International Court of Justice Finds Israel’s Occupation of Palestine Illegal

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/07/20/woqv-j20.html

In a devastating condemnation of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful, ordering all countries to cease enabling it.

Presiding Judge Nawaf Salam reads the ruling in the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday July 19, 2024. [AP Photo/Phil Nijhuis]

The court ruled categorically that Israel’s 56-year-old domination over “the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” is “illegal.” The occupied territories include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, whose population is being systematically massacred by Israel in an ongoing genocide.

In its sweeping ruling, the court found that, beyond the criminality of Israel’s war against the population of Gaza, the entire framework within which the genocide is being conducted is itself illegal, and that its enablement by the imperialist powers is also illegal.

The court declared that “All States must cooperate with the United Nations to put into effect modalities required to ensure an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” It adds that countries must not “render aid or assistance in maintaining” the illegal occupation.

In a refutation of the imperialist powers’ justifications for funding and arming the Gaza genocide based on claims that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” the court ruled that “Israel’s security concerns cannot override the principle of the prohibition of acquisition of territory by force.”

The Biden administration has declared dozens of times that the support of the United States for Israel’s war against the population of Palestine is “ironclad.” Since the start of the Gaza genocide, the US has provided Israel with $6.5 billion in weapons and has pledged a further $14 billion. This included more than 14,000 2,000-pound bombs.

With the help of these weapons, Israel has likely killed 186,000 Gazans or more since October, according to a survey published in The Lancet.

In announcing the ruling, Nawaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, said,

The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the occupied Palestinian territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.

Responding to Friday’s ruling, the UK-based charity Oxfam declared that Israel “is committing the crime of apartheid in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which is one of the most serious international crimes.”

Philippe Sands, counsel for Palestine in the ICJ case, declared in response to the ruling,

This is as clear and far-reaching a ruling as I have come across from this court. … Its legal consequences are entirely without ambiguity, its political consequences far-reaching. … Among the many practical consequences, the court has made clear its view, by an overwhelming majority, that the US and other embassies in Jerusalem are illegal and must be removed for international law to be respected.

Israel has fully annexed East Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem as its capital. In an embrace of the illegal occupation, the Trump administration moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, a move upheld by the Biden administration.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, international law expert William Schabas declared, “[The advisory ruling] is not just directed against Israel. It’s directed against Israel’s friends, and it’s telling them that they cannot contribute in any way to the settlement policy, to the continued acts of violence and persecution in the occupied territories.”

In a statement responding to the ruling, Amnesty International declared, “The International Court of Justice has issued its opinion, and the conclusion is loud and clear: Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories are unlawful, and its discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinians violate the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.”

Israeli officials responded with condemnations of the ICJ and by reasserting the very content of the ruling: that Israel is seeking to dominate and annex the entirety of the Palestinian territories.

“We will not accept moral preaching from the court,” blustered Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land—neither in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be disputed.”

The ICJ is the highest legal body of the United Nations. Friday’s ruling is in response to a 2022 request by the United Nations General Assembly to rule on the legality of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. It is separate from the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor has accused Israel of genocide.

While Friday’s ruling presents a devastating legal indictment of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the fact remains that it, like numerous other court rulings and UN resolutions, has no practical force whatsoever.

The ruling comes ahead of the visit by Netanyahu to Washington on July 24 to deliver a joint address to Congress, in which the war criminal prime minister will give a progress report to his imperialist paymasters. The imperialist powers, led by the United States, are thoroughly committed to supporting the genocide in Gaza as part of the reassertion of neo-colonial domination all over the world.

The task of opposing and ending the Gaza genocide falls to the working class, and it can only be accomplished through the building of an international movement of workers and young people all over the world against war and imperialist barbarism as a critical element of the struggle for socialism. The rally called by the Socialist Equality Party, International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) and International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) on the day of Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will be a decisive step in building this movement, and we urge the broadest possible attendance at this critical event.

Julian Assange's Lawyers Speak Outside US Court in Saipan

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Solidarity to All Those Who Kept the Faith--Julian Freed!

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Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange to Plead Guilty, Return to Australia | AP News

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CHEERS AND LONG LIFE TO JULIAN, STELLA AND THEIR TWO BOYS.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to plead guilty, return to Australia | AP News

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT THE STORY I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE THAT JULIAN'S CASE HAS BEEN.  BUT IT'S WHAT'S OUT THERE. 
 

EXCERPT:

WASHINGTON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will free him from prison and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents, according to court papers filed late Monday.

Assange is scheduled to appear in the federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.

The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the U.S. government’s years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. Investigators, by contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.

He is expected to return to Australia after his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia.

The deal ensures that Assange will admit guilt while also sparing him from any additional prison time. He had spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations before being locked up in the United Kingdom.

Prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of the five years Assange has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting to avoid extradition to the U.S. to face charges, a process that has played out in a series of hearings in London. Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.

He is expected to return to Australia after his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia.

The Lab Leak Hypothesis: Wrong AND Dangerous -- Rebecca Watson -- Nice one!

