Dear friends and comrades,
revolutionaries,
I’ve been invited from among your ranks to a peace rally the other day, over Israels war in Ghaza. I just don’t know why. Maybe we have been too shy to declare how we think about these things. Let me set some things straight.
We will not rally for a phony peace, and we will never rally against Israel. To take out Islamism as a player on the political level, that would have been one of the foremost jobs of the revolutions of 2009 and 2011, of which some of you are veterans. We commend you on that; we deeply sympathize with your struggles. We did what little we could to support them, and always will.
But these revolutions have, up to now, failed to do so. Now Israel is fighting, once again, a war against these same forces. That should be, first and foremost, a moment of shame for every revolutionary; a shame that was inflicted on them all both by the power and sheer brutality of counterrevolution, and by mistakes on the part of the revolutionaries.
But, and that is the point: no revolutionary has the right to accuse Israel for defending itself against a threat that should have been taken out by now, by the revolution. Noone has the right to accuse others of his own failures. Just as the revolution has noone to rely on but itself, it has noone to accuse but itself. Revolution is the only solution. Its failure is the only problem.
First and foremost duty of any revolutionary in times of failure is self criticism, and not pointing the finger at others, especially not at those who have a history of having fingers pointed wrongly at them. Maybe we in Germany have not much to teach to anybody, but take that hint from us: our forerunners, the German communists, helped create a desaster for themselves, as well as death and destruction and annihilation for millions of others, when they chose to ignore and belittle the threat of antisemitism in the 1920s and 30s. It is still unclear if that defeat did not end the chances of revolution once and for all. You should not repeat these same mistakes.
Stop pointing fingers at Israel; start to realize that this war is your fault, and our fault. The task is to take out anti-semitism. Then, and only then will Israel turn into a state as every other state is. Until that day Israel is the refuge of the Jews. And we at last will do what little we can do to support it, just as we do to support you when you are fighting for the right cause.
It is not us that have to choose. You have to. Take your time. But in the end, if you want to end the epoch of wars, and suppression, you will not go anywhere with pretending that this world of war is what it is just because Israel is fighting back. We all would, if put in that same place. And so would you, I hope, and so will revolution, I most sincerely hope.
Zionism is the Jews taking a stand against their fascist enemies. It would suit any internationalist revolutionary well to take a page from their book. And stop pointing fingers, and start to understand, I implore you, because it is you that the fate of this world is depending on now. And as long as anti-semitism is in the world, it is deeply tied to the fate of the Jews.
With communist greetings:
Joerg Finkenberger
