Author: avantipopulo

10th December 2023

Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has levelled entire neighbourhoods and displaced hundreds of thousands.

The third vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was vetoed at the United Nations Security Council on Friday (8^th December) night by the United States, the only vote against the resolution. To its continued shame the British government abstained without speaking.  In spite of the massive ongoing humanitarian need, with UN General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, asserting that, “We are at a breaking point. There is a high risk of a total collapse of the humanitarian system”, NATO powers continue to defer to the line of the Israeli regime that any ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup.

The advent of Israeli ground forces into southern Gaza last week marked a new escalation in the war on the Palestinian people declared by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).  While the stated war aims of the Israeli government are to destroy Hamas the sheer scale of civilian casualties, now over 16,000, along with the displacement of over 1.2 million people means that this is effectively a war against the whole population in Gaza.

Contrary to its vote at the UN even the United States last week called for a more restrained military campaign, following the seven day truce and release of hostages.  However, it is clear that the religious fundamentalists in the Israeli government are off message with their US military paymasters.  Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been categorical in what he sees as the mission of the IDF stating,

“We continue to fight with all our strength until we achieve all our goals; the return of all of our abductees, the elimination of Hamas and the promise that Gaza will never be a threat to Israel again.”

Gaza would never be a ‘threat’ to Israel if the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people were acknowledged and a peaceful solution found, rather than one based upon occupation, intimidation and military force.  The peace option is clearly not on Netanyahu’s agenda.

The coalition which was assembled, following last year’s elections in Israel, saw Netanyahu pledging to expand illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and to eventually annex the West Bank. His religious fundamentalist allies in the coalition reject the establishment of any Palestinian state.

The IDF are now looking to divide Gaza into dozens of numbered blocks then direct civilians into areas that will allegedly not be attacked.  Given the civilian death toll so far the Palestinian population could be forgiven for not following leafletted QR code directions “to track and follow the instructions of the IDF.” 

The stark reality for the people of Gaza is that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the IDF threat.  While the US may cry crocodile tears over its Middle East proxy running out of control it cannot hide the fact that Israel, as the world’s fourth largest military force, is largely bankrolled by Washington.  The US has contributed $3.3 billion to Israel’s military budget this year alone.

The British government is also complicit in the supply of arms to Israel.  British industry provides 15% of the components in the F35 stealth combat aircraft that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza. The contract for the components is estimated by Campaign Against Arms Trade to be worth £336m since 2016.

While the IDF can deploy state of the art missile technology courtesy of the world’s major arms manufacturers, the Palestinians are largely confined to the use of inaccurate home made missiles when they can be smuggled past the Israeli blockade of Gaza and ongoing occupation of the West Bank. 

It is worth remembering that 80% of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees. This is hardly the basis of a threat to the military might of Israel or the existence of the Israeli state.

The scale of the Israeli bombardment has reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble and reduced the health service to being barely able to cope with even the most severe emergencies.  World Health Organisation senior emergency officer, Rob Holden, commenting on healthcare in Gaza recently said,

“There is no standing room.  The floor is awash with blood and patients lying waiting to receive life saving care.”  

The mass displacement of people from the north to the south of Gaza, enforced by the IDF, now means that the population of the south has doubled to over 2 million people.  Save the Children, visiting a shelter in the southern city of Khan Younis, observed that,

“It was designed for 1,000 people but has 35,000 in it.  There are 600 people for every toilet.”

This is the actual reality of the mantra of Western leaders that Israel has ‘the right to defend itself’.   The operations of the IDF in Gaza are not about self defence they are an exercise in extermination, of Hamas it is claimed, but in reality an attempt to extinguish the will of the Palestinian people to assert their right to defend themselves, a right to resist occupation and to uphold the norms of international law.

Demonstrations worldwide continue to make the case for Palestinian rights against the disproportionate response of the Israeli state and to assert, defend and promote the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people under international law.  The call for a ceasefire and the need for a negotiated two state solution to the occupation of Palestine must be addressed by the international community and the crimes of the current Israeli leadership exposed.

3rd December 2023

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – vicious cuts behind the smile

Now that the dust has settled on Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement the realities on the ground are becoming clearer and it is no surprise that it is the poor who will be hit the hardest.  In what is widely regarded as a package which will herald a new wave of austerity, the proposals are likely to see a massive sale of Council assets, Councils being reduced to little more than the delivery of emergency services, Nottingham being the latest to succumb, and the vulnerable being put at greater risk.

