Monthly Archives: October 2023

A comment on the Palestine solidarity demonstration in Belfast

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About 3,000 people demonstrated in Belfast city centre on Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Three thousand is a large demonstration for Belfast, and for Palestinian solidarity is considerable.

The reason for the turnout is the obvious genocidal attacks of the Israeli state, on top of the existing widespread sympathy with the Palestinian cause among some sections of the population.  Israel flags have been put up by loyalists in a number of streets but this only confirms their utterly reactionary character, if any was needed.

It has become customary for commentators to smirk and disparage the different views on the Palestinian cause that overlaps to some degree with the sectarian division in Ireland, but these commentators rarely delve into the obvious explanation.  This was reflected in the speakers at the rally, where there was a speaker from the Bloody Sunday Trust, made up of relatives of the victims, and Sinn Fein as well, however, as one Protestant cleric.

A second major reason for the turnout has been the brazen endorsement of the attempted ethnic cleansing by Western states, including the British, EU and US; topped off  by deceit and hypocrisy about the Israeli ‘right to self-defence’.  In previous posts I have noted that the cause of Palestine is not only about Palestine, so the previous struggle in Ireland against imperialism should, and did, reflect consciousness about the struggle that once had Belfast at its heart.

But that was then and this is now; the anti-imperialist struggle has been buried in the North of Ireland for some time, and the politics of that defeat and the consciousness arising from it were on display at the demonstration.

Some speakers appeared to hold the Irish peace process as a model for Palestine; there were numerous calls for the ‘international community’ to call for a ceasefire, including the UN, and calls for pressure on Governments etc. to boycott, divest and sanction the Israeli state. This BDS movement “urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.”

I noted to a friend that the last time I was at a demonstration outside the City Hall it was rather smaller and was in protest against Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland.  At that time Sinn Fein was part of the wider effusion of welcomes to Biden by the Irish establishment – Sinn Fein wasn’t speaking at any Palestinian demonstrations then.  Yet everyone knows that Biden and the US has given the green light to the Zionist state’s mass murder, just as we protested at his visit for his provocations leading to war in Ukraine.

How credible then is the support for the Palestinian people by this party?  How credible does their participation make a campaign that prominently includes Sinn Fein leaders at its demonstrations?

Lots of calls were made on ‘the international community’ to intervene for a ceasefire, but the more accurate term for ‘international community’ is imperialism, and imperialism is not interested in a struggle against one of its proxies.  The UN has been passing resolutions seeking to limit Zionist actions for years to no effect – why would anything change now?

The calls for some sort of peace inspired by the Irish peace process is particularly blind and thoughtless.  What possible progressive outcome would arise from negotiations chaired by an American, organised by the British and which would exclude the Palestinians until they politically surrendered?  We don’t need to speculate.  The equivalent has already occurred and were the Oslo Accords that are a dead letter.  The current suspension of Stormont is hardly an advertisement for anything, except repeated failure.

The main problem for most of the speeches were that, for all the calls for action to end the siege of Gaza etc, these were directed at the Governments, including the Israeli, that have no intention or interest in bowing to this pressure.  Especially from those who have no intention of exercising what little power they currently have or could potentially levy.

Were Sinn Fein really opposed to the US arming of the Israeli state with the weapons that are currently killing thousands of civilians it would break off all contact with the US, including the politicians that regularly pop up in Ireland and currently include Joe Kennedy III, the ‘special envoy’ to Northern Ireland.  It would call on all its supporters in the United States to oppose their Government’s arming of Israel.  The chances of this happening are precisely zero.

The task of putting on pressure therefore becomes one of putting pressure on Sinn Fein.  The few heckles at the start of the Sinn Fein speech show that some are aware of the real Sinn Fein position.

Similar considerations apply to the trade union speaker at the rally.  Campaigners are entitled to ask where the campaign within the movement is that is trying to get workers themselves to boycott the transport of weapons to Israel.  Some might believe that this is currently impossible, but it is infinitely more likely than the ‘international community’ respecting ‘international law’ in protection of Palestinian lives.

Of course, this will cause dissension among supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, but while that may be the cause of an organisational split it will not be the cause of a political one because that already exists, it’s just currently hidden.  Pretending that Sinn Fein retains any sort of anti-imperialist character may be important to the Sinn Fein project, and to many of its members and supporters, but this is already being exposed as fraudulent the more it succeeds.  It is better that it be exposed by others than that it expose itself through yet more betrayals.

Otherwise the promise of the demonstration yesterday will be wasted and we will have politics as performance, something that is becoming all too prevalent.

The enemies and friends of Palestinian Liberation (2)

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Demonstration in solidarity with the people of Palestine in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

US imperialism has made it clear that the Israeli cause is not just its cause but that of imperialism as a whole, encompassing its other proxy – Ukraine.  This country in turn has been happy to endorse this alignment, with Zelensky seeking a photo opportunity with Netanyahu but with Israel showing reticence only because its relations with Russia are not one of open antagonism.  An indication of the reactionary character of Russia and an embarrassment to everyone, including those leftists whose ‘anti-imperialism’ involves support for Russia.

On the other hand, many friends of the Palestinian people start sometimes from humanitarian concerns or some sort of more or less consistent and considered opposition to Western imperialism and its Zionist proxy. 

So who are the real friends of the Palestinian people might seem to be a reasonable question.  In answering it we have already seen from the previous post that we cannot identify who these are simply by accepting their word for it. We need to determine who might be expected to support the Palestinian people based on their own interests in doing so and what this support amounts to and its objectives might be.