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UN Commission Finds Israel Guilty of “Extermination,” “Crimes Against Humanity,” Killing Palestinians and Israeli Hostages

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/06/13/enhy-j13.html

The commission found that the Israeli military’s response to the October 7 attack was “significantly delayed and, in many places, totally inadequate.” This was despite the fact that the Israeli military was in possession of Hamas’s detailed battle plans for the attack. On the day of the attack, Israeli forces were deliberately withdrawn from the border.

Once Israeli forces arrived, they began attacking Israeli hostages and other civilians. “The Commission documented one statement by an ISF tank crew, confirming that the crew had applied the Hannibal Directive by shooting at a vehicle which they suspected was transporting abducted ISF [Israeli security forces] soldiers.”

The Hannibal Directive aims to prevent the capture of Israelis by enemy forces, even at the cost of their lives, and implies that the IDF should kill Israelis rather than allow them to fall into the hands of Hamas.

The report continued, “The Commission also verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, ISF had likely applied the Hannibal Directive, resulting in the killing of up to 14 Israeli civilians. One woman was killed by ISF helicopter fire while being abducted from Nir Oz to Gaza by militants. In another case, the Commission found that Israeli tank fire killed some or all of the 13 civilian hostages held in a house in Be’eri.”

The commission concluded, “Israeli authorities failed to protect civilians in southern Israel on almost every front. This included failing to swiftly deploy sufficient security forces to protect civilians and evacuate them from civilian locations on 7 October. In several locations, ISF applied the so-called ‘Hannibal Directive’ and killed at least 14 Israeli civilians.”

How the Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Israel's Collapse, with Shir Hever--On the Economic Situation

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Light in the Dark. The Deep Ocean Begins Where the Sunlight Ends. Brief Video Explanation.

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Diplomat Chas Freeman Outlines Facts Regarding Israel's Occupation and Genocide of Palestine

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The Crisis at Boeing and the Case for Nationalization--Bryan Dyne, World Socialist Website

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/29/lsyl-m29.html 

Excerpt:

The contract for the machinists expires on September 12 and a strike authorization vote is scheduled for July 17.

That one of the principle demands of the workers is for more safety inspections and quality control of Boeing aircraft speaks to the class nature of aviation. Workers know that it is their families, friends and co-workers who fly on poorly built and maintained mass-produced aircraft, while the executives and upper management soar on private jets with specialists to keep them at peak efficiency.

It follows that for aircraft to be truly safe, there must be workers’ control over their production. Production lines across the industry must be slowed down in a coordinated fashion to ensure adequate time to fully check and re-check each plane as it is being assembled. New and more advanced testing and development facilities must be established to insure that inherently flawed designs like the MAX 8 never again see the light of day.

Above all else, the crisis at Boeing makes the case for the nationalization of the entire airline industry.

Air travel is an integral part of modern life and the frequency of disasters and near misses cannot be allowed to continue. The working class must remove the profit motive and the dominance of Wall Street from public flight and replace them with a rationally and scientifically organized international system of air transportation.

Airline companies must be transformed into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, alongside all other major industries, as part of the fight to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism.

Free Julian Assange! Oppose imperialist war!

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PUBLIC MEETING: Mobilize the Working Class to Defend the Univ. of California Strike Against Genocide!

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/22/ygjp-m22.html

Will Lehman, a socialist Mack Trucks worker who ran for United Auto Workers president on a platform of rank-and-file control, issued the following statement in support of the meeting:

The strike by University of California academic workers against the crackdown on Gaza protests is in danger. On Tuesday, the university filed for a court injunction to ban the strike.

This is an attack on the whole working class. If they get away with this, no rights are safe.

The World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees are holding an emergency meeting this Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. All workers in every industry should attend. The issue will not be decided in the pro-corporate courts. It will be decided in the factories, the docks, the schools and hospitals, and other workplaces.

Workers must take action to defend the strike. It must be expanded to not just the entire University of California system but to the entire UAW membership and to other industries. Workers must form rank-and-file committees to enforce the will of the membership against the sellouts by the union bureaucrats.

The ruling class wants to ban all forms of political opposition. If you protest the crimes of the government you will be arrested. If you strike against arrests and the suppression of free speech, your strike will be declared illegal. One university administrator put it bluntly. He said: “Particularly in today’s climate,” if this strike is allowed, “the University—and every other public agency in California—would face constant strikes advancing political and/or social viewpoints.”

But every struggle in the history of the workers’ movement—from the fight against child labor, for the eight-hour day, and for the right to strike itself—has been a “political” struggle.

The same methods have already been turned against workers opposing corporate exploitation. In 2022, Biden and Congress banned a strike by railroad workers on so-called national security grounds.

The UAW is sabotaging the UC strike because they support Genocide Joe Biden. They are acting as an extension of the police and the courts.

They have only called out a single campus, UC Santa Cruz. They responded to the injunction by begging the university to negotiate. They say they may call out another campus by Friday. But the strike could already be illegal by then. But even if they do get an agreement to shut down the strike, it will be an injunction in all but name.

There is enormous rank-and-file anger over this sabotage. But the issue has to be taken out of the hands of the bureaucrats. The response has to begin now. Contact the WSWS to get started by visiting wsws.org/workers. Register for Saturday’s meeting by clicking here.

