Letter to ‘Solidarity’
November 23, 2006
Dear Solidarity
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomes the statement from ‘Solidarity’ on the deepening crisis in Palestine. No political formation in Scotland to date has expressed officially, openly and unambiguously its support for the just struggle of the Palestinian people.
The Israeli apartheid state commits unspeakable crimes in alliance with the US and UK: ethnic cleansing, and harsh racist discrimination against all Arabs in every area under its control. A BNP-type, Avigdor Lieberman, sits comfortably as a senior member of the Israeli cabinet. Since one of its soldiers was captured by Palestinian fighters from the Gaza concentration area, Israel has massacred many hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children in brutal reprisals reminiscent of the worst atrocities of other European colonial occupations. The Israeli state goes so far as to reward soldiers who openly advocate the murder of Palestinian infants. (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8391A64A-44D7-4C54-B57A-6E4BB38DD02A.htm <http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8391A64A-44D7-4C54-B57A-6E4BB38DD02A.htm> )
The British Labour Party called openly during WWII for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. For decades many on the British Left were open admirers of ‘brave little socialist Israel’. Even today the Israeli pseudo-trade union, the Histadrut, which is massively involved in sustaining Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, with all its resulting oppression and massacre, is invited annually to TUC, STUC and other trade union conferences. How easy it was for Peretz to seamlessly move from his Histadrut chair to the Defence Ministry and the direct supervision of the machine of military occupation.
A misplaced fear of being smeared as ‘anti-Semitic’ seems to be holding some back from their elementary duty of solidarity with a people who struggle against their allotted doom in the US-UK-Israeli plans for the Middle East. We should reject with scorn such accusations from politically-committed Zionists who, as a cursory acquaintance with their history will show, have betrayed Jewish communities time without number in order to work with viciously anti-Semitic regimes and movements. For Zionists, nothing is allowed to impede their nightmare-dream of a Jewish supremacist state in an ethnically-cleansed Palestine. If Zionism is lethal for Palestinians and other Arabs, it is a tragic cul-de-sac for those European Jews who fled Europe, understandably, but then strove to secure their own safety in alliance Britain, and now the US and Europe, by crushing and driving out the native Palestinians.
All of us who stand on the ground of universal human rights will work together against those who do not. Obviously, all those born in Palestine/Israel have a stake and a right to a future there, even though their arrival and prospering there was predicated on the brutal violation of the rights of the native people. (History is cruel everywhere, with numerous examples of ethnic cleansing, including here in Scotland.) The jackboot of the Zionists, however, has to be removed from the neck of the Palestinians before there can be any hope of peace, just as the nightmare of white supremacy was ended in South Africa for the benefit of all. Such a liberation is a liberation for all concerned, but it is unrealistic to expect the mass of Israeli Jews, those who currently benefit from a violently-enforced supremacy over Arabs, to lead such a struggle. Individual whites joined the liberation movement in South Africa, but it fell to the victims of the racist system, the mass of black people to lead the struggle against apartheid. Jews who actively give solidarity to the victims of their own brutal regime are, as many of us have seen in Palestine, welcomed with open arms into Palestinian towns and homes. Ugly Jewish settlers who treat the Palestinians as vermin are welcome, and should be welcome, nowhere on earth.
We call on Scottish political parties, or sections and branches of parties, to openly endorse and campaign for these aims
* The withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the Occupied Territories.
* An International Commission of Enquiry into Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians.
* The end of Zionist ethnic cleansing, and the right of all refugees to return to their homelands.
* The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
* An end to British arms sales to Israel
The current punishment of Palestinians for their recent democratic vote is intolerable to all decent people. A litmus test of the human rights credentials of all Scottish political parties and individual politicians is the position they adopt towards the crushing of Palestinian democracy. We call upon Solidarity, as a self-proclaimed socialist party, to:
1. establish open and formal links of solidarity and political debate with Palestinian left-wing parties.
2. support the democratic rights of the Palestinian people, in the face of Blair and Bush’s campaign to annul their voice, by inviting the elected representatives of the Palestinian people, currently the Islamic resistance Movement, HAMAS, to speak to meetings across the country and in the Parliament.
3. campaign together with the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign for a boycott of Israel
Mick Napier
Chair, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
A full statement of where we stand is available at:
Thursday, November 9, 2006
SOLIDARITY
SCOTLAND'S SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
Whilst the world's attention was focused on the results of US Midterm Elections on Wednesday, November 9, Israeli tanks were shelling civilians in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, slaughtering 18 and injuring 50 men, women and children. Many of the children involved were just two years of age.
This latest Israeli crime yet again produced no meaningful response from the international community, prompting the following questions:
How long will the long-suffering Palestinian people be forced to stand alone in the face of this wanton slaughter and sustained programme of ethnic cleansing? And how long will such crimes against humanity be able to hide behind a culture of victimhood and exceptionalism?
Further, of the Israeli people, Solidarity asks: Where are the mass demonstrations in response to your government's brutal treatment of the Palestinian people? Where is the outrage at the rivers of innocent blood spilled in your name?
Of the Israeli working class, we ask: Where is the industrial action in solidarity with your Palestinian brothers and sisters? Where is the class consciousness necessary to transcend the poisonous ideology of Zionism which has brought shame on you? The comforts and standard of living you enjoy are being paid for in the blood of a people whose land your ancestors seized, and who continue to exist alongside you as a testament to their heroic defiance.
Undoubtedly, the Holocaust was the greatest crime of the 20th century. Thus far, the greatest crime of the 21st is Israel's occupation of Palestine. As such, the only fitting tribute to the millions who died in the Holocaust is to campaign for Palestinian human rights today.
Along with ever-increasing millions around the world, Solidarity declares, in defiance of the British government's continued support of Israel's ethnic cleansing, in defiance of those who fear the calumny of the label anti-Semite, we declare our complete support for the Palestinian cause.
And just as Nazi Germany was consigned to history, just as apartheid South Africa was consigned to history, we look forward to the day when the apartheid state of Israel is consigned to history where it belongs. This eventuality would be in the interests of all who are interested in peace and universal human rights in the region, whether Jew, Muslim or Christian.
We also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Israeli 'Refusnik' movement, comprised of those members of the Israeli military who refuse to take part in military operations against the Palestinians. History will rightfully judge them heroes in the service of human solidarity.
Finally, Solidarity, Scotland's Socialist Movement, sends a message back in time to former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, who in 1969 uttered the infamous statement that "there were no Palestinians."
Our message is this:
Today, in 2006, not only are there Palestinians. Today, in 2006, we are all Palestinians.
STATEMENT ENDS.