Stop the Israeli state terror!

Socialist Party Meeting: Stop the Assault on Gaza

Tomorrow - Tuesday 20th November 2012

Cheltenham Road Library,

Bristol,

BS6 5RH

7.30pm

The Israeli government has declared that its shocking and brutal assault on the Gaza strip will be a "widespread campaign" and threatens "protracted conflict".

Among its opening strikes was the assassination of the military leader of Islamist party Hamas, Ahmed Jabari, and more than ten other Palestinians, as a terrifying rain of missiles were fired from the air.

The onslaught was clearly aimed at escalating the conflict, with the Israeli regime turning its back on a ceasefire agreement that had just been negotiated to stop military attacks from both sides.

Assassinations of Palestinians by the Israeli armed forces in recent months have played a central part in escalating the conflicts in the south of Israeli and Gaza.

Nevertheless, British foreign secretary William Hague blamed Hamas as bearing "principal responsibility" because of the rocket fire from Gaza, as effectively did Labour's Douglas Alexander, both refusing to condemn the Israeli regime for deploying its massive, vastly stronger, military might.

"I am responsible for us choosing the right time to exact the heaviest price and so be it" was the chilling message of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestinians fear a repeat of the invasion of Gaza at the end of 2008, when nearly 1,400 people were slaughtered, including 314 children, and are in a state of terror and panic.

There are ominous signs that a ground invasion is being considered, with Israeli soldiers' leave cancelled and some reservists called up.

As well as the terrible toll of Palestinian deaths and injuries, following the killing of Jabari three Israeli civilians were killed in the Israeli town of Kiryat Malakhi when their building was hit by a Palestinian missile.

Netanyahyu and Co knew that their assault would bring this kind of response but their aim was not to encourage peace and security for Israelis or Palestinians, but was to serve their own interests.
Seeking votes

In particular they are desperately trying to boost their support prior to the general election scheduled for January by trying to appear to be fortifying security in Israel.

In recent weeks, opinion polls have showed that Likud Beytenu, the newly merged party formed by Netanyahu and Lieberman, was losing support.

They want to draw attention away from the burning social problems in Israel, which Lieberman said he's "sick of hearing all the cries about".

The Israeli government's decision to respond to straying shells from Syria by returning fire, along with other threats of retaliatory military action, and threats of punitive action against the West Bank based Palestinian Authority, are also part of the election campaign of these failing nationalist politicians.

They fear losing their seats and are therefore willing to engage in mass slaughter of Palestinians and to gamble on the lives of ordinary Israelis.

Leaders of the main Israeli 'opposition' political parties, Yachimovich (Labour), Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Mofaz (Kadima) were quick to stand by the government and speak with one voice.

They don't even pretend to offer any real alternative to the narrow, mad and dangerous agenda of the current government.

In addition to their re-election aims, the Israeli leaders want to cut across the revival of a Palestinian bid for UN recognition later this month, pre-empt any pressure for peace talks from re-elected Obama in the US, and to try to counter any strengthening of Hamas as a result of the major changes and tensions in the region - in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon etc.

But their blood-filled strategy can spiral out of their control and rebound on them by massively inflaming relations between countries and the situations within them; already there are protests and demonstrations breaking out across the Arab countries and worldwide, as well as in the Palestinian territories.

In Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, a call to defend the residents of Gaza is being made on demonstrations.

Opposition to the war plans of Israeli leaders Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman must also be rapidly organised in Israel to make it clear that the bloodshed is not in the interests of ordinary Israelis and to counter the lies of the government.

Reports from demos around the country: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/15709/18-11-2012/protests-against-strikes-on-gaza

Palestine: Protests and strikes against high prices and Oslo shake the West Bank

By Shahar Ben-Khorin, Maavak Sotzyalisti/Nidal Eshteraki (CWI in Israel/Palestine)

"A-sha`eb youreed esqat Oslo!" – "The people want the fall of [the] Oslo [Accords]!" – a paraphrase of the famous slogan of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions, has become a central slogan in the latest struggles in the occupied West Bank. A wave of angry protests and strike action by thousands shook the area at the beginning of the month against the unbearable cost of living and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, particularly its slavish acceptance of the economic arrangements and conditions dictated to it by the Israeli regime.