While the headlines in the BBC state media and the Tory press have emphasised reductions in tax and national insurance, the reality is that local government, being part of a non-protected government department, will face an annual cut of 3.4% a year for five years.  Even Tory Council leaders are talking of an “existential threat” to local services with one Tory Council leader warning.

“We need to have a recognition that if we aren’t properly funded the rest of the country will fall over.”

Shaun Telford, chair of the Local Government Association, painted a bleak picture of the number of local councils facing financial crisis stating,

“Any suggestion of any further cuts on top of the current deficit and we will see the number of Councils set to go bankrupt rise from one in ten to a significantly higher number.  They’ve done the restructures.  They’ve done the asset sales, they’ve done the staff reduction, they’ve done the service redesign, they’ve done the transformation.  They’ve used the reserves already.  Once those things are gone, they’re gone.”

There is a clear danger that as further austerity bites many local councils will simply not be financially viable, with all of the implications that means for local services upon which many working class communities rely.  While austerity driven cuts have already forced many Councils to cut back or close a wide range of universal services such as arts centres, libraries and sports facilities, current areas under consideration include school meals and adult social care provision.

The care sector is also likely to suffer as a result of government proposals to restrict the health worker visa scheme to exclude care workers, who have been part of the scheme since 2022.   That has seen 123,500 care workers recruited from overseas since the scheme was opened and its demise could force the closure of care facilities, putting even more pressure upon under funded local authorities. 

The government are currently considering restrictions on the number of relatives care workers may bring into the country; a cap on the number of care workers who can be hired from abroad; and changes to the minimum salary overseas workers must be paid, effectively resulting in the exclusion of care workers.

The reality remains that in spite of the Tory dash for votes, with national insurance cuts and the promise of more tax cuts in the pipeline, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is still predicting that the overall tax burden will rise each year to a postwar high of 37.7% of GDP by 2028-29.   The freeze on income tax thresholds alone, including the personal allowance, is expected to drag four million workers into paying income tax in the next five years.

The HMRC estimate that an additional four million people have already started paying tax since 2020, with 1.6 million hitting the higher 40% tax band.

The other side of the tax coin however is the issue of what the government is spending the money on.  While services for the vulnerable in working class communities are in danger of going to the wall the Tories are happy to send weapons to the right wing nationalist government of Ukraine; support Israeli genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza; and commit to the purchase of weapons of mass destruction, by agreeing to the renewal of the US controlled Trident nuclear submarine programme.

Tory government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich should come as no surprise.  The compliance of the Labour leadership however, must be challenged and voters given a real choice at the General Election next year.  While a Labour government in itself is no guarantee of progressive policies, pressure from trades union affiliates and mass extra parliamentary action can be influential in pushing Labour towards acting in the interests of working class communities.

A progressive programme for change which includes sufficient funding for local government; a green investment plan to address the climate emergency; abolition of Trident, withdrawal from NATO and a non-aligned foreign policy; a programme of Council house building with no right to buy; a fully funded NHS free at the point of use; and a return to comprehensive education would be a starting point for demands of an incoming Labour government.  It may not quite amount to socialism, the only real answer to address working class needs, but it would be a step in the right direction.

18^th November 2023

Cameron and Sunak – failed Prime Ministers unite

Not content with having a failed lame duck Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, in 10, Downing St; and two failed Prime Ministers (Theresa May, Liz Truss) on the backbenches; the Tories have now wheeled out failed former Prime Minister, David Cameron, to take on the role of Foreign Secretary. 

Cameron, suddenly elevated to the House of Lords to overnight become Lord Cameron was, alongside his Chancellor George Osborne, the architect of austerity.  In cahoots with the opportunist Liberal Democrats, who propped up the Tory government from 2010-15, Cameron and Osborne launched a vicious attack upon the public sector, slashing services essential to working class communities, piling the pressure upon local government and denying access to university and many further education opportunities to working class children.  

Cameron’s was a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich, typical of all Tory administrations, but one which made sure that the gambling debts, run up in the 2008 financial crash by the City of London speculators, were covered by squeezing the working class while the banks and the corporations got away scot free.

It is ironic to say the least that Sunak’s ploy in reshuffling his Cabinet, sacking right wing xenophobe Suella Braverman and bringing in Cameron, is intended to give it a more liberal hue, an attempt to woo back centrist Tories away from the lure of the Liberal Democrats. 

The reality is that, however the Tory pack is shuffled, the working class will never be dealt a winning hand because the table is rigged and the Tories are being bankrolled by those who own the casino!

Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak have all had the keys to 10, Downing St since 2010 and the lot of the working class has only gone from bad to worse, while the City of London rakes it in and the number of British billionaires increases.  There were 177 billionaires in Britain in 2022, up from 53 in 2010, with a combined wealth of £653bn.

