In April of this year, Israel celebrated its seventieth anniversary. This is a long time for a young and small state that has been at war since the very first day of its existence. The history of Israel begins with the first waves of settlers, the so-called "aliyet" - literally "ascent". Inspired by the precepts of the founding fathers of the idea of ​​Zionism - the idea of ​​Jews finding their national home - they moved to Palestine, considering it their historical homeland. The first aliyah (1882 - 1903) consisted of religious Jews who fled the pogroms of 1882 that swept across the Russian Empire. It was they who founded the first Jewish settlements in Palestine, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. But the real impetus for creating the foundation of the future of Israel was given by the second (1904 - 1914) and third (1919 - 1923) Aliyot. These waves of immigrants were not only Zionists, but, as a rule, also Jewish socialists of various stripes - from anarchists to Marxists. It was they who organized the kibbutz movement, the self-defense forces of the Yishuv (settlements of Jews in Palestine) - Hashomer, that is, the Guardian, which became the forerunner of the future IDF, the trade union movement and much more. Most of Israel's leadership elite came from these movements. In total, six aliyahs took place before Israel gained independence in 1948.

Jewish women from kibbutz self-defense

Numbers

Palestine, which was overwhelmed by waves of Jewish settlers, was not an empty land, but had an indigenous population consisting of peasants - fellahs. They differed from the Bedouins, who led a nomadic lifestyle, by sedentary agricultural work. At the dawn of the Aliyet, about 450,000 inhabitants lived in Palestine, of which, according to the Ottoman census, about 270 thousand people were settled, that is, fellahim. In addition to the fellahin, there were approximately 24,000 Orthodox Jews living in Palestine. By the end of the third aliyah, the Jewish population had grown to 90,000 people. These were people with their own political project, their own economic infrastructure and the ideals of building a new state. Jews bought land for settlements from Arab feudal lords - landowners on whose lands these same fellahs worked. Losing land and the opportunity to feed themselves, fellahins, as a rule, became bandits and launched raids on Jewish settlements. It was to protect against them that the first Jewish self-defense structures appeared. It is from this point that the armed confrontation between Palestinian Arabs and Jews begins, becoming more and more bloody with each passing decade.

By 1947, there were approximately 1,350,000 non-Jews and 650,000 Jews living in Palestine, then a British Mandate. This year, Britain is submitting its mandate over Palestine to the UN, where a majority vote will decide on the creation of two states - Jewish and Arab - and Jerusalem should receive the status of an international city under UN supervision. The Jews agreed with this decision, but the Arabs, represented by the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states of the region, did not. This led to the first Arab-Israeli War, or War of Independence (1947 - 1949), during which the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948. The war ended in victory for young Israel, the exodus of the indigenous Palestinian majority, and an Arab state was never created in Palestine.

Thus began the Nakba, or Holocaust, the mass exodus of Palestinians in 1948. During the war of independence and after its proclamation of Israel, from one million (according to Arab sources) to half a million (according to Jewish sources) inhabitants left the territory of Palestine. According to a special UN commission, the number of people who fled Palestine as a result of the war was 726,000 people. According to a report by UNRWA (United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), by 1950-51 the number of refugees had risen to 957,000. Arab sources claim that this was targeted ethnic cleansing, Israeli sources claim that people left their homes at the call of Arab leaders. One way or another, it was this huge mass of people that became one of the sources of Arab hatred towards Israel. The miserable conditions in the refugee camps became fertile ground for the growth of revanchist and extremist ideas and movements. Many well-known Palestinian terrorists and resistance leaders emerged from refugee camps.

Palestinian refugee camp at the dawn of the formation of the State of Israel

In 1967, the Six-Day War occurred, during which Israel, fearing the growth of the armed forces of its Arab neighbors, launched a preemptive strike against them, defeating their armed forces and occupying vast (relative to Israel itself) territories. They captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. The Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem were annexed by Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in the 70s and 80s, but the Gaza Strip and the West Bank remained under military control (in fact, military occupation) of Israel until the present day.

Gaza Strip and West Bank

The Gaza Strip is a territory on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which borders Israel to the east and north and Egypt to the southwest. The sector is named after the city of the same name, located in its north. The Gaza Strip is approximately 40 km long and 6 to 12 km wide. The total area is about 360 square kilometers. After the 1947 war, the sector came under Egyptian ownership and was captured from it by Israel in the 1967 war. A little later, Egypt abandoned its claims to this region, and in fact it was under the military control of Israel until our time. In August 2005, during the implementation of the Unilateral Disengagement Plan, Israel withdrew its troops from the sector and liquidated its settlements. After this, the terrorist group Hamas came to power in the region (during democratic elections), which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and positions itself as a Palestinian resistance movement. Since 2007, the sector has been under complete blockade by both Israel (including from the sea) and Egypt. According to the US CIA, 1,795,183 people lived in this territory in July 2017. The population density is, accordingly, from 4890 to 5045 people per square kilometer. The youth unemployment rate is about 40%, according to the CIA. According to UNRWA reports, the sector is in a state of humanitarian crisis.