World War and Revolution: 1914-1917--SEP's Nick Beams (2017) on the Capitalist Contradictions' That Lead to War

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Build Rank-and-File Committees, the Organs of 21st Century Working Class Struggle! - Eric London

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MC Abdul - Shouting At The Wall (Official Video)

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Will Lehman Calls His UAW Colleagues to Organize Strikes Against Attacks on Students & Against Genocide and War

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Int'l May Day 2024 Online Rally--Andy Thompson for the IYSSE (Int'l Youth & Students for Social Equality)

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An Hour of Truth -- Mistake of Relying on the Pressure Tactics of the Pseudo-left to stop World War III

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Workers Must Prepare Industrial Action to Halt Police Crackdown on Student Anti-genocide Protests

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/02/pers-m02.html

Workers are witnessing the beginning stages of martial law in the United States. While there is a long history of the use of police against anti-war protests, there is no precedent for the attempt to illegalize opposition to a genocide, which is being openly backed by the US government.

Against peaceful demonstrators, local governments controlled by both parties, and in coordination with the White House, have flooded campuses with riot cops and mounted police, backed with drones and snipers, to beat and arrest thousands. While they claim this is needed to “restore order,” police are working with the extreme right, who at UCLA attacked protesters with fireworks and blunt weapons while police stood by. Even open massacres of students like at Kent State in 1970 are being considered, as shown by demands to deploy the National Guard to universities.

The unanimous support for the crackdown exposes the character of the political system as an instrument of class rule. Both parties also overcame their differences in 2022 to ban a national strike by railroad workers.

Getting the “home front” in order is seen as a necessary first step in preparing for massively unpopular military escalation and war crimes on a scale which have not been seen since the end of World War II. In the first instance, this means the Israeli invasion of Rafah, which would be, by far, the worst atrocity so far in the seven-month-long genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The genocide in Gaza and US war plans against Iran are only one front in an emerging world war. The campus crackdowns came as both parties voted to pass funding, not only for Israel but for the military in Ukraine, as well as for Taiwan, which would act as a tripwire in a future war against China.

Workers and their children will be shipped off to fight these wars, which are being paid for by the destruction of wages, pensions, healthcare and social programs. These wars have already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives but also threaten nuclear annihilation.

The Crisis of Political Perspective of the Gaza Protests--WSWS.org--Socialist Equality Party Australia

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‘The Meaning of May Day’ (1907) by Rosa Luxemburg -- via @ClaraWeiss_WSWS

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May Day is a living historical element of the international proletarian class struggle and therefore it has faithfully reflected for almost twenty years all the phases, all the factors of the class struggle. From an external viewpoint it seems to be the same monotonous repetition of the same speeches and articles, of the same demands and resolutions. And those whose glance cannot penetrate behind the meaningless surface of things and grasp their essence, believe that thru constant repetition the celebration of May Day has lost its entire significance, that it has become practically an “empty demonstration”. But under the apparently similar external circumstances May Day reveals within itself the constantly changing pulse of the proletarian struggle! It is part of the life of the labor movement, therefore changes with it, and reflects, in its spiritual content, in its sentiment, in its tenseness, the changing situation of the class struggle.

Phases of May Day

The inner history of May Day has passed thru three great phases. In its early years, when it had to force the way open before it, it was greeted with the tense expectations and elevated sentiments of the proletarians of all countries. The workers had won a new weapon for their arsenal. and the first attempts to use this weapon intensified the feeling of power and the joy of struggle of the millions of exploited and oppressed. On the other side, the new demonstration of the class struggle evoked in the bourgeoisie of all countries the deepest hatred and fear. The idea of an international Socialist demonstration appeared to it as the returning ghost of the old International and the eager response to a simultaneous. world celebration of labor, as the death-knell of the entire rule of capital. This accounts for the insane preparations made in the early years to overcome the dangers of May Day with the most brutal police and military violence.

And of course the place of vanguard in the armed battalions of the terrified bourgeoisie was taken by the “free republic” of France–only second to Czarist absolutism, first blood shed by the proletariat in the name of May Day flowed in 1891 in Fourmies (France) and, in 1892 in Lodz, Russian Poland.

But it did not take long before the rulers grew calmer and began to recognize the purely demonstrative character of May Day. Of course this was associated with the long period of primarily parliamentary struggle and the quiet development of political and trade union organizations, that now set in the labor movement. In Germany the first May Day was marked by the collapse of the Socialist “exception law”. In 1893 the Belgian proletariat won access to parliament; in 1896, the Austrian. At any rate, the nineties were a decade of active trade union work and irresistible growth of the parliamentary representation of labor. The demonstration of the laboring masses themselves retreated before the action of the representatives of labor; the idea of the international community of the proletariat retreated before the positive activity and the extension of the workers parties in every country. Gradually May Day became a peaceful folk-festival, regarded with considerable equanimity by bourgeois society.

