Letter from an Israeli Marxist, 23rd November, 2000

Dear comrades,

... Yesterday there was a small demonstration of the arab Action Committee in my city, Haifa, in which anti-zionist Jewish militants also took part. A few minutes after the Hadera explosion the police came to warn us that the right wing was getting organised to attack us and that they "would not be able to do anything" to prevent it. A few days earlier they even arrested a left-wing demonstrator who had called the police because we were being attacked by right wingers. The Israeli police no longer pretends to defend bourgeois law: they are no more than a pogromist ethnic militia.

Afterwards we participated in a meeting organised by the Movements Against Apartheid, to which I belong, and there was a lot of talk about the possibility of the Israeli army conducting ethnic cleansing on the lines of 1948. This could take place with the excuse of protecting the Jewish settlements with the creation of a buffer zone of a few kilometres from which the Palestinian population would be removed (as you know an Israel free from Arabs and gentiles is the ideal of all Zionist parties). There was also a financial collection to send food to the people in the occupied territories who are literally dying of starvation.

In the meeting I distributed a leaflet which we had written explaining the situation and calling for a mass demonstration to be organised within Israel in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people, as the best way to show that the Jews are not monolithic in their support for Zionism. We will see whether our proposal is accepted, right now there is a mood of foreboding and confusion - especially amongst "Israeli" Palestinians, who live in fear of being attacked at any time by armed Jewish pogromists with the backing of the police.

It is horrible to live in a country like this.

Greetings,

David
November 23rd, 2000