Middle East

Mass struggle to stop the assault on Gaza

www.socialistworld.net, 14/01/2009
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

For workers� unity against the Israeli regime and imperialism

Socialist Struggle Movement (Tnu`at Maavak Sotzyalisti/Harakat Nidal Eshteraki) � CWI in Israel

Mass struggle to stop the assault on Gaza

The slaughter which has been taking place over the last weeks in Gaza, through a combined military attack from air, sea and land marks another phase of cruelty in the Israeli regime’s policy of repression. Already, in the past two years, the masses in Gaza have managed to stand up to a prolonged siege, starvation, daily bombardment and murderous military attacks. These methods and now, of course, the full scale war declared on Gaza, were meant to overthrow the Hamas government and to force the masses of Gaza to accept the agenda of the Israeli regime and imperialism in the region.

An attack on the masses in the Middle-East

The imperialist powers and the Israeli regime want to erase, with mass murder in Gaza, their defeat in Lebanon, and to send a threatening message to the masses struggling against occupation and imperialism in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Iraq and throughout the region. That is why the regimes of the Arab League that lean on the imperialist powers are silent in light of the slaughter, like the Israeli regime they are also afraid of the developing revolt from within against imperialism and their own rotten rule.

Mass action to break the siege and stop the war

The military and technological power of the Israeli regime did not defeat the masses in Lebanon and it will not defeat the masses in Gaza. American imperialism cannot impose its will on the masses of Iraq either. The Socialist Struggle Movement supports the right of the masses in Gaza to defend themselves from the aggression of the regime in Israel. The resistance to the attacks of the Israeli regime has to be organised on a mass basis through co-ordinated democratic committees, like during the first Intifada, and accompanied by mass demonstrations on the Egyptian and Palestinian side of Rafah to break the siege.

The rockets strengthen the Government and the far right

On the other hand, the firing of rockets on civilians actually does not work against either the siege, the occupation or the military oppression, and does not hurt those who responsible for these policies. Instead, the firing of rockets actually strengthens the Israeli regime because it pushes many Jews, out of despair, to support the government. That is how the rockets are being used by the Israeli government; as an excuse for its barbaric policies. They also strengthen the parties of the far right, including Liberman, that promise to be more extreme than the current government in the fight against Hamas.

The military tactics of the Hamas are a result of its political outlook, which does not propose any general strategy for the Palestinian struggle, besides revenge and a vision of liberation in the invisible future.

Stop the political persecution of Palestinians in Israel

At the same time as its slaughter in Gaza, the Israeli regime is worsening its anti-Arab campaign inside Israel. In a wave of arrests never seen before, hundreds of Palestinian activists and demonstrators have been arrested. Many others have received threats from the Shabak (secret police). The repression of the demonstrations is an indication of the fear of the government, the police and the army of the development of a new uprising. They are afraid of a mass struggle that will ruin their plans!

The movement against the war has to be escalated

The Socialist Struggle Movement calls for the escalation and expansion of the joint demonstrations of Arabs and Jews against the war inside Israel, the Palestinian territories, in the Middle-East and all over the world. The demonstrations against this attack can and should have an important role to play in driving the army out of Gaza and in breaking the siege, alongside the resistance of the masses in Gaza itself. The participation of Jews, alongside Arabs, in demonstrations against the war in Israel is a blow to the propaganda of the government and the media. The propaganda of Israeli elite uses, in a false and cynical way, the fears of the residents of the south of Israel, and their desire to live in security, to justify their barbaric deeds. The movement against the war should call for more Jews and Arabs to join the demonstrations, on the basis of a common interest in security, real peace and livelihood, on both sides of the fence.

Capitalism in the Middle-East means more poverty, oppression and war

The struggle of the Palestinian masses against the Israeli occupation and imperialist polices is also a struggle against the capitalist system itself, which these policies are based on. As long as Israeli capitalism and the imperialist powers rule the Middle-East, national oppression, exploitation, poverty and the use of whole countries for the needs of imperialism will continue. In opposition to the regimes in Israel and in the countries of the Arab League that benefit from this situation, workers and the poor in the Middle-East have different interests. This includes the Israeli–Jews, who clash time after time with the government in Israel, when they struggle for improved living conditions. The Socialist Struggle Movement calls for the formation of fighting socialist parties of working people and the poor in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. These should fight, on both sides of the national divide, against the policies of oppression, exploitation and racism of the Israeli capitalism, and for socialist and sovereign Palestine alongside a socialist Israel as a part of socialist and free Middle-East.

Join Us!

The Socialist Struggle Movement calls for:

• An immediate end to the bombing and military operations in the Gaza strip, and for full financial compensation by the Israeli government to the families of victims, on both sides of the fence.
• An immediate and full ceasefire, including an end to the economic and military siege on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, and the ending of military operations in the Palestinian areas. No to the firing of projectiles at the residents of Southern Israel.
• Continue and expand upon the joint demonstrations of Jews and Arabs against the attack on Gaza, against racism, the extreme right wing, the occupation, the national separation wall and the conflict.
• End the military and police repression of the right to demonstrate, and end the institutionalised nationalist-racist incitation against Arabs.
• For the setting up of democratic committees of self-defence, on a mass basis, against the Israeli attacks on Gaza
• Mass struggle to stop the siege on Gaza. Participation of the masses in Egypt to ensure the border with Egypt will be immediately and fully opened, with an appeal for support from workers and the poor in Israel
• Continue the demonstrations in the Middle-East and the world, in solidarity with the Palestinian masses, and against the pro-imperialist regimes in the region
• Build large socialist parties, composed of working people, both in Israel and in the Palestinian areas, which will lead a struggle to solve the burning social issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Real security and peace – end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the political, economic and military interventions and dictates carried out by the big powers on the masses of the Middle East, and carried out by the Israeli government in the Palestinian territories and in neighbouring states.
• A struggle for a socialist Israel, alongside an independent socialist Palestine, with borders which will be determined democratically by discussion between residents’ representatives, with guaranteed full freedom of movement. A struggle for Jerusalem to exist as the joint capital of two socialist states, with autonomous rule for the two sides of the city.
• A united struggle of the masses of the Middle East for livelihood, peace and socialism
• For a Socialist and democratic Middle East, within which the rights of all groups and minorities would be guaranteed.