Another slogan, "Yalla irh’al ya Fayyad!" – "Leave already, Fayyad!" – paraphrases a revolutionary song against the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Effigies of the PA prime minister, Salam Fayyad, a former official of the IMF and World Bank and a current stooge of Western imperialism, were set on fire and in Hebron demonstrators threw shoes over a large banner carrying with his photo. In an attempt to isolate the protestors, he rhetorically declared a willingness to resign if that was the will of the people and it would “solve the economic problems". Already at the beginning of the year, Fayyad was forced by social protests to reverse decisions to attack public sector workers’ pensions and raise taxes, but this time the protests are more extensive and radicalised.

At the end of May, the PA reaffirmed its support for a complete monopoly by Israeli petrol corporations for the next two years. As petrol prices were raised by 7% and set at an all-time record in Israel (8.25 Shekels / €1.63 per litre of octane 95) on 1 September, they were automatically matched in the PA enclaves (excluding the Gaza Strip), where GDP per capita is about 15 times lower than the Israeli figure of $32,000 and unemployment is on the rise, estimated at 17%. In neighbouring Jordan, thousands protested against the decision of the government to increase petrol prices for the second time in three months, which was enough to scare King Abdullah with the spectre of a mass movement and to spur him to reverse the government’s decision. In Jordan, the price of petrol is less than half of the Israeli rate! As if the general rise in the price of food and basic products wasn’t enough, the PA’s VAT rate, pegged to its Israeli counterpart, was raised at the beginning of September from 16% to 17%, imitating the measure taken by the Israeli government. And yet once again, after months of delays in the payment of wages, the 150,000 public employees of the PA (including over 50,000 non-governmental employees in Gaza), providing a living for nearly a million people, didn’t get their shrivelled salaries for August, and were forced to pay the price of the PA’s deep fiscal crisis.
Youth against Price Rises

All of this was received with great frustration and revulsion on the streets of the occupied West Bank. Tragically, similarly to many such incidents since the Tunisian revolution, these sentiments were accompanied by some attempts at self-immolation. One of these was in Gaza by an 18-year old unemployed person from the a-Shati refugee camp, who died soon after (a parallel wave of bitter self-immolation protests among impoverished Israelis since July has taken three lives). However, at the same time, hundreds of Palestinian workers and youth were also beginning to organize a fightback from 4 September. The day after, thousands demonstrated across Palestinian villages, cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. Youth, some of them organized in the new non-partisan front "Youth against Price Rises" (شباب ضد الغلاء), were leading the stormy blockades of main roads and junctions, aided by rocks and burning tyres, shouting slogans against the Ramallah government and its corruption and agreements with Israel. Alongside Palestinian flags and some Keffiyes, there were also some protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks, which have become an international symbol of social protest. Significantly, truck and cab drivers stopped their work and blocked roads and the Palestinian Teachers’ Union initiated several protest strikes as well.

Demonstrators were not impressed with the attempts by the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose term was supposed to end almost four years ago, to endorse the protests, seemingly hoping to use them as a lever for his symbolic re-run bid to the UN General Assembly at the end of the month for the acceptance of the PA as a non-member state. Abbas himself met with angry protests in early July, organized by another youth group, "Palestinians for Dignity" (فلسطينيون من اجل الكرامة), in response to his willingness to meet with the leader of the Israeli Kadima party, Shaul Mofaz. The latter was IDF chief of staff during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and responsible for several horrendous and bloody onslaughts against the Palestinians. Then, the demonstrators, already shouting against the Oslo Accords, managed to stop this planned meeting but were repressed brutally by Abbas’s security forces, with some ending up hospitalized. To pacify the anger over the role of the PA security forces as subcontractors for the Israeli occupation, an inquiry committee was set up. This time, Abbas initially implied that no force would be used against protestors, and on the ground parts of his Fatah party intervened in the demonstrations, apparently trying to focus the anger around the non-Fatah Fayyad. Those tactics didn’t help in watering down the general anger towards the PA. In the north-eastern governorate of Tubas, the governor was hit on the head by stones in one of the demonstrations. Very quickly, Fatah activists’ focus on Fayyad was answered in demos with matching calls against Abbas. In some incidents, protestors turned their frustration against PA buildings and threw rocks at the PA policemen. They were met with tear-gas and batons. Dozens were injured in Hebron and Nablus.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5951

Philharmonic Protest: As I see it.

The BBC reported today that a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) was disrupted by protestors this evening. Performing at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the BBC proms, members of the audience began to shout and boo when the orchestra's soloist, Gil Shaham, began to play.