In recent years a noticeable change in the situation of the labor movement has set in. A fresh wind blows over the fields of battle. In the East the great Russian Revolution. In Germany a sharpening and intensification of the political and economic struggle: extensive lock-out activities against the workers in industry and the consolidation of all bourgeois parties for the parliamentary lock-out of the working class. In France a brutal crusade of the “radical” government against the trade unions and a series of bitter wage struggles. Aroused by the powerful growth of the proletarian organizations during the last fifteen years, terrified by the Russian Revolution, the international bourgeoisie becomes nervous, savage, aggressive.

May Day Arises Anew

And thereby May Day enters upon a new phase. As the immediate demonstration of the masses–their only direct political action hitherto outside of elections, it becomes filled with a new content, with a new spirit, to the degree that the sharpening of the class struggle again pushed to the foreground the role of the proletarian masses. The more that reaction, that the rule of, naked violence of the bourgeoisie contests every step forward in the interests of the proletariat upon the economic and political fields, the more do we approach the time in which the masses will take matters into their own hands, in which the masses will be called upon to defend in their own person the interests of their class emancipation. To prepare ourselves to meet these inevitable times, to arm ourselves in the expectation of these times with the consciousness of our duty and our power, that is today the task of the proletariat and May Day, as the direct demonstration of the masses, is a means towards this end.

At the same time another factor steps into the foreground with vigor: the internationality of the cause of the working class. As long as the class struggle had the least bit of democratic elbow-room and as long as the day of positive parliamentary work lasted, the labor movement was dominated by the peculiarities of its national surroundings, by its national dispersal. But as soon as the fundamental forces of the class struggle arise from the depths of capitalist society to the surface, as soon as the struggle throws the masses sharply up against the ruling powers, then the idea of the world proletariat, one and indivisible, again revives. The preparations of the bourgeoisie of all countries for May Day this year recalls to the proletariat that its struggle for emancipation is one and the same in all countries. Today, at the head of the army of world labor stands the Russian proletariat, the proletariat of the land of revolution. And the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat of this country, its experiences, its problems, constitute the great historical school for our coming great struggles. May Day this year again arouses–as it did in its early days–the hatred and fear of the bourgeoisie; by the working masses, however, it is greeted with determination and the joy of battle, From the very beginning a proletarian demonstration for the eight hour day and against war, it has gradually become a demonstration for the proletarian revolution. Not the decline but the tremendous rise of May Day lies ahead of us for it is borne aloft by the same storm-wind that is already sweeping over the surface of bourgeois society and that will lead us to bitter struggles and to final victory!

As ICC Reportedly Prepares War Crimes Charges, Israeli Officials Call to Bomb Rafah--WSWS

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 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/01/uhdg-m01.html

EXCERPT:

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that his troops will assault Rafah, where 1.5 million defenseless Palestinian civilians now live in refugee camps. He added that he would not under any conditions spare Rafah, whether or not a deal was reached on an exchange of hostages held by the Israeli government and Hamas authorities in Gaza.

“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its aims is not an option,” Netanyahu said. “We will enter Rafah, and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there—whether or not there is a deal—in order to achieve total victory.”

The war on Gaza has exacted a truly horrific toll. At least 34,535 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, over 10,000 have died under the rubble of bombed-out buildings, and 77,704 have been wounded. Over 1 million Palestinians are suffering severe hunger as Israeli forces cut off Gaza’s access to food, medicine and other basic necessities. Yet Netanyahu declared that he would not under any conditions agree to Hamas’ appeals to halt the genocidal onslaught on Gaza.

Netanyahu said, “Hamas insists on one thing—the end of the war—but it will not get it. I am not ready to give it. Therefore, if this is the situation—and indeed this is, currently—[the deal] will not happen. There may be people saying they are ready to end the war and let Hamas return. I won’t accept that.”

Netanyahu’s pledge to continue the war and bomb more than a million defenseless civilians in Rafah was his government’s response to reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is preparing to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials on war crimes charges. Comfortable in the knowledge that the major NATO powers support its atrocities in Gaza, the regime is brazenly proclaiming its intention to commit genocidal war crimes.

ICC officials have warned for months that they were investigating Israeli officials’ conduct of the war and, in particular, their threats to destroy Rafah. “I am deeply concerned by the reported bombardment and potential ground incursion by Israeli forces in Rafah,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan wrote on X/Twitter, adding: “As I have repeatedly emphasised, those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my Office takes action pursuant to its mandate.”

Indeed, even NATO officials admit that attacking Rafah would mean committing war crimes against the Palestinian people. Yesterday, British Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell told the British Parliament: “Given the number of civilians sheltering in Rafah, it’s not easy to see how such an offensive could be compliant with international humanitarian law in the current circumstances.”

NY Police Assault Student Protesters after White House Denounces Anti-genocide Occupation at Columbia--WSWS

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/25/fwco-a25.html

New York police assault student protesters after White House denounces anti-genocide occupation at Columbia

At around 9 p.m. Tuesday night, hundreds of New York Police Department (NYPD) riot police descended on Columbia University to conduct mass arrests of students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Video shared on social media shows heavily armored police arresting students and faculty attempting to block their access to the university.

In order to prevent objective documentation of their brutality, police forced legal observers, press and medics to leave the campus area, and even public streets nearby, before they began their assault. As of this writing it is unclear how many protesters have been arrested and the extent of their injuries.

