Israel & Palestine

Yesterday, March 29, we received this statement from the Abnaa elBalad movement in Israel. Their leaders are still in prison “awaiting trial” and have now started a hunger strike to protest at the terrible conditions they are having to suffer.

More than 20,000 people participated today in the central Land Day Demonstration - 'Yowm al Ard' in Arabic - (marching from the Palestinian village of Sakhnin to Arabeh), protesting against the land confiscations, house demolitions, the arrest of the leadership of the Islamic movement and of the Abnaa elBalad movement, the Occupation, the Apartheid wall and the assassinations of Palestinian leaders.

This morning's criminal killing of Shaikh Ahmad Yassin, leader of Hamas, in Gaza, on the partb of the Israeli military will only serve to provoke more terrorist attacks on Israel. It will make the hellish spiral of tit-for-tat suicide bombings followed by state repression even worse. The Palestinian and Israel workers will be the ones to suffer. Only the working class on boths sides can offer a way out of this nightmare.

Sharon’s proposal to “withdraw” from Gaza do not represent a step towards a solution to the conflict in the Middle East, but rather hide manoeuvres on the part of the Israeli government. It is a cynical game played out at the expense of both the Israeli and Arab masses.

The idea of a bi-national state solution has become fashionable among some circles in Israel/Palestine. Yossi Schwartz in Jerusalem explains that on the basis of capitalism, with unemployment, bad housing, low wages and discrimination, neither the two-state nor the single bi-national state proposals can work. The only solution can be found within an overall Socialist Federation of the Middle East.

Today the International Court of Justice in the Hague has opened its hearing on the legality of Israel's wall that has been built in the last few months in the occupied West Bank and would leave Palestinians isolated in enclaves in only part of the West Bank. Let us make no mistake about this wall, what the government of Israel is doing is basically building Ghettos for the Palestinians. These walls should come down.Yet the question is how and by whom? And this question is related to other questions: Can we get justice in the Hague?

We have received signatures to the petition against the harassment of Abnaa elBalad from four Members of Parliament in Pakistan, and also from Mexico and the USA.

We have received this letter from Mordachai Peargut in Israel, a working class pensioner, who reflects on the state of Israel, the Middle East and the manoeuvres of US imperialism.

We have just received information about the arrest in Israel of the General Secretary of the Abnaa elBalad movement, Comrade Muhammad Kana'ane, of the central committee member Comrade Husam Kana'ane and the editorial secretary of the elJeel elJadeed magazine Comrade Sahar 'Abdu. We are asking our readers to sign this statement demanding their release.

The presidential elections in the US will take place on November 2, and Bush is not doing very well. According to the latest opinion polls his popularity is sinking daily and if the elections were to take place today he would lose. Big surprise. The war in Iraq is becoming unpopular as the death toll is growing. In such a period Bush needs all the help he can get and his soul mate Ariel Sharon is trying his best to support his old buddy. This is in part is what is behind Sharon's latest declarations about unilateral retreat, following the official collapse of the "Road Map".

Yossi Schwartz looks at the real reasons behind the recent exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hezbollah.

In the last few months we have heard a lot about the Geneva plan that supposedly represents a breakthrough in the "Peace process" in the Middle East. In reality this plan reflects the growing contradictions between the interests of European imperialism and American imperialism and its "Road map". Moreover, the Geneva Accord is a simple sell out of the Palestinian people's aspirations to be free and to live normal lives.