Socialist Alliance Statement:Stand With Free Iran!

The Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with the millions of Iranians who are bravely demanding their rights in the streets despite huge state-sanctioned repression. These are the biggest protests in Iran since the 1979 protests in which the US-backed Shah was deposed.

Millions of people, old and young, ethnic and religious minorities, have taken to the streets, day in and day out since the disputed election on June 12.

They have bravely defied the repressive regime of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to demand the most basic of rights: the right to freely and transparently elect their representatives.

At least 27 people, including a young woman Neda Agha-Soltan whose death was captured on video, have been killed in the crackdown on protests.

Several hundred have been injured, and a leading student activist is in a coma. Government officials on June 24 announced that there had been a total of 645 arrests in Tehran since June 13. Activists say that several hundred more, including journalists, editors, students, professors, party officials and unionists have also disappeared.

Iran’s unelected Guardian Council, while admitting electoral irregularities, has ruled out a recount or a fresh election.

The regime’s response is no surprise: it uses its repressive apparatus – including the National Guard and the basji – to violently repress trade unions, curb the rights of women, gays and lesbians, national minorities and other oppressed sectors.

What started as a protest in support of opposition candidate and former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who claims to have been defrauded, has become a rallying point for Iranians from many sectors fed up with their lack of rights.

On June 20, the Autobus Workers Union of Iran (Sendikaye Sherkat Vahed) declared its support for the protests and protestors, and condemned the state-sponsored repression.

“Iranian society is facing a deep political and economic crisis”, the union, many of whose leaders have been imprisoned and disappeared, said.

“Million-strong protests, which have manifested themselves with a silence that is replete with meaning, have become a pattern that is growing in area and dimension, a growth that demands a response from any responsible person and organization.”

The union demanded that workers’ and democratic rights, in particular the freedom to organise and the freedom to elect, be respected, or “any talk of social freedom and labor union rights will be a farce”.

The autoworkers union has also joined the protestors.

Socialist Alliance salutes those millions of Iranians who are determined not to let this latest attack on democratic freedoms pass by.

The Iranian people are reminding the world that their struggle for democracy and rights is not over. The apparent split in the Islamic ruling elite may assist them in this struggle – and our international solidarity will also be a critical factor. To that end, we commit our support the Iranian community in Australia in their efforts to organise international solidarity.

In addition, we want the Australian government to take a stand in support of democracy in Iran.

VIDEO:Raytheon and the Israeli Chamber of Commerce meet in Adelaide.

The military industrial complex meet at the Hilton International In Adelaide - Protesters picket outside.
Raytheon, one of the top three weapons manufacturers in the US, meet with the Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

SLIDESHOW:Sydney protest against wars on Iraq, Afghanistan & Palestine

The anti war movement responds to the death of the 10th Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Visit Gaza to Witness Devastation

The Australian Support Committee for Palestine urges you to participate in a visit to Gaza to witness the devastation that has been inflicted upon innocent civilians who have no capacity to defend themselves. The purpose of the visit is to become properly informed about what has occurred - something that is impossible because of the poor coverage of the war in the Western media - and to oppose this persecution and killing of an innocent people.

It is a core Australian value to oppose discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity. If we believe in these values, we cannot condone the actions of Israel, which is attacking and dispossessing Palestinians because they do not belong to the dominant religious ethnicity. It is not anti-Semitic to adopt this position.

The Palestinians have not had a country for 60 years. They have been taken from their homes and pushed into smaller and smaller areas, left in limbo, without citizenship and without rights. They are persistently vulnerable to the aggression of Israel. Over the last year, there has been an Israeli blockade of food and medical supplies of Gaza, and, when there is a reaction, the Israelis claim they are under attack and launch a murderous campaign with their potent military machine. It has been a strategy of provocation, murder and destruction, with the purpose of trying to remove the Palestinians completely. Because Israel cannot rely on moral force, it has to resort to military force, which is becoming more and more extreme.

Faced with clear evidence of war crimes against people sheltering in United Nations buildings, the Israelis claim to know nothing about what the Israeli soldiers did. Yet they also claim (falsely) that they know what Hamas was doing. Such obvious lies have been used to deceive the media.

The program will involve the following:

* The departure will be in mid February, depending on arrangement with Egypt;
* The trip will be 7-10 days;
* We will visit destroyed areas, hospitals, meet with the injured and NGOs;
* We will witness the effect of war and siege on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza;
* All transportation and accommodation will be covered;
* We have limited resources to help with some flight costs.


