11/3/2023 Israel Wants Either an Apartheid State or an Ethnic Cleansing Process, Both Crimes Under International Law. By: Vijay PrashadRead NowOn October 30, 2023, Israeli authorities said that they had killed “dozens” of Hamas fighters in the first days of their ground invasion. Meanwhile, Gaza’s Ministry of Health has struggled to keep its website online given the lack of electricity, internet, and attacks. Nonetheless, at noon on October 29, the Ministry of Health said that the death toll in Gaza is now 8,005 (of which 67 percent are women and children). For those who doubt the numbers, the Ministry of Health has been releasing lists of the dead with their Israeli identification numbers (it is a sign of the occupation of the Palestinians of Gaza that when they are born, they must be registered not by the Palestinian Authority but by Israel). Save the Children says that more children (3,195) have been killed by Israeli bombing over these three weeks than have been killed in total across all conflict zones since 2019. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that by Sunday the 29th, 1.4 million Palestinians out of 2.3 million were internally displaced, with 671,000 taking shelter in 150 UNRWA facilities. Most of the dead by Israeli bombs and tank shells have been civilians. The ratio of dead between combatants (few) and civilians (many) is startling, far beyond what takes place in a war (in contrast, of the 1,400 Israelis killed on October 7 by Hamas and other factions, 48.4 percent were soldiers). By saying that they have killed “dozens” of Hamas militants—the purported target—and having at the same time killed thousands of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities have admitted to the world that their war has resulted in far more civilian deaths than combatant deaths. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has sent its bulldozers to destroy homes and businesses in northern Gaza as well as in the West Bank city of Jenin. Little in this maneuver looks like a military operation since these homes and businesses are not military institutions. Given the history of the bulldozing of housing in the West Bank to create settlements and the “apartheid wall,” this bulldozing in Gaza and Jenin appears like a massive civilizational campaign of ethnic cleansing to create what the Israeli political class calls Greater Israel (Eretz Yisrael Hashlema). The Israeli political class is famous for saying that they want to change the “facts on the ground” so that any negotiations with the occupied Palestinians are based on those “facts” and not on “claims.” This is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been doing for decades through illegal settlements in the West Bank: erasing the fact of Palestinian claims on their land and establishing the right of Israelis to the entire landmass from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Effectively, the Israeli political class appears to be using the conflict that began on October 7 as the pretext to do what it had planned to do for decades, namely, to erase Palestinians from historical Palestine and to erase the Palestinian nation as an entity. Two-State, One-State, Three-State When Palestinian political forces agreed to a “peace process” that resulted in the Cairo Interim Agreement (1994) and the Oslo Accords (1994), it adopted what was known as the “two-state solution” to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The basic outline of the Oslo Accords was that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would govern the territory seized by Israel in 1967 (East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank). The Oslo Accords, argued Gaza-based Professor Haider Eid, created a “Bantustan” (such as the “African homelands” created by apartheid South Africa). The implication of the establishment of the PA was that it would neuter actual Palestinian claims to the land (including the right of return of Palestinian refugees, established by UN resolution 194 in 1948), and—at the same time—it would allow the Israeli state to change the “facts on the ground” by the creation of more and more illegal settlements. Furthermore, after the Second Intifada (2000-2005), Israel cut off the “safe passage” requirement of Oslo that allowed Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank to travel across these zones. By 2005, Israel had annulled the Oslo Accords, although the Palestinian political class remained bound by them as the only sliver of hope for the establishment of the state of Palestine (even if it would be a small fragment of historical Palestine). The reality of the “two-state solution” disappeared as the settlements increased in the West Bank, as Palestinian control over East Jerusalem was increasingly absorbed by Israel, as the right to return was set aside, and as Gaza was bombed almost every year. In that context, several important Palestinian intellectuals began to raise the question of the “one-state solution,” with one Israeli-Palestinian state based on a non-ethnic, secular, and democratic idea of citizenship. By 2021, a majority of scholars of the region said that the actual facts show Israel to be “a one-state reality akin to apartheid.” The idea that Israel is an apartheid state is now well-established in United Nations documents and human rights reports. This assessment demonstrates two things: first, that Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory are already “one state” and second, that it is an apartheid state with the Palestinians in a second-class category. Advocates of the “one-state solution” argue that the reality of a singular state now requires equal citizenship for all who live in Israel/Palestine. The current Israeli political class refuses to accept the idea of a democratic and secular one-state, because they are wedded to an ethno-nationalist project of a “Jewish State” that erases the possibility of full citizenship for Palestinian Christians and Muslims. If the “two-state solution” is no longer practical and if the “one-state solution” is blocked by the Israeli political class, then all that remains for Netanyahu and others is the “three-state solution.” This is the solution that seeks to remove large parts of the Palestinian population from East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and perhaps even from within Israel’s 1948 lines and send them to the three states of Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. The bulldozers coming behind the tanks in Gaza are attempting to push the Palestinian refugees (70 percent of them are descendants of those sent to Gaza in the Nakba or Catastrophe of 1948) through the Rafah Crossing into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. This “three-state solution” is precisely ethnic cleansing, a crime under international law. For decades, the Israeli political class has been willing to conduct genocidal policies—including this bombardment of Gaza—to facilitate its ethno-national, apartheid state project that requires the erasure of Palestinians and Palestine. In 2014, in the aftermath of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into the situation in Palestine. Nothing much came of this investigation. During this current attack on Gaza, the prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan went to the Rafah Crossing and said that Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza may be a crime under ICC jurisdiction. Indeed, the fact of apartheid is already a crime under the 2002 Rome Statute that created the ICC. Both the “one-state reality akin to apartheid” and the “three-state solution” of ethnic cleansing are serious crimes that require investigation. Will Khan ask the judges of the ICC to frame arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues? Author Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. This article was produced by Globetrotter. Archives November 2023
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This article was Co-published with the Hampton Institute. Western leftists often explain socialism as an extension of democratic values. Across professional spheres, this belief is propagated by some of the most popular figures in our movement. For instance, the acclaimed academic Noam Chomsky described socialism as “an extension of democracy into the social sphere.” Jacobin, the largest socialist publication in the United States, has published writers who explain the Soviet Union’s shortcomings as a natural byproduct of its “rotten foundations of authoritarianism.” Even the controversial NATO-aligned streamer Vaush claimed that the Soviet Union was not socialist because “[d]emocracy is necessary under socialism.” But this view leads to misguided conclusions. One of which is the condemnation of all revolutions that do not occur at the ballot box. Under “socialism as democracy,” any societal transformation not voted upon by the majority is undemocratic and therefore not socialist. History provides ample reason to doubt this supposition. Indeed, there is a long and illustrious history of progressive coups that all leftists should embrace. And this shows that revolutionaries should be open to a multiplicity of approaches to building socialism in our lifetimes. For instance, the legendary pan-African Marxist Thomas Sankara never campaigned to become the president of Burkina Faso. Rather, he seized state power from within the military. Though he was assassinated in a (likely French-backed) counter-coup only four years later, he made immense strides in concretely improving the living standards of the masses in Burkina Faso. Under his direction, Burkina Faso achieved self-sufficiency in food production and vaccinated 2.5 million people (60% percent of the total population), raising the national vaccination rate from 17% to 77%. Literacy rates exploded from just 13% to 73% in less than five years. Additionally, he spearheaded the “One Village, One Grove” policy in Burkina Faso, spurring a grassroots mobilization of tree planting that added 10 million trees to Burkina Faso to combat desertification. But Sankara’s legacy is not limited to agricultural, medical, educational, and environmental victories. He was also a staunch, outspoken feminist. As a Marxist, Sankara saw clearly how patriarchy was reinforced by the capitalist mode of production, and understood that the liberation of women was an inherent component of destroying capitalism. To that end, he prohibited female genital mutilation and forced marriage, amended the Constitution to guarantee female representation in the Cabinet, and ensured the Ministry of Education would protect women’s access to education. Few, if any leaders have achieved a fraction of what Sakara was able to do for Burkina Faso and Africa more broadly. Why should we temper our support for him because he came to power undemocratically? His “authoritarian” seizure of the state is precisely what enabled him to achieve so much in such a short time. Nobody can contest that his government was undoubtedly progressive and, as materialists, we are bound to support progressive developments regardless of how “purely” these developments come to fruition. Our sole obligation is to liberate the working masses, and therefore we must uplift Sankara’s legacy. Sankara is far from the only progressive leader who improved the lives of the masses through a revolutionary coup. In 1968, General Juan Velasco Alvarado seized power in a bloodless revolution and won substantial gains for the Peruvian proletariat — most notably, his large-scale campaign of industrial nationalization and redistribution of agricultural land to over 300,000 families. Velasco also sought to free Peru from the extractive influence of Western multinationals by nationalizing a wide array of vital industries including telecommunications, energy (such as the International Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil), fisheries, and even American copper mines. His reforms were planned by the leading socialist intellectuals of the time. Velasco’s nationalization policies were among the most radical in Western hemisphere. His expropriation of the landed oligarchy was second only to Cuba’s. Velasco stands as a powerful example of the rapid progress that follows determined socialist leadership. Across the Atlantic, in 1974, a group of left-leaning Portuguese military officers known as the Armed Forces Movement toppled the fascist Estado Novo regime in a military coup known as the Carnation Revolution, directly leading to the liberation of Portuguese colonies. The Portuguese regime had spent over a decade fighting the unpopular Portuguese Overseas War to maintain their colonial possessions in Africa, sacrificing thousands of their own young men in the process. Only after the Carnation Revolution could the anti-war will of the people be realized. Who can rebuke such a direct improvement in the lives of both the Portuguese and colonized proletarians? Why should we jump to condemn this movement for its “lack” of democratic purity? One consistent trigger to these progressive coups is a capitalist sociopolitical system that is most capable of subverting revolutionary struggle in the Global South and against hyper-exploited minorities in the imperial core, because it has the full weight of Western capital pitted against the poorest and most oppressed workers. This can leave revolutionaries with almost no practical solutions to advance material conditions outside of a progressive coup. As Marxists, we should not celebrate the liberal-democratic dogma that our oppressors use to subjugate us. In the American context, the black liberation struggle provides us with a multitude of revolutionaries who clearly articulated this predicament. For instance, both Malcom X and Chairman Fred Hampton realized that capitalist liberal democracies were directly responsible for the invention of racism and held no qualms about using any means necessary to restore dignity for the colored and working masses of the United States. Malcolm X most clearly indicated his indifference toward liberal morality in his famous speech ‘The Ballot or the Bullet.’ Throughout his delivery, he referred to those who myopically emphasized non-violent tactics as “chumps.” Challenging the legitimacy of the American political system, he exclaimed, “Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the freedom of 22 million Afro-Americans and still has the audacity to call himself the leader of the free world.” X was widely known for his criticism of establishment civil rights leaders, lambasting them for advocating purely non-violent struggle against an exceedingly violent enemy. He correctly reminds his audience that “liberty or death is what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English.” Here, he implicitly asks the question: Why should we rigidly confine our movement to liberal tactics? Any listener would ascertain that Malcom firmly believed in the legitimacy of armed struggle if it were to liberate the African American masses. In this speech he positively references the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and the Vietnamese anti-colonial revolution as justified reactions to an oppressive system, contrasting them with the impotent yet palatable strategies that have consistently failed to ensure a semblance of material equality to black Americans. Chairman Fred Hampton similarly had no issue with waging class struggle outside of democratic norms. In his speech “It’s a Class Struggle, Goddamnit!,” Hampton positively references the non-electoral victories of the Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, and the then-ongoing anti-colonial revolutions in Mozambique and Angola. The speech is replete with defenses of armed struggle against capitalist and imperialist forces of reaction. Hampton explicitly reminds his audience that despite one’s “revolutionary” aesthetic preferences, “political power doesn’t flow from the sleeve of a dashiki… [it] flows from the barrel of a gun.” While direct armed struggle was not the only revolutionary strategy that Hampton advocated for, clearly he and the Black Panther Party scoffed at notions of ideological purity that stood in the way of proletarian victory. They would surely reject the Western socialist notion that proletarian struggle should be confined to the ballot box. While many on the Left love to uplift the Black Panther Party’s illustrious history of revolutionary struggle and associate their own movements with it, apparently few have spent time studying Hampton’s own words. These widely lauded revolutionaries provide insights our movement can and should apply to the present. Since 2020, a wave of progressive coups has swept across Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon. Seizing power from compradore governments, revolutionary juntas in the Sahel have deposed “democratic” leaders who have done nothing but facilitate and exacerbate the extractive neo-colonial relations keeping this resource-rich region in a state of destitution. These revolutionary movements realize Africa cannot utilize its vast resources until it neutralizes the influence of western capital, and recognize that liberal democracy often facilitates these interests at the expense of the African proletariat. In the West, we are told repeatedly that Africa, particularly West Africa, is poor and underdeveloped. While it is true that this region is underdeveloped, it is undeniable that it is also one of the most resource rich regions on the planet. Some of the highest quality uranium in the world is located in Niger, but ironically its largest uranium mine is mostly owned by the French state while 90% of Niger’s population has no access to electricity. In 2010, Niger exported €3.5 billion worth of uranium to France, but only received €459 million in return. Similarly, in Gabon the vast majority of the country’s crude oil is sold abroad. For example, crude oil accounts for 96% of Gabon’s total exports to the United States. This is due to their neocolonial economy having no incentive to build adequate refinery infrastructure, leaving the value of their most profitable export at the whim of Western financial speculators. Coup leaders like Burkina Faso’s president Ibrahim Traore have recognized that their countries face “the most barbaric form, the most violent manifestation, of neocolonialism and imperialism”. At the Russia-Africa Summit this past summer, Traore articulated how “African heads of state must stop acting like marionettes who dance each time the imperialists pull on our strings”. When the neocolonial alliance ECOWAS threatened military intervention in Niger to restore deposed president Mohamed Bazoum, the revolutionary juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso jointly declared “Any military intervention against Niger would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali.” A bloc of anti-imperial resistance has clearly blossomed in the Sahel, a movement Thomas Sankara laid the groundwork for. While Western imperialists attempt to destroy Sankara's vision, the popular support for these revolutionary coups demonstrates that the spirit of Sankara is alive and well in West Africa. The collection of anti-colonial movements across the Sahel are justified and deserve our support. We should not oppose them merely because they defy the dogma that power must change hands electorally. The reality is that, as leftists, we must support any movement seriously dedicated to eradicating extractive neo-colonial systems. And that is the case whether or not it adheres perfectly to Western liberal-democratic ideals, or any other pretentious sense of purity that needlessly prohibits us from supporting anti-imperialist struggles wherever and however they arise. Author Yohan Smalls is a socialist thinker analyzing liberal contradictions in the Western Left. Archives October 2023 10/30/2023 Let the whole world speak out against Israel's savagery against the Palestinian people. By: Rabi Sankar BosuRead NowExactly 75 years ago in 1948, the whole world watched in horror as millions of Palestinians fled their homes due to the Zionist Israeli aggression. According to the United Nations figures, Zionists have carried out massacres, 530 Palestinian villages were wiped off from the world map and 957,000 have lost their homes and become refugees living in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, resulting in a devastating "Nakba" (Arabic word meaning "catastrophe"). The inhuman savagery of the Israeli occupying forces against the Palestinian people has come out again and again in successive sessions of the UN. On May 15 this year, the UN for the first time officially commemorated the 75th anniversary of the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" in memory of Palestinian citizens who lost their homes under Israeli occupation. The Second "Nakba" is on the Palestinian people 75 years later, the 1948 "Nakba" has been rekindled in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. But who is responsible for the ongoing brutal aggression in the Gaza Strip? The answer is America's best friend in the Middle East, Israel, which continues to control everything in Gaza by daily killings of Palestinian children and civilians, and the construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. The U.S. administration has long supported Israel, “the baby child of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East”, fueling its genocidal efforts against the Palestinians, resulting in oppression and persecution. Launching "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" Since the dawn of October 7, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), founded in 1988, has attacked southern Israel in three ways - air, water and land by breaking through Israel's "Iron Dome" air defense system, launching "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" in reaction to the Zionist regime’s rising tide of violence against Palestinians. Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas military) Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Al-Deif in an audio speech urged all Palestinians to confront Israeli occupation. Obviously, even if Hamas launched the attack this time, Israel has invaded Palestine thousands of times over the past 75 years. The beginning of "Operation Iron Swords" Following Hamas' surprise attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a "long and difficult war" on Hamas on October 8 in response to its 9/11 attack, marking the start of "Operation Iron Swords". Since then, Israel has been killing unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, with UNICEF reporting deaths of at least 2,360 Palestinian children and 5,364 injuries in Gaza in the past 18 days. Unfortunately, the U.S. and the West have given Israel the green signal to continue this genocide. The question is whether the unarmed children were creating any kind of threat to the state of Israel or its citizens? Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza hospital- an unspeakable shame On October 17, the atrocities committed by the bloodthirsty Israeli occupation forces by carrying out airstrikes on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing more than 600 Palestinian people, including refugees, patients and media personnel, has shocked the civilized world. Undoubtedly, the targeted attack by the Zionist forces on the Baptist Hospital is a war crime and a flagrant act of dehumanization of the Palestinian people. Quite reasonably, Osama Hamdan, the representative of Hamas in Lebanon, affirmed on October 18 that the Gaza hospital massacre was “a heinous fascist crime committed by Israeli forces and sponsored by the U.S. government”, according to a report by Beirut-based media channel, Al Mayadeen. Many peace-loving countries around the world demanded PM Netanyahu should be held accountable for the nefarious Israeli airstrike on the hospital. Unfortunately, the way Israel and its Western backers have attempted to whitewash Israeli bomb and artillery attacks on Palestinians in Gaza or some parts of Lebanon in the name of self-defense is an unspeakable shame. Needless to say, Israel's bombing of civilians in Gaza goes beyond self-defense. The dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza Following Hamas' attack, Israel's blockade of Gaza is causing a humanitarian disaster. The Israeli army is committing crimes against humanity by cutting off water, gas, electricity, and food supplies to 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip. Israel has threatened a ground attack on Gaza, asking 1.1 million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Many countries around the world, including the UN and the World Health Organization, have condemned Israel's actions and warned of “catastrophic consequences” if Israel does not stop its killing machine. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, warning that the region is "on the brink of an abyss". US 'rock solid' support for Israeli atrocities against Palestinians The ongoing Israel-Hamas war has polarized the world, with the U.S. and its Western allies including India condemning Hamas attacks on Israel and supporting Israel's declaration of war. U.S. President Joe Biden assured ‘rock solid’ support for Israel which continues its blatant atrocities against the Palestinians. During his meeting with PM Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 18, Biden reaffirmed that Washington would provide Israel with everything it needed to defend itself. The United States has already deployed warships and aircraft to the Eastern Mediterranean to provide strength and capability to Israel. It is certain that the U.S. is complicit in Israel's crimes against the helpless people of Gaza by sending billions of dollars worth of lethal weapons to the Zionist regime. Quite reasonably, many Arab Americans are upset Biden’s Israel stance before the 2024 election. Biden's push for more than $14 billion in new aid to Israel has angered Arab and Muslim Americans. Modi's unwavering support for Israel sparks debate The iconic leader of the Indian Independence Movement Mahatma Gandhi himself supported an independent Palestine. “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English, or France to the French,” he wrote in an article on November 26, 1938. But in a significant departure from India's longstanding policy of diplomatic balance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 7 assured his Israeli counterpart Netanyahu of Indian solidarity in order to preserve his government’s geopolitical interests in the Arab World. Describing the entire incident as a 'terrorist attack', he wrote on the X handle, "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour". However, the invasion of “Modi-ally” Netanyahu's forces in Gaza has again created differences in Indian politics. India's opposition parties, including the Congress Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), have criticized Prime Minister Modi and extended their support for the oppressed Palestinian people. It is very unfortunate that India, which has always advocated Palestine's demand for independence and sovereignty, now the ruling Modi government is now taking the side of Israel without considering the root cause of the issue Israel’s occupation politics Hamas, despite being referred to as a terrorist organization by the U.S. administration, is actually politically and socially intertwined with Palestinian society. The reality is that Israel is an occupying state. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its roots in the occupation politics of the Zionist state. In 1948, the State of Israel was created for the Jews to pave the way for American occupation in West Asia. Israel has not accepted UN Resolution 181 on the establishment of the State of Palestine and UN Resolution 194 on the return of Palestinian refugees. The people of Palestine have been besieged by Israeli occupation forces for years. Support for the oppressed Palestinians Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas bloody conflict, most of the countries around the world, in particular, Middle East countries like Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Syria and other Arab countries have expressed unequivocal support for the oppressed Palestinians and condemned the brutality of the occupying Israelis against innocent Palestinians. In “solidarity” with Hamas, the Lebanese Islamic Resistance, Hezbollah, attacked several Israeli-occupied military sites including Lebanese Shebaa Farms with guided missiles and mortar shells. During a mass rally in Beirut on October 13, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem confirmed the Lebanese Resistance's readiness and monitoring the progress of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, according to a report by Al Mayadeen. On October 21, Hezbollah Executive Council Chief Sayyed Hashem Safieddine emphasized the readiness of the Resistance to confront the Israeli occupation on all fronts. “The Future in Gaza is made by the Resistance,” he concluded. China’s position on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict On the other hand, China’s position on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict needs to be highlighted: On October 15, during his telephonic conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, urging Israel to avoid collective punishment of the Gaza people. It should be noted here that Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2023. China was one of the first countries to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine, and has all along firmly supported the Palestinian people's just cause of restoring their legitimate national rights, and has worked for a comprehensive, just and durable solution of the Palestinian question at an early date. China first recognized Palestine in 1988, stemming from its support of anti-colonial movements. While President Biden and other Western leaders have emphasized U.S. support for Israel, President Xi Jinping has reiterated that the establishment of “an independent state of Palestine” through a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly in Beijing on October 19. In a phone conversation with Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on October 23, Wang Yi firmly said that Israel has a choice between war and peace. Hamas's rebellion echoes the dream of a Palestinian state While Israel tries to legitimize its genocidal attacks against Palestinians, the reality is that the Hamas uprising is a legitimate, self-defensive, oppressed people's violence against the 75-year-old murderous occupation of apartheid Israel. No matter how much the Western world tries to call Hamas' Al-Aqsa Flood Operation against Israel as a “terror attack”, behind this operation lies the right of the Palestinians to defend their legitimate national rights - the dream of the Palestinian people to live safely in their homeland. Massacring innocent Palestinian people As a result of the ongoing armed conflict, the loss of innocent civilian lives is increasing day by day. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people around the world wave Palestinian flags to protest Israel's brutal repression of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It is really unknown how many more innocent Palestinian lives will be lost in Israel's bullet-bomb? By the 17th day of the conflict on October 24, Palestinian casualties had risen to more than 5,800 and 70 percent of the dead were women and children. On October 18, Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has rightly pointed out that the Zionist regime is only accelerating its downfall by killing innocent Palestinian women and children in besieged Gaza. “Every drop of Palestinian blood brings the Zionists closer to downfall, and the Zionist regime cannot compensate for its defeats with these atrocities,” Raeisi said On the other hand, during the open debate on the Middle East situation of the UN on October 24, the head of Vietnam’s Mission to the UN, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang expressed Vietnam’s concern over the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza Strip. He said, “It is necessary to stop activities that incite more violence and hatred between the two sides, stop the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the destruction of homes and the expulsion of Palestinians, and respect the status quo of holy sites in Jerusalem,” according to a VNA report on October 25, 2023. Forced expulsion of Palestinians from their land is unjust and illegal Although the UN adopted a resolution to establish an “independent State of Palestine" alongside Israel in Arab territory, it is unfortunate that neither the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation nor the 22-member Arab League played any meaningful role in establishing an independent State of Palestine in the last 75 years. At the Cairo Peace Summit on October 21, Jordan’s King Abdullah II noted in his opening speech that the forced or internal displacement of Palestinians would be a war crime. In his speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas emphasized that Palestinians cannot be forcibly removed from their land. “We will never accept relocation, we will remain on our land whatever the challenges,” he said, adding, “We also oppose the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem.” However, it can be said that the Cairo Summit failed to achieve a solution - to reduce the violence in the Gaza Strip due to the division between the West and the Arab world. Western leaders voiced their support for Israel's military operation in Gaza to eliminate Hamas, while Arab countries sought a strong statement from the West to condemn the heavy casualties among Palestinian civilians caused by Israel's bombardment of Gaza. The way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis The mountain of violence, racism and brutal genocide that Israel has been inflicting on Palestinians for decades needs to stop immediately. It is expected that the whole world will roar in protest to stop the ongoing aggression and bloodshed committed by the Zionist Israel in the Gaza Strip which has become an open-air prison while insisting on an immediate ceasefire. As on October 24, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. "The first step must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saving the lives of civilians through the delivery of prompt and effective humanitarian aid," he said. The international community, especially the UN, should take swift action to stop Israeli brutality in Gaza, and all countries should work together through dialogue and diplomacy to establish a sovereign, independent and viable state for Palestine, living within secure and recognized borders, in peace with Israel that can lead to a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Author Rabi Sankar Bosu, founder of New Horizon Radio Listeners’ Club, an independent think-tank on global affairs based in West Bengal, India, is an Indian analyst and commentator on global affairs Archives October 2023 The crimes of German fascism are of a magnitude so enormous that they are almost difficult to comprehend. Without question the most heinous in its breadth was the Holocaust, the systematic attempt by the Nazi regime to annihilate the Jewish people that ultimately led to the mass murder of around two-thirds of the European Jewish population. It is only correct that today’s German state would see itself as having a historic responsibility towards Jews, both at home and abroad. This point should be indisputable. However, there are divergent positions on what the nature of this responsibility should entail. For the modern German state, being responsible means seeing the State of Israel as the primary representative of the Jewish people. It means muting any serious criticism towards Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Germany refuses to retrospectively assess how the country was established through ethnic cleansing, and certainly doesn’t actively challenge today’s status quo in which an system of occupation and apartheid prevails. That solidarity with the self-professed Jewish state today goes beyond placing Israeli flags outside of official government buildings, where they have flown in the aftermath of October 7. It also explains why it was inevitable that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would end up in Tel Aviv just over a week later to express his condolences and offer an increase in military support, saying Germany’s place in hard times was “by Israel’s side”. The German state’s notion of “Never Again Ever” means ensuring Israel’s stability and security as a Jewish homeland. It sees expressions of anti-Zionism as inherently anti-Semitic. Contrary to this view espoused by the German government is that Israel does not necessarily represent the Jewish people. This perspective either holds that Zionism as an ideology is inherently racist and rooted in settler-colonialism, or at the very least that the State of Israel today is an entity that engages in dispossession and brutal oppression of the Palestinian people. This view places a distinction between critique of the Israeli state and anti-Semitism. This position allows Jews themselves a sense of agency in being able to choose to either support Israel’s actions, or to stand firmly against the crimes that are carried out in their name. For those who agree with the latter, it means “Never Again Ever” applies equally to all scenarios that take on genocidal proportions, not merely to those claiming to safeguard the Jewish people. Tough Times Opposing War Crimes in Berlin These are difficult times in Berlin if standing up for Palestinian liberation – or even simply international law – are on your agenda. Just after the bombs began being rained down on Gaza, Bernie Sanders visited Berlin to great fanfare. However, not pleased with his presence was the Social Democratic Party’s co-leader Saskia Esken, who cancelled an appearance alongside him. Why? Because he had the nerve to make a simple, humanitarian statement: “The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it.” Apparently, Sanders – perhaps the most famous Jewish political figure in the western world - was displaying anti-Semitism by aligning with the Geneva Convention. Demonstrations in support of Palestine, or those merely calling for a humanitarian pause or ceasefire, have been banned. In the German mainstream media, these protests have been billed as the work of “Hamas lovers” or “Jew haters.” In some cases, protests are literally banned minutes before they are set to begin, when hundreds have already assembled. When it comes to calling out war crimes, the German state has decided that the right to assembly that is enshrined in the country’s Basic Law can simply be ignored. A cursory look at these illegal demonstrations over the last two weeks reveals that many Jewish organisations have also endorsed and actively participated in them, among them the Jewish Bund and Juedische Stimme. In fact, police have hauled off Jewish activists and arrested them, because Jews are not granted the agency to espouse their positions. For those who are Palestinian, the ban on demonstrations by Berlin’s authorities means a complete targeting of their identity. When a German police officer arrests somebody for wearing a kuffiyeh, or schools in the capital ban the Palestinian scarf, they are saying the Palestinian identity is that of a terrorist. Palestinians are being threatened with deportation if they are proven to be supporters of Hamas, but also Samidoun - the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network associated with the Palestinian left (both organisations have now been banned). This means the possibility of Palestinians being uprooted not once (from their historic homeland), but twice (now from Germany). The Other Germany and the Palestine Liberation Organisation Although Germany’s post-war history has been shaped by attempts to deal with the crimes of the Nazi regime, this hasn’t always meant that German state entities have taken the view that the current state