The police brutality witnessed at Columbia Tuesday night was replicated across the country. At the University of South Florida in Tampa, riot police were recorded firing tear gas and rubber bullets against unarmed and peaceful protesters.

The Bonk Song--Honoring Students Who Are Fighting for Palestine

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 https://youtube.com/shorts/u3xuLD7a-No?feature=shared

What is Fascism? with Trotskyist David North, Socialist Equality Party

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SEP Presidential Candidate Joe Kishore on the Cutting of Aid to UNRWA Amidst Gaza Famine

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Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century -- David North, WSWS.org

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Julian Assange and the Fight Against Imperialist War

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 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/25/ymiy-m25.html

EXCERPT:

As we wrote in a subsequent Perspective: “The forces arrayed against Assange by the UK and US states are powerful. But there is another, even more formidable force which has yet to have its say—the British, American and international working class.”

The task we face is this: we, and I include everyone here tonight, must devote our energies to convincing the working class of the burning relevance of the Assange case for its own interests, and of the need for them to take up the fight on his behalf.

This means cutting through the mountain of lies and slanders and breaking out of the narrow confines in which the official campaign for Assange’s freedom has been confined. It means going to the workers, to the younger generation of workers and students in particular, fighting to clarify the essential political issues raised and outlining a strategy on which to fight back.

The fact that the United States is pursuing Assange under the Espionage Act is historically revealing. As we wrote four years ago:

“The precedents for Assange’s trial under the Espionage Act are the mass roundups of socialists and anarchist groups carried out in the years after the law was first established in 1917. Fearful of the revolutionary movements swelling across the world, the US government outlawed political opposition to the First World War and agitation for workers’ strikes and protests.

“Assange’s case is preparation for a similar assault on the working class.”

That is now being played out. Sunak’s government is seeking to make standing up for the truth of what is happening in Gaza a crime to try and crush the growing anti-war movement. His extremism definition is part of a pattern of governments preparing for war not only with their opponents abroad, but with what they see as the main enemy—the working class at home. It joins laws attacking the right to strike, protest and blow the whistle on state crimes.

The ruling class are preparing for a clash they know is coming because their policies, above all their war policies, cannot be pursued except through a further assault on already gutted living standards and state provision. Assange’s case has been the canary in the coalmine for these preparations.

Opposing war and defending democratic rights are the vital questions confronting the international working class today and that struggle must have Assange’s freedom inscribed on its banner. It must learn from his case to prepare for the battles ahead.

In conclusion, I will be blunt: we have lost a lot of time. This really is the 11th hour for Julian Assange and for everything his case represents. We cannot start from a position of pessimism in our ability to build a mass movement. What I hope this speech has demonstrated is the potential for such a movement, and how it has been thwarted not primarily by the attacks of Assange’s enemies but by the rotten perspective of those who were supposed to defend him.

A break with that perspective will prepare the way for a broad campaign, embracing the most energetic and principled fighters in their workplaces, neighbourhoods, and universities.

In the last years the Socialist Equality Party has collaborated with workers including bus drivers, postal workers, teachers, and tea plantation workers, and with students, in the UK, Australia, the United States, Germany and Sri Lanka to form rank-and-file committees which have all passed resolutions in Assange’s defence. We have held rallies in all those countries.

To those here today we say: join us in this campaign and in the fight for socialism against dictatorship and war. And join the Socialist Equality Party.

US Billionaires Have $5.5 Trillion--SEP Presidential Candidate Joseph Kishore Indicts Billionaires

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SEP Presidential Candidate: The Biden Administration is Responsible for the Genocide in Gaza

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Honest Government Ad | How to Rig Elections--This in Australia, but Yeah It Happens in U.S. Too OF COURSE

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Spectrum of COVID-19: From Asymptomatic Organ Damage to Long COVID Syndrome

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More info at link below:

https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asymptomatic-organ-damage-to-long-covid-syndrome/

 

The Gaza Genocide and the Death of Aaron Bushnell: What are the Political Lessons? David North, Socialist Equality Party

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The Eclectic Radical: Revolution in an Election Year--Socialist Equality Party Candidates for President & VP

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Socialist Equality Party Building Socialism via Presidential Campaign of Joe Kishore & Jerry White

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Joe Kishore and Jerry White on the campaign trail. 

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From Andre Damon of the Socialist Equality Party:

COVID-19 has killed 28 million men, women, and children. It's now spreading faster than it was this month in 2020-2023. Its time to end this pandemic. The Socialist Equality Party is building a mass movement of the working class to stop COVID-19 once and for all.

Fight for Socialism in 2024! Support the Socialist Equality Party Candidates!

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https://www.socialism2024.org/

Go to the above link to get involved.

REVEALED: NYT Writer Outed As IDF PROPAGANDIST

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A Thank you and An Update from Stella Assange

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Wikileaks Reveals Alexei Navalny's US Funding as Washington Exploits His Death

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Putin’s Interview with Tucker Carlson: The Russian Oligarchy Pleads for “Peaceful Coexistence” with Imperialism

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VERY IMPORTANT:  

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/21/qehv-f21.html

EXCERPT: 

Even as imperialism escalates toward World War III, Putin attempts to secure a deal through diplomatic and military maneuvers that are ideologically based on appeals to nationalism and the far right. The interview serves as an indicative step in this process.

