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Slaughter in Gaza - The view from Lebanon
www.socialistworld.net, 31/12/2008
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
Mass Movement to Stop the Massacres
cwi Lebanon
Like the rest of the world, there is boiling anger in Lebanon among the masses at the Israeli state’s brutal attack on Gaza. Many are taking to the streets in daily protests and demonstrations against the vicious Israeli massacres carried out against the people of Gaza.
The biggest demo was a mass protest organised by Hezbollah on the 29 December which was called for by its general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, in his last televised speech. Nasrallah appealed to the masses of the Arab world to take to the streets in continuous mass action.
He said: “It does not matter what your ideologies and beliefs are to the US, what matters is if you stand in the way of the American – Israeli agenda. You can even be a Muslim, Communist, Marxist, Leninist, or Maoist, and the US would welcome you on board as long as you allow it to carry out its programme. Even Hamas would be welcomed today to the US for a deal if Hamas agrees to the US – Israeli politics. This war is against anyone who is resisting…. I appeal to the people of the Arab and Muslim world to take to the streets to put pressure on their regimes and to the Egyptian president to open the Rafah borders immediately!”
Nasrallah never explained what the US – Israeli agenda is or how it can be defeated, but he mentioned that the US is suffering an economic recession and that the Arab world has oil and water and could force the US and Israel to stop the massacres immediately.
The CWI in Lebanon has produced the leaflet below in response to the existing awareness among the Lebanese and Arab masses in regards to the US – Israeli agenda of a “New Middle East” and the recognized role of Arab regimes in this Israeli state terror. The definition “New Middle East” was used by Rice when she blatantly defended the 2006 Israeli war on Hezbollah in Lebanon where ferocious attacks killed 1,200 civilians and destroyed tens of thousands of homes within 33 days.
cwi Lebanon
Mass Movement to Stop the Massacres
Solidarity with the Palestinian Masses
Mass Action against Capitalism
Within less than 48 hours, the racist and brutal Israeli government has carried out massacres unseen in recent history. With more than 300 killed and over 1400 injured, numbers that are increasing, this attack has inflamed the Arab street and is putting pressure on the Arab regimes which have given a green light to this brutal war. This war is one of the attacks organised against the people of the region who stand up to American – Israeli politics and who are against the puppet rulers of the Arab world.
The need is necessary and urgent today more than ever for people of the Middle East to organize themselves through mass revolutionary and democratic struggles and through trade unions capable of building parties of workers and the poor. Real self-determination can only be realized through challenging the ruling classes and the capitalist system starting with the repressive and corrupt Arab regimes which serve the interest of the global capitalist class and which benefit from impoverishing and exploiting their own masses. Such movements are capable of uniting the effective force in society - the working class – and to spread in solidarity among workers and the poor across countries of this globalized world; a world dominated by the greedy multi-corporations which strive to control the wealth in the Middle East from energy to water reserves.
Any future Arab state under the supremacy of American neo-liberalism will result in further impoverishment and repression as is seen in Egypt where around 6 million people live in grave yards (according to UN estimates) or to wars and sanctions as seen in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
Free market capitalism, breeding insecurity and destruction, and through its exploitation of the masses widening further inequality gaps, cannot be fought except through a mass workers’ movement and via committees democratically elected by the masses with the right to be armed in defence of land and services in the face of military and economic attacks.
The only way to realise real and permanent justice for the Palestinians and for the people of the region is by overthrowing capitalism and local feudalism and via the socialist transformation of society which puts people before profit ending poverty and wars and putting the wealth and resources in the hands of the majority.
- Mass resistance for liberation of the Palestinian people and all people of the region
- Mass movement of workers and the poor against capitalism
- For a socialist Middle East
Committee for a Workers' International