New York Times.
Why, the letter-writer demanded, was the nationalism of
Israel brought into question? He suggested that the Israel-
is should give up their sense of nationalism only when the
Irish and the English do. Certainly where one has a nation
and a nationality one will have a consciousness of these
realities and this may be called nationalism. But just as
there are nations and nations so there are nationalisms
and nationalisms. For example, the letter-writer referred
to the national feeling of the Irish and of the English. No
one in his right mind would seek to deprive English people
and Irish people of their sense of nationality. That is not
the point; the point is that the English ruling class has
been occupying Ireland for centuries and still does and so
one has here an oppressed nation and an oppressing nation.
When Pakistan made war upon Bangla Desh — with U.S
and Chinese support — its rulers said they were merely
affirming the right of Pakistan to maintain its borders,
which happened to include — 1,100 miles away — the land
of the Bengali people. No one denies the right of the Paki-
stani people to their own nation and their consciousness
of nationality; and no one must deny the Bengali people
_ that same sense and same right. Hence the war by Paki-
Stan against the Bengali people was an aggressive, oppres-
Sive, exploitative one and all progressive humanity rightly
supported the liberation struggles of the people now form-
ing Bangla Desh. :

Similarly with Israel, Israel constitutes a nation and
its existence is affirmed by the international community;
it sits in the UN and its right to exist has been again con-
firmed in the UN Resolution of 1967 and repeatedly con-
firmed since then in actions and statements of the UN
and, one must add, of the USSR. But the Israeli people are
not a chosen people; they are not.a superior people; they
do not have rights over and above the rights of other peo-
ples and certainly not rights to be exercised at the expense
of their neighbors.

Israel is so small. This argument is a variation on the
“secure borders” argument and on the nationalist argu-
ment — it is an expression of reactionary nationalism.
England also was and is ‘‘a tiny country”’ but this did not
prevent it from expanding and in time dominating much of
the world. The fact that England was tiny was small
comfort to India, for example. Portugal also was and is a
tiny country. But it dominated almost half of South Amer-
ica for centuries and about one-fifth of Africa for centu-
ries. Holland was small but its holdings in Asia were vast.
That Holland was tiny was small comfort to Indonesia.
Belgium also was and is a tiny country but it dominated
about one-fifth of Africa for generations.

Israel under its present government is an expansion-
ist country, an aggressive country. Israel is the occupier
of very considerable areas of land belonging indubitably

Victims of Israeli napalmings. °

to several of her neighbors. That is the point and all talk

about tiny and security and nationality are forms of dis-

tortion and obfuscation; they are efforts to excuse that

which is inexcusable — forcible annexation, occupation
~ and exploitation of territories belonging to other peoples.

By the way, is not Portugal better off since April 1974,
when it began its great democratic revolutionary move-
ment and shed itself of fascism, and so moved towards
shedding itself of colonies — of possessing and occupying
other people’s lands? Is Portugal now less secure than be-
fore? Are the Portuguese people worse off now than under
Salazar and his great empire?

Israel is democratic. Is it, when almost-one-fifth of
its population are third-class citizens? Is. it, when in fact
it occupies and exploits the lands of other peoples? Is it,
when its existence depends upon the financial and military
support of the main rmaining bastion of world imper-
ialism? Is it when its only allies are the United States and
South Africa and the Shah of Iran? There is a democratic
alliance if I ever saw one!

This brings me to someone who now emphasizes this
“democratic” argument and writes in the name of ‘‘Marx-
ism.” I mean Mr. Paul Novick of the Morning Freiheit. In

WORLD MAGAZINE

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 1975—Page 6”

its issue dated, December 22, Mr. Novick writes: “How

ever much those who speak in behalf of the Palestinial
Arabs may pretend they are revolutionaries, even Marl®

ists, they, in fact, desecrate these terms. Whoever takes |
part in shedding the blood of innocent people, of woméel
and children, is not g revolutionary, but simply a murder |
er.”’