So, just as every Arab country and people is composed of ruling classes, for whom the Palestinians are a problem, so too are there working classes and other subordinated sections of the people who genuinely support the Palestinians and have demonstrated this support.  But the Palestinian people themselves are also divided into classes, including a working class and other subordinated and marginalised people, for example in refugee camps, as well as a Palestinian middle class and bourgeoisie.

It has been the policy of the Arab states to turn the Palestinian movement into replicas of themselves, with a relatively privileged and corrupt leadership, which is why the Palestinian Authority lost Gaza and is now more and more discredited in the West Bank.  This has led to the growth of Islamic fundamentalist movements with their own state sponsors. A recent article in the ‘Financial Times‘ by a former British ambassador to Lebanon recommends that imperialism make its own attempt to fashion a Palestinian movement – “the US and Europeans have recog­nised that they need to rebuild main­stream Palestinian lead­er­ship, hav­ing cast them adrift.”

So, everyone wants to help the Palestinians, even the imperialists who are helping the Zionist regime murder thousands of them, or is happy to stand aside and parrot Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, when what they actually mean is its right to commit mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Those who defend the democratic rights of the Palestinian people cannot therefore avoid the question of what sort of Palestine they want to solidarise with – an end to the current siege and offensive is only the most immediate task.

If we believe we can build a movement that can make a difference then it also needs to develop its own views and policy on the role of imperialism, the Arab states, Islamic fundamentalist regimes and movements, and the position of Jewish workers. This is what is meant by saying, as we did in the first post, that ‘the question of Palestine is not only about Palestine’. Even when it is about Palestine we should have a view on what sort of Palestine we want.

Arguing that it is none of our business is mistaken on two counts. First, it will not stop every other force, from imperialism to Islamic fundamentalism, seeking to create its own version of Palestine, and second, solidarity is a two way street. This means unless we think the Palestinians will always be purely victims we must allow their agency, and we want their actions to be in solidarity with the struggles of workers in the rest of the world who are, and will, come to their aid.

This means we need to consider what sort of Palestine solidarity we need. The same corruption, deceit and reactionary outlook that infects the Arab regimes, and the Palestinian movement itself ,exists among those in the West supporting Palestine, partly reflecting their class interests and partly, in some cases, awful politics.  Let us look at Ireland as an example.

The Irish state, and its people generally, are known to be the most pro-Palestinian in Europe, the Irish President, who has only symbolic powers in the main, voiced his opposition to von der Leyen’s declaration of unconditional support to Israel when she quickly visited it.  Yet who is stupid enough to believe that the Irish state, so dependent on the United States and its multinationals for its financing, will do anything effective to support the Palestinian cause and hinder Western imperialist support for it?

Or take the prominent participant in recent demonstrations supporting the Palestinian people – Sinn Fein.  It will most likely soon be a participant in Government in the Irish State. Is it going to use its position to effectively challenge Israel or its imperialist backer?  To ask the question is to answer it.  In the past it has had secret “below the radar” meetings with Likud, ‘explaining’ that it made its criticism of Israel’s policies in private, exactly the same boast of von der Leyen, Biden, Sunak etc. etc. More recently, it joined with the rest of the Irish establishment in welcoming Joe Biden to Ireland.

The only force that has an interest in solidarity with the Palestinian oppressed is the working class, and this is because their interests are aligned in opposing imperialism and the oppression that accompanies it.  Empathy with oppression is fine, but unless solidarity is a two-way street based on mutual interests it will not be strong or lasting.  Unfortunately some on then left are unable to express this solidarity consistently, because they either support western imperialism in Ukraine or also support the Zionist state itself.

Joe Biden has been congratulated by bourgeois media commentators for wrapping up the aid package for Israel with that for Ukraine, to out-manoeuvre Republicans in Congress, but it places a question in front of those on the left who oppose Israel but support Ukraine – do you support it?  Responding that you would wish to see the objects of this aid treated separately neither answers the question nor addresses the nub of the matter, which points to their inconsistent opposition to imperialism or in other words, inconsistent support.

If the Palestinian people are in the maelstrom of the world-wide imperialist conflict, the question to be put is how would it be possible to end their oppression without also ending this wider conflict, for as long as imperialism exists, so will war.  The eruption of the largest war in Europe since World War II and the renewed ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, with war also threatened in China and Taiwan, shows that this is not an idle or academic question.  It is one that requires and defines political movements and programmes.

It is not the first time the socialist movement and the working class has been placed with the choice.  In World War I the socialist movement split over ‘defence of the fatherland’ with most backing their own capitalist state in the war.  Today, much of the left has repeated the betrayal, mostly rallying to Ukraine and de facto Western imperialism, while another part supports Russia, ludicrously under the banner of ‘anti-imperialism’.

Neither has argued that the working class must maintain an independent position opposed to both, or argued that the only answer to capitalist war is socialism.  None of their various claims–for ‘self-determination’, ‘anti-imperialism’, or even ‘Free Palestine’ include any credible argument that these lead to socialism or are part of a socialist programme.  Nor could they– how could Western imperialist support for capitalist Ukraine, or support for Hamas, or other Arab states, or the Iranian state, lead to such an objective?  Yet many who support ‘Ukraine’ or the Palestinian cause claim to be socialists.

A socialism that is always deferred, to come to the fore at some future undefined point, while others in the meantime limit and define the political character of any solidarity, is blind to its own impotence.