The West Bank is a territory whose borders are formed by the Jordan River in the east and the so-called Green Line (the ceasefire line between Israel and the Arab armies in 1949) in the west. From 2 to 2.5 million Palestinians and about 350 thousand Israeli settlers, or, as the Palestinians call them, colonists, live in this territory. Israel began building colony settlements there immediately after the 1967 war. Settlements are built under the protection of the army. This territory belonged to Jordan after the 1947 war and, like the Gaza Strip, was captured by Israel in 1967. Jordan subsequently renounced its claims to this territory. Currently, the West Bank territory is divided into three zones: Zone A (17.2% of the area) is under the full control of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Zone B (23.8%) is under PNA civilian control (PNA civil authority and responsibility PNA for public order), but under Israeli military control, area C (59%) - under full Israeli military and administrative control. It is important to emphasize here that this administrative power is exercised by the military, who hold this territory.

Gaza Strip and West Bank. Jewish settlements are shown in red. However, this territory is not annexed by Israel and is under the control of the army.

It is these territories that are inhabited by some of the same Palestinian refugees (and their descendants) whom I mentioned earlier. For example, in the Gaza Strip this is 70% of the region's residents. In total, there are 5,149,742 refugees and their descendants in the region, according to the already mentioned UNRWA. When it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli problem or events, as a rule, in 90% of cases these regions are meant. Here we can also add that the pressure and confiscation of land from the Palestinian Arabs did not stop with the war of 1948 or 1967. For example, in 1976 in Galilee (northern Palestine/Israel), the Israeli government unilaterally expropriated land from the Arabs. Since then, this day has been celebrated by Arabs (including Arab Israelis) as Earth Day in memory of the general strike and the victims of land expropriation.

All this creates the conditions for many years of mutual hatred and systematic violence on both sides. Palestinian Arabs want the return of their lands, the end of the military regime in the West Bank, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, freedom of movement, work, etc. The Israelis are tired of eternal war and terror, they want recognition of their state by the Palestinian Arabs and an end to terrorist attacks. The two most glaring problems today are the already mentioned blockade of the Gaza Strip and the military regime of the West Bank, where millions of non-Israeli citizens live under military authority and control. This reality has lasted for more than 50 years, since the capture of the West Bank by Israel in 1967. Half a century of military rule is more than enough to aggravate the conflict and trigger the problem even further.

Solution

Solutions differ depending on the political views of their authors. Right-wing Zionists propose to arrange a transfer for Palestinian Arabs (for example, to Jordan) with the aim of emptying these lands for Jewish colonists. There is no need to remind that in the 21st century no one from the civilized world will allow Israel to do something like this. Moreover, such positions are relatively marginal, although sometimes they resonate with deputies or ministers of the Israeli parliament - the Knesset. Left Zionists or centrist liberals (for the most part) propose the creation of a state of Palestine within the 1967 borders. That is, give up the West Bank and Gaza Strip for a national Palestinian home. Jerusalem's role in such a scenario varies, from keeping it as Israel's capital to handing it over to the UN. Palestinian nationalists or religious fanatics want the complete destruction of Israel and the creation of a state of Palestine within the borders of Mandatory Palestine. The position regarding the fate of the Jewish population varies from the banal “throw into the sea” to granting Jews citizenship and an equal right to life in the young state. It is also worth emphasizing here that this scenario is more than fantastic these days, although it was quite realistic in the 60s and 70s. There are also exotic proposals for a federal structure for Israel and Palestine, but such positions are usually marginal.

The same UN plan to divide Palestine into two states. A quick glance at the map makes it obvious that such a plan was not viable.

The most popular idea for resolving the conflict is the two-state proposal. This is precisely the position taken by the Western world, which generally supports Israel. The very talks about settlement that we often hear about in the media usually end up aimed at achieving statehood for the Palestinians. But this scenario has more problems than one can imagine: in addition to the above-mentioned Hamas group, which is not ready for such a “common life” in two states, there is also a problem with the fact that the Palestinian Authority - which is what is usually considered as an ersatz of the future state structures of the state of Palestine, in fact it completely controls only about 17% of the territory of the West Bank. And the rest is inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers who do not recognize Palestinian independence or are under the authority and control of the Israeli army. It is obvious that in such circumstances it is impossible to create a fully functioning state.

It is curious that despite such a terrible real state of affairs, at the diplomatic level things are much better. The State of Palestine is recognized by 136 of the 193 UN member states, and in 2012 the international organization recognized Palestine as a de facto state. Palestine has a representative office in a number of countries, and it takes part in the UN in the special position of an observer state. Ukraine has had diplomatic recognition of Palestine since 1988, which was not ratified in the UN vote in 2012. Ukraine voted neither for nor against - its delegation simply left the hall during the voting. Such a gesture can only be assessed through the prism of diplomatic relations between Israel and Ukraine, which the latter does not want to spoil. However, Ukraine voted for an anti-Israeli resolution on December 23, 2016, demanding the UN stop settlement activities in the occupied territories of the West Bank. Thus, Ukraine is trying to maneuver between Israel and Palestine in order to squeeze out its own maximum benefit. After all, if Ukraine demands condemnation by the world community of the occupation of Crimea and the east of its country by the Russian Federation, then it cannot but condemn the occupation of other territories and lands in the world.