does towards Israel. The history of the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, offers a very different perspective. First off, it’s necessary to understand that the GDR was created principally as an anti-fascist state, something that was considered even more important than the construction of socialism. Its top priority was indeed “Never Again Ever,” which is why a much more robust de-Nazification process happened there than it did in the western part of the country. The new Federal Republic of Germany set up by the U.S., Britain and France became a country where Nazi ideologues were not only allowed to join the government, but were actively sought out for participation in the Cold War. On the other side, much of East Germany’s leadership knew first-hand what is felt like to be hounded and targeted by the Nazis – we should remember that the first concentration camps, after all, were set up for communists, and that they were accused of being part of the global “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy”. In 1948, the newly created Socialist Unity Party that was operating in the Soviet occupation zone that would become East Germany the next year, backed the creation of Israel, saying "We consider the foundation of a Jewish state an essential contribution enabling thousands of people who suffered greatly under Hitler’s fascism to build a new life". Once it became clear that the new Israeli state was actually a reactionary entity that refused the right of return for the 700,000 refugees it had created, and enacted martial law against the Palestinians who remained, the SED leadership changed its tune. It reverted to the position long-held by the communist movement in regards to Zionism, which is that it was an expression of a reactionary, bourgeois nationalism that always sought the patronage of colonial and imperialism powers. In 1973, the GDR set up official relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation of Yasser Arafar. That same year, it had supplied Syria with weaponry for use in the Yom Kippur War against Israel. In 1975, East Germany voted in favor of a UN resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. It is not merely coincidental that the PLO was supported by East Germany at the same time that another crucial liberation movement against minority rule, that of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, was also being given support from East Germany. The battle against apartheid was inextricably linked by the East German leadership to that of opposing settler colonialism in Palestine. This was all happening at the same time that West Germany held deep relations with the racist South African government, branding those who rebelled against this rule as “terrorists” - just as the Palestinians are referred to today. Given the similarities in their struggles, it’s no small wonder why Nelson Mandela once proclaimed upon the end of apartheid that, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” This history of the rival German states that existed for 40 years shows that there was no consensus on the question of whether Zionism could be seen as representing the legitimate aspirations of Jews as a whole. Germany’s Dual Responsibility It should be evident that today’s Germany has in fact not learned the lessons of history. It’s selective application of “Never Again Ever” is symbolic, but ultimately meaningless. It is complicit in Israeli war crimes, and those who espouse anti-fascist politics have a responsibility to stand against it. To fight against anti-Semitism should also mean fighting against imperialism, colonialism, and all forms of racial discrimination. As the creation of Israel was agreed to by world powers against the backdrop of Nazi Germany’s attempt at exterminating the Jewish people, this means that the consequences – including the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab masses from what became Israel – should also be laid at Germany’s feet. It means that not only does Germany have a responsibility to the Jewish people – it also has a responsibility towards the Palestinian people. Simply put, Palestinians should not have to suffer for the crimes of Hitlerite fascism, whether at home or here in Germany. Author Marcel Cartier is a critically acclaimed hip-hop artist, journalist, and the author of two books on the Kurdish liberation movement, including 2019’s Serkeftin: A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution, which was one of the first full accounts in English of the civil and political structures set up in northern Syria after 2012. Archives October 2023 Driving along the Jordan River Valley in the Occupied Palestine Territory (OPT) of the West Bank is a stunning experience. The road is officially called Highway 90. The arable and irrigated land along this road is held militarily and illegally by Israeli settlers, many of whom are not actually Israeli citizens, but residents from the Jewish diaspora. A United Nations Commission report published in 2022 showed that this settlement activity is a crime against international human rights law (transfer of population into an occupied territory). Israeli settlers and the Israeli military that defend them call Highway 90 Derekh Gandhi or Gandhi’s Road. When I first drove along that road over a decade ago, I was puzzled by Gandhi’s name there. Mahatma Gandhi was a leader of the Indian freedom struggle, and had on many occasions—such as in his 1938 article, “The Jews”—offered his sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people. In fact, the road that slices through the West Bank—a crucial part of a proposed Palestinian state—is named after Rehavam Ze’evi, who was ironically given the nickname Gandhi. Ze’evi led the National Union party, which brought together all the most dangerous currents of Israeli far-right politics. As the leader of this party, and, before that, of Moledet, Ze’evi advocated the removal of Palestinians from what he considered to be Israel’s land (East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank). He supported the creation of Eretz Yisrael that would stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In March 2001, Ze’evi—who would later be accused of sexual harassment and of being involved in organized crime--told The Guardian that “it’s not murder to get rid of potential terrorists, or those who have blood on their hands. Each one eliminated is one less terrorist for us to fight.” A few months later, Ze’evi showed that he did not distinguish among Palestinians, calling all of them a “cancer” and saying, “I believe there is no place for two peoples in our country. Palestinians are like lice. You have to take them out like lice.” He was shot to death by fighters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in October 2001. The name of the road that cuts across the West Bank—promised to a Palestinian state in the Oslo Accords of 1993—still bears Ze’evi’s name. Ze’evi was assassinated by PFLP fighters because the Israeli army had killed their leader Mustafa Ali Zibri by firing two cruise missiles at his home in Al-Bireh (Palestine). The assassination of Zibri was not an isolated incident. It was part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to “cause the collapse” of the Palestinian Authority—created to manage the Oslo Accords—and “send them all to hell.” Apart from the murder of civilians on a punctual basis, from July 2001 the Israeli government killed four political leaders (Islamic Jihad leader Salah Darwazeh and Hamas leader Jamal Mansour in July, and then Hamas leader Amer Mansour Habiri and Fatah leader Emad Abu Sneineh in August). After the killing of Zibri, the Israelis assassinated Hamas’s Mahmoud Abu Hanoud in November. “Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation,” wrote military correspondent Alex Fishman in Yediot Ahronot, “knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman’s agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line [Israel’s pre-1967 borders].” Hot Violence, Cold Violence For centuries, Palestinian Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side-by-side in the lands that would eventually be Israel and the OPT, including along the Jordan River Valley. Since the expulsion of the Palestinian Christians and Muslims and the arrival of European Jews, the legal apparatus—or the “cold violence,” as the writer Teju Cole calls it—worked alongside paramilitary and military violence against the Palestinians to create a fantasy of an ethno-nationalist state project (the Jewish State, as it was then called). The erasure of the non-Jewish Palestinians was key to this project, either by massacres (Deir Yassin in 1948) or the wholesale removal of the Palestinian population from their land (the Nakba of 1948). The massacres and the population transfers came alongside the denial of the reality of Palestine and the Palestinian people. The heir to Ze’evi, current finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said this March, “There’s no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people.” This is not an opinion that can be dismissed as a far-right rant. Likud member Ofir Akunis, minister of science and technology, said three years ago, “There’s no place for any formula to establish a Palestinian state in Western Israel.” The phrase “Western Israel” is a chilling statement about the Israeli consensus on full annexation of the West Bank with disregard for international law. A focus on Gaza is essential. The Israeli “hot violence” is extreme, with the death toll of Palestinians—almost half of them in Gaza of children—over 5,000. The Israeli land invasion has been blocked, for now, by the recognition of high morale among the Palestinian resistance. The latter will fight every Israeli soldier that goes into the ruins of Gaza. Before this Israeli incursion, 450 trucks crossed into Gaza with supplies for the 2.3 million residents; it was taken as a victory when nine United Nations trucks and 11 trucks of the Egyptian Red Crescent crossed into Gaza on October 21. Amnesty International looked at only five bombings of the Israelis and found evidence of war crimes, which should alert the International Criminal Court to re-open its file on Israeli atrocities. This should include the crime of collective punishment by cutting water and electricity to Gaza, and bombing access roads to the Rafah crossing into Egypt, and by bombing the Rafah crossing itself. Large demonstrations across the world demand a ceasefire (at a minimum) and an end to the occupation. Israel is not interested. Its defense minister Yoav Gallant told parliament that his forces have a three-point plan—to destroy Hamas, to destroy the other Palestinian factions, and to create a new “security regime” in Gaza. The Palestinian people—not just the armed factions—are resolute in their resistance to Israeli occupation. The only way for Gallant’s new “security regime” to work would be to erase this resistance, which means to remove all Palestinians from Gaza either by massacres or by dispossession. The United States is following along with this extermination plan: a U.S. State Department memorandum says that its diplomats must not use phrases such as “de-escalation,” “ceasefire,” “end to violence,” “end to bloodshed,” and “restoring calm.” Author Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. This article was produced by Globetrotter. Archives October 2023 Who knows how many Palestinian civilians will be killed by the time this report is published? Among the bodies that cannot be taken to a hospital or a morgue, because there will be no petrol or electricity, will be large numbers of children. They will have hidden in their homes, listening to the sound of the Israeli F-16 bombers coming closer and closer, the explosions advancing toward them like a swarm of red ants on the chase. They will have covered their ears with their hands, crouched with their parents in their darkened living rooms, waiting, waiting for the inevitable bomb to strike their home. By the time the rescue workers get to them under the mountains of rubble, their bodies would have become unrecognizable, their families weeping as familiar clothing or household goods are excavated. Such is the torment of the Palestinians who live in Gaza. A friend of mine in Gaza who has a 17-year-old child told me on the first night of this recent spell of Israeli bombing that his child has lived through at least ten major Israeli assaults on the Palestinians in Gaza. As we spoke, we made a list of some of the wars we could remember (because these are Israel’s wars, we are using the Israeli army names for their attacks on Gaza):