Using inflation-adjusted wealth data from archive copies of the Rich List, the combined wealth of Britain’s billionaires is calculated to have risen from £53.9bn in 1990 to the £653bn level in 2022. This represents an increase in billionaire wealth of over 1,000% over the past 32 years.

By way of contrast recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that 3.8 million people experienced the most extreme form of poverty, destitution, in 2022. That is a 61% increase since 2019. More than 1 million of those affected were children. Many people are struggling to afford the basics to live and rely on charities and food banks to survive.

With an Autumn Statement next week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is already trailing the prospect of squeezing the way in which welfare benefit increases are calculated, in order to create room for some pre-election tax cuts, in a desperate attempt to buy votes.  Meanwhile, many local authorities are facing the prospect of Section 114 notices, meaning that they do not have the cash to fund their statutory obligations and are, in effect, declaring themselves bankrupt and unable to run essential services.

In the world’s sixth richest country the scale of poverty and the slashing of support should be a national scandal.  Instead, the Tories simply engage in sleight of hand politics, creating more complex Mayoral authorities, and giving them back a fraction of the funds robbed from local government in the past fifteen years, under the guise of expanding local control of resources.  Both at a local and national level Labour politicians are complicit in this confidence trick, arguing that having control over some resources is better than none at all.

Meanwhile, queues at food banks continue to get longer, more people are making the ‘lifestyle choice’ to sleep on the streets and working class young people are priced out of the property market, as well as having to expend a huge proportion of their income on renting often substandard accommodation.

The wave of strikes across a range of sectors from rail workers, postal workers, teachers, junior doctors and others over the past year points the way forward for resistance to Tory attacks.  The massive marches across Britain in support of the rights of the Palestinian people in recent weeks are a further indication that the Tory narrative, domestically and internationally, is rejected by huge sections of the population.

The 56 MPs voting for a ceasefire in Gaza this week, in spite of the united front against that view from the Tory and Labour leaderships, not only demonstrates a recognition that the struggle of the working class is an international struggle but that there are still representatives within Parliament who can add their voices to the extra-Parliamentary activity which will be essential for lasting change.  

However Rishi Sunak reshuffles his Cabinet, whatever tricks Jeremy Hunt tries to deploy in his Autumn Statement, nothing can disguise the political bankruptcy of the Tories.  The challenge for the Left is to move the Labour leadership away from its current Tory-lite position and build upon the genuine desire for real change which is evident across the country. 

Labour leader Kier Starmer continues to ignore the warning signs and persists in his strategy of hoping that being acceptable to ‘middle England’ will also keep the working class on board.  As the militant mood in the country continues to grow however, Starmer may yet find himself in for a shock.

12^th November 2023

The people united…thousands marching across Westminster Bridge calling for a ceasefire in Gaza

As thousands once more take to the streets of London to march for peace and call for a ceasefire in Gaza, British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, continues to fuel the fires of conflict by condemning the protests as ‘hate marches.’   Braverman has further suggested that the Metropolitan Police actively favour left wing marches over those of right wing organisations.  Coming from the woman who claims that homeless people living in tents are making a ‘lifestyle choice’ there should be little left to surprise anyone.  Yet Braverman has a habit of pulling something that little bit more mind boggling out of the bag.

The phoney war about the Armistice Day commemoration and the National March for Palestine being on the same day, 11^th November, has rumbled across the TV and print media all week.  The fact that the respective events were some distance and hours apart has not stopped the press and politicians from insisting that the police ensure that there was no disruption to the Armistice Day events, even though there was no threat or likelihood of any disruption taking place.

On the day the only source of aggravation, including 105 arrests, were counter demonstrators from the far right English Defence League and their ilk, the very people Braverman was seeking to protect.  

All of this posturing serves two purposes.  The first, in the undeclared war within the Tory party to succeed lame duck Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, being seen to be tough on ‘radicals’ and left wing protesters plays well to the Tory base.  Throw in the inference that such protesters are likely to be anti-semitic and supporters of Hamas and you are half way to a place on the leadership ballot.

The second is to undermine the just cause and legitimate claim to statehood of the Palestinian people themselves.  It is a familiar trope of the right wing to caricature anyone supporting freedom and democracy as a terrorist.  Nelson Mandela was infamously characterised in this way by the Tories when imprisoned in South Africa.  Many other liberation leaders across the former British Empire have suffered similar demonisation.