Yigal Levin
Lieutenant IDF
co-founder of the Center for the Study of Insurgency
For

I wonder if the parents of young girls from the national-religious sector liked the cheap comic show, full of salaciousness and dirty hints, which turned into the disgusting sermon of Yigal Levinshtein, who heads the pre-army training yeshiva (“mechina kdam-tzvait”) in the Eli settlement?

Is this really the very ideal of education for which parents send their sons to study in a pre-army yeshiva? Last time, the nonsense that Levinstein spoke was directed against homosexuals. This time - against female IDF soldiers. Are parents okay with this kind of “lecture” that focuses on sexual fantasies about girls in the army?

I am sure everyone, including parents, understands that behind Levinstein’s incitement lies a huge, paralyzing fear. The fear is that these young people, supposedly destined to become the future leaders of Israel during its transformation into a settler state, will join Israeli society in all its diversity, reject religious and political fanaticism, and embrace values ​​such as skepticism towards peace, a desire for freedom and equality - everything that is considered “poison” in the eyes of the rabbis.

The national-religious sector finds itself in a contradictory situation: it is torn between the desire to occupy key positions in Israeli society, including the army, the media, the judiciary, and the fears associated with the fact that military service or university studies will introduce the youth of this sector to basic values democratic society, and these values ​​will influence their young minds.

This concern is understandable. Most of all, Orthodox society fears that its children will cease to be religious people. Since the creation of the Haskalah movement in the second half of the 18th century, Orthodox Jewish society has fought against the Jewish rejection of family and community values. However, in the current conditions, Orthodox communities, acting in this way, are heading towards inevitable collapse. And Rabbi Yigal Levinstein is just one example of this kind of erroneous behavior.

It is impossible to build a restrictive barrier for religious youth from the insults, fear and hatred that adults feed them for their political purposes. The youth of the religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors will join Israeli society and embrace its values, whether the rabbis want it or not. Young people will not ask the consent of the rabbis for this. Girls will serve in the army, despite insulting ridicule. Because the society formed in Israel is special and unlike any other. It allows religious youth to maintain their Jewish identity, which is so important to them, in modern society, without experiencing a serious crisis of identification.

Very soon, religious young people will discover that in non-religious Israeli society they also take care of their neighbors, leaving no one to their fate. They will find that no one has any particular problem with their religiosity and orthodoxy. If they don't bully others, they will be treated the same as everyone else. In accordance with their personal qualities, and not their sectoral affiliation. Everyone is received with respect, everyone is welcome, everything happens relatively easily. Everything turns out to be accessible and possible. And if this is so, then why should religious youth limit their opportunities and ambitions to the framework of their closed sector, to meet exclusively the demands of their parents and rabbis? After all, the whole world opens up before him.

All this concerns not only national-religious youth, but also haredim. And even the youth of the Arab sector in Israel. Apparently, it will take a certain number of years for these processes to fully mature. But very soon it will become clear that the youth of these population groups do not want to vegetate on the periphery of society - in material poverty, ideological monotony and paralyzing fear of the global world. Sooner or later, they will all join Israeli society in its broad sense - with its openness, with its values, with its opportunities to realize their dreams and plans.

A former employee of the Israeli Defense Forces and a member of the Unity movement, Yigal Levin, explained why the Islamic State is spreading throughout the world, and Israel has no more than 20 years left. Yigal Levin, as a military man, participated in the Lebanese War of 2006, Operation Cast Lead against the Gaza Strip in 2008.

He served on the border with Jordan and Egypt. Subsequently, he refused to serve in protest against Tel Aviv's anti-Palestinian policies. Being a supporter of anarcho-communism, he is known as a publicist with an independent expert opinion on the Middle East, Islamists and the situation in Israel.

– How does the growth of the Islamic State affect Israeli society?

“The authorities are taking harsh advantage of the moment of the emergence of a group of fundamentalists. The last elections were three months ago, and most of the parties - right or center-right - went under the slogans “if not us, then tomorrow ISIS will be here.” Lekud, Prime Minister Netanyahu's ruling party, released a video showing militants driving their pickup trucks through Israel toward Jerusalem. There is an ultra-right politician - Naftali Bennett, Jewish Home, when he makes speeches, he juggles ISIS and Al-Nusra Front.

Populist methods are used, and there is a lot of talk about this in the media. As soon as ISIS captures a small village or a video appears where ISIS children beheaded someone, it is immediately inflated and published. ISIS is presented as a fiend from hell with which it is impossible to engage in dialogue. The trick is used to consolidate society, just like the fact that there is Hamas, Fatah, the Palestinian issue, and radical Muslims. People talk about the Caliphate in the workplace, on buses: that ISIS is a horde that is close.

– Since Islamic fundamentalists have always regarded Israel as a priority enemy, is Tel Aviv’s propaganda logical?

– Here you need to remember – ISIS wants to unite Muslims of its own persuasion (Sunnis), not Arabs. They view Arabs who do not stand under their banner as heretics. Even those radicals who fought against Israel, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, were declared enemies by ISIS. ISIS says that when it comes to Palestine, I mean the territory, it will destroy both Israel and Hamas, they say, Hamas are bad fighters against Zionism.