We urge you to participate in this important trip. It is time for Australians to stand up for the core principle that persecution of people because of their religion or ethnicity (including Jews and Muslims) is unacceptable. It is abhorrent to kill people on that basis, as Israel has done to hundreds in Gaza. It is time to stand up for those principles.

If you are interested in attending please let us know ASAP as we are trying to get permission within the next 10 days.

Gaza: deconstructing Obama

By Dave Riley

In a series of posts , Left I on the News is succinctly deconstructing the Obama presidency in regard to Palestine. I've spoken to no Arab Australian who has had any allusions in Obama in regard to Palestine -- but I guess some others on the anti war left may be so prone.

Of course if you appoint the Senator for New York and Tel Aviv as your Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, you do in fact send a message before anyone gets to open their mouth.

But at some stage Israel may prove a liability as any delinquent state may. But then, I guess, that's never mattered to the US in the past.

ps: I think Mr Fish rocks.

Gaza: "wiped off the map."

"Those who did this, don't want peace."

They have changed the Jordan's course and sown the desert with spears

Click to Play

A video adaption of a photographic series selected by Prof. Norman Finkelstein on the present occupation of Palestine.

"Comparable? Quantitatively, obviously not. But qualitatively? Look at the pictures and you be the judge."(ref)

Video was produced for the local Palestine solidarity campaign.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

• Watch another LeftClick video:FREE PALESTINE - فلسطين حرة

Gaza's and other wars: exit wounds

By Dave Riley

I'm wondering how so many poignant images can be shared globally on the Palestinian suffering but other conflicts, which can be as horrendously destructive, hardly get a look in like that.

Bombs, mortar and rocket fire do the same damage no matter what the human target.

One difference is that the Palestinian conflict (as the Lebanese invasion in 2006) targeted built up areas.

Another aspect is that the Levant Arabs are so very effective in using the media -- Lebanon with its blogs and Palestine esp with sites such a s the Electronic Intifada. But equally as note worthy is the way the world wide protests have been showcased in video and photographic form.

It's not all due to Al Jazeera.

Left I takes up the contrast in this comment on The Daily Show interview with a Al Jazeera reporter in regard to depicting "gore".

" Stewart "explained" or "excused" this by saying, and he was 100% serious, "American audiences are not big on gore."

In that sense, this war has pushed the boundaries a lot in the way the real impact of war is seen to fall on a population. Imagine if you can that the Palestinians' have "only" lost over a thousand -- how many is the current toll in Iraq?

When I was in the army reserve in another life we'd practice on standard NATO round hand held weaponry and we all knew what a standard round was capable of. While it entered a target as a small hole, coming out the other side was something very different --a very big hole. None of this lodging of bullets in the musculature.

What musculature?

A simple exit wound

And we were taught to not bother hiding behind trees as modern rounds simply go through most tree trunks.

People, bought up on fictional Western style cowboy gun fights have no sense of how destructive modern armaments are -- and my experience was eons ago in the late sixties!

Have you ever wondered why cops never manage to just "wound" a suspect today -- even with small hand guns which are short calibre. Theoretically (going back thirty years at least ) you should have been able to catch the bullet in a t-towell at 20 feet (that was the joke applied to the WWII Thompson machine gun for instance and told to any bank teller who was taught how to shoot at a robber with the one weapon kept under the cashier's desk).

So these graphic images tell the real face of modern warfare -- in Gaza and everywhere else and, as Frederick Engels noted, some time back in 1881, there is indeed a case to be made for The role of force in history.

Nonetheless, despite Engels argument, in modern times no war is ever won for those oppressed by force of arms -- yes, not even Vietnam's. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq or Palestine are tactical questions. Wars are won, or lost, so often on the basis of the politics that prevails.

Look at Afghanistan.A country that has been in constant warfare for 30 years. There's no military solution to be had there, nor in Iraq nor in Palestine. The form the national liberation struggle has so often adopted since the Second World War has obscured that salient fact. Just as the Second World War showed us how much force, and how many millions dead, was required for one side to win.

Today, in the 21st Century, it is extremely hard to imagine that one country can occupy another and, to deploy a phrase, "get away with it." Constant warfare; constant destabilisation and sabotage; a constant process of politicisation and re-alignment among the occupied peoples will surely follow. This is why the the hang over guerillaist bands , like the FARC in Colombia , seem so out of place today in Latin America. Warfare as a political strategy seems to have reached its use by date.