The alternative programme is permanent revolution, which was first enunciated by Marx after the revolutions of 1848 and further elaborated by Trotsky after the Russian revolution in 1905 and put into practice in the revolution in 1917.  A future series of posts will look at how this has been, and should be, understood.

Back to part 1

The enemies and friends of Palestinian Liberation (1)

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The hypocrisy and cynicism of Western imperialism is nauseating.  Biden, Sunak, Macron and Scholtz, not to mention von der Leyen all visited Israel to express their solidarity with the Zionist regime that over the last few decades has made it clear that the political solution these politicians claim to support is dead.  The seizure of land on the West Bank by settlers and killing of those getting in their way destroys any illusions that a two-state solution is remotely being considered.  This, and the increasing Zionist violence inflicted on the Palestinian population, is part of the explanation for the armed action of Hamas.

This was roundly condemned by these leaders whilst Israel had already begun to commit mass murder and destruction in Gaza.  The rest of the world is supposed to be brow-beaten into acceptance of this ethic cleansing through demands that they accept Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, a right never invoked on behalf of the Palestinians.

As they became aware of mounting horror and opposition to the Zionist regime’s exercise of this ‘self-defence’, they called for humanitarian relief for the imprisoned population in Gaza, with Biden claiming he had won such a concession, before he cleared off back to the US to announce proposals for a $105 billion package of support for Ukraine’s war against Russia and Israel’s mass murder.

The cheque given to Israel, to ensure it could afford its mass killing, was underwritten by endorsement of its murderous siege, with the fig leaf of the opening of the border to Egypt of some relief from the blockade of food, medicine, water and fuel. The population of the north of Gaza was told to move south, as if this was a move to safety and access to humanitarian aid.

Moving south, they were bombed and have met with such pitiful amounts of help it is cynicism of extraordinary proportions.  The promise of relief by Biden was as much a part of the war on the Palestinians as the endorsement of ethnic cleansing.  The sending of aircraft carriers and other battleships by the US and Britain is a signal that the pogrom being carried out by Israel will receive their protection.  The mass protests, despite the propaganda of the capitalist media and threats of prohibition, demonstrate that in many imperialist countries working class people do not swallow the cynical policies of their leaders.

This demonstrates that the Zionist regime is increasingly no longer regarded as an innocent victim and that many want to express their support for a people subject to unimaginable oppression.  Opposition to the Zionist state is growing in the West but even this short resume of what has happened in the last few weeks reveals a bigger picture.

While the focus of many has understandably been on the immediate death and destruction meted out by the Zionist state, the actions and words of Western imperialism reminds us that the question of Palestine is not only about Palestine.  Israel is a settler colonial state sponsored by western imperialism, although also supported upon its creation by the Soviet Union, a testament to the reactionary nature of Stalinism.

The tyrannical Arab regimes are likewise creations of Western imperialism, which determined the borders of their countries for its own purposes.  Having just read some Marxist analysis of the Palestinian struggle from the early seventies, I was reminded that one such regime turned on the Palestinian movement and crushed it within its borders, in Jordan in 1970.  The recent recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain, demonstrates again that these regimes are utterly reactionary.  Just before the latest events Israel was in negotiations to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, which no doubt would have had some empty and worthless gestures towards the Palestinian ‘problem’ as part of the deal.

From the point of view of these regimes the Palestinian people are indeed a problem – that their populations are bitterly opposed to its oppression while they seek to advance their state interests, including through improved relations with the Zionist state.

In the past these Arab states were so weak, venal and corrupt that their subordination to Western imperialism was abject.  Their support for the Palestinians involved sponsoring their organisations as mirror images of themselves, cut down as in Jordan in 1970 when they became too big and powerful.  While these regimes have grown stronger and US imperialism has declined, so increasing their room for manoeuvre in protecting their own interests, these interests do not involve saving the Palestinians.

It is not a coincidence that the major opposition to Israel and immediate potential support to the Palestinians comes from a non-Arab regime–Iran–which is opposed by US imperialism and the Zionist state because it has asserted its own interests against them.  US imperialism has attempted to reverse its decline by provoking conflict, including marshalling its subordinate allies across the world in economic and military conflict with the enemies that might benefit most from its eclipse.

This has involved the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, further expansion of its military alliance in Europe, and expanding economic sanctions against China.  The assertion of US authority in the Middle East through full commitment to Israel is part of the attempt to protect its imperial role in the region.  The opposition of Iran, the more muted opposition of the Arab regimes, and the increasing role attempted by China are all regional aspects of the ratcheting up of imperialist competition and conflict across the world.  The Palestinians in Gaza are currently in the maelstrom of all this, symbolised and made vital by Biden’s proposal for a $105 billion package to support Ukraine’s war and Israel’s mass murder.

Forward to part 2

The Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign and Palestine- bankrupt opposition to imperialism

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How often have we heard from the supporters of Ukraine that we should listen to the words of the Ukrainian left, as if their nationality or proximity to the war privileged their political views and pre-empted our own?  Should we contract-out our politics to every nationality?  What is this other than identity politics gone mad?

The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC) has one such author we should apparently listen to, writing not about Ukraine but about Palestine (is this not a breach of the decree?)  Or do the Ukrainian leftists who support their own state have some special insight into all struggles that claim to be ‘anti-imperialist’?

Let’s look at what this article says: ‘Side with progressive forces in Israel and Palestine for a lasting peace’.