Each of these attacks pulverizes the minimal infrastructure that remains intact in Gaza and hits the Palestinian civilians very hard. Civilian deaths and casualties are recorded by the Health Ministry in Gaza but disregarded by the Israelis and their Western enablers. As the current bombing intensified, journalist Muhammad Smiry said, “We might not survive this time.” Smiry’s worry is not isolated. Each time Israel sends in its fighter jets and missiles, the death and destruction are of an unimaginable proportion. This time, with a full-scale invasion, the destruction will be at a scale not previously witnessed. The Ruin of Gaza Gaza is a ruin populated by nearly two million people. After Israel’s horrific 2014 bombardment of Gaza, the United Nations reported that “people are literally sleeping amongst the rubble; children have died of hypothermia.” A variation of this sentence has been written after each of these bombings and will be written when this one finally comes to an end. In 2004, Israel’s National Security Director Giora Eiland said that Gaza is a “huge concentration camp.” This “huge concentration camp” was erected in 1948 when the newly created Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing policy removed Palestinians into refugee camps, including in Gaza. Two years later, Israeli intelligence reported that the refugees in Gaza had been “condemned to utter extinction.” That judgment has not altered in the intervening 73 years. Despite the formal withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops in 2005, Israel remains the occupying power over the region by sealing off the land and sea borders of the Gaza Strip. Israel decides what enters Gaza and uses that power to throttle the people periodically. Politicide When the Palestinians in Gaza tried to elect their own leadership in January 2006, Hamas—formed in the first Intifada (Uprising) of 1987 in Gaza—won the election. The victory of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use armed force to overthrow the election results. Operation Summer Rains and Operation Autumn Clouds introduced the Palestinians to a new dynamic: punctual bombardment as collective punishment for electing Hamas in the legislative elections. Gaza was never allowed a political process, in fact, never allowed to shape any kind of political authority to speak for the people. Israel has tried with force to eradicate Gaza’s political life and to force the people into a situation where the armed conflict becomes permanent. When the Palestinians conducted a non-violent Great March of Return in 2019, the Israeli army responded with brute force that killed two hundred people. When a non-violent protest is met with force, it becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take up arms. As this conflict takes on the air of permanency, the frustration of Palestinian politics moves away from the impossibility of negotiations to the necessity of armed violence. No other avenue is left open. Palestine’s political leadership has been either tethered by the European Union and the United States and so been removed from popular aspirations or—if it continues to mirror those aspirations—it has been sent to one of Israel’s many, harsh prisons (four of 10 Palestinian men are in or have been in prison, while the leaders of most of the left parties spend long periods there under “administrative detention” orders). Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has argued that the Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has resulted in “politicide,” the deliberate destruction of Palestinian political processes. The only road left open is armed struggle. Indeed, by international law, armed struggle against an occupying power is not illegal. There are many international conventions and United Nations resolutions that affirm the right of self-determination: these include, Additional Protocol 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (1974), and UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 (1982). The 1982 resolution “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” You could not have a stronger statement that provides legal sanction for armed struggle against an illegal occupation. Why does Hamas attack Israel? Because a political grammar has been imposed on the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis by the nature of the Israeli occupation. Indeed, any time there is a modest development for talks—often brokered by Qatar—between Hamas and the Israeli government, those talks are silenced by the sound of Israeli fighter jets. War Crimes Each time these Israeli fighter jets hammer Gaza, leaders of Western countries line up metronomically to announce that they “stand with Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This last statement—about Israel having the right to defend itself—is legally erroneous. In 1967, Israeli forces crossed the 1948 Israeli “green lines” and seized East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 sought the “withdrawal of [Israeli] armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The use of the term “occupied” is not innocent. Article 42 of the Hague Regulations (1907) states that a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.” The Fourth Geneva Convention obliges the occupying power to be responsible for the welfare of those who have been occupied, most of the obligations violated by the Israeli government. In fact, as far as Gaza has been concerned since 2005, Israeli high officials have not used the language of self-defense. They have spoken in the language of collective punishment. In the lead-up to the ongoing bombing, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have decided to halt electricity, fuel, and goods transfer to Gaza.” His Defense Minister Yoav Gallant followed up, saying, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Then, Israel’s Energy Minister Israel Katz said, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.” Having followed up on these threats, they have sealed Gaza—including by bombing the Rafah crossing to Egypt—and closed down the lives of two million people. In the language of the Geneva Conventions, this is “collective punishment,” which constitutes a war crime. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but was not able to move forward even to collect information. The children huddle in their rooms waiting for the bombs sit in the dark because there is no electricity and wait—with parched throats and hungry bellies—for the end. After the 2014 Israeli bombardment, Umm Amjad Shalah spoke of her 10-year-old son Salman. The boy would not let his mother go, being in terror of the noise of the explosions and the death around him. “Sometimes he screams so loudly,” she says. “It almost sounds like he’s laughing loudly.” Author Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. This article was produced by Globetrotter. Archives October 2023 Naomi Klein’s article “Why are some of the left celebrating the killings of Israeli Jews?” is a ragbag of liberal rhetoric. Some unspecified leftists are criticized for celebrating the anti-Jew violence of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. By minimizing the massacre of Israeli civilians, these leftists are said to be fueling the sense of insecurity among Jews that drives Zionist settler-colonialism. Klein desires for “[a]n international left rooted in values that side with the child over the gun every single time, no matter whose gun and no matter whose child.” She calls this position “moral consistency,” in contrast to “moral equivalency”. While the latter erases the difference between the occupier and the occupied, the former preserves such a material distinction even as it holds onto universal moral standards. The reporter responsible for popularizing the news that Hamas has beheaded 40 children has herself revealed its baselessness. In fact, various field commanders have insisted on not killing the elderly and children. Apart from Klein’s willingness to believe in atrocity propaganda, what stands out is her lip-service to condemning the occupation. Once you have acknowledged the existence of settler-colonialism, you can’t go on talking about abstractions called “child” and “gun”. In Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza strip, violence needs to be examined as a product of historical circumstances, not as violations of a pre-existing moral standard. Klein says that “we all have to figure out how to make it [Israeli war crimes] stop.” Palestinians and their supporters did try to figure it out. They started the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which was criminalized by the US and its European partners as “anti-Semitic”. Thus, it failed to have any sizeable impact upon government and corporate policies. Nonviolent demonstrations and gatherings at the Israeli separation barrier, which were organized by young protesters in the beginning of 2023 and were previously referred to as the “Great March of Return” in 2018-19, have been brutally suppressed by Israeli forces. The strategy of peacefully appealing to the Jewish support base of Zionism has failed. Hebh Jamal writes: “There has not been success in changing the perception of the Israeli public – to actually see us as humans and to accept we will not live in a cage. Whenever Israelis have an election, we brace ourselves because we know the only way you get polling numbers is by bombing, raiding, or arresting us senseless. Usually, when they bang the war drums, public support comes running. I am unsure how the colonized mind will decolonize itself to give us our freedom. It has not happened, and I don’t think it ever will.” By panicking over the violence of the Palestinian Resistance, Klein is asking Palestinians to keep trying to persuade a ruthless colonial master. For Israel, Palestinians are not a subject to be rationally argued with but a dehumanized object to be dominated. Operation Al-Aqsa flood reversed this structural hierarchy as Palestinians took the first step in dismantling colonialism. In the words of Haider Eid: “Instead of waiting for Israel’s “generosity” when it decides, through mediators, to open one of the seven gates of the largest open-air prisons on earth, the inmates – having learned from the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 – decided to bring it down themselves.” Does the above mean that no moral standards apply in the war of national liberation? Quite the opposite. For Palestine, violence is a strict historical necessity imposed upon them by the extreme circumstances of Zionist settler-colonialism. For Israel, violence is an innate structuring principle necessary for oiling the mechanisms of apartheid. This is the moral standard that is present before our eyes. Klein is trying to peddle liberal sensibilities in a situation that demands the moral exactitude of unconditional decolonization. Author Yanis Iqbal is an independent researcher and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India and can be contacted at yanisiqbal@gmail.com. His articles have been published in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and several countries of Latin America. Archives October 2023 10/10/2023 The US Left Must Unwaveringly Stand for Palestinian Freedom. By: Carlos L. GarridoRead NowThe US “socialist” left currently playing the bothsides-ism game with Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the name of some bullshit notion of ‘nuance,’ must remember the words of Howard Zinn: “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.” Nothing is accomplished with an abstract support of Palestine when it’s convenient. It is when the empire’s ideological apparatuses are pumping out atrocity propaganda to dehumanize Palestinian anti-colonial resistance that support for Palestinian freedom struggles count. The recent events have shown who is willing to stand for Palestine in the concrete, when the people grab arms to throw off their occupying force. “Decolonization,” as the great Frantz Fanon noted, “is always a violent phenomenon.” If your purity fetish requests a bloodless anti-colonial revolution, you’ll be doomed to always condemning freedom movements of colonized peoples. You’ll be chained to playing the role of the defenders of empire from the ‘left’. Your ‘siding’ with the oppressed will always be conditioned by their being oppressed; you’ll be with them only insofar as they’re the victim, but never when they fight back and become an emancipatory force. The Western left’s treatment of violence, like everything else, is abstract. It is unable to distinguish between particular forms of violence, between the ever-present violence of the oppressor, and the emancipatory violence of the oppressed. As Maximillien Robespierre noted, to equate the violence of the people’s struggle for freedom to the violence of their exploitative and oppressive rulers is as folly and empty as saying that “the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed.” The key issue here is violence by whom, against whom, and towards what ends. The Palestinian uprising is a legitimate, self-defensive, violence of a people against an apartheid occupational state. It is the violence of the colonized, against the colonizers, for freedom. It is a violence that has been taken up as the last resort in a long struggle against Zionist colonialism. It is the only route the colonizers have left for Palestinians to fight for their freedom. Violence, as Fidel Castro noted, is the route the oppressors force on the people, it is taken up when all other means of struggle have been exhausted. We must remember the words of Paulo Frieri, “Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed.” But their struggle for freedom is not limited to Palestinians. A defeat of Israel, the US empire’s outpost in the so-called Middle East - the “baby child of imperialism in the Middle East” as Kwame Ture said - would be a victory for all of humanity. A defeat of empire in any corner of the earth, as Che Guevara noted, must be celebrated cheerfully by every communist, every person driven by a deep love of humanity. The imperialists hate humanity; their