The working class must draw important lessons from this interview. It exposes the political and historical bankruptcy of the oligarchic regime stemming from the Stalinist betrayal of the October Revolution and the subsequent restoration of capitalism.

The bitter experience of two world wars demonstrates that imperialism cannot be transformed into an instrument of world peace. To avert catastrophe, the working class must formulate its response to the war on an independent and internationalist basis, in opposition to all factions of the imperialist powers and the oligarchies that emerged from the Soviet Union’s ruins. It must seek not the reshuffling of borders or a rearrangement of terms between capitalist countries but the overthrow of the nation-state structure and the world capitalist system.

What is imperative is the establishment of a socialist anti-war movement among youth and workers, grounded in the traditions and principles of internationalism and Marxism, namely Trotskyism. This is the goal pursued by the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists in Russia and Ukraine, alongside their comrades in the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Assange’s Lawyers Expose US-UK Persecution on First Day of High Court Hearing

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 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/20/epzq-f20.html

EXCERPT:

Assange’s case against his prosecutors is devastating. It establishes that the US government is waging a campaign of political persecution in retribution for Assange’s exposure of US government crimes. In doing so, it is violating his most essential democratic rights: to life, freedom from torture and inhuman and degrading punishment, freedom of expression, and freedom from abuse of legal process and arbitrary power.

Summers delivered the most significant evidence, arguing that the US is illegally using its prosecution of Assange as a means of punishing his activity with WikiLeaks which exposed “US state-level crimes, crimes which sit at the very apex of the legal hierarchy,” including “extrajudicial assassinations, renditions, torture, dark prisons, rogue killings.”

What Assange’s work disclosed, Summers continued, was a type of “criminality which permeates, is approved, tolerated, within the very fabric of the American government.” His case therefore falls within a class of cases where “state retaliation makes use of the criminal justice system.”

Summers cited as a “vivid illustration” and “paradigmatic example from history” Emile Zola’s open letter condemning the French state’s persecution of Alfred Dreyfus, “J’Accuse...!”

David North Responds to Cornel West's Religious Platitudes in the Face of Fascist Govt Maneuvers

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More on West from WSWS.org.  
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/24/west-j24.html

David Miller - Victory at the Employment Tribunal -- Anti-Zionist Was Discriminated Against

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Holocaust Survivor Rene Lichtman “Israel Is Committing War Crimes in Gaza. We've Got to Fight Back.”

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The Growing US Military Recruitment Crisis: There is no Solution & the Crisis Will Only Grow...[& Comments by LJ]

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New Atlas' Brian Berletic describes the current U.S. foreign policy situation very well.  He attributes the breakdown of both domestic and foreign policy to striving of elites of the "Modern U.S. Empire."  The wanton warmongering that the slipping hegemon indulges in is failing, says Mr. Berletic.  He recommends that the U.S. stop "imposing itself" on the rest of the world and begin to work with other nations to fulfill the needs of all. 

Capitalism is the failing system Mr. Berletic describes but does not name.  What will persuade capitalism to give up its massively destructive spoils system?  The only way it will is when the global working class consciously unites together to build socialism.   

Capitalism must be dismantled.  Mr. Berletic cites the failed Roman Empire as a cautionary example for the U.S.  While in those times, it would have been impossible to meet the needs of 8 billion people.  Today we have the required technology.  The choice is stark.  Allowing the murder of 30,000 innocent Palestinians is just a preview.  If we don't build socialism, capitalism will destroy humanity. 

Read WSWS.org.  

Heba Zagout: The Artist Who Dreamed of Peace in Gaza - GQ Middle East

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Heba Zagout: The Artist Who Dreamed of Peace in Gaza - GQ Middle East

 

In Honour of Heba Zagout: The Artist Who Dreamed of Peace in Gaza 

And Was Murdered by USA-Backed Israel

Rapper Macklemore's Palestine Poem at Sold Out Seattle Concert

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JewishJjournalist Masha Gessen on Comparing Gaza to a Nazi Ghetto

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Why are NO countries calling out genocide?--Former UK diplomat Craig Murray [Gov'ts throttling, esp. USA]

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What Child Is This? w/Moonlight Sonata -- For Gaza

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David North, The Coming Unrest--Chris Hedges Interview

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The Threat of Fascism and How to Fight It, a lecture by Trotskyist Christoph Vandreier

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Thousands in Guernica, Spain Draw Link Between 1937 Fascist Bombings and Gaza Genocide

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/09/qyit-d09.html 

"Helen was Our Comrade, Friend and An Indefatigable Fighter for the Working Class and Socialism"

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Zionists Killed Refaat Today in Gaza. And Also His Family. Our Government Made This Possible

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SEP (US) National Secretary Josheph Kishore arrives in Sri Lanka for Trotskyism Centenary Meetings.