It is difficult to imagine, but it is quite realistic that former enemies may turn out to be friends, perhaps there will be cooperation between Hamas and Israel, and I can easily even see a bloc between Jordan and Israel (which is already supplying military equipment to the Hashemite Kingdom).

Hamas is a political movement and is trying to stay in power. An example is that there is a fighting anti-Zionist group, a couple of thousand people, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, they are Marxists, secular. They wanted to hold a May Day march, but Hamas didn’t let them. He fears for his hegemony and suppresses anti-Hamas and, accordingly, pro-ISIS sentiments.

It would not be surprising if Israel could tactically, ideologically, never, for some time, fight alongside it against ISIS. But if the caliphate overthrows the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and approaches the borders of Israel, it begins to rock Jordan from the inside.

– And how is Hamas reacting so far to the fact that the anvil of the caliphate will be added to the Israeli hammer?

“Hamas is trying to maintain order in the Gaza Strip, trying to stop other extremists who want to fire at Israel. Hamas, apparently, is having a hard time, it is in a political ghetto, it has few allies and financial support. Now Egypt has blocked the Sector and dug a ditch on the border. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian movement that supported Hamas, is under persecution.

Gaza is a powder keg; there is an Islamic Jihad movement there, which could swear allegiance to ISIS at any moment. Then thousands of his fighters will end up right in the Sector. After all, how does the caliphate expand? Different groups, like Boko Haram in Nigeria, swear allegiance and - bam, we have ISIS in different parts of the world.

– How widespread is sympathy for the caliphate among Palestinians?

– There is a strong anti-Zionist sentiment in Palestinian society. Not politicians, I emphasize, but ordinary Palestinians for the most part view Israel as an illegitimate project, as a colony of the Western world, and not a state with which they can get along side by side if they get their own land, little Palestine.

Over the past seventy years, since the formation of Israel, the squabbling of Jews and Arabs has accumulated such an amount of hatred that Palestinians are ready to support any radicals who promise to alleviate the plight of the Palestinian population. The majority of Palestinians are Muslims, they are inclined to the ideology of ISIS, the only question is radicalization. The concept of a caliphate is gaining popularity.

– Is it hard to be a Palestinian?

– Palestinians are two million people in the Gaza Strip and about four million in the West Bank. Their standard of living is extremely low compared to both the Israelis and neighboring Jordan.

Horrible exploitative conditions: there are not even working rights for Palestinians. There is a shortage of water - most of it is directed to Israeli settlements. System of checkpoints: in the West Bank there are territories that legally belong neither to Israel nor to the Palestinian Authority, people live under military occupation. To go from point A to point B to see his friend, a person needs to stand at a checkpoint for hours, experience humiliation, soldiers can force him to undress, etc. To get to work, people get up at 4 am.

There is no mobility, young people cannot leave the region to study, there is only one university. All of these are not objective phenomena, but are purposefully created by Israel, which is trying to expel the Palestinians from their lands so that they go to Jordan. The idea of ​​transfer is popular among Israeli politicians, they are simply divided into supporters of voluntary transfer and forced one.

The Gaza Strip is a closed enclave, the worst thing is there: a tiny heel of land, the waist of the Strip is almost four kilometers, the population density is 5,000 per square kilometer. If someone is released from there, it is only with the permission of the Israeli authorities and for a limited period. The largest ghetto in the world in history. The living conditions are unbearable, given the confrontation between Hamas and Israel - regular bombings, with or without cause.

Genocide. The latest massacre in Gaza last summer saw 10,000 people killed in one month (IDF Operation Protective Edge). Entire neighborhoods were razed to the ground. Israeli surgical strikes are a myth; there is a video where neighborhoods were destroyed in one minute. When Israeli propaganda says that these were empty neighborhoods, this is nonsense. In Gaza it is impossible to specifically eliminate anyone; people there are on top of each other.

“But Palestinians also blow up Jews.

“Young people are becoming extremists, they have nowhere to go, no work, and all the Palestinians killed by Israel have large families and friends. Israel in one fell swoop creates tens and hundreds of thousands of embittered people who hate it with all their soul and heart.

Every time lone terrorists carry out a murder in Israel, in nine cases out of 10 we find their dead relatives or parents who were serving life sentences in Israel. The more Israel puts pressure on the Palestinians and deprives them of the right to a decent life, the more pro-ISIS sentiment will rise among them.

– Are there any statistics on direct Palestinian support for ISIS?

– Well, even Arab citizens of Israel went to fight for ISIS; unsurprisingly, so do the Palestinians. But the fact is that expressing sympathy while in the West Bank, where there is the Israeli army and the secret police who watch over everything, is dangerous even for Hamas, not to mention ISIS. It's difficult to collect statistics. Nobody conducts such surveys. It is difficult to leave Palestine - those who go to ISIS are unlikely to expect to return in the near future.

– If Hamas is fighting ISIS, what steps is Israel taking?

– Israel does little. He has the ability to bomb ISIS, but he doesn't bomb. If he bombs anyone, it will be Assad's Syria. It is clear why Israel does not benefit from a strong Assad, but it turns out to be a funny situation - politicians scare the people of ISIS, come to power on this wave and do nothing to stop him.

