YDS Statement on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

1. From the conception of our movement, peace between nations has been the highest aspiration of socialism. For this universal reason, the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that has been waged for at least half a century must be a goal of the Young Democratic Socialists (YDS). As members of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), we are in solidarity with young people on both the Israeli left and in Fatah (the Palestinian National Liberation Movement). Our comrades in Fatah Youth confronting Israeli soldiers, many who are comrades in the Avodah (Labor) and Meretz (Left Alliance) Youth, cannot be reconciled in solidarity until there is peace. What is more, the Cold War and Gulf War legacy of US intervention in the Middle East compels us to take a special responsibility for advocating for peace. The US is home to many immigrants and children of immigrants from both the Jewish and Arab peoples. Establishing the just peace between Palestinians and Israelis means helping to bring security and dignity to our own family, friends, and comrades.

2. Jewish comrades in the international labor and socialist movement have made seminal contributions to organizations of the left and to our vision for a just society. The Shoah (Holocaust) of the Jews in Europe and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Sephardic Jews of the Arab world represent wounds on the conscience of humanity that must always inform democratic socialist ethics. At its inception, the State of Israel is chiefly a project of the socialist movement. We endorse the "General Resolution" of the 1999 Paris Congress of the Socialist International in reaffirming the right of Israel to exist within secure and recognized borders. Jews in the Middle East should expect a future in which they can enjoy physical security, economic well-being, rights to practice their religion or live in a secular fashion, and in all other ways to aspire to the full and creative life.

This is inconceivable in a state constantly at war and in communities that subsist in fear of terrorist attack. The YDS commends the Avodah government of Ehud Barak for its decision to unilaterally withdraw from occupied south Lebanon, a historic step towards peace with Israel's northern neighbor. We condemn categorically and unconditionally all attacks by Lebanese or Palestinian paramilitary groups on Israeli civilians. Terror cannot advance the nationhood of Palestine: it only serves to embitter the Israeli people and prolong the coming of peace. The prevalence of anti-Semitic propaganda in Palestinian politics, encouraged by totalitarian Islamists and tolerated by leftists and nationalists, sullies the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause. The YDS calls on our comrades in Fatah to cease attacks on civilians, to apologize for past attacks, and to speak out against those who employ anti-Semitic language.

3. Comrades of Fatah, in particular the youth and community political activists of the Palestine Authority, Occupied Territories, and the refugee camps of Lebanon and other Arab states, represent for YDS a tradition of resistance to oppression and destitution. We mourn the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) of the Palestinian nation, in which 600,000 people were driven from their ancestral homes by Jewish paramilitary forces. This expulsion began an odyssey of suffering. The Palestinians remain a stateless people subject to gross oppression.

The YDS affirms the analysis of the plight of the Palestinians enumerated in the January 2001 Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) "Resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." Internationally recognized Palestinian territory remains under occupation; settlement by Israelis persists; holy sites remain under Israeli control; the Israeli security forces use disproportionate force to defend this state of affairs.

Despite the establishment of a Palestinian Authority, land, water, and other economic resources remain under Israeli control. Israeli security forces continue to expropriate land at will.

The acute under-development of the Palestinian economy, and the land and water shortage imposed on Palestinian agriculture, leaves most Palestinians dependent on unskilled and semi-skilled work in Israel. Standards of compensation and working conditions are far below the conditions enjoyed by Israeli workers through the Histadrut (Israeli trade union center). Since the uprising, security cordons around Palestinian territories have cut off fully half of all Palestinian workers from employment. The siege of Palestinian towns and refugee camps has divided families, denied people medical aid, and in every way placed communities in jeopardy. Palestinians suffer military and judicial expropriation of land, houses, and fruit trees, both to aid settlement expansion and as collective punishment. The seizure of land, extension of military roads, and expansion of fortified Israeli settlements have gradually divided the Occupied Territories into a patch-work of economically and socially untenable communities.

Avodah leader Yitzhak Rabin, before he was martyred for the cause of peace, changed Israeli history by recognizing the nationhood of the Palestinian people. But while his successors meet with Palestinian leaders as partners in peace talks, Israeli leaders still do not extend full recognition of nationhood to their neighbors. Israel claims Jerusalem as its sole and indivisible capital, and will not countenance the co-determination of the holy city with a Palestinian state. The annexation of East Jerusalem and adjoining territory of the West Bank violates both UN resolutions on peace and the viability of Palestinian sovereignty. No Israeli leader of the main parties of the left or right acknowledges the Nakba as an act of ethnic cleansing by Jewish paramilitary forces. The plight of the refugees and their claims to homes in Israel, no matter how well founded, are not recognized by Israel. Israel exists based on a religious and historical claim to territory and Jerusalem, but will not extent mutual recognition on the same grounds to Palestinians. Israel offers refuge to Jews of any land through its Law of Return, but cannot accept the consequences of its historic expulsion of Palestinian refugees. Until these contradictions are resolved, the relationship of the State of Israel to Palestinians will be based on ethnic discrimination. This is anathema to socialists and an obstacle to a just and lasting peace.