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Exclusive: Roger Waters speaks to TRT World about Israel’s war on Gaza

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How Zionists Came to Palestine Under British Protection (Documentary)

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Israel's War on Women and Children -- World Socialist Website

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/05/rgbi-d05.htm

Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel is carrying out a crime of monumental proportions: a deliberate and systematic massacre of the women and children of Gaza. 

The Netanyahu government has murdered 20,000 Gazans in two months: 10,000 of them children and over 5,000 women.

The aim of this criminal regime is to kill as many Palestinians as possible and drive those who remain into the desert.

Gaza’s entire population of 2.2 million is being starved and deprived of water. The vast majority, over 80 percent, have been displaced from their homes. In just two months, one out of every 115 people in Gaza has been killed. At the present rate, one out of every 20 Gazans will be dead within a year.

“I feel like I’m running out of ways to describe the horrors hitting children here,” UNICEF Spokesman James Elder said. “I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children.”

Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, after having visited Gaza, declared, “The things I saw there are beyond anything that anyone should be in a position to describe. What shocked me the most were the children with atrocious injuries, and at the same time having lost their parents with no one looking after them.”

On October 16, Israel instructed one million people living in northern Gaza to flee to the south. Now, the population is once again being told to flee from portions of southern Gaza amid the deadliest bombing campaign to date. Israel’s goal, as outlined in a leaked paper by the intelligence ministry, is to create the conditions in which Gaza, previously one of the most densely populated areas in the world, is incapable of supporting human life, creating the conditions for the displacement of the Gazan population into the Sinai Desert.

Israel has deliberately carried out a campaign to target all places of refuge, from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south. It has systematically bombed and raided hospitals, displacing doctors, patients and refugees at gunpoint. Those too weak to move have simply been abandoned to die, including five premature babies whose bodies were discovered last week after they were abandoned to die alone at Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital.

By every definition, Israel’s actions are a textbook case of genocide. The Rome Statute defines “genocide” as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” This includes: 

1. “Killing members of the group”—20,000 Gazans have been killed over the past two months.
2. “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”—41,316 Gazans have been injured.
3. “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Israel’s blockade has blocked the entry of food, water and medical care, leading to famine and the surge of preventable disease.

The UN framework on genocide identifies “signs of an intent to destroy in whole or in part a protected group” as being a key indicator that a genocide is taking place. Such statements by Israeli officials abound:

The statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you,” citing the Biblical passage that commands, “put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” 

1. The declaration by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” 
2. The declaration by Israeli Security Cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter that “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba”—referring to the forcible displacement of the population of Palestine from their lands in 1948. 
3. The urging by former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon that the population of Gaza “Go to the Sinai Desert.” 
4. The call by Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, to destroy the hospital system because “Severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.”

This genocide is not a spontaneous response to the October 7 attack against Israel but rather a conspiracy years in the making. Last week, the New York Times reported the existence of leaked documents showing that the Netanyahu government possessed detailed advance knowledge of the Hamas battle plan for the October 7 attack. The Netanyahu regime decided to carry out a stand-down of the military and intelligence forces on that day, to create a pretext for its ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The genocide not only has the support of the imperialist powers but is being carried out with their direct participation. It is likely that some victims of the genocide were murdered not only with American bombs, but directly by troops from NATO countries. Amid widespread reports of American and British troops on the ground in Gaza, the British government refused to answer a question by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn about whether UK troops are deployed on the ground.

US officials have repeatedly made clear that there are no “red lines” for the number of people Israel will be allowed to kill, and US President Joe Biden has declared that there is “no prospect” of a ceasefire.

Appearing on the “Meet the Press” Sunday talk show, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was asked if there would be “consequences ... if the United States feels as though Israel is not following a specific plan to protect civilians?” To this, Kirby replied, “We’re going to continue to support Israel as they go after Hamas. The security assistance continues to flow. That’s not going to change.”

Kirby defended Israel’s targeting of the civilian population, declaring, “They have actually given civilians in Gaza a list, a map—it’s online—a list of areas where they can go to be more safe. There’s not too many modern militaries, in advance of conducting operations, that would actually do that.”

In effect, the United States argues that, since Israel is not only massacring the population of Gaza but also displacing it, Israel’s actions are acceptable.

The precedents of Israel’s genocide were seen in the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan—in the sieges of Fallujah and Mosul. But this is a new level of criminality: The world is seeing imperialism in its most brutal and naked form.

The entire world can see that all the invocations of human rights by the imperialist powers have been nothing but lies and deceit. 

Millions of people have taken part in mass demonstrations against Israel’s assault on Gaza. In response, the governments involved in the genocide have carried out an unprecedented and sweeping effort to criminalize political opposition.

The British, French and German governments have all attempted to ban demonstrations against the genocide and carried out mass arrests. In the United States, the entire Senate has voted to equate opposition to the genocide as support for terrorism. Universities have shut down student groups protesting the genocide and attempted to block demonstrations. Technology companies, at the behest of governments, have imposed a sweeping regime of mass censorship.

The world’s so-called “democracies” are making it illegal to oppose genocide.

It is absolutely futile to make appeals to the criminal imperialist governments implicated in the Gaza massacre. Stopping the genocide in Gaza is the task of the working class. Workers should support the call by the Palestinian trade unions not to handle war materiel destined for Israel. The global demonstrations by millions of people against the genocide must be expanded and armed with a socialist perspective.

