John Haylettoutlines the

reasons behind theIsraeli assault on

the people of Gazaand the challengesfacing the peoplesof the region whostruggle for peace

and justice

BRITISH ZIONISTS succeededin forcing an apology out ofLiberal Democrat Bradford East

MP David Ward for his commentthat, if he lived in Gaza, he might wellfire a rocket into Israel.

His comment was an ill-judgedattempt to dramatise the plight of 1.8million people besieged in an open-airprison for eight years while theinternational community fiddles.

The Board of Deputies of BritishJews, which spearheaded thecampaign against Ward, finds nothingworthy of condemnation in the Israeligovernment’s genocidal strangling oflife in Gaza or its current murderousonslaught on the Palestinian territory.

Earlier, the foreign ministers ofGermany, France and Italy united incondemnation of the rise in anti-semitism in their countries in thewake of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

“Anti-semitic rhetoric and hostilityagainst Jews, attacks on people ofJewish belief and synagogues have noplace in our societies,” GermanForeign Minister Frank-WalterSteinmeier, France’s Laurent Fabiusand Italy’s Federica Mogherini said ata meeting in Brussels.

No genuine friend of the Palestiniancause could take issue with thisstatement or have any truck with anti-semitism, Holocaust denialism or anyother ugly and idiotic bile spewed up

at times of crisis.However, as vigilant as we must be

against attempts to direct hatred atJews in Britain or other countries forthe crimes of the Israeli state, so weshould equally reject the lazy andcorrupt allegation by many zioniststhat criticism of Israel equates to anti-semitism.

A corollary to this position is thedemand that Israel should be aboveinternational law.

UN human rights head Navi Pillayinsists that Israel has not done enoughto protect civilians and that there is “astrong possibility that internationallaw has been violated in a mannerthat could amount to war crimes.”

The response of Israeli JusticeMinister Tzipi Livni is simply to blameHamas for civilian deaths and todismiss the UN Human RightsCouncil as “anti-Israel.”

Tel Aviv shows similar disregard forUN declarations that its colonisationof the West Bank contravenesinternational law. It relies on itsinternational media apologists such asthe BBC to add, as a reflex, a rider toevery reference to Jewish settlementson occupied land being illegal, “butIsrael disputes this.”

The Netanyahu government wouldcertainly dispute the IsraeliCommunist Party (CPI) assertion thatthe current slaughter in Gaza is moreabout resolving an internal crisis thanany military threat from Hamas.

The CPI warned recently that thegovernment’s real motivation “wasnever to achieve security for thepeople of Israel but solely to obstructthe Palestinian unity government andabsolve itself from responsibility forthe failure of the peace negotiations.”

The current assault also helps “inkeeping his criminal government intactand it puts all questions of poverty,inequality, racism, sexism anddiscrimination off the table andmarginalises all struggles for socialjustice and democracy.”

Netanyahu’s war cabinet justifiesevery atrocity by citing its need todestroy countless tunnels dug under

the Gaza-Israel border to allowHamas fighters to infiltrate.

How many subterranean attackshave been launched against Israel inthe past year, two years? What arethe casualty figures?

This is another emotive claim,lapped up by imperialist mediaagencies, to portray Israel as underexistential threat.

The previous major concern wasrocket attacks launched from Gaza, asNetanyahu and propaganda bossMark Regev opened their handsasking what else could a state do butrespond to hundreds of missiles beingaimed at its people.

Any attack on a civilian target is awar crime, full stop. 

The Gaza rockets are also militarilyfutile because of the Iron Domedefensive shield, having killed twoIsraeli civilians and one Thai migrantworker. But the Hamas rocketbarrage didn’t come out of the blue.It was in response to the IsraelDefence Force rampage through theWest Bank, killing civilians, wreckingproperty and seizing hostages.

This operation was ostensibly tosearch for three “missing” Israeliteenagers who had reportedly beenkidnapped while hitchhiking on theWest Bank near Hebron.

In reality, the government knew onthe first day that the trio were dead.

One, Gilad Shaar, was told tophone the Israel police and, while theline was open, the kidnappers,unlinked to Hamas, shot them all,saying: “We got three” and singing incelebration.

