Tel Aviv, July 12 — Hundreds of antiwar workers, including members of Progressive Labor Party, protested in Habima Square against the mass bloodshed in Gaza. This fight between bosses props up all rulers. The Israeli capitalists have united many workers behind them in nationalistic and racist fervor; the Hamas heads claim to be fighting a “resistance” war against Zionism while robbing the Gazan population blind. The bosses get rich and powerful while workers, especially those in Palestine die.
Amid this mass murder, we PL’ers came to support the demonstration against fascism and imperialist war. But the class enemy was also prepared. A large gang of fascist thugs from groups such as Kahane and LAHAVA (a racist group fighting against marriage between Jews and Arabs) also came out. They shouted racist slogans like “Death to Arabs” and beat up many demonstrators. The cops — the fascists’ best friends — stood aside and let them beat up the antiwar protesters.
The following week saw even more fascist rampages inside the “Green Line.” Emboldened by the nationalistic hysteria whipped up by the war, the thugs threw stones and bottles at a demonstration by Palestinians in Haifa, again with no real sanction by the cops. In Tel Aviv, they violently attacked two more demonstrations with eggs and bottles, and threatened women fighters with rape.
As communists, we will not stand back and surrender while the Israeli government murders hundreds in Gaza, and these thugs rampage in the streets. One of our comrades has joined a broad self-defense group that is training to take the fight to the fascist enemy in the streets. Racist bullies have to be beaten back, just as Zionism and Hamas need to be thrown into the dustbin of history. We must build a mass communist party to defeat capitalism and establish an international workers’ communist state.
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New York City, July 25 — “IDF, USA; How many kids did you kill today?” “No more occupation! Working people have no nation!”
These were the anti-racist, pro-working class chants led by members of Progressive Labor Party and friends at rallies on successive days at Foley Square and Times Square against the attacks on workers of Gaza by the fascist Zionist ruling class of Israel. These chants presented a sharp contrast to the pacifist and nationalist chants of the rallies’ leaders.
Gaza contains 1.8 million people, the great majority of them refugees, from other parts of Palestine/Israel, packed into an area of 140 square miles. It is often referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison. The Israeli massacres there have become so blatant that workers and students around the world are taking action against it.
Yesterday’s rally was led by Adalah and other groups pushing BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) as the way to stop the fascist attacks and occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. But in pointing to South Africa (which got 80 percent of its arms from Israel) as an “example of the power of pacifism and BDS,” they ignored two crucial points.
First, the struggle in South Africa was not primarily pacifist. Workers in South Africa fought back, often with armed violence; they did not wait for boycotts and divestment to work. Second, even with the official end of apartheid, South Africa remains a viciously racist country where black miners and other workers are murdered by police when they strike against inhuman conditions. Even if the Israel-erected wall goes down, Palestine/Israel will remain racist and fascist. Capitalism and imperialism will never be ended nonviolently. Only working-class unity leading to communist revolution can bring a just world.
While the chants and speeches of ANSWER and Al Awda, the organizers of today’s rally, were less pacifist, they were even more nationalist. The two main chants were “Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, Palestine will never die!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” While fighting against the Israeli ruling class and those workers won to fascism is necessary, it is equally necessary to build unity among all workers in Palestine/Israel — Jewish, Arab and immigrants. Just as Jewish workers must fight back against the Zionist rulers, Arab workers must refuse to follow Hamas or other nationalist wannabe rulers. Only unity of all workers, leading to communist revolution, will create a system that serves workers’ needs.
In spite of the misleadership at the rallies, most people took both CHALLENGEs and our flyer. Many agreed that only a working-class-run state could solve the problems faced by the workers of Palestine/Israel.
To have a world where workers and our children can be free of the evils of capitalism, racism, imperialism and war, we must unite to build a communist revolution. Join PLP!