Text of the Socialist Party for the national Palestine solidarity demonstration, Saturday, 5 October
For a whole year now, the people of Gaza have lived through a genocidal assault by the Israeli State that has made the Strip virtually uninhabitable. The human suffering is unimaginable.
At least 48,000 Palestinians have been massacred. Hunger and disease are rife, and the destruction of the health service means the excess death rate is estimated to be at least 186,000, according to The Lancet medical journal.
The Israeli State’s new round of atrocities in Lebanon has killed over 1,000 and displaced hundreds of thousands in recent weeks, as it launches a new ground invasion – its fourth since 1978.
The Middle East stands on the cusp of a new regional war and all the horror that will bring because of the actions of the Israeli ruling class, with the full backing of US imperialism. The Biden administration is now deploying extra troops to the region to support its key ally.
“To stand with Palestine is to be human” – Greta Thunberg
Millions of ordinary people globally have marched, occupied, boycotted and taken strike action against the Israeli State.
Integral to this inspiring movement is the desire for no business as usual as long as the genocide continues. This sense of urgency needs to be brought into our workplaces, communities, colleges and schools. Specifically, there needs to be targeted strike action by workers to stop the flow of arms to the Israeli State – no US warplanes through Shannon!
The empathy with Palestinians and humanity in this movement contrasts starkly with the inhumanity of those who rule our society. These deeply cynical people are complicit in a genocide — a genocide upheld by the capitalist system at large:
- EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other Western leaders flew to Israel to give Netanyahu the green light to carry out the slaughter in Gaza;
- US and European powers have continued to supply the Israeli State with weapons of mass destruction. Genocide Joe and Kamala Harris ensured $14 billion in war funding was sent to Israel, on top of the $3.8 billion it gives annually;
- In Germany, the second largest exporter of arms to Israel, Palestinian solidarity protests have been banned and activists criminalised;
- Corporations like Hewlett Packard, Intel, Caterpillar and numerous arms manufacturers have profited from the crimes of the Israeli State;
- Despite its rhetoric, the Irish government is also complicit in the Gaza genocide. Shamefully, it allowed 90 tonnes of weapons to travel through Irish airspace. It has blocked the passing of the Occupied Territories Bill that would ban goods from Israeli settlements.
Imperialist complicity
From the Naqba to the Gaza genocide, Western capitalist states have historically backed the Israeli State’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
As such, for millions of people globally, Palestine, like Apartheid South Africa and US imperialism’s war against the Vietnamese people in the past, has become symbolic of the unjust and oppressive global system. True opposition to the Israeli State is necessarily linked to a broad opposition to oppression, exploitation, racism and colonialism.
Freedom for Palestine
Freedom for Palestine will never happen as long as the racist, colonial Israeli apartheid state exists. It must be overthrown and smashed.
The Palestinian masses themselves, allied with the working class and poor across the Middle East are crucial to achieving this. But we can’t stop there. The whole system of capitalism and imperialism and all the rotten regimes that uphold its rule must go. This system has created a prison house of exploitation and oppression throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
A revolutionary struggle for socialist change, taking control of the vast wealth and resources for the benefit of the millions not millionaires, could reach out to the working class within the Israeli State and appeal to them to join in a battle against a common enemy. Their ruling class offers only a future of war, insecurity, corruption, authoritarianism and impoverishment.
Revolutionary change
A society based on the rule of the masses would mean freedom and justice for all. It could allow both Palestinians and Israeli Jews the democratic right to self-determination, and full equality for all national and religious minorities – something unthinkable while the Zionist state with a foundation in racist supremacy and occupation, remains intact.
The struggle for revolutionary socialist change must begin today – a struggle inextricable from the quest for liberation for Palestinians, and the only means by which peace and justice for everyone who is oppressed and exploited can be delivered.