This ghoulish act was emulated byNetanyahu’s decision to keep themurders secret, even from thevictims’ parents, and to whip uphysteria and cries for vengeance as aprelude to Operation ProtectiveEdge.

Israel’s periodic massacres,especially in Gaza, are designed tocontribute to war psychosis at homeand to convince the world that Israel,though committed to a two-statesolution, is forced constantly todefend itself against rabid enemiesbent on destruction.

In fact, the zionist leadership isintent on completing its West Bankcolonial programme, rendering a two-state solution impossible and offeringPalestinians an apartheid bantustan oreven Native American reservationfuture.

Unless the international communityremoves its blinkers, appreciatesreality and resolves to use peacefuleconomic pressure to push Israel inthe direction of a just settlement,Protective Edge will not be the lastunjustified Israeli slaughter ofPalestinians.

JOHN HAyLETT IS POLITICAL EDITOR OF

THE MORNING STAR AND A MEMBER OF

THE POLITICAL COMMITTEE OF THE

COMMUNIST PARTy

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End the occupation

August 2014www.communist-party.org.uk

Free Gaza

By ROBERT GRIFFITHS

BRITAIN IS becoming oneof the most unequalcountries in the

developed world.Multimillionaires flourish asgrinning government ministerscut the ribbon to open yetanother food bank.Through much of the 20th century,

disparities in income and wealth wereshrinking until shortly beforeThatcher and the Tories took office in1979. Since then, the poverty gap haswidened. Moreover, the installation ofthe unelected Con-Dem coalition in2010 marked a new stage in the rulingclass counter-offensive. In this theyhave been assisted by Labour'sagreement that austerity is necessary.Since the election, as former Bank of

England governor Mervyn Kingpointed out, working class livingstandards have suffered their biggestdecline since the 1920s. Taxes on therich and big business have been cutand prices let rip, as the value ofwages and benefits are driven down.Trade unionism is being underminedand - the central aim of the capitalistoffensive - big business profits aregrowing again. The City bankers and speculators

are back with a bang, gambling on thefinancial and commodities marketswhile refusing to invest in productiveindustry or affordable housing.

Britain’s ‘recovery’ is being built onsand - on inflated property values,consumer debt and public subsidies(including through quantitative easingand PFI) - and will be washed awaywhen the next tidal wave hits us.Already, the EU Commission and

former CBI chief Adair Turner aresounding the alarm, even urging anincrease in the top band of council taxto burst the ‘housing bubble’.Once again, capital values based on

financial and property instruments aregrowing faster than the real value ofdesirable goods and services beingproduced in the real economy. Thus the seeds of a new financial

crisis are being sown. At the sametime, with two-thirds of the austeritycuts still to come, a cyclical downturnin the economy is likely to arrivesooner rather than later, unlessartificially postponed by furtherextensions of credit which store upeven bigger problems for the future.Add in the housing, energy and climatechange crises and the future is far fromrosy.Workers and families across Britain

desperately need not only a change ofgovernment but a change of policy, too.At the moment, next year’s General

Election on May 7 promises neither. Asthe local and EU elections last monthindicated, the Labour Party leadershipis failing to enthuse electors that aLabour victory would deliver economicgrowth, social justice and

environmental security.Yet the conditions are ripe to grip the

popular imagination with popularpolicies. Appeasing the right-wingpress is not going to deflect theMurdochs, Dacre, Desmond or theBarclay brothers from doing everythingto return a government which protectsthe tax-dodge super rich.Instead of parroting the right-wing

agenda on immigration, welfare'scroungers', market flexibility, 'choice'and public sector 'reform', Labourshould stiffen public opinion in favourof renationalising the energy andtransport industries, taxing the richand big business, controlling the City,building affordable housing, scrappingthe PFI rip-off, reversing privatisationof the NHS and schools and extendingworkplace and trade union rights.Allowing the people a say on EU

membership would hardly be a voteloser. In fact, an independent foreignand defence policy for Britain, notbased on nuclear weapons or takingpart in US military expansion andaggression, would be more popular nowthan at any time in the past 65 years.If Labour goes into the General

