Egypt's army Whole mate a ot iat only casualty in the recent Middle East war as Sydney se sebiaien; Seah lacie completely disoriented. Such stalwarts A : pologists for Israel' i F me ts gem t seas need not be ashamed of bak Vibteey® eneeec ni saat uae meant oe ever ® Iribune. Others, including Paul Rose res Raymond radio - accusing him f oc et because Christopher Mayhew spoke on the Britain: . Jean-Paul ‘a t ing pro-Arab. This phenomena was not confined to pigned seatebanint. ar Tes who has a heroic record on Vietnam and Algeri cuancahiicds just prior to the Israeli attack which spoke of the os opinion preneests of the Israeli Government and sought to mobilise lofts gti Pecan the Arabs. Nor was it confined to the broader
itish group which considers itself Marxist has undergone a profound cri .
tavea + mg crisis because its leading theoretician took an anti-
sian. set people Hehe reacted to most events in a generally
mann p in s particular crisis siding with imperialism? We mast first note that to a certain extent the statements of Arab leaders have assisted the imperialists in causing confusion on this question. Because they lack an international socialist policy such people as Nasser and the leaders of Syria have had to express themselves in racialist terms. They have made no appeal to the Israeli people to support them in their fight against Zionism, despite the fact that a very large proportion of the Jewish population of Israel, namely, those of Asian and African descent suffer from discrimination. Israel faced (and perhaps still faces) a severe economic crisis in which between 7 and 10% of the workers were unemployed (one might add, in passing, that the war came at a very convenient time to solve that particular problem!) There should have been, and could have been, an appeal from people who call themselves socialist to the peasants and workers of Israel. Having said this, we must add that this weakness on behalf of the Arab leaders was no excus® whatsoever for those secions of the left which capitulated to anti-Arab hysteria. Moreover, there are much deeper reasons at work. One of the basic theoretical weaknesses of the left in the metropolitan countries played a big role: the failure to distinguish between the nationalism of an oppressed people and the chauvinism of an oppressor nation. It is an absolute crime, especially for those who shame the name of Marx by calling themselves Marxists, to equate Arab nationalism - the product of imperialist and neo-colonialist exploitation of the most
- the product of the desire of Jewish capitalsavage kind, with Zionism ists to have their own nation-state to exploit. We see the same mistake
the United States made daily in relation to the Negro struggle in especially by sectarian self-styled marxists. Whilst socialists will at all times seek to inject socialist ideas into any living struggle they have to recognise that the nationalism of oppressed people, no matter how it expresses itself, is an objectively progresive force. When it comes into conflict with imperialism we must support it, regardless of its temporary leadership.
ing is that under normal circumstances it is poss- Another factor operat
hold together a large number of tendencies verging ible for the left to
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