I'm not arguing that a people don't have a right to defend themselves -- but the point is that once you go down that path as your primary strategy, you need to recognise what may be ahead of you in your chosen path.

That may be my point of view -- but it's not my business going to ETA or the Tamil Tigers or one of the Palestinian military factions and saying I'm not supporting your cause because I think your tactics aren't the best possible practice. Contrary to popular perception, neither Ho Chi Minh nor Fidel Castro pursued a military strategy. They used warfare as a tactic but they never considered that winning was simply a question of just scoring on the battlefield. It was part of something much broader.

If you look at the body count -- the Vietnamese lost both the American and the French war.

This reminds of the black joke about Uncle Ho:

Ho Chi Minh once said that there is nothing so important as independence and liberation.
After he dies, he returns to Vietnam in the late seventies for a visit.
Ho looks out across his country and says, "But there is nothing....."

And this is the major complication -- the price any one pays for standing up against imperialism or its lackeys. This is also why there will be no peace in the world while this system rules over us.. Imperialism is history always ruled by force. It ain't one historic role among many but its modus operandi.

But Engels died too early to experience it is staggering capacity to destroy.

And if you think Israel has done bad by the Palestinians imagine what Zionism could do with its 200 nuclear weapons it has in stockpile. As Left I also asks:

Can anyone now doubt, having witnessed Israel's willingness to use both powerful and grotesque weapons in the slaughter of more than 1300 virtually defenseless Palestinians, the danger to the world posed by the 200 nuclear weapons in Israel's arsenal? Is there anything other than their fear of nuclear fallout reaching their own citizens that would prevent Israel from using its weapons in its "defense"?

I'll come back to this in a later post, but the German Playwright, Peter Weiss wrote once:

We condemn to death without emotion
And there's no singular death to be had
only an anonymous cheapened death
which we dole out to entire nations
on mathematical basis
until the time comes
for all life
to be extinguished

At least with Palestine we transcended that, this time anyway, collectively after so many many years of Palestinian deaths being cheap and anonymous....

Socialist Alliance statement _ Gaza protests must continue until criminal Israeli siege ends

19 January 2009

For 22 days the Israel armed forces bombed, shelled and strafed the suburbs, villages and camps of Gaza before unilaterally declaring a cease-fire on January 18.

The death toll has already exceeded 1300, including more than 400 children—an entirely predictable result of the precision bombings of buildings where people had fled for their safety and of the use of such horror weapons as white phosphorous.

Israel’s military occupation of Gaza is the intensification of its a year-and-a-half of near total siege, itself an act of war directed at all the people of Gaza. Even before the Israel assault the siege was causing a dreadful humanitarian disaster.

But this cease-fire is not an end to Israel’s war. It is not a genuine ceasefire while the siege continues and while Israeli troops are still in Gaza.

The war and the slaughter will not end because the people of Gaza will continue to fight on in whatever ways they can. The latest massacre is not a stand-alone event, but a continuation of the ongoing Israeli oppression of Palestinian people, which started over 60 years ago. Two thirds (one million) of the Gaza population are refugees from the 1948 ethnic cleansing (“Al Nakba”), still living in refugee camps and waiting for a just solution”.

They know that Hamas is their legitimate, freely elected representative. Indeed this “terrorist organisation” happens to be one of the very few elected government in the Middle East. Palestinians in Gaza are being punished by Israel for voting for Hamas and for exercising their right to self-defence against the Israeli seige.

The will of the Palestinian people to resist can only have been strengthened by the massive outpouring of global solidarity over the past three weeks. People from around the world, including tens of thousands inside Israel itself, have taken to the streets in protests that have grown bigger as the war has continued. Because of this vast and unprecedented solidarity response, the Zionist state is already paying a very large political price for its military advances.

The Socialist Alliance believes that the solidarity campaign with Gaza must look for all possible ways to isolate Israel. A campaign to boycott companies with economic ties to Israel is already underway, with Israeli anti-war activists calling for the placing of sanctions on the country.