P.. essinian Arabs fighting for the liberation of thei!
peoples and. homeland are revolutionaries and some '
them are Marxists; and he who is fighting to prevent thé
Palestinian people from gaining their just demands 18 a
colonialist, a chauvinist, an annexationist — even if in
past for half a century he bore the honored name Commtr
nist. Even Mr. Novick’s last phrases about shedding inn?” 4
cent blood and hence being always and everywhere simply | _
a murderer is demagogy, for the napalm and bombs 2! i
shells and invasions and the occupying policy of the Israe 3
aggressors have taken the lives of ten times more i
cent women and children than have even the misguide
terrorists among the Arabs. One must add that there”
also such a thing as simple insurrection, of slaves aris
and rebelling. Nat Turner and-those who fought with i
in rising against slavery, killed innocent people but Nat
Turner and his fellow slave rebels were not ‘‘simply mu!
derers,” they were heroic slaves in rebellion; they we
men who had decided it was better to die than to live for
ever on their knees. The blood of Arab women and childré!
is as red and as precious as that of Jewish women and on
dren. The real murderers of both are the imperialists, :
suppressors of national liberation movements, the Le
and servitors of the Ford-Rockefeller gang. Similarly
real killers of Turner’s victims were the owners of slaves.

I was a delegate to the 1957 convention of the Commu:
nist Party of the United States. Those were very difficult
days — the 1956. French-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt
had just ended-and the Hungarian counter-revolutionary
attempt had disoriented many people. One such, speaking

_at that convention, began his remarks by declaring: |

“First of all and before all I am a Jew!’’ I do not re
member anything else of what he said — and he had had an
honorable record of decades of struggle and even of im:
prisonment; I was so shocked and hurt that I think I did
not listen anymore. A Communist speaking to Commu:
nists and saying “‘first of all 1 am a Jew’’! Such is the 1m
pact of the poison of nationalism even on veteran class
fighters!

A Communist is first of all and second of all and last of
all a Communist — a Marxist-Leninist whose science an
devotion and organizational understanding point the way
towards the liberation of the working class and the oppres-
sed peoples and therefore all humanity.

As for being a Jew — there are Jews and there aré
Jews — as with any other people. Mike Gold was a Jew and
Henry Kissinger is a Jew. Rosa Luxemburg was a Jew and
Golda Meir is a Jew. Moshe Dayan is a Jew and Hyman
Lumer is a Jew. There are Jews without money and Jews
with money; there are Jews who are workers and there,
are Jews who are bosses. If there is any.real meaning t0
“T am a Jew” its meaning — at its best — is I am of the

- oppressed, of the insulted, of the injured, of the deprived,

I am of that people who took in with their mother’s milk
the injunction “‘Let justice be done though the heavens
fall.” That injunction was never more needed than today. |

Why never more needed than today? Because US.
imperialism is openly threatening war over the Middle
East and its neo-colonialist position there; it lusts to re
tain the oil there from which imperialism has sucked
hundreds of billions of dollars, and from which Standard
Oil, Gulf Oil, Texaco and Shell are still sucking billions aS
their obscene profit statements of last year make clear.

The crisis of world imperialism is at its most intensé-
stage, and those of us who are principled opponents of
imperialism have the urgent duty to fight for peace. The
fight for peace is also a fight for the existence of Israel —
an Israel with really secure borders, for the borders will
enclose her own territory, will be in accordance with the
UN Resolution of 1967, will have behind them the support
of the nations of the world and will represent justice for
itself and long-delayed justice for its neighbors and in the
first place for the Palestinian Arab people. To fight for 4
just peace is to fight against imperialism.

‘If this is not accomplished, Israel faces certain de-
struction and the world a probable new war. We have,
then, our work cut out for us. I am happy and proud to be
here and to speak in support of Jewish Affairs because it
fights for such a policy, such a solution and such a world.