The IPO has been in existence for 75 years, beginning life in 1936 as the Palestine Philharmonic, before changing its name to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1948 when the state of Israel was founded. Historically it was made up of Jewish musicians who were persecuted by Nazism and who were victims of anti-semitism in Europe. Today the orchestra is made by of musicians from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, as well as from Israel.

In the run up to the proms, the Palestine Solidarity Camapaign urged the BBC to cancel the event and called on people to boycott the performance. The call was, and is, part of a broader campaign organised by many radical groups popularly known as BDS- boycott, divestment and sanctions- against Israel. It urges people not to buy products from Israel and shop at "pro-Israel" companies, such as the Jewish owned Marks & Spencers chain of stores.

But, I wonder, do these actions really aid the struggle of Palestinians for self determination?

Many supporters of the boycott liken it to the boycott and disinvestment campaign that was carried out against the apartheid regime in South African a decade and a half ago. But, it was not the boycott campaign that ended apartheid. It was the determined mass struggle of the workers and youth in South Africa, led by Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.

Campaigning on the basis of freedom and equality for all- irrespective of race and religion- they were able to forge a united mass movement powerful enough to bring down the despised apartheid regime. Today the organisations that claim leadership of the Palestinian struggle- such as Hamas and Fatah- provide no such perspective for achieving a just peace for the Jews, Muslims, Christians an others who live in Israel and the occupied territories.

Whilst Hamas refuses to recognise the Jewish workers as allies, Fatah seeks to make an accomodation with the Israeli ruling class and carve out a niche for itself and its own privileged interests via a bantustan style seperate state.

In response to the boycott campaign the Israeli government has sought to whip up fears of isolation amongst many Jewish workers, and has also fuelled the fire by passing legislation that would allow Israeli's to sue those who call for a boycott of Israeli goods.

The principal enemy of the Palestinian fight for justice is the minority capitalist class that rules Israel. That class is also the enemy of the working class of *all* nationalities and religions, both Jewish and Palestinian. The idea that an international BDS campaign can unite the workers and youth in Israel and Palestine in ending occupation and bringing justice is false. Only a united working class campaign, forged in mutual struggle and respect between both Jewish and Palestinians, can forge a leadership capable of winning a majority and solving the regions problems through a democratic socialist secular state as part of a broader socialist federation of the Middle East.

Bristol Socialist Party meeting - Syria and the Crisis in the Middle East

Bristol Socialist Party Meeting - Syria and the Crisis in the Middle East

Tuesday 5th July 

7.30pm 

Cheltenham Road Library, Bristol, BS6 5QX

The discussion at this joint meeting of the three Bristol Branches will introduced by Joe Fathallah from the Socialist Party Wales. The insurrection which has swept the Arab World has now ignited Syria. Three months of brutal repression by the Baath regime has failed to quell the revolt. The attempts to break down the border with Israel, and embarrassment caused to the capitalist regime in Turkey by the influx of show the of the Socialist Party’s demand for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East. But how can workers and the other oppressed people in the Arab states, Turkey, Iran and Kurdistan ensure that victory is theirs? What is the role of Israeli workers? And what attitude to should Socialists have to intervention by capitalist powers?


Below are links to documents and articles that are relevant for this discussion.


Reports and Analysis from the Socialist Party and our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI)


• CWI website recent Articles on Syria: http://www.socialistworld.net/view/158


• And more widely on the Middle East: http://www.socialistworld.net/?m=15&sk=100


• Socialism Today has had a number of important articles on the Middle East since the beginning of the year: http://www.socialismtoday.org/back.html


Reports and Analysis from the mainstream press and other Sources


• Al Jazeera Interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent on youtube (22nd April): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSpeHVFPd8g


• Report by Fisk from Independent (29th April): http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-out-of-syrias-darkness-come-tales-of-terror-2276392.html


• And from Belfast Telegraph (8th June): http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-fisk/syria-in-turmoil-as-resistance-turns-to-insurrection-16009281.html


• This portal, maintained by University of Colorado, leads you to a variety Government resources from Syria and reports from state and non-governmental bodies internationally: http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/for/syria.htm


• Particularly useful is the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/801669.stm


• Human Rights Watch Report on protests and repression in Daraa: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2011/06/01/we-ve-never-seen-such-horror-0