Moreover, when ISIS fired rockets from the Sinai, Israel blamed it on Hamas. Israel has an interest in supporting ISIS against Hamas. Israeli politicians are ultimately trying to lump all Islamists into one pot. How reasonable or unreasonable is this? From the point of view of the Islamist bogeyman - “reasonable”, Israel has been holding on to this for the last twenty years.

– Where did the caliphate come from on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt?

– According to the Camp David agreement, there was a limited number of Egyptian police and military forces in Sinai, because of this, smugglers flourished there, relying on the Bedouin movement - trafficking in people, drugs and weapons. Thanks to smugglers, the radicals were able to acquire infrastructure.

The revolution began in Egypt in 2011, Tahrir; The country was unsteady for a long time; the pro-Hamas Muslim Brotherhood came to power for a year and contributed to the movements in Sinai. But the military, led by Marshal Abdullah Al-Sisi, took power in 2013; Naturally, they cannot tolerate competition and trampled their “brothers” and took on Sinai. But ISIS already has militants on the peninsula, there is direct war there. Recently, several hundred ISIS fighters almost captured the city of Sheikh Zuweid, but the army recaptured it. ISIS was able to fire a missile at an Egyptian boat and killed the sailors!

Troops have been brought to the peninsula, aviation is being used, not divisions, but we are talking about battalions. This is happening with the permission of Israel, this is logical, without this Egypt would have lost Sinai. Israel's geopolitical view is that a new enclave and potential theater of war is being added to the hostile enclave in Gaza in the Sinai.

The authorities urge tourists not to travel to the peninsula; the army on the border is mobilizing and rearming. If previously the IDF was engaged in catching smugglers on the border, now the army is preparing to repel attacks from the Sinai Peninsula. Everything is going according to plan.

– A little bit of futurology. If ISIS beats the Egyptians, will the IDF repeat the Sinai routes of the Six Day War?

– There is a possibility, but it is extremely small. It all depends on what forces the Egyptian army will bring in and on the motivation of the soldiers to fight. Egypt has a strong army, armed with modern weapons, Abrams tanks, F-16 aircraft, and US support. What happened with the Iraqi army, which fled before ISIS, cannot happen with the Egyptian army. It is more or less consolidated.

But theoretically, if the Islamists have unknown aces up their sleeves, and they inflict a decisive defeat on Egypt, then Israel could send in troops or, at a minimum, begin carrying out airstrikes. For the latter, Israel has never asked anyone for permission, as was and is the case with Lebanon and Syria. And I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is already using special forces in the Sinai.

– At the same time, there is a strong opinion in Syria that ISIS is an Israeli project. Whose weapons are being produced by the caliphates fighting against Damascus?

– There are many muddy stories. Israel periodically allows wounded Free Syrian Army fighters, the moderate opposition to Assad, to cross the border and treats them in hospitals. They are being transported by the military. This is not officially hidden; Israel regards the FSA as an alternative to Assad. But then an incident occurred - another batch of militants in Israeli jeeps was driving from the Golan Heights. The train was stopped by the Druze, and they lynched the militants.

They claimed that these were not FSA fighters, but members of the Al-Nusra Front, a group close to ISIS. These are radicals who call for the destruction of Israel; as they say, they were either ISIS yesterday or will be tomorrow. According to the Israeli Druze, al-Nusra militants are carrying out ethnic cleansing of the Druze in Syria. In the Golan Heights, ISIS recaptured territory from the FSA and borders on Israel.

About weapons. How can it get to ISIS? It may well be that the FSA is armed with Israeli weapons, and its fighters could hypothetically join ISIS. This is how American weapons end up with ISIS. Such a mess and bloody chaos. Does Israel know about this? Certainly. But it is difficult to draw conclusions without falling into cheap conspiracy theories.

“In the end, only the light breath of the caliphate reached Israel. What is happening where the Islamists' long-term dream has become a reality?

– ISIS operates in territories where the people of Islam generally support them. People are tired of the chaos in Syria, it is torn into a bunch of enclaves, it is not for nothing that the powerful ISIS base is located there, and the capital is in the city of Raqa. The people want power that will restore order. The main opponents of ISIS are the conventional armies of Assad and Iraq.

The Syrian army is exhausted by five years of civil war, and the Iraqi army is artificially glued together by the Americans, corrupt and incapable of combat. The defeat of these armies allows ISIS to seize large quantities of weapons. Thousands of Humvees have been taken from Mosul alone. In desert conditions - colossal power and frees up hands for tactical operations. ISIS has luck and an asymmetrical response, guerrilla, mobile warfare tactics.

ISIS is popular among militants who come to it in large numbers from all over the world, and among those who convert to Islam in Europe. The Caliphate changed the concept of the fight against the West - radical Muslims, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban said: “There is the West, the crusaders - they came to the Islamic world with their values, and we are waging “defensive jihad” against them.” ISIS said: “We will wage offensive jihad and join the crusaders in Europe.” ISIS is no longer ISIS, but IS – “Islamic State”. They do not limit themselves within boundaries.