The BBC cannot report any atrocity committed by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in Gaza without the qualification that the action is in response to “the killing of 1400 people on 7^th October by Hamas, designated a terrorist organisation by the UK government.”  Rarely, if ever, does the media qualify Palestinian resistance with a phrase indicating it is in response to “nearly 60 years of illegal occupation under international law and countless massacres in the West Bank and Gaza as well as the ongoing illegal blockade by land, sea and air of Gaza, which has been implemented by Israel since 2007.”   

The famous ‘balance’ of the BBC does not stretch quite this far.

Meanwhile the IDF continue to bomb hospitals in Gaza with impunity, massacre men, women and children in refugee camps and carpet bomb the northern half of Gaza into rubble.  The death toll is currently at an estimated 11,000 people, and rising.  Last Friday alone Israel launched air strikes on four hospitals and a school.  It is little wonder that half of the death toll so far are children.

The only ‘concession’ the Israeli state has made is to institute four hour long so called ‘humanitarian pauses’, to encourage people to be herded to the south of Gaza, while the IDF takes the time to re-arm and refuel, ready for the next wave of bombardment.  Terms such as ethnic cleansing and genocide rarely, if ever, pass the lips of the media’s political pundits but how else to describe the actions of the IDF?

Western leaders’ claims that IDF action is justified because Israel has ‘the right to defend itself’ were paper thin to start with.  They can only be seen now as a completely transparent attempt to dodge the hard work of getting down to holding the Israeli regime to account for decades of systematic oppression and the implementation of apartheid laws against the Palestinian people.

However, cracks in the Western edifice are beginning to show under the pressure of public protest.  French President Emmanuel Macron has now joined the call for a ceasefire, saying that Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians, adding that there was “no legitimacy” for the bombing.

Unsurprisingly, in a statement responding to Macron’s comments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that world leaders should be condemning Hamas, and not Israel.

That the Labour Party leadership in Britain, at the instigation of Kier Starmer, should find itself in a less progressive position than a right wing French President on such a key issue of peace and international solidarity is shameful. 

Labour have recently unveiled a PR campaign characterising Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as spineless.  Hard to argue with that.  Yet when it comes to the question of Palestinian rights it is the Labour leadership in general, and Kier Starmer in particular, lacking a backbone.

6^th November 2023

Thousands of people joined the families of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza in a protest held outside Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with senior Israeli officials, Friday, November 3, 2023

Thousands of people joined the families of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza on Friday afternoon to stage a protest outside Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with senior Israeli officials and as the Israeli military continued its massive offensive against in the Strip. The demonstrators blocked Shaul Hamelech Avenue and several protests were be held tonight at the same place and Kaplan Street in Tel-Aviv, in Jerusalem, Haifa, Beer Sheva, Eilat and other cities.

The families of the 241 hostages announced on Friday that they would be protesting indefinitely until their loved ones are returned home. They said they were setting up a tent camp outside the base, which also houses the Defense Ministry. “From the evening until all the abductees return – no one is going home,” according to the families of hostages’ forum. They plan to remain there 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Israeli ground operations in northern Gaza have continued, Friday with troops and tanks reportedly surrounding Gaza city from multiple directions. Further clashes with Palestinian armed groups have taken place, alongside intense bombardments across the Gaza Strip, including in the Middle and southern areas.

Between 2 November (noon) and 3 November (14:00), 196 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, bringing the reported fatality toll since the start of the hostilities to 9,257, including 3,826 children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. On 2 November, seven Israeli soldiers were reportedly killed in Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the start of ground operations to 24.

Nearly 1.5 million people in Gaza are internally displaced. Of them, some 690,000 are sheltering in 149 UNRWA facilities, 122,000 in hospitals, churches, and public buildings, 99,000 in 82 non-UNRWA schools, and the remainder with host families.

Indiscriminate rocket firing by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centres has continued over the past 24 hours with low intensity, resulting in no fatalities. Overall, about 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel, according to the Israeli authorities, the vast majority on the deadly Hamas attack in 7 October. As of 3 November, the names of 1,159 of these fatalities have been released, including 828 civilians. Of those whose ages have been provided, 31 are children.

This article is reproduced from the Communist Party of Israel for more info visit https://maki.org.il/en/

28^th October 2023

Worldwide demonstrations against Israeli violence continue

The Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians continues to gather pace with the relentless bombarding of the Gaza Strip and increasing land based military activity in preparation for a full scale invasion.  The death toll on the Palestinian side is currently nearly 8,000 people, with 3,000 of those dead being children.  While the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) claim not to be targeting civilians, focussing upon their stated objective of rooting out and immobilising Hamas, they are not doing this with any precision, given the unacceptable level of civilian casualties.