The struggle to put an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza must be waged as a struggle against the imperialist governments that are responsible for it and the capitalist system whose barbarism is being put on hideous display before the world.

Palestinian EXPOSES Gaza Media Coverage--Send to Friends Who May Be Genocide Deniers

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America's "New World Order" — The Historical and Social Roots of the Eruption of US Militarism--WSWS.org

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Opposition to Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Student Organizations Mounts at Columbia University

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/11/20/orrq-n20.html 

EXCERPT:

A WSWS reporting team interviewed participants at Wednesday's protest outside the CU Morningside campus. Andrew, an international student who studies architecture at CU, said the following:

“I’m here to protest and fight against the brutal Israeli occupation. Also I want to show Columbia University that we can’t be silenced by shutting down our clubs. Columbia University is one of the most important place to protest, as it is the beacon of the Democratic Party.”

Referring to the “March for Israel” event on Tuesday which was staged by pro-Israeli elements of the American state, Andrew said, “[i]t’s crazy that this pro-Israel protest on [Tuesday] in Washington D.C. was led by a guy who was himself an antisemite!” He was referring to John Hagee, one of the featured speakers, a Christian fundamentalist pastor.

I’m also aware of the fact that the Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to a former S.S. member. Canada is one of the few countries that has been vetoing all diplomatic proceedings that in any way support Palestine. 

It’s shocking to me that Bernie didn’t support a ceasefire. Sanders used to be the one person who used to give me hope. But now, he, and the rest of the opposition within the establishment, they all say nice things, and of course, I agree with the nice things that they say. But they are all part of the system. They are part of Washington D.C. They are one minor voice that is part of the machine. This international protest movement, on the other hand, has much more powerful potential to change things.

Christina, a Columbia alum who studied sociology, also spoke to the WSWS about the actions of the former women’s college, Barnard College, a unit of Columbia.. 

I was following the response of Barnard to this situation, and their creation of their antisemitism task force. I guess I support that, but what about the need for an Islamophobia task force? These forces are interlinked. It’s not like one is against the other.

The charge that anti-Zionism equals anti-Judaism is the Israeli propaganda machine trying to conflate two things that are not the same. They do it because if they push that claim, then no one would want to come out as anti-Israel out of fear of being branded as antisemitic.

People are calling Biden ‘Genocide Joe.’ I think that what is happening really shows that the position of the American president, no matter who you are, you’re going to end up being a war criminal. Because the US president has to uphold American imperialism. 

You can’t really change the system from within. No matter who the leaders are, no matter how liberal they all claim to be, empty promises will be made, and the people will be betrayed. 

Biden claims he’s a president for all the people... but then, clearly with his support of Israel, he’s really trying to do damage control. He’s sending billions of tax dollars over there… It’s this age-old conversation, we always have money for war, but we don’t have money for healthcare, for housing, for education, and all of these other social problems.

There’s also this idea that politics in the US will always be within the binary, two-party system, but that’s kind of what the oppressors want you to think. Governments are not going to concede anything without the power of the people and mass movements.

How the US funds Its Israeli Attack Dog--Jean Shaoul--WSWS.org

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/11/19/zhdn-n19.html 

Excerpt:

US imperialism’s garrison state

What does Israel do for the US that merits such lavish support?

First and foremost, Israel kept the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow at bay during the Cold War with its defeats of Egypt and Syria, both of whom were armed by the Soviet Union, in 1967 and 1973. It prevented victories by the Palestinians and their supporters beyond Israel’s borders: in Jordan in 1970 and Lebanon 1976-82—where it supported the fascistic Christian Phalange against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its Shiite allies in the Lebanese civil war that raged between 1975-90—as well as in the occupied territories. It thus helped to suppress the Arab working class and maintain the decrepit and corrupt bourgeois national regimes in power.

Aftermath of massacre of Palestinians directed by Lebanese Forces with the complicity of senior members of the Israeli Cabinet and Defence Forces and conducted by Christian Phalangists and members of the South Lebanon Army in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. [Photo: Robin Moyer, USA, Black Star for Time. Beirut, Lebanon, 18 September 1982. ]

In effect, Israel replaced Britain after its withdrawal “east of Suez” as the policeman of the Middle East on behalf of US imperialism.

Occupation 101 | Full Movie | Censored on Mainstream Media! | Truth about Palestine-Israel Conflict.

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Stop Israel’s Genocide Against Gaza! - SEP Public Meeting

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Trotsky: A man of His Time, Ahead of His Time and, Now, of Our Time--David North

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Dr. Finkelstein Responds to Bernie Sanders

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“You Need to Choose”: Dr. Mads Gilbert on Medical Solidarity with Gaza as Israel Targets Hospitals

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Unadikum - Ahmad Qabour - Palestine: "I call to you all"

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Craig Mokhiber on UN's Failures in Palestine and Why He Quit--EXCELLENT INTERVIEW

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Long COVID Researcher Dr. Amy Proal Discusses the Ongoing Dangers of the Pandemic

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