Palestine

War in Lebanon exposes the difficulties faced by British imperialism

Tony Blair seems to be increasingly isolated in his position over the conflict in the Lebanon. In the G8, the EU and the UN, Britain opposed calls for an immediate ceasefire. The Foreign Office, the Cabinet, the Labour Party, and the media all seem ranged against him. A former ambassador openly called for him to go. For some this is just another expression of Blair’s subservience to Bush, summed up in the “Yo Blair!” exchange overheard at the G8. In fact, what the conflict in the Lebanon has done is to put the strategy of the British ruling class under intense pressure and expose more sharply than before the enormous difficulties it faces.

Conflict in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon: The ‘Peace Movement’ is a war movement

Apologists for Israel's attack on the civilian population of Southern Lebanon, and for the so-called "resistance movements" of Hizbullah and Hamas, are equally enemies of the working class, which has no country to defend and whose only hope for itself and for humanity as a whole is unity across all national frontiers.

Editorial: The development of the class struggle is the only alternative to capitalism's tragic dead-end

World events in the recent period strikingly illustrate the fundamental historic choices facing humanity today. On the one hand, the capitalist system has provided yet more proofs of the barbaric impasse into which it has led the whole of society. On the other, we see a confirmation of the development of the struggles and consciousness of the proletariat, the only force in society that can offer a future.

Middle East: Against the slide into war, the international class struggle is the only answer

The only opposition to imperialism is the resistance of the working class against exploitation, because this alone can grow into an open struggle the capitalist system, a struggle to replace this dying system of profit and war with a society geared towards human need. Because the exploited everywhere have the same interests, the class struggle is international and has no interest in allying with one state against another.  Its methods are directly opposed to the aggravation of hatred between ethnic or national groups, because it needs to rally together the proletarians of all nations in a common fight against capital and the state.

Attack on Gaza strip: All states, big or small, are imperialist

At the end of June the misery of life for people living in the Gaza Strip got worse than ever as Israeli armed forces struck again. Already suffering from shortages, and no strangers to sieges, bombings, blockades and incursions, they were invaded by Israel, supposedly in an attempt to rescue 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by the armed wing of Hamas.

Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan: capitalism kills

The credibility of the US forces as protectors of the Iraqi population took another hammer blow with the allegations of an ‘Iraqi My Lai’, in which US marines are accused of running amok after a roadside bomb attack in Haditha last November, slaughtering 24 defenceless Iraqi men, women and children... The ‘humanitarian’ pretexts for the US invasion are being exposed as worthless lies.

The election of Hamas is no victory for the oppressed

The surprise success of Hamas in the Palestinian elections is another demonstration that the great imperialist powers are having more and more difficulty in controlling the growing chaos in the international situation. Hamas is now the dominant force in the Palestine Authority (PA) with the prospects of its armed wing being integrated into the Palestinian forces. It wasn’t supposed to be like this...

Democratic and humanitarian hypocrisy

If we were to identify a vice that is characteristic of each epoch of human history, it would certainly be the hypocrisy of the ruling class that would fit the bill in the case of capitalism. The great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, amassed piles of skulls when he conquered towns that had not submitted to him. But he never claimed to do it for the good of their inhabitants. It took bourgeois capitalist democracy to teach us that war is "humanitarian" and that it is necessary to bomb civilian populations in order to bring… peace and freedom to these very populations.

Lebanon, Syria, Iran: New zones of imperialist conflict

With the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, an old focus of imperialist conflict has been revived in the Middle East. This new episode in the capitalist barbarism spreading across the world and particularly the Middle East, where we are seeing an endless spiral of terrorist atrocities, reminds us once again that all the bourgeoisie’s speeches about peace are just cynical lies.

With or without democracy, capitalism offers only chaos and war

The elections in Palestine and Iraq, we are told, have been great triumphs for democracy. George Bush was euphoric about them in his State of the Union speech. The peoples of the Middle East are not just getting peace but freedom and democracy too!

For Bush, spreading such noble ideals around the planet is the sacred mission of the USA. Few of the USA’s main imperialist rivals – Germany, France, Russia, etc – failed to heed the message: despite the Iraq fiasco, US imperialism will continue to assert its interests wherever it chooses.

Iraq/Middle East: Capitalist barbarism can only get worse

In a situation of generalised chaos, of permanent civil war, of daily terrorist attacks and the abduction of hostages of all nationalities including Iraqis, the American army in Iraq has launched a new land and air offensive. For the first time since the beginning of the war, Iraqi soldiers armed entirely by the US and under American command have taken part in the first phase of this offensive. As the Financial Times put it "it's better to confer military operations on Iraqi forces in order to minimise the political repercussions". On October 3 this resulted in the fall of Samara, 100km north of Baghdad. The assault involved bitter fighting and house to house searches. It is well known that many civilians died even though statistics are hard to verify. According to a recent inquiry by a team of American and Iraqi researchers, the number of civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion in March 2003 may be as high as 100,000, the majority the result of aerial bombardments by the Coalition, which now hardly even bothers to claim that it is using 'precision' methods aimed at limiting civilian deaths. Since the team was unable to operate in Falluja, which has been reduced to a semi-ruin, the real casualty figures could be even higher.

US shifts to war strategy in the Middle East

For more than a year now not a day has passed without a new act of barbarism in the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. The age-old ideologies of Palestinian nationalism and Israel Zionism, more than half a century after the inception of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war, continue to fuel havoc in this region. The spectacle is absolutely appalling. On one side, radical Palestinian militants blow themselves up together along innocent victims in suicidal terrorist attacks; suicidal armed confrontations against an adversary thousands of times better armed and organized; children, women and desperate young Palestinians aiming to kill at random, so long as the victim is a Jew. On the other hand, rubble, destruction and death caused by all-powerful Israeli state terror displayed with cynical impunity and total disregard for human life. On both sides populations living in fear, hating each other and ready to kill, poisoned to the core by the nationalist ideologies of their respective dominant classes.