As the world’s fourth largest military force, armed with state of the art precision guided missiles supplied by the United States, the IDF are either poorly trained in the use of such technology or they are lying.  Given the level of investment the US has made into ensuring that Israel is fully equipped to be the US proxy in the Middle East, it is hard to believe that training in weapons use would be overlooked.

IDF spokesmen are now seeking to justify targeting hospitals, on the spurious argument that Hamas have weapons and facilities based beneath medical locations, and that this is justifiable under international law.

The discovery of international law is a recent one for the Israelis, who have been ignoring it for decades when it comes to the robbery of land from Palestinians in order to ‘settle’ religious fundamentalists; illegally occupying territory which should form part of a Palestinian state; and undertaking regular killings of Palestinians on the streets and in refugee camps.  The current massacre in Gaza is just the latest in a long line of breeches of international law which the Israelis routinely flout.

When United Nations General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, this week suggested that it was “important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”, going on to add that “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”, the Israelis expressed outrage and called for his resignation.

When Guterres suggested that Palestinians had “seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished”, Israeli outrage turned to apoplexy.  Yet every word of Guterres’ statement is true.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, suggested that “Hamas are the new Nazis,” adding that, “Just as the civilised world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the civilised world united to defeat Islamic State, the civilised world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas.”

Cohen did not outline how the ongoing massacre of civilians, the rejection of a ceasefire, the refusal to supply fuel to hospitals and other public facilities in Gaza, or the order for all civilians in the north of Gaza to move south, were reasons for the so called “civilised world” to stand united behind Israel.  

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a major resolution on the Gaza crisis, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”  The breakdown of the recorded vote, included 120 members in favour and 14 against, with 45 abstentions.  To the shame of Britain, the position adopted by the Tories was to abstain, while not surprisingly the United States and Israel were amongst the 14 voting against.

While General Assembly votes are not binding upon member states the vote nevertheless shows that the balance of international opinion is not in favour of the Israeli action.  Within the EU it was notable that while Germany, Italy and Netherlands abstained, France and Ireland voted in favour of the resolution.

The UN resolution called for rescinding of the order by Israel, “the occupying Power”, for Palestinian civilians, UN staff and humanitarian workers to evacuate all areas in the Gaza Strip north of Wadi Gaza and relocate to the south.

The General Assembly also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of all civilians being illegally held captive, demanding their safety, well-being and humane treatment in compliance with international law.

It also reaffirmed that a “just and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be achieved by peaceful means, based on the relevant UN resolutions and in accordance with international law, and on the basis of the two-State solution.

Given the growing international consensus in favour of a ceasefire in the present conflict, and the need for a two-State solution to the crisis longer term, the supine position of the Labour leadership in Britain, toeing the Tory line that “Israel has the right to defend itself”, is becoming more untenable by the day.

While the majority supporting Palestinian rights do not endorse the Hamas action of 7^th October, the almost 60 year long abuse of the human rights of Palestinians by the apartheid Israeli state must be weighed in the balance when the wider picture is considered.  Labour must come down more firmly in defence of Palestinian rights and assert the rights of the Palestinian people, suffering under Israeli occupation, to defend themselves.

From the beginning of 2023 up to 6^th October, the day before the offensive from Gaza began, Israeli forces had killed 240 Palestinians including 45 children, the highest level of killing since the UN began to keep accurate records in 2005. 

As Palestine Solidarity Campaign point out,

“Gaza, with a population of over 2 million – of whom 50% are children – has been subjected to an Israeli-imposed blockade for the last 16 years. This collective punishment of an entire population is in absolute defiance of international law. It is worth remembering that 80% of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees. “

Demonstrations in London and other major cities in Britain and worldwide continue to make the case for Palestinian rights and against the disproportionate response of the Israeli state to the Hamas action.  Further action as endorsed and encouraged by Palestine Solidarity Campaign can be found here https://palestinecampaign.org/emergency-response-2023/

22^nd October 2023

US President Joe Biden – pledging unwavering support for Israel

The foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East was further exposed as unashamedly partisan this week with the visit of President Joe Biden to Israel.  The outcome of Biden’s visit was twofold.  Widely proclaimed across Western press and media was the negotiated agreement to allow a convoy of twenty aid trucks into Gaza from Egypt.  The fact that this represented a mere 5% of the needs of Palestinians in Gaza was conveniently unreported.

Also flying under the media radar was the deal struck with the Israelis to further weaponise the world’s fourth largest military, by providing even more arms to Israel.  Wrapped in a request to Congress to approve a further $105 billion in weaponry for Israel and Ukraine, is an allocation of $40 billion to Israel alone.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that,

“..these conflicts can seem far away, but the outcome of these fights for democracy against terrorism and tyranny are vital to the safety and security of the American people.”

