TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL-PAESTINE, June 9 — Thousands of workers and activists, both Jewish and Arab, marched in central Tel-Aviv . They protested the apartheid enacted by the Israeli regime against Palestinians in the West Bank and within the “green line” (the western part of historic Palestine). This rally came at the time when the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to build hundreds of new apartments in West Bank settlements, marketed exclusively to well-off religious Jewish settlers. The marchers chanted “Occupation is a Crime — Freedom Now for Palestine!” “Jaffa and Ramallah — the same Revolution” and “The People Demand to End the Occupation.”
Many of the rally’s leaders, however, were liberals and revisionists (“leftists” in words, but not in actions), who also added slogans such as “Struggle for Peace,” “No Peace, No Security — Disband the Government” and “Bring Down the Government.” While we in PLP wish all working people around the world to live a peaceful life free from war and oppression, we understand that the only way to achieve this is by an armed workers’ revolution and open class war against capitalism and imperialism, not “peace” between capitalist leaders such as Netanyahu and Abbas.
Even if the Netanyahu government will be “brought down,” the capitalist alternative to him and his ministers are more of the same. The real enemy is not only the current administration, but the capitalist regime in general. Another weakness of the march was that almost all the slogans targeted only the West Bank “occupation” since 1967, but not the racist, fascist apartheid regime in the western part of Palestine since 1948; workers on both side of the apartheid fence must unite and smash all forms of the Zionist apartheid regime, from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean sea.
Two PL’ers took part in this rally and marched up front, distributing dozens of leaflets calling for “Neither Two States Nor One State - but Workers’ Power” and leading several other workers in chanting “The Answer to Apartheid is Revolution!” and “Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Gaza — Same Revolution!” The international Progressive Labor Party calls for a united, communist-led struggle of workers from all nations against racism, imperialist war and capitalism and for a worldwide communist revolution. We PL’ers fight for this goal in our area. We strive to unite all workers from both ethnicities to smash the racist Zionist state and build towards a red Middle East and a borderless communist world.
Workers of the World - Unite!
[A Note on the term “Occupation:” When many in the U.S. think about “Occupation” or “Occupy,” they now think about the tent movement of the working youth and students against Wall Street and the rest of U.S. imperialism. However, when we in Israel-Palestine talk about the “Occupation,” we talk about the fascist military occupation of most of historic Palestine by the state of Israel.]