capitalist system undermines, as Marx had noted, the “original sources of all wealth – the soil and the worker.” The Palestinian struggle against the racist Israeli colonial US-outpost is a struggle for humanity - for the exploited and oppressed across the earth. It is a struggle for life, a struggle against the Israeli imperialist death machine. Paradoxically, a Palestinian victory would be the conditions for the possibility of current Israeli settlers experiencing real freedom. As the Peruvian indigenous politician Dionisio Yupanqui says in his 1810 speech to the Cortes de Cádiz, “a people that oppresses another cannot be free.” The Israeli settlers cannot be free, cannot experience genuine human autonomy, insofar as their existence necessitates the oppression and extermination of Palestinian people. In their oppression of the Palestinian they stifle their capacity to live fully human lives. As Plato had long ago noted, injustice against an other corrupts the soul; the worst evil we can be inflicted with is that which we do to ourselves when we harm others. A society predicated on such disdain and obliteration of its “other” destroys itself from within. Like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, Israel’s sins against the Palestinians are making a monstrosity out of the soul of its people. Palestinian freedom must be acquired, in the words of Malcolm X, “by any means necessary.” A victorious Palestinian struggle is in the interests of all of humanity - of all working and oppressed peoples of the world. US socialists must stand, as some comrades have been doing, with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. We must push back against Zionist genocidal efforts, and those echoed by our morally hollow capitalist politicians. It is difficult to imagine that Israeli intelligence was truly caught by surprise. It is plausible to suspect that they have allowing events to play out so that they may intensify their genocidal war against Palestine while using atrocity propaganda to legitimize their efforts. This does not change, however, the fact that Palestinians are up in arms fighting for their freedom. Neither does it change the fact that, like all hubris-filled Goliaths, this apartheid-colonial state – as we currently know it – may fall. Humanity sees itself in the struggle of the Palestinians. Because this great humanity has said: Enough! and has started walking. And their march of giants will no longer stop until they achieve true independence, for which they have already died more than once in vain. Now, in any case, those who will die, will die like those of Cuba, those of Playa Girón, will die for their only, true, inalienable independence! – Che Guevara Author Carlos L. Garrido is a philosophy teacher at Southern Illinois University, Director at the Midwestern Marx Institute, and author of The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (2023), Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview (2022), and Hegel, Marxism, and Dialectics (Forthcoming 2024). Archives October 2023 10/10/2023 A decade of BRI development transforms China's Xinjiang region into a core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt. By: Li Xuanmin in Urumqi and HorgosRead NowOn Sunday morning, workers were harvesting grapes on farmland in Yining county in Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The freshly-picked fruit was then uploaded onto a truck, headed to Kazakhstan via highway, and within six hours, it would be delivered to the Kazakhstani market and sold to the local consumers. "It used to take two to three days to ship goods from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan, but the time has been reduced to only half a day since the development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), under which connectivity has been facilitated and the efficiency of customs clearance has been largely improved," Yu Chengzhong, chairman of Horgos Jinyi International Trade Co, told the Global Times. Yu's company is growing quickly thanks to fruit exports from Xinjiang, including apples, nectarines, grapes, peppers, tomatoes, prunes and cucumbers to markets in Central Asia, Russia, and Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam. It is expected that the company's export value to Central Asia could climb up to $1.2 billion this year, almost doubling from $683 million recorded last year. As business expands, the company is now constructing a 500,000-square-meter overseas warehouse in Alma-Ata in southern Kazakhstan, and it is scheduled to be put into use in October 2024. "It will be built into a distribution center covering other Central Asian countries and Russia. We will also set up an exhibition area for China-produced vehicles, as those autos have been gaining popularity in those markets," Yu added Yu's company is one among the thousands of firms in Xinjiang whose businesses have been taking off under the BRI. As the China-proposed BRI being materialized over the past decade, Xinjiang - which sits at China's westernmost frontier bordering eight countries including Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - has been transformed from a relatively closed inland region to a frontier of opening-up. As an important node along the BRI, the region, leveraging its strategic location, has built up an overarching rail, road and flight transportation network that not only fosters closer trade and economic ties with Central Asia and Europe, but also shapes itself into a bridgehead for westward opening-up, company representatives and local officials noted. "What we felt most during the past 10 years is that Xinjiang is no longer a remote region, but it is now becoming a core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt. We're a pivotal international logistic hub placed at the Asia-Europe 'golden passage.' And the region is set to be designated with more important missions in the country's further opening-up," Zhao Yi, general manager assistant at International Land Port in Urumqi, told the Global Times. Flourishing foreign trade In the first eight months of 2023, Xinjiang's foreign trade surged by 51.2 percent year on year, reaching 219.19 billion yuan (around $30 billion). Xinjiang has engaged in foreign trade with 170 countries and regions this year. Its foreign trade with five Central Asian countries grew by 59.1 percent year-on-year to 176.64 billion yuan, accounting for 80.6 percent of the regional total, customs data showed. "The main cargo shipped from Xinjiang to the international market are typically ketchup, agricultural products, textiles, PVC, chemical raw materials, equipment and machineries," Zhao explained, as he guided the loading of containers into a China-Europe freight train set to depart for Kazakhstan on Sunday afternoon. As of early September, the inbound and outbound China-Europe freight trains passing through Xinjiang have totaled 10,017 this year, up 10.1 percent year-on-year, according to China Railway Urumqi Group Co Ltd. In the first seven months of 2023, the International Land Port in Urumqi opened 772 China-Europe freight trains, up 9.35 percent year-on-year. The rail routes connect with 26 cities in 19 countries. The port also serves as an important transit point for goods across China and from Southeast Asia to be transported to Europe. Ding Zhijun, an official from the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone, told the Global Times that since the beginning of this year, goods from Laos, such as sugar and rubber, have been transferred at the port via China-Laos Railway and other inland railway routes, and then are assembled and delivered to European markets. "The BRI has driven up Xinjiang's foreign trade, which is a boon for local industries. It is also conducive to Xinjiang's economic development and boosting employment opportunities," Ding said. He added that looking to the future, the port authorities plan to set up a textile trading center within the port, to facilitate the exports and trade of clothes and other textile products. Opening to the West The hustle and bustle of international cooperation in Xinjiang is also seen throughout the China-Kazakhstan International Cooperation Center in Horgos, which is home to China's first cross-border free trade zone. When Global Times reporters visited the center at a weekend in mid-September, streams of tourists were standing at the border gate and taking photos, and stores were crowded with merchants and buyers. "In the initial stage when we set up the shopping mall in 2015, most merchants were from Kazakhstan and China. But now, with the steady progress of BRI, the center has become a hot destination for foreign investment, and there are more vendors from other Central Asia countries as well as Russia and South Korea," Ji Gang, general manager of Jindiao Central Square, a shopping mall at the cooperation center, told the Global Times. According to Ji, the center has just held a commercial fair for Central Asian business leaders in August, during which a number of deals were signed, including equipment purchase agreements. Some Chinese and Kazakhstani companies also reached initial agreement to open factories in Kazakhstan. "With unique geographic advantage, Xinjiang has become an important gateway for China to open up to the West. It is worth noting that the radiation effect of the region is not confined to China, but also to Central Asia and Europe, which would in turn provide Xinjiang with more development opportunities," Ji added. Zhao also said that the International Land Port is planning to open more China-Europe freight train routes that directly connect the region to Europe. "In particular, we aim to set up some premium routes to transport electronic components and local specialty goods via the China-Europe railway express. This year, we are also actively engaging with Kazakhstan to establish business partnerships and enhance customs clearance efficiency," Zhao noted. Archives October 2023 10/4/2023 50 detained, over 100 homes raided in sweeping crackdown on press freedom in India. By: Zoe AlexandraRead NowThe homes of over 100 journalists, contractors, and former employees associated with the progressive news outlets Newsclick and Peoples Dispatch, as well as Tricontinental Research Services were raided by Indian authorities in the early morning of October 3 in the capital New Delhi. Several raids were also carried out in the cities of Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Mumbai. According to local reports around 50 individuals were taken in to the police station for additional questioning. Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and administrator Amit Chakraborty have been arrested under the draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). At least 500 police officers and intelligence agents participated in the operation. Among those who faced raids, interrogation, and detention are renowned journalists Urmilesh, Abhisar Sharma, Aunindyo Chakraborty, Bhasha Singh, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, comedian Sanjay Rajoura, sports journalists Arjun Pandit, and human rights activist and former political prisoner Teesta Setalvad. Following his release Sharma said, “After a day long interrogation by Delhi special cell, I am back home. Each and every question posed will be answered. Nothing to fear. And I will keep questioning people in power and particularly those who are afraid of simple questions. Not backing down at any cost.” Democracy under attack Police records show that the case against Newsclick under UAPA was registered on August 17, just over a week after a New York Times report was published which alleged that Newsclick, amongst other progressive news outlets, is part of a Chinese news propaganda network. The report sparked a political and media scandal within India, which saw right-wing news outlets running dozens of pieces lodging baseless accusations that the members of the outlets are Chinese propagandists. Members of parliament from the far-right ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well as high-level authorities like Home Minister Amit Shah also made similar statements on the parliament floor and to media. Today’s raids and mass repression have been widely condemned by progressive organizations, press associations, and opposition parties from across India as a grave attack on democracy, civil liberties, and human rights. The Editors Guild of India released a statement expressing deep concern “about the raids at the residences of senior journalists on the morning of October 3, and the subsequent detention of many of those journalists.” The guild is urging the Indian government “to follow due process, and not to make draconian criminal laws as tools for press intimidation.” The Delhi State Unit of All India Lawyers’ Union stated that they were “deeply concerned about the implications of these arrests for press freedom and the democratic values that our nation holds dear… Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of any vibrant democracy. It is essential for journalists to be able to report independently on matters of public interest without fear of harassment or intimidation. Journalists play a crucial role in holding those in power accountable and in informing the public about important issues.” The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) said in a public statement, “This highly