With 4,000 Palestinians already killed in the Israeli response to attacks by Hamas last week, and an imminent Israeli ground offensive, which is likely to see that number increase significantly, it is difficult to see how the ongoing massacre can be justified in the name of the American people.  Maybe Sullivan meant, in the interests of US political and economic control in the region or in the interests of re-asserting US military superiority?

The US has form in this regard, with disastrous consequences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria so it can come as no surprise that the Palestinian people are not likely to greet US declarations with open arms.  Israeli ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, provided an even more cavalier response this week in relation to the question of civilian casualties, pointed to the bombing of Dresden in WW2 to justify the fact that civilian casualties were inevitable in wars.  The comparison was more apt than Hotovely may have realised, as the bombing of Dresden is widely regarded by many as a war crime.

The dangers of escalation are underlined by the warning from Iran that it may be compelled to intervene if Israel launches a ground offensive against Gaza.  While the positioning of US naval assets in recent days is a clear signal to Iran to back off, the struggling Islamic dictatorship may have its own reasons for being seen to engage against Israel.

Facing a wave of protests at home, and clinging on to a diminishing support base, the Iranian theocracy may well see a foreign adventure as a means by which it can unite the population in a common cause.  The extent to which the dictatorship has alienated large sections of the population however, make this a high risk strategy, and any Iranian intervention in Gaza may only precipitate foreign intervention in Iran itself, with a view to installing a more US friendly regime in Tehran.     

In any event such an escalation risks the stakes being raised to an alarming level as the increasing co-operation that Iran is building with both Russia and China is unlikely see those powers sitting idly by, thus drawing more players into a potential downward spiral of Middle East conflict.

In Britain the House of Commons, at least on its front benches, has been unified in the mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself”, with both Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and Labour leader, Kier Starmer, putting this above the rights of the Palestinian people, as enshrined in international law and UN resolutions, or indeed the rights of occupied people to resist the aggression of their occupiers.

Voices of reason, such as that of Richard Burgon MP, who echoed the call of the United Nations for a ceasefire and a negotiated process to de-escalate the conflict, were met with mutterings of ‘disgraceful’ from the Tory benches.

However, mass demonstrations in London, other European capitals, Washington and across the Arab world, in defence of Palestinian rights, have shown that the Israeli position does not enjoy universal support.  Inside Israel even members of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, are being sanctioned for speaking out against the polices of the religious fundamentalist government of Benjamin Netanyahu.  

Ofer Cassif, an Israeli parliamentarian who warned last week that an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians was underway at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), has been expelled from the Knesset.

That body’s Ethics Committee expelled Cassif from all sessions and meetings of the legislature for 45 days. The expulsion came in response to a series of critical interviews with the media in which Cassif criticised the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for its war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Cassif is a leading member of the Communist Party of Israel and has represented the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) coalition in the Knesset since 2019. He is Jewish but has long been an opponent of Zionism, calling it a “racist ideology and practice which espouses Jewish supremacy.”  In April 2021, he was beaten by Israeli police when protesting illegal evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

The coalition which was assembled, following last year’s elections in Israel, saw Netanyahu pledging to expand illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and to eventually annex the West Bank. His religious fundamentalist allies in the coalition reject the establishment of any Palestinian state.

With the possibility of a pre-emptive Israeli strike against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon by no means off the table, the possibility of significant escalation still looms.  Pressure upon Western governments and the Israelis to agree a ceasefire must be increased if further slaughter is to be avoided.

It will also be necessary for the international community to stop pussyfooting and take a stronger line with Israel, regarding its international responsibilities and the need for a two state solution if progress is to be made.  As well as external pressure, support for opposition voices in Israel, not aligned with the current fundamentalist regime, will be vital to move toward a genuine solution which recognises the rights of both the Palestinian and the Israeli people, based upon mutual respect and peaceful co-existence.

14^th October 2023

Thousands protest in London against Israeli atrocities in Gaza

Last weekend’s assault and killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip by Hamas was a response to the pent up anger of many Palestinians, frustrated by the illegal Israeli air, land and sea blockade, imposed in 2007, and the 57 year long illegal occupation by Israeli forces.  The tactics deployed by Hamas by no means have the backing of all Palestinians but the events of last weekend were triggered following a week in which Israeli ‘settlers’ ran amok throughout the occupied territories under the auspices of their government, desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque and carried out another pogrom in Huwara.