The Socialist Alliance repeats its call on the Rudd government to break ties with Israel over its war crimes, following the example of the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments. It must also recognise Hamas as the legitimate government of Gaza, and remove it from the Attorney-General’s list of terrorist organisations.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions should a follow its New Zealand counterpart, at the very least demanding that the federal government revoke the credentials of the Israeli ambassador, cut contacts with Israeli military and intelligence officials, ban goods manufactured in the Occupied Territories, ensure that the government does not make use of Israeli products or services in its procurement provisions, and end working holiday schemes for young Israelis.

Moreover, the burgeoning movement for justice for Palestinians needs to grow in its diversity and unity. All who want to see Israel’s military occupation ended and its criminal siege lifted must be able to stand together with equal right of participation in the movement.

This particularly applies to Australia’s Muslim communities, the victims since the Howard years of the worst campaigns of vilification and scapegoating.

In this way all supporters of freedom for Palestine will help build a movement powerful enough to make ongoing support for Israel too high a political price for the Rudd government to pay. In turn, the Israeli regime, increasingly deprived of the backing of its powerful friends in the US, UK and Australia, will have to retreat.

The strength of the movement against Israeli aggression against Gaza lies in its unity and determination to keep protesting until the Israeli military withdraws and the siege is lifted. The Socialist Alliance calls on its members and supporters to redouble efforts to strengthen solidarity with the suffering but unbowed Palestinian people.

Reading on, & thinking about, Zionism

by Dave Riley

Catching up with the Palestinian/Zionist axis isn't easy in the middle of a war, especially if you are starting from scratch. But this short pamphlet by Resistance Books should get you going:

The Palestinian Struggle, Zionism and Anti-Semitism

The pamphlet should be available at any Resistance Bookstall. There's also a lot more stuff you can plough through. I recommend:

• The Jewish Question -- A Marxist Interpretation (online) by Abraham Leon. This is standard work and charts the whole Zionist issue in some detail.
• Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? -- Maxine Rodinson
• LINKS labels: Zionism ; Palestine
• Green Left Weekly: Zionism

There are two key issues you need to get your head around:

1. Israel's so called "right to exist" .
2. Two state versus one secular state perspectives for Palestine.

It also helps to have a working knowledge of the history of Zionism.

I was reviewing some of the literature on the web in regard to this and I think it needs to be pointed out that the Marxist perspective on ant-Semitism and Zionism is based on an attempt to understand the material and economic roots of racism.

I think this is important. While any number of people can have biases and intolerances, racism as a political and social phenomenon has to have a material cause -- there has to be something tangible in it for the racists.

If there is racism in Australia against Aborigines(which of course there is), that racism is a product of the ideological and social means deployed to0 divest them of their land. Like the racism of Zionism it is engineered to justify a colonial settler state.

The new wave of Islamophobia is a consciously constructed attitude embodied in the military and political aims of Bush's War on Terror. It helps ever so much to hate people if you intend to kill them (and steal their natural assets).

But more generally, on the divide and conquer scenario, racism tries to formalise economic discrimination -- either to justify what you have and they haven't; to protect what you have, against the have nots; or to rationalise the act of you taking what they have away from them.

Cuba , for instance, has been described as a society that uprooted racism. However, the return of economic disparity following the Special Period and the fact that a number of white Cubans have relatives in Miami who send back money (and the exodus from Cuba after 1959 has been an overwhelming white exodus), has led to the beginnings of a division along racial (and economic) lines in Cuba that has not been seen for decades. 15% of the Cuban population is of black slave ancestry.

Racism is not essentially a nefarious virus in the mind of human kind that festers there. You do get that argument in regard to anti-Semitism or racism towards black people. And often you get that card played as a means to guilt trip people even within anti-racist movements. That doesn't mean that some people aren't always culturally and ideologically racist -- but racism as a political tool deployed on large scale is something else again.

Tom Wolfe , no radical by any means, nonetheless caught the semblance of that in his brutal satirical essay Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (read text here) -- and the term I know of for that guilt tripping phenomenon is "Black Panthering".

There is this misnomer advanced that people become actively engaged in anti-racism campaigns in order to purge their own psyche or that they suffer a fatal flaw of unresolved 'white guilt'.

That's not necessarily the case. This is why the Marxist understanding of ideological questions is so important in regard to comprehending what is at stake in any anti-racist campaign because it begs the question of how do you get rid of racism (or anti-Semitism for that matter) once and for all.