ISIS is already a full-fledged state, and its structure is simple. There is no complex bureaucratic apparatus, and any offenses or deviations from the norm are punishable by death: teenagers were watching football - they were killed, they found two gays - they threw them off the roof. Society is intimidated - this consolidates it. People are afraid to steal, military leaders are afraid of losing battles. As a crude mechanism, ISIS functions successfully.

– Are there any obstacles to the caliphate while Israel distances itself from the threat?

– The only force that fights back, advances and liberates territories are the Kurds in Rojava (northeastern Syria). In the Battle of Kobani, ISIS was unlucky and mistakes were made. The Kurds are engulfed in a revolution of democratic confederalism according to the recipe of their leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is sitting in a Turkish prison. The Kurds have a wide range of leftist ideas: from Marxist to anarchist, in general they can be called left-bourgeois democratic forces. On some issues they are left-wing radicals and ahead of the rest - the emancipation of women, federalism of communities, people's councils.

Many in the world see this as a battle of ideologies. The caliphate is a patriarchy, where women are given the place of obedient servants of men. The Kurds propose the liberation of women, this is relevant in a region with its gender intolerance. The Kurds are perceived as an alternative to ISIS, which is attractive, hundreds of volunteers come to them, in the Kurdish self-defense there are international brigades from the left, there is the “Lions of Rojava” brigade, where former military men from Canada, the USA, England, and Russia gathered.

The Kurds are such a bright force, there is nothing sacred left in our world, and postmodernism has devoured everything, especially in the West, powerful leftist movements have been destroyed, right-wing utopias have collapsed. That's why they capture minds. But almost nothing is said about the Kurds in the Israeli media. Leftist activists were the first to talk about Rojava, the dam has broken a little, but still 90 percent of the information noise is about ISIS.

– And out of evil – the Islamists – comes good – the Kurdish revolutionaries?

– I don’t divide the world into good and evil, I’m a materialist. From my point of view, there were many objective reasons for the emergence of the caliphate. ISIS members are not demons from the underworld, there are many Arab poor people among them, they see no alternative. But for the Kurds, not everything is so smooth - there are rumors of ethnic cleansing of Arabs, and capitalist exploitation of people continues.

– What will ISIS fundamentalism do to the region in the future?

– The Middle East will change a lot. We see how ISIS has already captured some villages in Jordan, and Hezbollah controls part of Lebanon. The Lebanese parliament is weak - perhaps the country, like Syria, will be torn to pieces. In Egypt, the screws are being tightened, the army is taking everything into its own hands, but this cannot happen forever, a new Tahrir will arise.

Why was the first Tahrir organized? To throw off the military, but they returned to it. And sooner or later people will understand this, the country is a giant cauldron, 80 million people, next to which is Libya, torn by civil war, where ISIS is expanding. Saudi Arabia believed that it had a monopoly on being the center of the Islamic world. Now ISIS wants a monopoly, and there are terrorist attacks in Arabia. Yemen is engulfed in war, and there is ISIS there too.

But Jordan has not yet played her last chord. After all, this state is tiny, but it has a good professional army. It rests on the idea of ​​moderation, an island of calm in the chaos of the Middle East. Perhaps Jordan will have the strength to prove itself; it has already shown itself when it avenged the execution of its pilot by ISIS. King Abdullah II personally led the planes into battle against the caliphate.

– But how will all this come back to Israel?

– Changes in the Middle East play into Israel’s hands in the short term. People squabble, Islamists kill Islamists, Arabs kill Arabs, Israel feels good. But in the future, Israel will not fare well - due to changes in cultural principles and the birth of new states. There is a possibility that Israel will be destroyed in two decades.

I don’t give it many years - this is a stillborn project, it rests largely on the support of the West. And Israel, alien to the region, as soon as it loses its patrons, there is unlikely to be anything left of it. If it transforms into a democratic state, apartheid disappears, this will be the end of it as a Jewish state.

It will crumble into enclaves or be completely decolonized. Is it good or bad? Most likely, first, this will be the end of the oppression of the Palestinians, millions of people will breathe easy. An ossified structure that rests on the archaic colonial laws of the early 20th century British Empire has no place in the 21st century.

– The Israel Defense Forces are rated as one of the best in the world. She won't protect the country?

– The IDF depends on help. So, after the West lifted sanctions on Iran, allowing it to create nuclear energy so that Israel would not be “offended”, it was provided with a package of arms supplies.

Plus, the IDF is based on the idea of ​​consolidating society against its “enemies.” Israel is a multinational state; here we have Yemenite Jews, Ashkenazis, Sephardim, Russian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Ethiopian Jews - Falasha. Each was brought here with their own cultural baggage and in the end Russian Jews are Russians, Falasha are Ethiopians, and Ashkenazi are Germans with Western culture. Israel can exist as a nationalist state. But he has exhausted such a resource, and the myth of being surrounded by enemies is slowly crumbling, and there are no eternal fortresses.

– So what should the Israelis expect, and from whom exactly?

– What will happen to the Jews? This depends on the new authorities - if they are moderate and secular, then it is unlikely to expect a massacre of Jews. There are secular regimes nearby, both in Jordan and in Palestine itself. The PFLP are, of course, Maonists, not much good, but at least they are not Islamists. The process may be soft - gradual concessions of territory to the Arabs and the return of Jews to their countries of origin.