It declares that:

‘On October 7 a new round of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation began with rocket fire by Hamas. The whole world turned its attention with horror to the atrocities of terrorists against peaceful citizens of Israel and other countries. However, for now, while everyone is debating the need to strike back as hard as possible, progressive forces around the world should focus on a plan to achieve lasting peace.’

Just as the war in Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022, so did the conflict in Israel and Gaza not start on October 7 2023, as everyone knows, or should know, because it is literally impossible to understand either by reference to these dates, by regarding them as providing the context for comprehension of what is going on.

The whole world did not turn ‘its attention with horror to the atrocities of terrorists against peaceful citizens of Israel and other countries’; for a start the attack by Hamas also included attacks on the Israeli military.  This is not to ignore or excuse or support or defend the killing of Israeli civilians.  Among many people there is an understanding of where these desperate (in every sense of the word) attacks came from.

Neither is ‘everyone . . . debating the need to strike back as hard as possible’.  Certainly not the targets of this ‘strike back’, not those who are genuine socialists, and not those hundreds of millions who understand the circumstances of the Palestinians in Gaza and who sympathise and solidarise with them and their struggle.  Only from the point of view of Zionism and western imperialism is there a debate about how hard to strike back.

‘For now’, the progressive forces around the world should not ‘focus on a plan to achieve lasting peace’ but should focus on how they might stop the pogrom and ethnic cleansing of Gaza that can only entail a murderous catastrophe.  To think that right now we need a plan for lasting peace is to indulge in cynical pretence, putting one’s head down while death is dealt all around.

The article states that ‘Israel has the right to self-defence and can retaliate against terrorists’, while Its concern with Israeli tactics seems mainly to lie in their being counter-productive, not their purpose or consequences. Even the failure of previous negotiations is blamed mainly on the Palestinians.

It declares that ‘the international community should support progressive forces willing to make concessions for the sake of peace’, the same international community that has sat back while Israel has expanded while ensuring the expansion through massive financial and military support.  The same ‘international community’ that any self-regarding socialist would immediately recognise as imperialism.

It states that ‘the international community should promote the creation of new progressive political movements in Palestine that would not involve either the corrupt Fatah or the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists.’  Imperialism is called upon to intervene to ensure that the Palestinians get the leaders and representation that they deserve – what imperialism thinks is appropriate.

No such exclusions are put on the far right, racist and fascist representatives of the Israeli state.  These so-called ‘new progressive political movements in Palestine’ should then ‘be willing to make concessions for the sake of peace.’  One has to wonder just what more concessions the Palestinians are expected to make to remedy their exile, their poverty, prevent their ethnic cleansing and make themselves acceptable both to imperialism and Zionism. 

What is the point of a solidarity campaign that claims to be anti-imperialist but cannot agree what imperialism is and so cannot agree on when or why or how it should be opposed?

A separate article on the USC site denounces ‘the anti-social ferocity of Ukrainian neo-liberals’ and states that ‘the recent statements of Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych about “destroying everything social” and “taking Ukrainians out of their comfort zone” have caused significant public outcry and a wave of criticism.’  But this is the same government and state that the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign supports, that defends its right to determine the future of its population!  The State and regime it wants to see armed to the teeth and have its writ run over millions more citizens.

The pro-Israel article is probably inspired by the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) component of the USC, while its Anti-Capitalist Resistance (ACR) ally has stated that ‘The root cause of the violence is the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state. Palestinians have borne the brunt of the death and destruction of the last 75 years.’  Yet this organisation supports the western powers without which its favourite capitalist state would already have been defeated.  It supports the intervention of these powers that have for the ‘last 75 years’ helped ensure the continuing destruction of the Palestinian people.  It needs the military support of the United States that is also siting off the coast of Gaza. No doubt the AWL, in turn, thinks the ACR is defending reactionary terrorism.

While the pro-imperialism of the AWL is more consistent this hardly makes the inconsistency of the ACR any better and neither is capable of a principled socialist approach.  How they can maintain a united campaign against ‘imperialism’ is not really hard to understand. If articles defending the Zionist state are acceptable for the USC then this is entirely appropriate to the politics of such a campaign and both components.

They deserve each other.

Solidarity with Palestine

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Thousands of Moroccans take part in a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in Rabat, Morocco on October 15, 2023. [Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP Photo]

Immediately after the Hamas attack the political leadership of the Israeli state made it clear that the rules of war were to be ‘abolished’ and their fight was against “human animals.”  The bombing of Gaza and the blockade on fuel and water entering it is a clear war crime, involving collective punishment on a whole population that can have only catastrophic results.

While Netanyahu threatened that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations”, Western leaders sanctioned the unfolding ethnic cleansing by endorsing Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, writing it a blank cheque that would be written in blood.  The language of the West was scarcely less uncompromising than that of Israel itself.

In the last couple of days these western leaders have recovered their composure and have reverted to their customary lies and hypocrisy, still supporting the Israeli offensive but calling for it to respect international law.  In doing so they still stand by the Israeli demand that half the Gaza population move south so that its army can occupy the North. Its fig leaf of concern is expressed in the call for Egypt to open up the border crossing into its territory to allow Palestinians to escape the pogrom.  There is no call for Israel to open up the border crossings into Israel itself, exposing their newly found humanitarianism as a cover for ethnic cleansing.

Their shift to sanctimonious and empty rhetoric from open and eager endorsement of war crimes does not stem from a sudden awareness of the scale of Zionist revenge but from the revulsion of many in the West and in the rest of the world to the Israeli pogrom.  They thought that abhorrence at the Hamas slaughter and the propaganda of the mainstream media would allow them to subdue and intimidate opposition to Israeli revenge, which many understand is simply an extension of the existing policy of destruction of the Palestinian population.