I forget which of the above Zionism references advances the notion, but I think it's in Leon. The argument is advanced, quite correctly I think, that Zionism as an ideological current became an option because socialism (the 'socialism' of Stalin) failed (to destroy anti-Semitism). That's important because it underscores the complication that becoming a racist in regard to another group of people is not a product of being 'bad'. It is, instead, a response so often to ' a good idea at the time.' Humans, are despite themselves or their own personal intentions, flotsam in history.

And in regard to the rise of Zionism after the Second Wold War and the establishment of the state of Israel -- all these factors, some opportunistic, some overbearing -- like the Holocaust and the fact that most countries closed their borders to Jewish refugees -- fostered the creation of this modern day colonial settler state. Of course the needs of imperialism had a lot to do with it too as Israel's trump card was its role as the US proxy in the Middle East.

FREE PALESTINE - فلسطين حرة

Click to Play

This is a quick montage of images of Australian, and a selection of some overseas, protests in support of the suffering people of Gaza.

A complete representation of the scale and extent of this movement against the slaughter would be almost impossible. So this is a small window into this international movement, folded together to a track by the great Palestinian hip hop group, DAM -- Born Here.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

4Gaza

Gaza Rally Canberra

On being anti-Zionist

By Dave Riley

I think I went to my first anti-Zionist/pro Palestine event in 1971. Activists would gather in Lebanese House -- a restaurant in Russell Street Melbourne -- and plan the occasional protest.

During this time too, between national tours by Sol Salbe I got hooked up with another anti-Zionist from Israel -- Benjamin Merhav -- and used to go to evenings to have debates with young "left" Zionists who aggressively pushed their ranio-ed literature and the poems of Leonard Cohen.

Yes, Cohen was aggressively pro Israel in the seventies and was a hero of these" left" Zionists.

One very cold April night in 1972 I "picketed' the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Me, this Benjamin Merhav, and two supervising coppers on the shoulder of , what really was, a suburban street.

Palestine was hardly a big issue, even in those youth radicalisation days.

In the eighties the Palestine Human Rights Campaign and the local PLO rep at the time, Ali Kazak, fostered a network of committees and published an excellent newspaper occasionally -- Free Palestine (edited by David Spratt & Franz Tinnerman).

And I tell you now: being anti-Zionist was hard going. It was a cause celebre primarily for the far left, but outside of ourselves and some left members of the Arab community it wasn't a 'popular' cause -- not with the member for Wills and Tel Aviv as prime minister -- R.J.Hawke.

So we lefties come from a tradition of several decades worth of comprehending "the issues". There's been a lot of thought gone into understanding the flaws in such arguments as"Israel's right to exist" and "the two state solution."

But there's been nothing like this -- nothing like this national and world wide explosion of support for the Palestinians.

Yesterday's London protest (see item in video panel above) affirms that I think. This is the anti war sentiment that exploded in 2003, coming up for air again, but now focused on an issue that has always been there, always festered -- only now so stark under the weight of this cynical slaughter.

Even the similar carnage in Lebanon back in 2006 didn't register so strongly as these protests now record. (And the 1982 invasion that expelled the PLO from Beirut seemed almost a sideshow in the way it was not related to here beyond we few.)

So something has happened...

Even when commentators, some on the liberal left, seek to blame Hamas for the situation as equally as they now accuse Israel -- it comes across as grossly inappropriate, skewed and, I guess, rather obscene.

Surely no one deserves this! (Yes, not even the Hamas bogeymen!)

The Zionist axis has changed. Some hard facts are sinking in.

In one sense the promise of the First Intifada (1987–1993) , sidelined and undermined by the US led Gulf War in 1991 -- has risen again among these hundreds dead and the world is divided and polarized in a way the Palestinians have not achieved before.

But guys, you hardly know the story. Take it from me. When you've been in anti Zionist mode as long as I (and I don't mean that I'm especially good at being anti-Zionist or being pro-Palestine) the real story and the real history is horrifying.

Zionism is a wonderful exercise in real Politick surrounded by gorgeous spin. It's a horrific 20th century tale that is complicated by imperialist opportunism neatly packaged as a lush idealism.

My favorite line from Palestinian poem says it all:

They have changed the Jordan's course
And sown the desert with spears.

More reading: Gaza under Hamas: A secular society

The Flame, January 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language supplement

.January 8, 2009 -- With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, Green Left Weekly -- Australia's leading socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular Arabic language supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia. The editor-in-chief is Soubhi Iskander, a comrade who has endured years of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the repressive government in Sudan.