If the Islamists are like ISIS or Islamic Jihad? This, of course, may be what the last idiot wants, but then most Jews will leave Israel only if they can. But this awaits the poor, not the rich, who will initially flee to Europe out of grief. Most Israeli oligarchs no longer live in Israel.

Since the events in Ukraine at the end of 2013–beginning of 2014 have completely different interpretations among different political observers (fascist putsch, ZOG conspiracy, Western intrigues), I consider it necessary to present the main theses of my vision of the situation, on the basis of which the analysis below was compiled. In Ukraine, at the beginning of 2014, a popular (affecting many groups of the population) bourgeois-national revolution took place.

• The anarchists of Ukraine supported the revolution and tried with all their might to direct it into a social direction.
• The anarchists of Ukraine were unable to achieve any significant influence on the revolutionary processes.
• Ukraine was split into enclaves and plunged into the abyss of civil war.
• Anarchists in Ukraine are trying to find ways to transform the civil war into a social alternative (Position “War on War!”).

The revolution that happened in Ukraine at the beginning of 2014 took anarchists by surprise. Organizationally weak, small in number, without a coherent program, they were thrown aside, giving way to nationalists, who became the dominant and guiding force. However, we should not forget that revolutions are not made by anarchists, revolutions are made by people, broad groups of the population from the working class. It is absurd to expect that the social agenda will appear by itself. This agenda must be created by anarchists, by personal example, by working with people, by fighting for the ideas and souls of the rebels. To snatch the element of rebellion from the hands of politicians and nationalists who are trying to seize the initiative in favor of their ambitions. With this in mind, it is hard not to wonder, “why were the anarchists of Ukraine so unprepared?” What is the reason for their weakness and can we learn from all this? First, let's systematize the information we have.

Anarchists officially supported the uprising people in Ukraine after January 16, 2014. Looking for ways to integrate into the revolutionary process, they tried to organize a “black hundred” within the framework of the fighting hundreds of self-defense of the Maidan; this attempt was unsuccessful, since under pressure from fascist groups (in particular, the Svoboda party), the anarchists were forced to retreat. At the same time, anarchists organized combat groups in Kharkov, Odessa and Lvov*. However, some anarchists joined hundreds of Maidan self-defense groups, and after the revolution and the outbreak of the civil war, they volunteered for the National Guard of Ukraine**. But attempts to create an all-Ukrainian anarchist militia “Black Guard” turned out to be a failure. Anarchists also participated in the seizure (or liberation) and retention of the university in Kyiv and in the sanitary squads of the Maidan. It is worth mentioning a separate moment of expropriation of property and its socialization for public needs; anarchists in Kharkov organized a social center in a seized building to help refugees from war zones.

One can see the complete absence of any attempt by the anarchists to act as a force separate from the Maidan. Why did the “Black Hundred” (a very unfortunate name already catches your eye, as they say, whatever you call a ship...) did not try to act further as an independent formation, seeking to organize into a wider militia and “transferring” the revolution to other parts of the city? While all the main forces of the authorities were drawn to the Maidan, it was time to move on to the expropriation of state or private property with its subsequent socialization and collectivization. Community centers, warehouses, first aid stations, canteens - this is a short list of what could be done. There were no attempts to organize and set up their camp, but, having been organized, the anarchists could have taken care of logistics for the self-defense forces and helping the victims. All these remarks are fair not only in relation to the anarchists of Kyiv but also of other cities.

It can be argued that the reason for such passivity is that the forces were small in number. But this will be a false statement. Firstly, there are a lot of initiatives that do not require a large number of activists. To capture, hold and socialize a building, sometimes twenty people are enough; for organizing the camp and its daily functioning - about the same (and no more than five people per shift can be on duty there). Secondly, the myth of small numbers is shattered by the fact that on May 1, 2014, in Kyiv (and this is only in the capital!) anarchists held a demonstration in which more than a hundred (!) people took part. Where were all these people during the Maidan? Where are all these people now, during the civil war? Rhetorical questions, of course. And all this is missing the point that tens if not hundreds of people would certainly crystallize around competently and faithfully acting activists. They will say that perhaps the anarchists turned out to be physically weak, unprepared for the challenge of the time and for violent confrontation. This statement is half false. The trouble is that a revolution (including a social one) is always violence, since there is a redistribution of property and power, and therefore a reaction arises. Revolutions, unlike palace coups, are never bloodless or pre-planned. They always begin spontaneously at moments of complete bankruptcy of power. Given these facts, it is impossible to always be “absolutely” prepared. And if we look at the Maidan, at the people who bravely attacked the forces of power (following the nationalists acting as the vanguard and skirmishers), we see ordinary people who do not “shine” with special supernormal physical characteristics. Anarchists, being flesh and blood of the working class and employed in the same spheres of labor, cannot and are not obliged to be physically prepared for confrontation. An anarchist is not a soldier who trains for years in anticipation of battle. But still, moral readiness, readiness to translate ideas into reality, is more important than physical readiness. Let's consider this point in more detail.

