Palestine

Mobilise against the cruel sanctions on Gaza!

www.socialistworld.net, 18/12/2008
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

For united mass workers’ resistance for Palestinians’ national liberation

Socialistworld.net

Mobilise against the sanctions on Gaza!

On Friday 19 December, Lebanon and other parts of the Arab world could see high numbers of people taking to the streets in protest against the Israeli sanctions on Gaza. The people of Gaza are facing a process of backward development leading to a destruction of the economy where the majority now find themselves without food, medicine or energy reserves. Although this call was initially made by Hezbollah’s leader, Nasrallah in an appeal to the masses in the Arab world, the left and working class fighters should mobilize their contingents where a united working class stand can be made, in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and for a workers’ resistance.

While Gaza is facing starvation and death as a result of the sanctions, Palestinian state services and natural resources are being privatized and sold off to big business. Meanwhile, Israel continues to develop new settlements in the west bank and East Jerusalem, building a railway system on occupied territory and the apartheid wall. Any imperialist promises of a so called “independent state” under capitalism fly straight out the window in the face of these developments.

Dismantling of the Palestinian economy

Palestinians’ livelihoods are at threat by military occupation, economic sanctions and colonisation of land and water resources by Israel in the West Bank as well as the ongoing collective punishment of Gaza. The so-called “Palestinian Reform and Development Plan” simply means normalisation of occupation and a gradual abandonment of Gaza.

80% of the population are living on less than two dollars a day and unemployment hovers at 60%. Only 195 out of 3,900 factories remain open. 40,000 agricultural workers have lost their incomes due to a ban on all exports.

The Palestine Plan follows a typical free-market directive where the aim is to shred to the bone public services already destroyed by Israeli tanks and aircrafts since the Al Aqsa Intifada, and to privatise services and resources. Israel has already annexed a further 20% of the West Bank’s most fertile land. Cuts in public spending, wage freezes, price hikes and de-regulation of new industry are already seen as a result of this big business plan.

Organise the masses against capitalism!

Humanitarian Movements have already failed to protect workers or improve living conditions and have also damaged attitudes, not just towards movements but also of the need for self-organisation through fighting democratic trade unions and the need for an alternative party of workers and the poor. The right to self-determination can only be fought for by challenging the system of capitalism and the ruling class which benefits from the impoverishment and exploitation of the masses.

The corporate sector would be the key ruling body in the future of any Palestinian state under capitalism and with dominance of the US neo-liberal model, the results of which are seen in Iraq and the rest of the region, not to mention the world which is heading into a deep crisis.

Free market capitalism, breeding insecurity, exploitation and inequality, can only be fought via a workers’ movement, organized through democratically elected committees of the masses with the right to be armed to defend land and services from both military and economic attack.

The only way to bring real, lasting justice, peace and prosperity to Palestinians and to all the peoples of the region is through common mass struggle against oppression and the pro-capitalist, corrupt regimes. The overthrow of capitalism and landlordism and the creation of a genuine socialist society – putting people before profit and ending poverty – would see real collaboration between all working people of the region, pooling together all the rich resources for the benefit of the many and bringing about real self-determination for the oppressed.

• For a united mass workers’ resistance for Palestinians’ national liberation
• For a movement of the poor masses against capitalism
• For socialist Middle East