A reply to Alan Woods, leader of the IMT/RCI, who claims that both the Zionists and the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves

By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 12 August 2025, www.thecommunists.net

My comrade Yossi Schwartz, an anti-Zionist Jew for six decades who lives in Israel, has recently drawn my attention to an interesting statement of Alan Woods, the long-time theoretician and leader of the International Marxist Tendency which renamed into Revolutionary Communist International (IMT/RCI) last year. In a long article which deals with everything and nothing – from the Gaza War, the Ukraine War, to the Bible and the brothers Grimm – Woods writes the following:

„The ruling Israeli clique led by Benjamin Netanyahu claims that Israel has a right to defend itself. So it has. But so too do the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, which they are endeavouring to do against overwhelming odds.“ [1]

Such a statement is truly astonishing – at least for a Marxist, anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist. The IMT/RCI leader agrees with Netanyahu’s claim, repeated by all supporters of the settler state, that “Israel has a right to defend itself”. Such words are all the more perplexing as they have been written last year in the midst of the ongoing war of annihilation which the Zionist state wages against the Palestinian people!

As a matter of fact, this is a totally reactionary statement. Israel has no right to defend itself! It is a settler state which was created in 1948 on the basis of the expulsion of the native population (“Nakba”). It exists only because it has waged since then one war after the other against the Palestinians and other peoples in the region. It is by its very nature an oppressor state. For Marxists, for every sincere supporter of the Palestinian people, such a state does not have any “right to defend itself”!

The same is true, by the way, for all imperialist states. Marxists never advocate “the right to defend itself” for the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, etc. Accepting such a “right” is equivalent to capitulation to the imperialist state and its ruling class. This is an ABC for all Marxists and anti-imperialists.

Why does Mr. Woods deny such a basic truth? It is because the IMT/RCI leaders never truly assimilated the internationalist and anti-imperialist principles of Marxism. As we did show in other works, this organisation refutes Lenin’s program of revolutionary defeatism and has repeatedly failed to side with the military struggle of oppressed countries and peoples against imperialist powers (from Britain’s Malvinas War against Argentina in 1982 to the recent Zionist-American war against Iran). [2]

Combined with this is the long-time tradition of the IMT/RCI (and its predecessor, the CWI) to defend the “right of national self-determination” of the Israeli settler population. By the way: in 1982 they even cited the “right of national self-determination” of the few British settlers on the Malvinas Islands in order to justify their refusal to side with Argentina! [3]

This is the reason why the IMT/RCI (like their warring sisters CWI, ISA and PRMI) advocates a two-state solution which they call a “socialist federation of Israel and Palestine” ^[4] Such a slogan de facto accepts the horrible results of the Nakba and condemns the Palestinian people to an existence in a small and impoverished Bantustan in Gaza and Westbank which remains small and impoverished even if Alan Woods calls it “socialist”.

In contrast, the RCIT and all authentic Marxists have always advocated a consistent internationalist and anti-imperialist position of siding with the military struggle of oppressed countries and peoples against imperialists states without lending political support to their leaderships. [5]

Likewise, we denounce the two-state solution as either a useless illusion or a dangerous trap. The only solution is the destruction of the Zionist Apartheid state and its replacement by a free and red Palestine from the River to the Sea. Such a secular and democratic Palestinian state would enable all refugees to return to their homes. At the same time, it would guarantee equal cultural and religious rights for all citizens (including the Jewish minority). It should be a workers and fellahin republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East. [6]

It is of course a very welcome development that comrades of the IMT/RCI now say at demonstrations “Intifada until victory”. This is definitely much better than propagandizing a two-state solution albeit we critically note as an aside that the first Intifada already began in 1987 and until 2023 the IMT/RCI never supported slogans calling for an Intifada.

But reactionary position like defending Israel’s “right of self-defence” or the “socialist” two-state solution enchain the IMT/RCI leaders to the imperialist system. In order to consistently fight against this order, one must break with all elements of social-imperialism and Zionism!