Middle East

In solidarity with the Palestinian people

www.socialistworld.net, 12/01/2009
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

For a struggle against capitalism

CWI Lebanon

In solidarity with the Palestinian people

The massacre taking place today in the Gaza Strip, with the military offensive by air, sea and land, constitutes a new peak of the brutal policies of repression carried out by the Israeli regime. The people of Gaza have suffered the effects of sanctions in the last two years with the continuing siege, starvation, daily shelling, military attacks and war crimes. The aim of such actions and, of course, of the declared all-out war on Gaza now, is to weaken, beat, and topple the Hamas government, and force the masses to accept what is dictated by the Israeli regime and imperialism in the region.

The forces of imperialism and the Israeli regime wish to erase the defeat suffered by them in Lebanon in 2006 through the mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip, and to threaten and intimidate the masses struggling against occupation and imperialism in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Iraq and the region, as a whole. The Arab League states, which remain silent about the continuing carnage in the Strip and which totally rely on the backing of super powers, are, just like the Israeli regime, afraid of an uprising at home against imperialism and against their rotten regimes.

The military and technological power which the Israeli regime enjoys has not broken the masses in Lebanon and will not break the masses in Gaza. The American empire is also unable to impose its will on the masses in Iraq. The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in Lebanon supports the right of the people in Gaza to defend themselves against the brutal, racist Israeli regime.

International Mass action needed

Resistance to Israeli military aggression must be based on the masses and through coordinated democratic committees, as was the case in the first Intifada, and has to be accompanied by mass demonstrations on both the Egyptian and the Palestinian borders at Rafah in order to break the blockade. Such a force is capable of challenging the repressive and corrupt Arab regimes, which participate in this aggression, by uniting the working class, the most powerful force in the region and assuming democratic control over resources, such as oil and water, thus breaking with capitalism and neo-liberal barbarism.

The CWI in Lebanon struggles and calls for the stepping up, expansion and intensification of the protests in the Palestinian territories, of the joint Arab – Jew demonstrations inside Israel and of the protests in all countries of the Middle East and the world against these attacks. This could drive the Israeli army out of Gaza, break the blockade and link up with the resistance of the masses inside Gaza against this carnage and occupation. We call on these movements to build an alternative for workers and the poor, to end wars and occupations and raise the living standards of the peoples of the region as a way to free the masses from their chains.

Our demands

• Stop the military offensive now - end the siege and occupation
• Mass resistance against capitalism
• For socialism in the Middle East

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