Iskander and his team are working to involve progressive activists from other Arabic-speaking communities in the Flame project. Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is also proud to bring the Flame to readers outside Australia. Below is the edition of the Flame published on January 8, 2009.

Its contents include:

Page 1: Iraqi Communist Party statement on Gaza
Syria CP statement on Gaza

`To kill a nation' - Egypt CP

SAHRA statement on Gaza

Page 2: Stand up for people of Gaza (new translation)

Lebanese CP statement on Gaza

Jewish filmmaker condemns Gaza attack

New year message from National conveners

Page 3: The timing of Israeli invasion

Street fights in Gaza

The Socialist Alliance position on Palestine

Page 4: Trade Union petition

Israel between Lebanon and Gaza

Arab rulers want Hamas leaders killed

How to join Socialist Alliance

The Flame, January 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language supplement

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Activism Politics arabic socialism

How many more Guernicas?

How many more Guernicas by *BenHeine on deviantARTArtist: Ben Heine

Artist's Statement: Exactly 70 years ago, Guernica, a small town in Biscay province, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain, was bombed by fascists, killing many innocents([link]).

Today's Guernicas are Gaza, Beit Hanoun, Tal Afar, Falloujah, Samarra, Najaf, Grozny, Kandahar and many other martyr towns, which are forgotten in the Western mass media.

How many more raids? How many more Guernicas?
Act for Peace, stop the military raids on innocent civilians, stop the war.

Video:Gaza Protest Rally, Brisbane

Click to Play

 January 3rd 2009

Protest rally against the Israel's war on  Gaza. The protest was organised by the local Palestinian community and their supporters among campaign peace and social justice groups, and  Islamic congregations.

 Musician: Phil Monsour.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

"Rudd & Gillard don't speak for us on Gaza"

Speech by Stop the War Coalition activist, Pip Hinman, to the January 4, 2009 Gaza solidarity rally in Sydney.

The Facts about Israel’s War on Gaza

[This is a useful background resource for the present war. Nonetheless, calling on the Palestinians to stop defending themselves in the wake of the current onslaught is not something I'd agree with. --DR.]

Source:Adam Sheets: The Facts about Israel’s War on Gaza

It is crucial that one has her/his facts straight about Israel’s war on Gaza. What events brought about this dreadful situation? What needs to be done to make it stop? These questions will be answered in the content of this article, using concrete facts from a variety of news sources.

Let’s first investigate the recent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. The cease-fire began in June 2008. The terms were as follows:

1. Israel would drastically reduce its military blockade of Gaza.
2. Israel would halt all military incursions into Gaza.
3. Hamas would halt all rocket attacks into Israel.

From the outset of the cease-fire, Israel did little to ease its military blockade. As a result, Gazans continued to suffer from a lack of food, fuel, financial aid, electricity, clean water, medical supplies, and more. This has been, inarguably, an attack on innocent Palestinian civilians.

• Gaza faces a humanitarian “catastrophe” if Israel continues to prevent aid reaching the territory by blocking crossing points, the head of the main UN aid agency for the Palestinians said on Friday… Israel had restricted goods into Gaza despite the truce, which calls on militants to halt rocket attacks in return for Israel easing its embargo on the territory… Israel also held up deliveries of European Union-funded fuel for the power plant, which generates about a third of the electricity consumed by Gazans… Ailments associated with insufficient food were surfacing among the impoverished coastal strip’s 1.5 million population, including growing malnutrition.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 21, 2008 [1]

• A former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, has told the BBC she was taken aback by the “terrible” conditions in Gaza on a recent visit. Mrs Robinson said it was “almost unbelievable” that the world did not care about what she called “a shocking violation of so many human rights”… Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza after Hamas took control there in 2007… “Their whole civilisation has been destroyed, I’m not exaggerating,” said Mrs Robinson…Israel says the blockade, under which it has allowed little more than basic humanitarian aid into Gaza, is needed to isolate the militant group and stop it and other militants from firing rockets into Israel. Israel came to a truce with Palestinian groups in June this year, but Mrs Robinson said this had had little effect on people’s lives and “just brought a bitter taste in the mouth”.
  —BBC News, Nov. 4, 2008 [2]