The Communist Party of Israel and Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) have made clear their condemnation of the Israeli government and the ongoing provocations against the Palestinian people expressing,

 “…deep concern about the use of recent developments by the Netanyahu government to carry out a vengeful attack on the Gaza Strip and call on the international community and the countries of the region to intervene immediately to silence the drums of war and initiate moves that will lead to the promotion of a political solution.”

Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, ordered “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip” last Monday in response to the Hamas action.  Gallant went on to say that,

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.  We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

The Gaza Strip is home to 2.2 million Palestinians and has regularly been described as the world’s largest open air prison.  The collective punishment of the civilian population, as ordered by the Israelis is a war crime under international law.  The massive bombing campaign which has been ongoing throughout this week has not only flattened residential areas but has hit a densely populated refugee camp.

Hospitals are reported to have used a month’s worth of supplies in one day and are overwhelmed by the number of casualties.

The Israeli army is the fourth most powerful in the world.  As the Community Party of the USA has pointed out,

“The U.S. government is the main contributor to Israel’s military budget to the tune of $3.3 billion this year alone and also bears responsibility for the escalation. Adding to the danger and the region’s instability, the U.S. continues to broker unprincipled alliances and economic agreements between Israel’s reactionary anti-democratic apartheid-like state on one side, and the right-wing Arab monarchies on the other. The repressive political regimes of these two sets of states mirror one another. Their machinations undercut the Palestinian struggle for human rights and political sovereignty while bolstering U.S. political, economic and military supremacy in the region.”

The United States is reported to have moved naval assets into the Mediterranean to support the Israeli military.  British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, spoke with Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, earlier in the week while Foreign Secretary, James Cleverley, visited Israel to confirm British government support for the right wing, religious fundamentalist, Israeli regime.

The outcome of the Sunak/Netanyahu call was a pledge from the British government to send a significant military package to the Israeli regime, including RAF surveillance aircraft, two Royal Navy ships to patrol in the Eastern Mediterranean, three Merlin helicopters and a detachment of Royal Marines. 

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has pledged an “unwavering focus on halting the attacks by Hamas” while saying nothing about Israel’s ongoing flouting of international law and its declared intention to commit further war crimes.  Likewise, the British government has made no comment on the ongoing atrocities committed against the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, its illegal occupation or its ongoing contempt for United Nations resolutions and international law.

Israel’s military on Friday ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region that is home to 1.1 million people, about half of the territory’s population, within 24 hours.  Many fear that this could signal an impending ground offensive. While the Israeli military has not yet confirmed a decision on this, raids have been undertaken by the Israeli Defence Force within Gaza.

The evacuation order, delivered to the United Nations was regarded by UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric as “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”  The order for all of the north of Gaza also applies to all UN staff and to the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken shelter in UN schools and other facilities since Israel launched round-the-clock air strikes last Saturday.

The UN is already reporting nearly 3,000 homes destroyed and nearly 1 million people, almost half of the population of the Gaza strip, displaced. These people have nowhere safe to go if Israel continues with its bombardment and launches a ground invasion.

Israel claims to have dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza, an area roughly the size of the Isle of Wight, in the initial six days of its campaign.  So far over 2,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza with over 8,700 wounded.  That figure includes those fleeing to the south of Gaza following the Israeli announcement to ethnically cleanse the north.

Labour leader, Kier Starmer, has defended the ‘right’ of the Israeli regime to cut off water and electricity supplies to the population under perpetual bombardment in Gaza stating,

“I think that Israel does have that right, it is an ongoing situation, obviously everything should be done within international law but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has the right to defend herself.”

As a former human rights lawyer Starmer failed to elaborate on how collective punishment methods, such as the withdrawal of water supplies to a large urban area, could be done within international law.

A number of local councils in Britain have taken to flying the flag of Israel over civic buildings in misplaced demonstrations of ‘solidarity’, though none appear to be flying the flag of Palestine, as the right of Israel to defend itself appears not to extend in the same way to the Palestinians.

The mainstream media coverage is overwhelmingly pro-Israeli, with coverage of the Palestinian position reduced to exhortations to condemn Hamas, or the growing humanitarian crisis.  There is no attempt to analyse the underlying causes of Israeli occupation and failure to adhere to international law and UN resolutions.

A national demonstration in London on 14^th October, organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War amongst others, has attracted thousands in opposition to the immediate violence and the ongoing apartheid practices of the Israeli regime.  Responses are being organised across Britian in support of the Palestinian cause and must be supported in order to support the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and condemn the Israeli regime.

The often heard diversion that opposition to the religious fundamentalists running the Israeli government is anti-semitic or a trope for anti-semitism must be rejected.  A political solution to the situation in Israel/Palestine is the only way forward and that must see both communities being able to live together without one being occupied or terrorised by another. 