In Britain, Germany and especially France, governments took steps to threaten and ban demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause, which over the weekend have failed.  Almost the whole spectrum of bourgeois political opinion showed itself out of touch with much of its population – open endorsement of the brutality of the Zionist state was not acceptable.  A too open display of hypocrisy could not be allowed to congeal and become hardened into real comprehension of their rulers’ policy and the bias of its propaganda vehicles.  European workers were already paying for the war against Russia in Ukraine and the promotion of support for the war and sacrifices imposed by it might be further weakened if the Israeli invasion was portrayed as legitimate and ‘good’ while the Russian was indefensible and ‘bad’.

The change of language however has not involved a change in policy, except in one respect.  A further reason for the row back from open endorsement of the Zionist pogrom is the fear expressed by some security figures in the West that the invasion of Gaza is a Hamas trap, one that the Israeli military is not prepared for.  However, the far-right Zionist government has a policy of destroying any threat posed by the Palestinian population and has rejected concessions or even negotiations.  It therefore has its own imperative to destroy all Palestinian independent capacity for resistance and will consider that the history of the Zionist state shows what it can get away with, while its current political credibility and integrity requires its own massive level of retribution.

Western imperialist interests undoubtedly align with the settler colonial Zionist state, but the US political leadership had also thought that it had achieved remarkable stability in the region because it had been making some success of the more open alignment of the reactionary Arab regimes with Israel.  The fear expressed by it now is that the war will escalate and spread if the Zionist state provokes resistance sufficient either to endanger a quick victory, or to encourage or involve other fronts in the war, in Lebanon or Syria for example.

The stability of imperialism in the region, including also of the Zionist state, requires the stability of the reactionary Arab regimes; the too open and violent destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza may provoke their populations to action and weaken the whole authoritarian structure across the Arab world.

The future of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people does not therefore ultimately rest in the ‘Palestinian resistance’ (by which in today’s context means Hamas), but in the working classes of the whole Arab world plus Iran.  The Arab Spring and the mass demonstrations in Iran show the potential and the reality of their power.  They are the primary force that can destroy the reactionary Arab regimes that base their political stability on the subjugation of their own people and the quiescence and submission of the Palestinian population.

The Palestine solidarity movement should not politically endorse the ‘Palestinian resistance’, as code for Hamas or Fatah, but should oppose their own countries’ protection of the Zionist state and their threats to the Arab populations of other countries.  Not only should it oppose the blockade and invasion, but in the US and Britain it should demand that their escalation of the war-drive, under the hypocrisy of ‘de-escalation’, should be ended and that their war ships get out of the Mediterranean Sea.  Having exposed themselves for their too-open support for Zionist terror it should be understand that their purpose is to further support the Zionist state.

Solidarity with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere requires support not simply with them, but with the working class in the whole region, the only force which has not collaborated with western imperialism and the Zionist state and which will have to overthrow its own states in the process of overthrowing the Zionist one.

Palestine and Ukraine – in what way are they the same?

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The events in Gaza and Israel have driven home lessons that should have been learned long ago.  

The role of the United States and western imperialism, including the EU in joining the suffocation of the Palestinians, has again come to the fore.  Some on the left, who have defended imperialist intervention in Ukraine suddenly find themselves opposed to its role now; but they cannot both support and oppose it at the same time.  Imperialism is not being inconsistent, but this left certainly is, for it cannot will the defeat of imperialism in the Mediterranean while willing its victory in the Black Sea.  Were their actions to have the least practical impact this would be obvious.

One prominent spokesperson has paraded their confusion, writing that:

‘No less unbearable is the precipitation with which Western governments (and a Ukrainian government that ought to know better about the legitimate fight against foreign occupation) have expressed their solidarity with Israel, very much in contrast with their muted reactions to Israel’s brutal onslaughts on the Palestinian population.’

Why, among all the supporters of the Western imperialist alliance and one that formally wants to join NATO – effectively fighting on its behalf, should Ukraine “know better” than supporting Israel? Both countries are effectively tools of the United States, receiving massive amounts of military aid and political support, which is reciprocated. Why would these capitalist allies of the US not see their interests as not only compatible but convergent? After all, the President of Ukraine has said he wishes to model Ukraine on Israel!

Of course it is possible to take one’s cue from the barbarity of the conflicts but, given the censorship of Ukrainian atrocities and highlighting of those of Hamas, we can take our cue from accepting what is presented to us in the West or reject both. Either way we fail to get to grips with the nature of either.

Of course, in the case of the Palestinians there is a context which these leftists employ to explain support for them, even when their struggle is carried out by religious fundamentalists, but this leads to two obvious problems.  First, all the moralistic rhetoric about civilian deaths as illustrative of the nature of the war in Ukraine, and justifying support for it, can hardly be sustained given the killing of civilians by Hamas.  And second, the context of the Russian invasion has to be explained, and not just by the credulous notion that selective ideas of Vladimir Putin are sufficient explanation.  The idea that Ukraine’s potential membership of NATO and growing military cooperation with the US might have had something to do with the invasion has been dismissed by the supporters of Ukraine as if in this particular war western imperialism doesn’t count!

The Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk City has parallels with the Israeli shelling of Gaza City as does the political influence of the far right in both Ukrainian and Israeli politics, despite the ignorant argument that because Zelensky is Jewish he couldn’t possibly entertain and celebrate fascists in the Ukrainian armed forces.  This ignores both Israeli criticism of Zelensky’s whitewash of Ukrainian nationalist participation in the killing of Jews in World War II and the participation of far right/fascist parties in the Israeli government.  The celebration of the fascist Stepan Bandera and his Ukrainian nationalist heroes with a national holiday, street names and iconography, unmissable in Ukraine itself and in photographs of the conflict, are ignored by this à la carte left. ‘Creeping fascism’ is presented as a threat across Europe apart from the country that has armed its fascists to the teeth.

The simple-minded parallel they claim is that both Ukraine and Palestine are oppressed peoples that we should support.  Except Ukraine is an independent capitalist state supported by imperialism; the Palestinians don’t have a state and getting one through a two-state solution is a delusion; many Ukrainians support Russia, including the majority in Crimea–do they not deserve ‘self-determination’? and a solution to the problems facing the Palestinian people must also be a solution for the Jewish people, raising all sorts of questions about ‘self-determination’ as their go-to solution.

If the two situations are so simply similar, why doesn’t the pro-Ukrainian left call on imperialism to arm Hamas?  (After all, Israel itself gave it a helping hand in order to combat the PLO.) Why doesn’t it call on the Palestinians to show solidarity with Ukraine?  Or do such suggestions seem incredible and thus illustrate the difference?

Does it not show that their support for western imperialism is a betrayal of the struggle of the Palestinians?  More importantly, does it not show the incoherence of these social-imperialists – proclaiming socialism in words but unable to coherently oppose imperialism in practice – going so far as to actually support it in Ukraine?

Only a class analysis, and not a moralistic melange that cannot withstand the test of reality, provides a compass through which to orientate through the major events that have carried us through the first decades of the 21st century.  The rotten and degenerated left that supports Ukraine simply doesn’t notice that its ‘socialism’ is irrelevant.  In Ukraine it supports the capitalist Ukrainian state and imperialist support for it under the flag of self-determination, with no role required for an independent working class position.  In Palestine its supports for the Palestinian demand for its own state has again no role for a socialist programme and begs the question why they do not support Hamas like they support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with its fascist units – the real Red-Brown alliance they continually complain about in others.

In a world increasingly polarised and drifting more and more into conflict these ‘socialists’ will pick and choose which capitalist state or nationalist movement to follow but have lost the ability to distinguish separate working class interests.  Its socialism is an ideal that, while perfect in their own heads, has no grip on reality.

Solidarity with the Palestinian people

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“Shock” was the first word in ‘The Economist’ article following the Palestinian armed uprising in Gaza and Israel.  “Hamas must be made to pay for its atrocities” it exclaimed.

‘The Irish Times’ editorialised about the “appalling atrocities committed by Hamas” while stating that Israel is “not known for being proportionate or well-targeted”, which isn’t actually true.  The point of the violence of the Israeli state is complete suppression of the Palestinian population through violence and terror in which routine oppression is merely a background condition.  Its actions are proportionate to this objective and its targets are well suited to its aims.

The immediate question for the BBC was ‘how could Israel have let this happen?’  Not ‘How did it make this happen?’  How did its renowned intelligence services fail to predict it?  Not, how did they not understand that something like this was almost inevitable?

Immediately the viewer and reader is placed in the shoes of the Israeli citizen with the Palestinians as the ‘other’– one element of the stench of hypocrisy that hangs over Western commentary.  No ‘shock’ is ever recorded over the daily humiliation, oppression and murder of Palestinians by the Israeli state.  We never hear that ‘Israel must be made to pay for its atrocities’. In reality, the claimed failures of the Israeli security state to be sufficiently on top of the Palestinian people, and the “shock’’ of the “appalling atrocities committed by Hamas”, presage only more not very “proportionate or well-targeted” attacks on the open prison that is Gaza.

All the handwringing and dismay from imperialist politicians and commentators simply lay the ground for another round of Israeli terror, accompanied by sanctimonious and ineffectual declarations of ‘lack of proportionality’ and ‘targeting errors’– by those who have supported the Zionist State and its previous many ‘errors’ and ‘lack of proportion’.  The response by this state will be vicious and widespread but the media will not record this as the inevitable intensification of an existing policy that they have previously sanitised, by a state based on sectarian exclusivity and suppression of a whole people that is treated as almost less than human.  It will be considered only as unfortunate, not least for the democratic pretensions of the sectarian and racist state itself.

The US sponsor of the Israeli state, and its imperialist policing role in the region, has said it will send a carrier strike group in solidarity.  This too is a signal that the Israeli state can take the same response as the US did to what it calls its 9/11 – widespread demonisation of everyone it considers its enemy and inflicting overwhelming power against them.

The disparity of forces between the Israeli state, backed by imperialism, and Hamas and the Palestinian population means that a veritable massacre is inevitable.  Whatever about the audacity and bravery of those Palestinians who have joined Hamas and shaken the arrogance of the Israeli state, they cannot win.  It has been speculated that the uprising is a result not only of the growing desperation of the Palestinian people faced with increased dispossession and repression, but is also aimed at thwarting the moves to normalise relations between the Israeli state and some Arab regimes, particularly Saudi Arabia.  

However, whatever difficulties the uprising will create for this process, Saudi Arabia will not protect the Palestinian people from the Israeli onslaught. Saudi Arabia has interests separate and opposed to the creation of a democratic state, one that could promise an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people and of the deepening sectarian reaction among the Jewish population.