undemocratic, unjustified, repressive action has been ostensibly been carried to intimidate independent and fearless journalists and others who have been critical of the government policies. The BJP government has now chosen to use the draconian UAPA along with other sections of the IPC to carry out these latest raids and confiscate the electronic belongings, including laptops and mobiles of the concerned individuals.” Witnesses report that the over 100 home raids lasted on average between four and 10 hours, and those interrogated faced a wide range of questions such as whether or not they had reported on the farmers protests in India, the protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, India’s mismanagement of COVID-19, or anything considered “anti-government”. In some cases, authorities ransacked people’s homes searching for material and one person reported that authorities threw his books to the floor and confiscated all titles by German philosopher Karl Marx. The cellphones and computers were seized from the majority of those who faced raids and were detained. The office of Newsclick in New Delhi was sealed by police after it was raided. The home of the Secretary General of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury was also raided. Following the raid he told media, “Police came to my residence because one of my companions who lives with me there, his son, works for Newsclick. The police came to question him. They took his laptop and phone. What are they investigating? Nobody knows. If this is an attempt to try and muzzle the media, the country must know the reason behind this.” The repression today is just the latest act of harassment against Newsclick which was first raided in February 2021 by the Enforcement Directorate alleging economic fraud and money laundering. At the time, many activists had highlighted that the attack had occurred amid the growing farmers protests. Newsclick was one of the outlets providing consistent reporting on the struggle and had gained widespread notoriety for its on the ground reports from farmers’ protest camps. The country’s courts had granted the site protection from any “coercive measures” such as arrest and imprisonment by authorities in this case, but the latest UAPA case grants authorities special privileges to override those court protections. The UAPA which was first established in 1967 has come under increased scrutiny in recent years as it has been used by the government of far-right BJP leader Narendra Modi to persecute human rights activists, journalists, and scholars in the country. The law gives the government special powers to bypass civil liberties, fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens such as the right to a fair trial. The amendment to UAPA in 2008 gives the government the power to designate individuals or groups as terrorist with no formal judicial process. In a statement condemning the arrest of several anti-CAA protesters in 2020, Amnesty International wrote, “The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) is routinely used by the government to bypass human rights and stifle dissent. In 2018, the conviction rate under UAPA was 27% while 93% of the cases remained pending in the court. It is a mere tool of harassment that the government uses to harass, intimidate and imprison those who are critical of the government. The slow investigative processes and extremely stringent bail provisions under UAPA ensure that they are locked up for years altogether, creating a convenient setting for unlawful detention and torture.” The Students Federation of India (SFI) has called upon its units across India to organize emergency protests in response to “the brutal crackdown on Indian media by the Modi government.” Archives October 2023 On Monday, the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) authorized the deployment of Kenyan troops to Haiti. The intervention responds to a request issued by the acting prime minister and unelected head of Haiti, Ariel Henry, whose regime has been legitimized by support from the US, France, and Canada, among others. With 13 votes in favor and two abstentions (Russia and China), the UN Security Council (UNSC) approved resolution 2699 to initiate an international mission. Previously, analysts had anticipated that Russia and China may have used their veto power in the United Nations Security Council to block the intervention. The ruling on the multinational force was written by the US and will be carried out by 1,000 Kenyan soldiers. Technically, the intervention will not constitute a UN mission; as a result, UN member states will not be obliged to contribute to the intervention. Instead, the US has announced that it will contribute $200 million to the military intervention. In addition, the US Department of Defense, the branch of the US government directly responsible for the United States Armed Forces, will foot half the bill, according to the Miami Herald. “The so-called ‘multinational security support mission’ in Haiti is not an actual UN mission,” wrote geopolitical analyst Ben Norton on the subject. “It is a US military intervention, using the UN and Kenya as cover. The US wrote the UN resolution. The US is overseeing the operation. The [US] Defense Department is funding it.” The resolution specifies that the military operation will last one year, with a review after nine months. Although the intervention aims to address rising violence as a result of crimes, the US and its allies, to date, have focused their efforts on isolating the controversial figure of Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier and his G9 organization, which has, in reality, sought to broker peace deals between Haiti’s warring criminal factions. The resolution will be deployed in coming months, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. A coalition of organizations composed of Haitians living in the US has recently demanded that the Biden administration end its support for Haiti’s unelected regime. Henry was appointed as leader of Haiti after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Although the case is still ongoing and the investigation is being led by US authorities, it appears that mercenaries, mostly Colombian, were hired by a Miami, USA-based company to carry out the killing of Moïse. On Friday, September 22, the National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON) and Family Action Network Movement (FANM) wrote to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken with the request. “Any military intervention supporting Haiti’s corrupt, repressive, unelected regime will likely exacerbate its current political crisis to a catastrophic one,” they wrote. “It will further entrench the regime, deepening Haiti’s political crisis while generating significant civilian casualties and migration pressure.” “This regime has dismantled Haiti’s democratic structures while facilitating and conceding control of the country to many gang leaders. The PHTK governments did not run a fair or timely election,” the letter added. “They have created a prevalent culture of corruption that deprives the government of the necessary funds to support the Haiti National Police and provide basic governmental services to the Haitian population.” Kenya, a country of almost 55 million inhabitants, announced last July its willingness to send a thousand troops and thus assume a supporting role in the intervention. Sensing that Kenya, as an African nation, is largely being used as a proxy for the US military, which remains greatly unpopular in Haiti, Kenyan journalists and social movements have criticized the use of their country’s military in such a manner. Activists have complained that Kenya has “allowed itself to serve the agenda of white imperialists who continue to fund the criminal mafias in Haiti to destabilise it but pretend to mean good to it,” writes Nairobi-based journalist Gordon Osen. Haitian protester holds an anti-US sign during a protest against the unelected, US-backed Haitian regime, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 17, 2022. Photo: Richard Pierrin/AFP. The intervention was approved by the military council despite arguments made against intervention last December by Haiti Liberté’s Kim Ives, speaking before the UN Security Council. “The facts themselves are not neutral,” said Ives at that time. “They speak to a history in which international law has been violated and the principles of peace and self-determination on which this body was founded have been trampled. These precedents have spawned the current crisis in the past three decades. Haiti has been the victim of three coup d’etats — in 1991, 2004, and, most recently, 2021. After each of these crimes, which involved international actors, the UN Security Council has been asked, as it is being asked today, to militarily intervene in Haiti. The council agreed to do so in the first two cases, thereby essentially cementing in place an unjust and illegal status quo. “The victims of these coups, the Haitian masses, were the ones policed, repressed, terrorized, demonized sexually, violated, politically bullied, and economically sanctioned. That is why the 16 million Haitian people — 12 million living in Haiti and some four million living abroad — are patently, and almost universally, opposed to any more UN interventions, with the exception of Haiti’s tiny bourgeoisie.” The 2010 United Nations intervention in Haiti infamously introduced cholera to the country, resulting in over 600,000 cases and approximately 10,000 preventable deaths. Author Steve Lalla is a journalist, researcher and analyst. His areas of interest include geopolitics, history, and current affairs. He has contributed to Counterpunch, Resumen LatinoAmericano English, ANTICONQUISTA, Orinoco Tribune, and others. Republished from Lalla's Medium. Archives October 2023 10/2/2023 The Big Three Are Using Layoffs to Punish the UAW and Undermine the Strike. By: James Dennis HoffRead NowThe Big Three are retaliating against the UAW by laying off thousands of its members at plants across the country. Defeating these attacks will require the self organization and mobilization of all the workers. In a clear act of retaliation against striking auto workers, the Big Three have laid off thousands of employees since the United Auto Workers (UAW) strikes began on September 15. At Ford, more than 600 non-striking workers were laid off at the Wayne, Michigan plant just two days after the strike began. Meanwhile, GM and Stellantis have laid off a combined 3,000 workers, with more layoffs expected. At the same time, a number of auto suppliers for the Big Three have also been laying off substantial portions of their own workforces to retaliate against the UAW strike. If the strike continues for several more weeks or months, it is quite possible that these layoffs (and the use of scab labor) will increase exponentially, as the companies seek to protect profits and divide the workforce in order to weaken the strike. Directly confronting and resisting these layoffs must be a central task of the entire union if they wish to protect their jobs, win their demands, and build union solidarity. While the UAW has condemned the layoffs, the auto companies claim that they are an inevitable result of the strike, which, by disrupting manufacturing and distribution across several major plants, has left many other workplaces without the necessary materials needed to continue production. However, it’s important to note that these layoffs are not only a corporate response to the chaos created by the strike; they are quite obviously an explicit tool of retaliation that the auto companies are using to punish the UAW and its members in order to break the strike. As UAW president Shawn Fain said in a response to the layoffs: “if the Big Three decide to lay people off who aren’t on strike, that’s them trying to put the squeeze on our members to settle for less.” Fain also made the point that the layoffs were unnecessary, and the company could afford to continue paying those laid-off workers. With more than $20 billion in combined profits for just the first half of this year, they definitely could. But these layoffs are not only about squeezing workers — they are also part of a clear strategy by the Big Three to try to withstand the worst effects of the strike at the expense of the workers themselves. GM, Ford, and Stellantis, though they continue to rake in record profits, are using these layoffs to save millions in wages while simultaneously sowing fear and insecurity among all of those not yet on strike, many of whom could be laid off at a moment’s notice. This is a clear attempt not only to put pressure on the strikers, as Fain explains, but to create divisions within the union and among different sectors of workers — those still receiving paychecks, those receiving strike pay, and those being laid off. Meanwhile, the companies are using the state and bourgeois law to punish workers even further by refusing to pay contractually-obligated supplementary unemployment benefits, and arguing that those laid off during a strike do not qualify for state unemployment. This claim may prove to be true for some workers, thanks to anti-worker “right to work” legislation in several states like Kansas and Michigan (which is still a right-to-work state until March 2024), where layoffs are taking place. It is not out of the question that