Election on its current uncritically pro-big business, pro-EU and pro-NATOprogramme, it will either lose to Britishimperialism’s first eleven or - after adispiriting period in office - pave theway for an even more reactionaryregime than the current one.How can the conditions be created to

produce a winning manifesto for May?An upsurge in campaigning with the

People’s Assembly against austerityand privatisation is essential. Publicopinion also needs to be won tosupport coordinated trade union actionto defend living standards, jobs andpublic services.Above all, the labour movement

must try to step up the fight to reclaimthe Labour Party from the opportunists,careerists, elitists and big businessapologists who threw away the biggestparliamentary majority in Britishhistory.Whether that can any longer be done

after the special spring conference, thedebate should spread throughout thetrade unions about how to secure amass party of labour, one capable ofwinning general elections and enactingfar-reaching measures in the interestsof the workers and peoples of England,Scotland and Wales.A stronger, more influential

Communist Party would help ensurethat the wider labour movement makesa militant, thoughtful and strategic

response to thesechallenges.

ROBERT GRIFFITHS IS

GENERAL SECRETARy

OF THE COMMUNIST

PARTy

I want to join the Communist Party/Young Communist League

name

address

post code

age if under 28 email

return to Communist Party Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon CR0 1BD e mail office@communist-party.org.uk or call 02086861659 H Palestine demo 2014

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pamphlet offersa Communistperspective onthe labourmovement, theLabour Partyand the crisis ofworking class

representation. This is acontribution to the debate that'scertain to be ongoing in bothaffiliated and non-affiliated tradeunions in the run up to the 2015general election and beyond.£2 from www.communist-party.org.uk

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Labour’schoice

a new financial crisis or change course for working people

MARWAN BARGHOUTI is a keyunifying figure in Palestinian politics, anelected MP – supposedly withdiplomatic immunity – illegallyarrested by the Israeli military interritory over which it has nojurisdiction and held in prison.

Just nine years old when Israelinvaded the West Bank he became acourageous opponent of Israel’s illegaloccupation of Palestinian land andwas first imprisoned as a schoolboy.He completed his high school diplomain jail.

As the dynamic leader during thefirst 1987 Intifada uprising he waseventually imprisoned and thendeported, only returning to hishomeland following the Oslo peaceaccords.

In the Second Intifada – as Fatah’sWest Bank leader and chief of theTanzim combat organisation –courageously leading massdemonstrations at Israeli controlpoints – he become a target for Israeliassassination squads.

Arrested in April 2002 he was

indicted for murder and attemptedmurder stemming from clashesbetween the Israeli army and the al-Asqua Martyrs’ Brigades andsentenced to 40 years in jail. Herefused to defend himself andchallenged the legitimacy of the Israelicourt.

An international campaign for hisrelease has wide support. But Israelifears his ability to unify Palestiniansociety and strengthen the challengeto its illegal occupation of Palestinianlands.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper wrotethat Barghouti “is seen by some as aPalestinian Nelson Mandela, the manwho could galvanise a drifting anddivided national movement if only hewere set free by Israel.”

In his own words “I still seek peaceful coexistencebetween the equal and independentcountries of Israel and Palestine basedon full withdrawal from Palestinianterritories occupied in 1967.”Washington Post 2002

WITHOUT JUSTICE for thePalestinian people there can be nopeace in the Middle East.

The US gives $70 million dollarsa day in military aid to Israel.

This underpins Israel’s violentflouting of international law, itsillegal settlements and theApartheid Wall that slices throughPalestinian lands.

US, British and EU support forIsrael is a vital element in

imperialism’s strategy to dominatethe Middle East.

Communists support Palestinianresistance to the Israeli occupationand call for the establishment of atwo-state solution which wouldcreate a viable Palestine based onthe 1967 borders, with EastJerusalem as its capital, and a rightof return for refugees incompliance with UN resolution194.

The Communist Party condemnsthe concept of a ‘Jewish state’which threatens the future of the20 per cent of the Israelipopulation who are non-Jews andentrenches Zionist racism.

Communists fully back the TUCcampaign to boycott Israeli goodsfrom illegal settlements and call foran end to British investment inIsrael, the export of arms andmaterials for the construction ofthe Apartheid Wall.

Israel must dismantle its ‘ secret’nuclear weapons capacity.

WHO IS MARWAN BARGHOUTI?