This population must learn that freedom and democracy for the Jewish people cannot be created by a state structured on imprisonment and oppression of the Palestinians.  The shift to extreme reaction and racism, including fascist-type figures in the government, is not accidental but the logic of an exclusionary state that will oppress not only those it seeks to exclude but police and repress democratic voices within. 

The first task for socialists across the world is to demonstrate against the mounting Israeli pogrom and show solidarity with the Palestinian people.  The uprising cannot succeed but its power will ultimately derive not from its temporary military successes but from the confidence given to the Palestinian people, exposure of the causes of the uprising and demonstration of the impossibility of peace or security in the region built upon Palestinian suppression.

This is the task of those seeking democratic advances in the region; not reliance on reactionary Arab regimes that have time and time again revealed themselves to be enemies of their own people never mind also of the Palestinians.  At some stage, when Israel has completed its immediate retaliation, the call will go up for negotiations, negotiation’s that have previously covered up for continued implementation of a settler colonial solution.

Solidarity must oppose the continued imposition of this ‘solution’ and argue for a democratic and secular state that can freely include Palestinian and Jewish populations.   This can only arise from opposition to Zionism and the Zionist state, which manifest the racist policy that justifies and implements Palestinian oppression.  Neither can it come from the reactionary Arab states or from Iran, which promote a politicised Islam in various forms in order to oppress their own people.  This is also true for the fundamentalist forces within the Palestinian people themselves: support for the democratic rights of the Palestinian people does not require that we endorse or support reactionary forces within them.

Neither Zionism or Islamism can unite the Jewish and Palestinian people, which cannot be done through the chimera of a separate state for both – the two state solution – but can ultimately only be achieved by the resurgence of a working class movement across the region.

The first step to this is opposition to the repression of the Israeli state, most immediately its mounting all-out war on the population of Gaza.  The Jewish population of Israel must be addressed by pointing to the results of years of repression by the Zionist state that has failed to protect them but has become more and more undemocratic within.  They cannot oppose the slide to authoritarian rule within the Israeli state while supporting it against the Palestinian people.

Irish neutrality and Left confusion

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Much of the Irish Left seems to have a strange fascination with the Irish State’s declared policy of neutrality, wanting to defend it while also seeming to deny that it actually exists.

A report of a recent meeting in Belfast on the Socialist Democracy website records the confusion.  It was organised by the Communist Party of Ireland calling for neutrality to be put into the constitution.  Not all the speakers appear to have agreed.

‘Vijay Prashad pointed out that Ireland had only “nominal neutrality” and ‘Patricia McKenna made a similar point about the nominal nature of Irish neutrality . . . A campaign to include neutrality in the constitution would have no effect.’  The Socialist Democracy speaker stated that currently ‘essentially Ireland was acting as part of NATO.’  However, the article asserted that ‘even if the CPI’s campaign is restricted to neutrality, it would be a step forward from the silence and submission in the face of the open integration to NATO, and opportunities will arise to argue for an anti-imperialist campaign led by the working class.’

This ambiguity, if not confusion, also appeared in a statement the organisation put out earlier.  It stated that ‘neutrality is not enough!’, implying that it existed.  It argued that ‘political groups are right to petition for the retention of neutrality and we support these campaigns and petitions’, at the same time as saying that ‘simply setting the bar around the issue of neutrality is to chase a chimaera’, and that such campaigns are ‘not enough. Ireland is not a neutral country.’

The confusion is not confined to this organisation.  A good article in the ‘Weekly Worker’ pointed out – ‘what are so-called socialists doing upholding the foreign policy of their ‘own’ bourgeois state?’ It references the People before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett who, in his own article, argues that:

‘the Irish political establishment, and especially Fine Gael, have been trying, stealthily, to undermine Irish neutrality for many decades. And in practice they have succeeded in ensuring that in terms of actual policy Ireland has always operated firmly in the camp of US imperialism.’

However, he too argues that the present policy should be defended: ‘There are also strong positive reasons for defending Irish neutrality’, he says. And argues for ‘the real potential that lies in Irish neutrality if we defend it and make real use of it’, such as expelling the Saudi and Russian ambassadors.  He argues that this ‘would send an immensely powerful statement against imperialist occupation and oppression round the world.’  A more striking and powerful statement would be the expulsion of the US and Ukrainian ambassadors, but he doesn’t argue that!

He says that not only does neutrality exist, but that it should be defended, and takes to task those that deny both:

‘There is a kind of weary cynical argument you sometimes hear on the left which runs, “Irish neutrality has already been so eroded that it is not worth defending any more”. But this misses the point. Even the fig leaf of neutrality that still exists does constrain our political establishment to some degree, which is why they would like to get rid of it. Moreover, a successful people power campaign to defend it would offer the potential to make the neutrality much more real.’

However, such an argument isn’t cynical but starts from reality, and since when did socialists defend fig leaves?  Do we not call them out for the lies and hypocrisy they are?  Is the socialist argument that we should make the Irish State ‘really’ neutral?

In principle, socialists are not neutral between the various capitalist powers and their variable alliances – we oppose all of them, whether bundled up under US leadership in NATO or the alliance of Russia with China.  These are all components of the world imperialist system and to fall into supporting one against the other is to betray the working class not only of the countries supported but the interest of the working class of the world as a whole.  

Opposition to neutrality is therefore derived from our not being neutral to the capitalist state within our own countries. Not wishing to take sides in the wars between them is a result of this opposition to all of them and does not entail a policy of neutrality but of seeking to turn wars between them into a class war against them–all of them.