The anarchists of Ukraine turned out to be morally unprepared for both violent confrontation with the authorities and the practice of organizing social spaces, and were not ready for the very fact that a revolution could occur in the country. As a result, those who before the revolution considered themselves champions of the revolutionary path found themselves, to put it mildly, out of work at the moment of truth. Instead of reconstruction, it was necessary to establish horizontal connections and organize them into wide networks. Instead of meaningless debates about the “purity” of anarchism and cheap squabbles (often based on personal grievances and hostility) splitting the movement into small sects, it was necessary to look for common ground for joint interaction. Anarchists constantly forget the simple truth that what unites should be felt stronger than what separates, because in the desired society this will be the case. But what kind of new society can we talk about if even during the revolution the anarchists were unable to organize a single network? The organization and retreat of the Black Hundred, the seizure of the university in Kyiv, the expropriations and the Black Tens in Kharkov, attempts to organize the Black Guard - all these initiatives came from various groups and organizations that were not trying to interact, and often even conflicted. It was the loss of will that turned out to be the main and fatal factor. Instead of camaraderie and brotherhood, the anarchist movement was dominated by an atmosphere of intrigue, squabbles and sectarian wars for purity. In conditions of revolution, this is an unforgivable luxury.

While fascist and nationalist groups in pre-revolutionary times trained, studied combat tactics and accumulated weapons and equipment, anarchists paid too little attention to the tactics of revolutionary struggle. One of the main arguments was that this was not an “anarchist” path, that the path of anarchists was pedagogy and trade union struggle, that all social revolutions of the past were defeated precisely by force and after the armed bankruptcy of the anarchists. At the same time, our comrades brushed aside the fact that in all the revolutions where the anarchists organized their militias, they did so forcedly and often against their will. Anarchists always took up arms only in self-defense against the forces of reaction, and in all cases there was a keen understanding that there would be a reaction and that their gains would have to be defended. With this in mind, the anarchists of past revolutions prepared, trained and armed themselves***. In Ukraine, they forgot about the issue of self-defense, as if the occupied spaces would defend themselves. The statement that in the pre-revolutionary period there were no attempts at expropriation and socialization (and therefore there was no need for the practice of self-defense) will also be false: in 2013, Crimean anarchists seized the building in which they organized a social center (which, however, did not last long). And the very political position and discourse (calls for self-organization of workers also implies the fact that self-defense will also be the work of the working people) of the anarchists of Ukraine led to the fact that they would have to defend themselves against reaction.

Let's summarize. Lack of will to action and complete organizational unpreparedness turned out to be the Achilles heel of the anarchist movement in Ukraine. We must remember that any force is a force only when it dictates its position in reality, on the streets, in the spaces conquered from the authorities and capital. Otherwise, any discourse about social revolution simply turns into chatter and farce. We should not forget that any redistribution of property (and a social revolution without a redistribution of property on socialized principles is simply unthinkable) does not occur without reaction, and therefore without violence. What lesson can be learned from all of the above? How should the anarchists of Belarus and Russia behave at the moment when revolutions break out there, because given the political and social kinship of these countries with Ukraine, we can safely assume that the upcoming uprisings that will destroy the regimes of Lukashenko and Putin will also be bourgeois-national. Firstly, one should not wait for some kind of ideal, class and purely social revolution. In a country where society is atomized, where the working class is disorganized, downtrodden and subjugated, where chauvinism reigns in everyday life, where there is no work ethic - in such a country there cannot be a social revolution in principle. The main thing is not to shy away from bourgeois revolutions; these are excellent schools of self-organization. In such revolutions, people gain courage in the face of power, overcome the alienation imposed by bourgeois morality, and acquire useful skills for direct action. Revolutionary gymnastics is what popular uprisings are, and without revolutionary experience a social revolution will not be possible. And secondly, it is necessary to instill in organizations (and in the movement in general) a fighting spirit and a militaristic spirit, to conduct tactical games and training. We must not forget about psychology, it is necessary to develop the spirit of camaraderie and brotherhood, prepare for any rebellion and be literate and experienced enough to be able to introduce a social and class agenda into this revolt in a timely manner. Today, the words from the anarcho-syndicalist newspaper “Golos Truda” of 1917 are more relevant than ever: “We cannot help but be at one with the revolutionary masses, even if they did not follow our path, not behind our slogans, and even if we foresaw failure speeches. We always remember that it is impossible to foresee the direction and outcome of a mass movement in advance. And we therefore consider it always our duty to participate in such a movement, striving to bring into it our content, our idea, our truth.” To be beacons of the revolution is the true task of anarchists!

* In Lviv, this refers to the “Autonomous Opira” militia. While not anarchists, they nevertheless introduced a grassroots anti-statist agenda of horizontal self-organization.
** The National Guard of Ukraine is a paramilitary volunteer structure organized by the new post-revolutionary government to fight the counter-revolution, primarily the separatist formations of the DPR and LPR.
*** For example, the quarterly self-defense units of the CNT, which were able to give battle to the rebellious officers in Barcelona during the military coup of 1936. Prepared and armed, they stopped the putschists and later served as the basis for the creation of the CNT combat militia - FAI.

Yigal Levin, JSFC “Unity”