management will try to make these layoffs permanent as further punishment against the strike and the bold demands the union is putting forward. This makes it necessary for the union to stop the “business as usual” approach to layoffs. They have to treat this act of retaliation as a serious threat that requires a direct response, and not simply rely on the law or the courts, which fail the working class all the time. Although the stand-up strike strategy has allowed Fain and the UAW to gain public support while also causing chaos within the production processes of the Big Three, the top-down nature of the struggle so far means that these laid-off workers, and many others, have no agency in decisions about their strike, or about fighting layoffs. To ensure these workers are compensated and get their jobs back, the rank and file must demand that the strike take up the reinstatement of all workers laid off in the UAW and related industries directly as part of its demands. In order to fight these layoffs, the UAW should organize meetings in every single local to unite all workers — those on strike, those who are not on strike, and those who have been laid off. This would allow workers (many of whom are already organizing flying squadrons, fighting management on the floor, and refusing to work overtime) to discuss together how to continue the strike, how to resist scabs, and how to develop a strategy that can best fight these layoffs both during the strike and after. Every new wave of layoffs should be met with further walkouts and an escalation of the strike. The members should make sure that any new contract guarantees that laid-off workers are rehired and receive compensation for lost wages. But beating the Big Three and building a union capable of defending those gains will require the collective efforts, creative energy, and active engagement of all of the membership, not only the elected leaders, staff, and bureaucrats. Every worker is capable of leading, and ultimately, it is the workers themselves who are on the front lines of struggle every day and who know best how to organize themselves to fight the bosses. This is why self organization, in the form of strike committees and mass meetings of rank-and-file workers, is so important. Such a self-directed struggle against these layoffs would not only create greater solidarity among workers within the union, but would help to build the kind of organization needed to weather a strike long enough to win all of their demands, including the bold demand for a 32 hour workweek, which could be an essential part of the fight against layoffs as the industry transitions to the production of electric vehicles. Just as the workers of the great GM sit-down strikes and their communities and families did in 1937, rank-and-file auto workers, alongside workers across the country, have it in their power today to rebuild a fighting labor movement. Author James Dennis Hoff is a writer, educator, labor activist, and member of the Left Voice editorial board. He teaches at The City University of New York. Republished from Left Voice. Archives October 2023 10/2/2023 “The workers are the liberators,” declares UAW President, sending 7,000 more out on strike. By: Natalia MarquesRead NowUnited Auto Workers are expanding their strike to put additional pressure on General Motors and Ford, playing the three largest automakers against each other On September 29, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced that 7,000 more unionized auto workers are going out on strike, to join the 18,000 workers already participating in the “Stand Up Strike” against the three largest automakers in the United States. Since 146,000 UAW auto workers saw their master contract expire with the three largest automakers (Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors) on September 14, the UAW has implemented the unique “Stand Up Strike” method. Instead of sending all 146,000 Big Three auto workers out on strike in one fell swoop, the union is having workers walk off the job in waves. This ensures that the companies are always on their toes—already causing the corporations to miscalculate and prepare for strikes at the wrong plants. The two additional plants called out on strike are General Motors’ Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan and Ford’s Chicago Assembly plant. The union decided to go easier on Stellantis this time around, although the union had originally planned to expand the strike for all the Big Three this Friday. Shortly before Shawn Fain was to make his weekly Stand Up Strike announcement, Stellantis sent some last minute emails to the union, acquiescing to worker demands around cost of living allowances (COLA), the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures. Ford was spared last week because of significant progress the union had made on its central demands at that company, and UAW instead elected to send all Stellantis and Ford parts distribution centers out on strike. But as Jane Slaughter writes in Labor Notes, “Today the UAW once again called out workers at Ford and GM, putting some muscle behind its bold demands—a big wage boost, a shorter work week, elimination of tiers, cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation, protection from plant closures, conversion of temps to permanent employees, and the restoration of retiree health care and benefit-defined pensions to all workers.” In his announcement of the 7,000 workers newly on strike, Shawn Fain referenced US President Joe Biden’s visit to a UAW picket line this week, marking the first time a sitting US President has ever visited a picket line. During his visit, Biden expressed open support for UAW’s demand for a 40% wage increase. “Companies were in trouble, now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too,” Biden said to striking workers, referencing the 2009 government bailout of the auto industry. “You deserve what you’ve earned. And you’ve earned a helluva lot more than what you’re getting paid now.” But Fain was not about to give Biden a pat on the back simply for showing up. On Friday, the UAW leader was frank about what it took to get the President of the United States to show unequivocal support for striking workers. “The most powerful man in the world showed up for one reason only: because our solidarity is the most powerful force in the world.” On Friday, Fain referenced the historic plant that Biden had visited, the GM Willow Run facility in Michigan, “where UAW members built the B24 Liberator bombers during WWII.” “Our union was essential in building what was called the arsenal of democracy,” he said in a Facebook Live address to all UAW members and the rest of the public. “Just like 80 years ago, today our union is building a different arsenal of democracy. But this war isn’t against some foreign country. The frontlines are right here at home. It’s the war of the working class versus corporate greed. We are the new arsenal of democracy.” “The workers are the liberators and our strike is a vehicle for liberation,” he declared. Workers hold the line for a fair dealWhile the Stand Up Strike model has proven effective, the sheer excitement and anticipation of each non striking Big Three worksite is testament to the fighting spirit of these autoworkers. Peoples Dispatch spoke to Jeffrey Parcell, President of UAW Local 3039, whose members work at a Stellantis PDC in Tappan, New York. Tappan auto workers were asked to go out on strike after the first week, on September 22. When asked what it was like to work while the strike was ongoing, Parcell candidly said, “We were pissed. We wanted it to be us.” Finally walking out at noon last Friday was extremely satisfying to workers, Parcell said. Management had anticipated that if there were to be a walkout, it would happen at midnight, like it did with the first strike wave on September 14. Instead, Fain ordered Stellantis and GM PDCs to go on strike at noon Eastern Time. Parcell describes how underprepared management was, and how workers left everything on the shop floor and walked out at midday. At one point while workers were on the picket line, a supervisor walked out of the PDC, and workers reminded him that he wasn’t on break, telling him to get back inside and get back to work. In an economic system where the roles are almost always reversed, strikes offer a unique opportunity to give the bosses a taste of their own medicine. “The day we walked out, you know, we were ready to go,” Parcell said. The workers in Tappan are ready to hold the picket line for as long as it takes to reach a fair contract. “We’re prepared to go as long as we gotta go man. We dealt with the rain over the weekend, a lot of storms and stuff like that. We’re still out there 24/7 around the clock.” Patrick Paisley, a worker at the Tappan PDC for five years, was impressed with the solidarity other working people have shown on the picket line and at solidarity rallies in the surrounding area. “It’s not just for us,” he told Peoples Dispatch. “A lot of people have been taken for granted, you know. I’m hoping that the bigger heads can see that people want to be recognized, or at least compensated, or appreciated, whatever, you know?” Archives September 2023 Citing a U.S. official familiar with current intelligence, U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh said that the U.S. intelligence believes that the Ukrainian forces have become demoralized and have no chance of winning, adding that there currently exists no discussion in Kiev or the White House regarding a ceasefire. In a new post on his Substack account, Hersh said, There are significant elements in the American intelligence community, relying on field reports and technical intelligence, who believe that the demoralized Ukraine army has given up on the possibility of overcoming the heavily mined three-tier Russian defense lines and taking the war to Crimea and the four oblasts seized and annexed by Russia. The reality is that Volodymyr Zelensky’s battered army no longer has any chance of a victory. Hersh also noted there is no interest in peace talks. Quoting the official, Hersh continued that Ukraine’s claims of incremental progress in the offensive constitute of “all lies”. The renowned investigative journalist reported last month that the CIA informed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Ukrainian counteroffensive would not likely yield results. This information, said Hersh, came from a U.S. intelligence official, who stated more specifically, that “the word was getting to him [Blinken] through the Agency [CIA] that the Ukrainian offense was not going to work. It was a show by Zelensky and there were some in the administration who believed his bullshit.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been calling on his Western allies for months to provide his military with long-range missiles, arguing that this could drastically improve the outcome of the counteroffensive. But before that, it was the anti-air missiles, the advanced offense tanks, heavily armored troop carriers, and the HIMARS system. Ukraine is depleting resources at an unsustainable rate, firing 90,000 artillery rounds per month when the Pentagon is only capable of producing a third of that number, while also losing around 20 percent of NATO-provided weapons–that were either destroyed or damaged–within the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, which saw very limited ground gains since it was launched almost three months ago. Archives September 2023 President Petro hopes the Asian nation can help Colombia with transportation projects based on the use of trains and electric technologies. On Thursday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he will travel to Beijing, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping to discuss the future of Bogota's subway. Its construction is currently being handled by a Chinese consortium. "I have an interview with the Chinese president on October 25," he said, adding that he hopes the Asian nation can help Colombia with transportation projects based on the use of trains and electric technologies. With this trip, Petro will continue a pragmatic policy of friendship with China that began on Feb. 7, 1980, with the establishment of diplomatic relations during the administration of the then-Colombian President Julio Cesar Turbay. Since then, the relationship has been growing, and China became Colombia's second-largest trading partner in 2010. In 2022, bilateral trade amounted to US$18 billion, with US$2 billion corresponding to Colombian exports and US$16 billion to imports of Chinese goods and services. China's Ambassador to Colombia Zhu Jingyang assured that "China is interested in receiving more Colombian products and developing a process for more products to access the Chinese market, as recently happened with Colombian beef." President Petro's emphasis on the relationship with China is also evident in his appointment of the film director Sergio Cabrera as ambassador in Beijing. Cabrera spent his adolescence in that Asian country, where he learned to speak Mandarin and even became a Red Guard. Currently, Bogota's subway is Colombia's largest engineering project. For the construction of the first line, the China Harbour Engineering Company Limited and Xi'an Metro Company were selected in 2019. Archives September 2023 |
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