Only the working class can end Middle East chaos

In the context of the acceleration of political chaos and war around the world following the September 11th events, the Middle East is once again threatening to go up in flames. After being overshadowed for some time by conflicts in others parts of the world --Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan -- this region is reclaiming its status as an imperialist powder keg. In a situation that changes daily, the bourgeois media is packed with a dazzling amount of information on and "analyses" of the region. For a start, the US bourgeoisie has made clear its intention to once again unleash a military intervention against Iraq. At the same time the chronic Israel/Palestine conflict has reached the level of an all out open war. There is not day passed without a new act of barbarism being committed by either the Israel State or its Palestinian rivals. The death toll on both sides has already reached the thousands, Palestine's economic infrastructure is in shambles, and Israel's is not much better. Both populations live in constant fear; the misery, the suffering, the desperation is reaching nightmarish levels.

Capitalism has no road map for peace

The US is trying to impose its 'road map' for peace on the Middle East. The population of Israel/Palestine have every reason to be cautious and suspicious. Every intervention by the great powers in the region has exacerbated the situation - Britain in the 1920s and 30s, the US since the Second World War. It will also not have escaped their notice that recent military interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq have not resulted in peace and stability but have seen a continuation of armed conflict, alongside a social chaos that precludes the possibility of any sort of reconstruction.

Capitalism can only offer a spiral of slaughter in the Middle East

The killing and maiming in the Middle East is continuing and escalating. The construction of the huge Israeli wall to keep Palestinians out is destroying the water supply to many people, and will also further damage the economy. It is just one dramatic step in the escalating cycle of violence. After the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian areas, including the near destruction of Jenin, the riposte was bloody and determined.

Capitalism is war without end

The escalation of barbarism in the Middle East is part of the escalation of military conflicts across the whole planet. Following the September 11th attacks the USA launched a long term crusade against 'terrorism', starting with the war in Afghanistan, an intervention which had been planned well before the destruction of the Twin Towers. This was followed by the increase in tensions between India and Pakistan. Then came the build-up towards a new attack on Iraq, supposedly to make it accept UN weapons inspectors again, or even to depose Saddam. And to emphasise the seriousness of the USA's intent, the Pentagon 'leaked' US plans to use nuclear weapons, if necessary, against anyone else alleged to possess weapons of mass destruction, such as China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Libya or Iraq.

Middle East: Spiral of nationalist hatred

At the time of writing, the latest atrocity in Israel/Palestine is the suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco, which left at least 17 young people dead and scores more injured. By the time this paper comes back from the printer, it is more than likely that the Israeli state will have exacted its revenge � perhaps another air raid on a refugee camp charged with harbouring the terrorists of Islamic Jihad who have claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing. Sharon will pretend that this is an attack on a military target, but as ever it will be defenceless civilians who will die or see their homes reduced to rubble. This in turn will provoke new acts of revenge by the Islamic groups or even by hapless, despairing individuals, like the Palestinian bus driver who drove his bus into a line of Israeli passengers.

Erratum: Sharon, Sabra and Shatila

In our article, "The proletariat confronts a dramatic deepening of all capitalism's contradictions" published in the International Review n°115, an error was made in stating that Sharon, described as the "butcher of Sabra and Shatila" "was responsible for a particularly barbaric Israeli punitive operation in two refugee camps in west Beirut, in September 1982, when thousands men, women and children were massacred." In fact, contrary to what we wrote, Sharon, who was the Israeli minister of defence at the time, did not take part in the bloody incursion in the Palestinian camps, nor did he lead them directly. It was the militias of the "Lebanese forces", with the authorisation of the Israeli troops, who did the dirty work.

Neither Israel, nor Palestine: Workers have no country!

Day after day, the list of the dead and wounded, in Israel and the occupied territories, grows longer.

In a region which has already been through five out-and-out wars since the end of the second world slaughter (not counting all the ‘peacetime’ military operations), a new war is hatching, without being officially started, and has already killed hundreds of people, especially children and young people.

Imperialist powderkeg in the Middle East

Following the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire at the end of the 19th century, the Middle East, the meeting point of two seas and crossroads of three continents, has ever since been the constant object of imperialist rivalries. In particular, the First World War led to the region being divided up between France and Britain, with Palestine becoming a British protectorate in 1916 and Syria and Lebanon falling under French control. Later on, the necessities of the Cold War and America’s grip over the Mediterranean led the US to support the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 (this also had the advantage of weakening Britain’s hold over the region). While backing Israel at all levels, the US also fought against Russia’s attempts to gain influence over the Arab states who were hostile to Israel. During this period there were three major Arab-Israeli wars: 1956, 1967 and 1973, and behind each one of them could be discerned the deadly competition between the eastern and western blocs.

Israel/Palestine: Against nationalism! For class solidarity!

Once again, the Middle East is ablaze, although in truth there has been no real pause in bloody conflicts in this region for over fifty years.

Peace is not possible under capitalism. The ICC has always said this loud and clear. Thus, in October 1993, after the first ‘historic’ handshake between Arafat and Rabin, we wrote:

Middle East: only the world proletariat can put an end to capitalist barbarity

Military operations had barely ended in Afghanistan, when another round of carnage began in the Middle East. As the bloodshed continues in the West Bank and Jerusalem, another military operation is being prepared against Iraq. Inexorably, capitalism is plunging into chaos and military barbarism. With each new bloodbath, the murderous folly of this system stands more starkly revealed.

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