Interview with Ilan Shalif from Anarchists Against The Wall (Israel/Palestine)

mashriq / arabia / iraq | imperialism / war | interview Monday April 06, 2009 16:05 by Steffi - ZACF zacf at zabalaza dot net

Shalif is a veteran Israeli anarchist. This interview was conducted in January 2009 while the war on Gaza was still going on. It was first published in issue 10 of Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism.

ZACF: Can you please briefly tell us about Anarchists Against The Wall? Their origins and involvement in the struggle against the wall?

Ilan Shalif: The AAtW initiative started with the joint Israeli-Palestinian camp against the separation fence near the Palestinian village Mas'ha in 2003. It was an initiative of the Israeli "One Struggle" anarchist collective to which radical people joined who liked the idea.
After a few months the first physical actions against the fence in Zabuba and Masha began – in which an Israeli participant was shot at with live ammunition. This caused a huge scandal in the media and the AAtW got a lot of publicity. The camp was destroyed when the works on the fence advanced but AAtW became an address for activists in the Palestinian villages and invitations for joint struggles increased during the years. Activists with AAtW participated in hundreds of joint demonstrations, coordination meetings, physical direct actions too. As we have experts in photography, video, and journalism, we succeed in invading a very significant space in the media - including at times prime time TV news.
During the years and as a result of the impotence of the Israeli Communist Party, AAtW became the leading organiser in the struggle of Israeli radicals against the separation fence and the coalition of the involved, sometimes mobilising a few hundred participants to a specific joint Friday demonstration.

How do Anarchists Against the Wall see the recent developments in Gaza and how do they react to it?

As AAtW is not monolithic there is no common opinion on anything. However, I am sure that all the involved see it as part of the Israeli efforts to extract as many concessions as possible from the Palestinians and to delay as long as possible the need to give back part of the occupied territories of the 1967 war.
During the last weeks we increased the activities - both with the four villages we are in regular joint struggle with, and with other Israeli groups and coalitions.
We also had few initiatives of our own like a dedicated critical mass, the die-in [1] at the entrance to the military airport of Tel Aviv and distributing huge amounts of photographs.

What do you think is the best solution: 2-State, 1-State or No-State solution? And why?

The best solution has been regarded for tens of years as the only possible one: Socialist revolution in the whole region and the world.
In the last years, as capitalist globalisation has gained momentum, it seems that there is an option for capitalist peace... but only if the settler-colonialist section of the Israeli capitalists will be overpowered by the section interested in exploiting the Palestinians.

How accurate is the comparison to apartheid South Africa, and what do you think of the fact that everyone in South Africa struggled for a 1 State solution while in Palestine people seem to prefer to have their own state?

The settler-colonialist project in South Africa was based on exploiting the indigenous people. In the Zionist settler-colonialist project the national socialists were the leading power and they wanted the land without its indigenous people.
Practically, the two states solution is the only one that can be materialised without defeating Israel militarily. The more pragmatic and secular Palestinians, who understand that, adopted it as their ideal. The less pragmatic ones adhere to the old PLO one state solution. The extreme nationalists and fundamentalists adhere to the one Muslim Palestinian state. Curiously no one demands that the version of the Palestinian state they suggest will include the East side of the Jordan - the Jordanian state where 70% of the population are Palestinians.
As anarchists we cannot call for any state solution - only for the end of the occupation of 1967. (The majority of the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel - of the 1948 conquests - prefer to remain part of Israel.)

Do you think that the conflict is maintained by the elites on both sides of the border to win popular support for their actions? Do the nationalist and fundamentalist elites benefit from the conflict and if so, how?

The conflict is mainly the direct result of the efforts of the Israeli settler-colonialists who are dominant in the capitalist elite to advance their conquests. There are some elements of compradorian interests of the Palestinian ruling elite, both nationalist and fundamentalist, but it is marginal.
In spite of the bribes of the Oslo pact that enabled the return of the PLO leadership to Palestine, and the tolerance for the development of the fundamentalists, Israel never gave them enough concessions that will make them tame. They are forced to give some resistance to Israel.

What do you think about boycotting Israeli products or economic sanctions against Israel and what can people outside of Israel do?

The call for boycotting Israeli products of the occupied territories is 30 years old – and was issued by the anti-authoritarian anti-capitalist socialist organisation in Israel, Matzpen [meaning Compas, founded in 1962] ( http://matzpen.org). As the Second Intifada and the suppression of it took momentum, members of Matzpen abroad issued an internet petition to BDS Israel.

A theatre of people dressed in white with blood stains all over lying down in front of the entrance to the airport at which 21 activists from AAtW were jailed for the weekend.