Text of Socialist Party leaflet
Palestinians and their supporters are once again being gaslit by Israel and its imperialist backers, including in the mainstream media. We’re told there’s a “ceasefire” in Gaza – but it’s been violated over 500 times, resulting in deaths of at least 350 Palestinians and the destruction of 1,500 buildings in seven weeks.
The intensity of the mass murder has lessened – for the time being – but the genocide has not stopped.
A decimated Gaza
Since October 2023, the Israeli regime has destroyed both life and the means of life. The equivalent of six of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima 1945 has been dropped on an area three times smaller than that city. Estimates put the number of buildings destroyed at 83%. Gaza’s health and other vital services have been decimated.
Less than a third of the aid needed is getting into Gaza, with what remains of Gaza’s hospitals still desperately struggling to operate without the necessary medical supplies. The onset of Winter is heaping even more misery on Gazans, as months of wet weather flood tents and force people to withstand the bitter cold elements.
Trump, Netanyahu and their imperialist and authoritarian allies would like us to turn away from the horror, and go along with their pretence that the ceasefire means they are no longer committing daily atrocities on the Palestinians. This will not happen!
In fact, they are now trying to impose the second phase of their fraudulent deal. Less than two weeks ago, the UN Security Council voted in favour of (with Russia and China abstaining) the creation of an “international stabilisation force” that would be a new despicable form of colonisation in Gaza.
The enemies of Palestine
Western capitalist states, big business, arms companies and the media have been totally complicit in Gaza’s genocide. Their talk of support for “peace” is deeply cynical and completely hollow – they are the enablers of Israel. Here in Ireland, the Government continues to drag its feet on the Occupied Territories Bill. Shamefully, and they are doing so because of the pressure from US multinationals that are tied to Israeli capitalism.
Insofar as there is any reprieve for the Palestinian people in Gaza, it is because of the global Palestine solidarity movement. For two years, we have marched and taken direct action in the streets in cities and towns across the world.
At the end of September and early October, general strikes took place in Italy and the Spanish state. The recent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, who spoke against the genocide and the oppression of Palestinians, shows how the mood has dramatically shifted against the Zionist State in the proverbial belly of the beast.
We need to ensure that not only do we not let up in our solidarity actions, but that we step it up! Trade unions must organise their members to take industrial action against Israeli goods and services, and against companies complicit in the occupation of Palestine. There should be “no business as usual” while the genocidal destruction of Gaza and Palestine continues.
Tear down this rotten system
Linked to this, we need to build a revolutionary socialist alternative to this system. We have all come on today’s protest because we want to see an end to the genocide, occupation, colonial settlements and racial supremacy from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea – to see freedom for Palestine, where all peoples could live in equality.
This will never happen if the Israeli State remains in existence – it must be dismantled. So too must the system of capitalism and imperialism, of which the Zionist state is a vital part of in the region. The Palestinian masses, allied with the working class and oppressed globally, are key to achieving this.
A democratic socialist Middle East and North Africa would be a region based on the rule of governments of workers and the poor, working in co-operation and solidarity, based on planning and public ownership of its wealth and resources. Such a society would guarantee the civil, religious and democratic rights of all its peoples, including the right to national self-determination.
