Text of the latest Socialist Party leaflet on the genocide in Palestine
Countless images of death, destruction, horror and heartbreak from Gaza have filled our newsfeeds in the last 19 months. Added to these scenes, brought about by relentless bombing and atrocities by Israeli Occupying Forces on the ground, is the visual impact of the famine imposed by the Zionist State on two million Palestinians. The haunting pictures of emaciated children and families desperately queuing for scraps of food, are an utter indictment of the genocidal Israeli State and its imperialist backers.
At the same time, we see the creeping annexation of the Occupied West Bank, where a major programme of land seizures is being carried out. Violent settlers are free to engage in rampages against Palestinian communities. The Israeli State is also involved in a continuing colonial war against Lebanon and is occupying land in Syria. Meanwhile, Trump, the chief backer of the Israeli regime, is having the red carpet rolled out for him by the capitalist regimes of the Gulf States, including being gifted with a new luxury jumbo jet.
Guilty of genocide
The Israeli regime and Western imperialism stand condemned for the crime of genocide. So too do the arms manufacturers and IT companies that have supplied it the weaponry and technology to carry out its genocidal rampage. Capitalist states have engaged in a brutal clampdown on democratic rights against the Palestine solidarity movement. In Germany, hundreds of cases of such repression have been recently documented, including police raids, arrests and the beating of protesters.
The Irish State has engaged in a clampdown on peaceful protesters, such as those participating in the Mothers Against Genocide protest outside the Dáil on Mother’s Day. Despite their occasional expressions of protest against Israel’s actions, this same state has facilitated the free flow of arms through Irish airspace and Shannon Airport.
Irish government’s shameful subservience
While Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary on the settlements graphically exposed the scale of settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the Irish government is still blocking the Occupied Territories Bill. This is a bill that would ban the importing of goods and services from these settlements.
It is action and pressure from below from the Palestine solidarity movement that has forced the government to join the ICJ case and recognise the Palestinian State. We need to make sure this action continues, alongside other actions that will strike more blows against the Israeli State.
Protests, civil disobedience, boycotts and workers’ strike action will be required to end the transport of weapons through Shannon Airport and Irish airspace and implement the Occupied Territories Bill. Recently, SIPTU placed a new banner on Liberty Hall demanding a new ceasefire, but these words must be backed by action. Trade unions should organise their members to refuse to handle all goods and services that come from and are destined for Israel.
For Palestinian freedom and socialism
We have all come to this demonstration because we want to see a free Palestine – an end to genocide, occupation, apartheid and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their historic homeland. Seventy-seven years of Nakba must end.
This liberation will never happen as long as the Israeli Zionist State, one based on Jewish supremacy, remains in existence; it must be smashed.
The Palestinian masses, allied with the working class and oppressed in the region and internationally, are key to achieving this. But the question does not end there.
A struggle for Palestinian national liberation is bound with a need for more fundamental revolutionary change. The Israeli State is part of the system of capitalism and imperialism that dominates and exploits the peoples of the Middle East and beyond – a system built on racism, exploitation, poverty and oppression. The whole edifice of the rule of oppressive capitalist states and imperialism must be torn down.
A democratic socialist Middle East would be one where the resources and wealth are seized from the profiteers and publicly owned and democratically planned by and for the majority in society. Governments based on the rule of the working class and poor, working in solidarity and cooperation, can ensure justice for all and oppression for none. Palestinians and Israelis could live in complete equality from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, including equal national rights for both people.
The scale of the Gaza genocide and the complicity of Western capitalist governments and corporations pose, along with the rise of the far right and climate catastrophe, the urgent need for radical anti-capitalist and socialist change. Join the fight today!
