TEL AVIV, ISRAEL, June 2 — Following the massacre on one of the supply ships headed to Gaza earlier this month, the Israeli fascist group “Im Tirtzu” organized a rally at the entrance of the Tel Aviv University in support of that deed and of the Israeli army. The fascists were supported by the Student Council and managed to attract a large crowd of students to their rally.
Various left groups, as well as a significant number of Palestinian nationalists, staged a counter-demonstration in front of the fascist rally, calling Israel a fascist state. Unfortunately, most of them followed a nationalist line, either calling for a two-state “solution” or raising Turkish flags. Nationalism — including that of oppressed nations such as the Palestinians — is a dead-end ideology. It serves the bosses by convincing workers that they have more in common with the bosses from “their” country, than with workers around the world. Nationalist slogans are also ineffective in repelling the rising fascist tide in today’s Israel. An internationalist, communist line is needed. The only way to rid the world of racist, capitalist attacks is for all workers to unite worldwide to overthrow capitalism and establish communism.
One of our comrades took part in this counter-demonstration, and brought along a red flag with the PLP symbol on it, proudly making a stand for communism and against nationalism. When he was asked by one of the nationalists what the flag had to do with the demonstration, he replied “communism is the only way to smash fascism once and for all.”
Later the fascist horde, supported by the cops, charged the counter-demonstration and tried to beat up the demonstrators; one counter-demonstrator was arrested. But our comrade carried out our Party line and fought valiantly against the attack.
We have many lessons to learn from this demonstration, but the most important is about the urgency of building a mass communist party in Israel/Palestine in particular and in the entire world in general. If we had a larger contingent of communists at that demonstration, for example, we could have smashed the fascists. So we will double our efforts towards building the Party. Join Us!
A Comrade in Israel/Palestine
(see eyewitness letter, page 6)