Inside Israel, the Zionist project of Jewish national self-determination has resulted in some state policies prejudiced against non-Jews. Tracts of state land, including expropriated territory in and around Jerusalem, are designated by law only for Jewish use and residency. Resources allocated to the education and other social services provided to non-Jewish citizens, in particular to Arab Israelis, are proportionally much lower than the representation of minorities in society. Many aspects of civil rights, including marriage and immigration preference, are determined according to Halacha (Jewish religious law) by Rabbis of the Orthodox tradition. While we respect the right of Israelis to organize their society according to Jewish culture, religious and ethnic identity should not stand in the way of anyone enjoying equal rights. YDS supports Arab Israelis and secular activists of the Israeli left in calling for an end to all discriminatory laws on land use and civil rights.

4. The 1999 Congress of the Socialist International called for an independent and democratic Palestinian state. The YDS is disturbed that the Palestine Authority (PA) established through the Oslo peace agreement has failed to lay the political and institutional foundations for this to take place. Yasir Arafat and the leaders of Fatah are responsible for a lack of transparency and democratic practice of government. The PA collects and allocates development assistance from the international community in a centralized and secretive manner that invites corruption. The PA has shut down newspapers critical of Arafat. Fatah leaders have removed local elected officials who disagree with PA policies. Paramilitary supporters of Arafat have harassed and physically attacked intellectual and political opponents of Arafat. The PA security forces summarily detain prisoners and have subjected them to incommunicado detention and torture. These security forces are not held accountable to an independent judiciary. Such abuses hinder the development of a civil society capable of realizing the democratic dream of a Palestinian revolution. Until the PA Administration and the leaders of Fatah in particular accept democratic norms, the YDS joins the chorus of opprobrium and offers support to the international and Palestinian human rights organizations that seek reform.

The State of Israel also falls far short of internationally accepted democratic norms. Arab Israelis, the rump of the Palestinian population not expelled in 1948, suffer unequal treatment by their government and face violence when they protest. The killing of Arab-Israeli demonstrators in Israeli cities, during the recent uprising in the Occupied Territories, puts pay to the promise of equality. Israeli security forces still employ collective punishment, incommunicado detention, torture, and extrajudicial execution. The State of Israel rejects international review of its security practices domestically and in the Occupied Territories. The YDS applauds the work of Israeli human rights activists but insists that the international community must be permitted to investigate the evidence of abuses.

Peace is not simply the absence of tension but the presence of justice. It depends on the resolution of the state guided by the demands of democratic civil society. As the YDS calls for justice in our own country, we are with those who fight for it in Israel and Palestine.

5. The YDS reiterates the 2001 DSA Resolution in calling for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. However, unless we fight for true equality of nationhood and peace with justice, this commitment is empty. In the 1960s, inaction and equivocation by our mother organization, the Socialist Party of America, placed the democratic left in objective alliance with US aggression in Vietnam. In the face of oppression, the YDS and DSA must not adopt a corollary and equally suspect position. The facts on the ground reveal one state that systematically oppresses the self-determination of its neighbors through economic exploitation, land annexation, and siege warfare. Bearing in mind all of our criticisms of Fatah, the YDS stands in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to lift the siege and occupation and to proclaim an independent state. Resistance to Israeli security forces occupying Palestine is worthy of the support of all socialists. We call on Israel to withdraw from all Occupied Territories as per the appropriate UN Resolutions, in the same fashion as it ended the occupation of south Lebanon. This must include the annexed portions of East Jerusalem and adjacent territory on the West Bank. We call for negotiations for two states, one Israeli and one Palestinian, that share Jerusalem as their political and cultural capital.

6. Until such time as there is lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis, it is not conceivable that the State of Israel will countenance an ingathering of Palestinian refugees. However, it does not follow from this that the Palestinian people should, as the 2001 DSA Resolution insists, abandon their claim to a right of return. A unilateral self-abnegation is no path to a just peace. Even though the Palestine National Council accepted in principle the existence of the State of Israel in the 1980s, it never adopted recognition until such time as Israel was prepared to extend reciprocal recognition. Anything less would be capitulation to historic aggression. The Jewish people, in their own movements for self-determination and equality, have never accepted such a verdict on their plight. The Palestinian people are entitled to equal justice.

A true peace must include an apology from the State of Israel for the Nakba, accompanied by some combination of repatriation and reparation for the displaced. Until such an admission is forthcoming and forthright negotiations on remedies commence, the YDS affirms a right of return for Palestinian refugees.

7. The Coordinating Committee of the YDS calls on constituent chapters to advance the struggle for a just peace and the realization of a two state solution through their activities. Comrades are encouraged to debate the Conflict as part of a democratic socialist education, and to agitate for a just peace among students and young people. YDS chapters can invite progressive Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals to lecture on campus. Chapters should counter-demonstrate against ethnic chauvinist rallies of the pro-Israel right wing. All YDS members can engage in critical dialogue on the tensions between ethnic identity and democracy, aspects of religious fundamentalism as opposed to faith-based social justice organizing, and the limitations of political violence. Whenever there is an opportunity to initiate or join coalitions established to further a just peace, YDS should join others to bring the issues of the Conflict to the fore. However, in such alliances, comrades should always condemn use of anti-Semitic language and represent the universal, internationalist, and anti-chauvinist traditions of democratic socialism.

In the councils of IUSY, the YDS should consistently raise its conception of a just peace and motivate international action to bring it about. In cooperation with DSA locals and at the level of the national DSA, YDS comrades should further discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and advocate for a policy of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We hope that through our activism, we may hasten the day when a sovereign and democratic Palestine coexists in peace with a sovereign and democratic Israel. Such a peace will be the precondition for any socialist future for the Middle East.

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