Opposition to joining NATO has been conflated with support for the Irish State’s claim of neutrality as if this was genuine and as if, if it were, we should support it.  Of course, it would be better if it did have some more substance but it doesn’t and we should not pretend that it does; just as, while it is also better that the Irish State is not a formal member of NATO, we should not defend a policy of neutrality that does not even make a claim to political neutrality.  And we should beware of formalities: Ukraine is not a formal member of NATO but is fighting the biggest war in Europe since World War II against Russia on its behalf.

We should support the majority of people in the State who oppose NATO membership but explain why it is that this alliance should itself be opposed. This includes its provocations leading to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with all its horrific consequences for the Ukrainian people; a result of their political leadership walking them into the war through advancing the cause of NATO membership.  Such membership is not a guarantee of security but signs a country up to its policy of defence of US hegemony, leading recently to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

We are opposed to Irish soldiers fighting imperialist wars not because we have any illusion that the Irish State is not also part of the world imperialist system.  It is a large tax haven for mainly US multinationals and the home of opaque financial flows in the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin.  It is also the site of a lot of US direct investment.  To think that this State could be ‘really’ neutral, as People before Profit argues, is to believe that the interests of the Irish capitalist state can align or be compatible with neutrality, and that ‘real’ neutrality would be accepted by the United States and the rest of Western imperialism.

For Socialist Democracy the Irish State ‘is a satrap of imperialism. The current drive to militarisation is not a spontaneous decision by the Irish government, but is the result of demands by the US’; it argues that ‘the fight against military adventures is also a fight for our own self-determination. How can we mobilise around claims for self-determination in other lands while ignoring the continued British military presence in Ireland . . .’

In reality the interests of the Irish capitalist state and of Irish capitalism are fully subordinated to Western imperialism and both have as much ‘self-determination’ as any capitalist state in Ireland will ever achieve.  The addition of the Northern six counties will not change these fundamentals.  The problem isn’t mobilising around ‘self determination for the Irish people’ but building an international workers’ movement to overthrow capitalism and create new states based on the working class.

The organisation complains that in the meeting its contribution was not accepted – ‘the issue of class did not arise’ – but pretending that the question of imperialism is one of self-determination is misleading on the same point.  Defeat of imperialism in Ireland is co-terminus with overthrowing the Irish capitalist state and this requires a working class movement under the banner of socialism and not appeals to ‘the Irish people’ to determine its own future. Neither do appeals to ‘people power’ by People before Profit represent any class alternative, but a populist cry that deliberately avoids the question of class.

This is why it is wrong to absolve the Irish bourgeoisie of responsibility for the drive to NATO membership by saying that ‘the current drive to militarisation is not a spontaneous decision by the Irish government, but is the result of demands by the US.’  The Irish capitalist class is not being forced against its interests to pursue NATO membership and imperialism is not simply some foreign domination.

The Socialist Democracy web site quotes another speaker at the CPI meeting approvingly:‘Fearghal MacBhloscaidh made an important point when he pointed out that the battle against colonialism had led to a current of assimilation and a current for democracy. Modern Ireland was not based on the democratic impulse but on the counterrevolution that came to the fore after the war of independence.’

A similar, though not identical, idea is advanced by People before Profit in Boyd Barrett’s article:‘Ireland’s neutrality is a legacy of the Irish Revolution of the struggle against the British Empire, which made the new nation reject the idea of lining up with an empire. ‘For neither King nor Kaiser,’ as James Connolly and the Citizen Army put it in 1916. Fine Gael was born out of the counter revolution which aimed in the Civil War to crush the Irish Revolution. Visceral hatred of Irish republicanism and all it stood for, including Irish neutrality, is in their political DNA.’

It is true that ‘Ireland’s neutrality is a legacy of the Irish Revolution of the struggle against the British Empire’ but the Irish revolution was not led by James Connolly and the Citizen Army.  It was not led by the working class and labour was infamously told to wait.  The leadership of the Irish revolution was bourgeois and the revolution was a bourgeois revolution.  In other words, it was not an anti-capitalist revolution but an ‘anti-imperialist’ one that was anti-Empire but pro-capitalist.  Its objective was the creation of a separate capitalist state and this was as true of the ‘revolution’ as of the ‘counter-revolution’ on which so much is blamed, without thinking what difference victory for the anti-Treaty side would have made?

In fact we already know the answer to this because the leadership of the anti-Treaty revolutionaries came into government a decade later and nothing fundamentally changed.  Ignoring this is to ignore the class nature that opposition to imperialism must take now, as it needed to do in the Irish revolution of a hundred years ago but failed to do so.  The task is not to complete the Irish Revolution but to make a completely new one. 

So it is true that ‘Ireland’s neutrality is a legacy of the Irish Revolution . . .’ but the limitations and nature of that revolution, compounded but not radically changed by the ‘counter-revolution’, are reflected in the current policy of ‘neutrality’, with its bourgeois character and its sterile protection against capitalist war.

Some on the left think that the Irish State can have a neutral foreign policy, but it can no more do that than have a neutral domestic policy.  Since some of the left have abandoned Marxism this is indeed the road they are following.  Fine words about Marx in print and a thoroughly reformist practice in the Dáil; or if you are from a Stalinist background, belief that there is a progressive Irish bourgeoisie, or section of it, ready to declare neutrality.

But if you can’t see the policy or progressive bourgeoisie, it’s because they’re not there.

Irish neutrality does not exist and since the class war is international it cannot exist.