Fatah, once a nationalist party leading the struggle for Palestinian liberation, now represents a class that profits from collaboration with Zionism and imperialism.
The main leader of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, recently called some of those fighting for Palestinian national liberation ‘sons of dogs‘. This disgraceful remark epitomises the party’s long-standing collaboration with Zionist political, economic, security, and military objectives in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, coordinated and sustained by US and Euro-Atlantic imperialism. This reactionary stance is consistent with Fatah’s current class character, which reflects the interests of the most reactionary layer of the Palestinian bourgeoisie.
This includes the owners of monopolies protected by the Palestinian Authority, the subcontractors for Israeli firms, and the managers of NGO-related funds. Their relationship with Israel is not one of resistance but of business partnership. Their material interests lie in the normalisation of economic ties between the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel – not in the fight against Zionism, but in the suppression of Palestinian resistance.
In Marxist-Leninist terms, Fatah today embodies the comprador bourgeoisie: a class of local lackeys who profit by serving the needs of imperialism, and therefore by the continuation of colonisation and oppression. They have no material interests in the liberation of their country.
This class position stands in sharp contrast to Fatah’s origins in the 1950s, when it represented the national bourgeoisie – a more progressive section of the capitalist class whose interests were harmed by Zionist colonisation and who, for that reason, became fully committed to national liberation. For this reason, at that time, they were an ally to the working class in the struggle against Zionism and imperialism.
National liberation is a unique historical condition in which the working class has to fight alongside elements of the bourgeoisie. In the case of Palestine, where the people confront the brutal and settler-colonial form of Zionism, this unity is even more justified. However, while communists must fight earnestly alongside all progressive forces engaged in national liberation, they must always recognise that the character of bourgeois forces is not fixed, as it shifts according to the material needs of capital in any given time and place.
We must resist the temptation to idealise any section of the capitalist class into the role of eternal ally or enemy. In fact, no matter how progressive the bourgeoisie may appear at a given moment, it will always remain an obstacle on the path to the abolition of exploitation and oppression. So, even when we stand on the same front in the fight for national liberation, we must never lose sight of our ultimate goal: socialism. Only in this way can we truly work for the liberation of Palestine and its people.