7^th October 2023

Labour leader Keir Starmer has said he will honour the oil and gas licences granted by the Tories

Labour activists will gather in Liverpool this weekend with the boost of a victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton by election, doubling Labour’s parliamentary representation in Scotland from one to two seats.  While this has certainly generated buoyancy in the Labour leadership the result does not necessarily mean a groundswell in Labour votes amongst the Scottish working class.  If anything, the 37.2% turnout, down from over 65% in 2019, suggests that there is still a huge undecided cohort of voters to play for.  In spite of this result Labour is still far from a shoo in at the next General Election.

Labour’s retreat from championing the needs of Scotland’s working class has been a key feature of its dwindling support for decades, pushing many voters into the arms of the nationalist Scottish National Party (SNP), always ready with the illusion of the lure of independence as the promised land of prosperity.

Labour’s chances in Scotland have been enhanced, not so much by the leadership taking a stand in favour of workers’ rights, but on the recent implosion of the SNP.  This followed the resignation of erstwhile leader, Nicola Sturgeon; the police investigation into finances, under the control of Sturgeon and her SNP Chief Executive husband, Peter Murrell; and the less than enthusiastic reception accorded new SNP leader, Humza Yousaf, from sections of the party.

Like the opportunity created by the implosion of the Tories across Britain, Labour is staring into an open goal in Scotland and a tap in should ensure it a substantial increase in the number of seats in the House of Commons in 2024, potentially making a decisive contribution to the election of a Labour government.

Speeches on the conference floor and on the fringes in Liverpool will no doubt reflect this mood of optimism but Labour’s retreat from key position in recent weeks will give many cause for concern that an already weak programme will be diluted further in the election manifesto.

On the question of private schools for example, Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves was quite emphatic in 2021, stating,

“Here’s the truth: private schools are not charities. And so we will end that exemption and put that money straight into our state schools.  That is what a Labour government will do.”

However, only two weeks ago, in the face of outcry from the private school sector, the Labour leadership said it no longer needed to end the charitable status of private schools to achieve its policy of charging 20% VAT on fees and ending business rates relief in England.

The Labour leadership had previously shown little backbone following Tory leader Rishi Sunak’s revision of green policies, by pushing back the ban on the production of new petrol and diesel car production from 2030 to 2035.  While Labour has supported the original position, consistent with achieving net zero carbon targets by 2050, it wobbled following Sunak’s announcements and claimed it would not reverse it if elected.

At the same time, the announcement of the development of the Rosebank oilfield, one of the biggest new oil and gas projects in years, saw further Labour equivocation.  Earlier in the year Labour shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, attacked the Rosebank oil field proposal as a “colossal waste of taxpayer money and climate vandalism.”   

Immediately following the announcement however Labour leader, Kier Starmer, was on the airwaves stating that “…as a matter of principle we will accept the baseline that we inherit from the government if we win that election … in order to ensure we have the stability that we desperately need in our economy.”

All of which casts some doubt on the firmness of Angela Rayner’s “cast iron commitment”, as articulated in a speech at the TUC conference in Liverpool in September, to push through an employment rights bill within 100 days of entering office if the General Election is won by Labour. 

Rayner also promised the repeal of Tory anti-trade union minimum service levels legislation, which requires minimum levels of service during a strike, characterising it as a “spiteful and bitter attack that threatens nurses with the sack”.  Labour’s New Deal for Working People would include protections against unfair dismissal, a ban on zero-hour contracts, more flexible working and ending fire and rehire. 

Labour still effectively takes the Tory whip on key foreign policy issues, such as Trident nuclear submarine replacement; fuelling the war in Ukraine; demonising China; and defending foreign interventions in general, as part of the NATO military alliance.

Left leaning delegates will have their work cut out over the weekend to make any headway on getting more progressive policy positions passed, let alone have any chance of them making a Labour manifesto.  The current right wing grip on candidate selection and policy development will ensure that, if the outcome of a General Election is a Labour victory, it will be led by a Cabinet shaped in Kier Starmer’s image.  

Should that come about the honeymoon will no doubt be short lived, as workers realise that Labour is not delivering for them, that the profits crisis that threatens workers cost of living is not resolved, and that the climate emergency is not being tackled with sufficient vigour.

The challenge to keep the Red Flag flying, “while cowards flinch and traitors sneer” will continue to be real and require both pressure upon representatives in Parliament, and mass extra parliamentary action, if any semblance of benefit for the working class is to emerge from a Labour government.