• The UN in the Gaza Strip says it will run out of food aid in two days unless Israel’s blockade – which it describes as “shameful and unacceptable” – eases. The UN refugee agency UNWRA, which distributes food to half of Gaza’s 1.5m people, called the blockade “a physical as well as a mental punishment”. Israel is now allowing a limited amount of fuel across the border, but it is still blocking food deliveries… In a statement, UNWRA spokesman Christopher Gunness said food distribution operations would end on Thursday unless Israeli authorities allowed deliveries of wheat, luncheon meat, powdered milk and cooking oil without delay. “This is both a physical as well as a mental punishment of the population – of mothers and parents trying to feed their children – who are being forced to live hand to mouth,” he said… “It is a further illustration of the barbarity of this inhuman blockade.”… “It is also shameful and unacceptable that the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza is being forced into yet another cycle of crisis management,” Mr Gunness added.
  —BBC News, Nov. 11, 2008 [3]

• International aid agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, have said virtually no medical supplies were reaching Gaza.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 9, 2008 [14]

• The UN has no more food to distribute in the Gaza Strip, the head of relief efforts in the area has warned. John Ging said handouts for 750,000 Gazans would have to be suspended until Saturday at the earliest, and called Gaza’s economic situation “a disaster”. Israel earlier denied entry to a convoy carrying humanitarian supplies… The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) distributes emergency aid to about half of Gaza’s 1.5m population. “We have run out [of food aid] this evening,” said Mr Ging, UNRWA’s senior official in Gaza. “Unless the crossing points open… we won’t be able to get that food into Gaza,” he told Reuters news agency… Also on Thursday, Israel refused permission for a group of senior European diplomats to visit the coastal enclave. It has also prevented journalists, including those from the BBC, from entering the territory.
  —BBC News, Nov. 13, 2008 [4]

• Since June 2007, Israel has allowed little more than basic humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. Many there hoped that policy would change, five months ago, when Hamas and Israel agreed to a truce. But while there were some increases in the amount of aid allowed in, Israel’s strict restrictions on the movement of goods and people into and out of Gaza largely remained… Serious fuel shortages have led to widespread power cuts across Gaza City. That, in turn, has caused problems in pumping water to homes, and sewage to treatment plants. Israel is preventing many aid workers, and all journalists from entering Gaza too… “I never thought we would see days like this,” says Monther Shublak, head of Gaza’s water authority. “The water system was severely stretched even before this crisis, but now, things are much worse. For the last four days, around 40% of people in Gaza City have had no access to running water in their homes at all.”… “But we are putting all of our resources into sewage pumping. The health consequences of that system totally failing are too worrying to think about, but it could happen unless things change.”
  —BBC News, Nov. 20, 2008 [5]

• Israel has refused to allow cash to enter Gaza in recent weeks to ratchet up pressure on the ruling Hamas militant group. With the supply of currency dwindling, banks have limited withdrawals over the past two weeks, and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money… The United Nations halted cash handouts to 98,000 of Gaza’s poorest residents last week, and economists and bank officials warn that tens of thousands of civil servants won’t be able to cash their paychecks next month… “No society can operate without money, but that’s the situation we are reaching in Gaza,” said Gaza economist Omar Shaban… Israel and Egypt have restricted movement through Gaza’s border crossings since the Islamic militants of Hamas violently seized control of the coastal territory in June 2007. Since then, closures have been eased or tightened, depending on the security situation. But even in quiet times, when Gaza militants refrained from firing rockets at Israeli border towns, only limited shipments of food, medicine and commercial goods were allowed in… Shlomo Dror, an Israel Defense Ministry spokesman, questioned the seriousness of the currency shortage. “We are used to the Palestinians inventing things and we are looking into their claim,” he said.
  —Washington Post, Nov. 24, 2008 [6]

Despite the intense blockade against Gazan civilians, the cease-fire held until November 4, 2008. On that date, the Israeli military made an incursion into Gaza and killed six Palestinians. The Israeli government sought to justify these actions, saying that they suspected these Palestinians of plotting to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Palestinian fighters responded to the attack by launching rockets into Israel. Thus began the unraveling of the cease-fire.

• At least six Hamas militants have been killed after Israel’s first incursion into the Gaza Strip since June’s truce. Israel said its troops had uncovered a tunnel along central Gaza’s frontier which had been dug by militants intending to abduct Israeli soldiers. Clashes ensued when troops were sent to thwart the threat, Israel said. One militant died, Palestinian reports say. A subsequent Israeli air strike on Hamas positions in southern Gaza killed at least five fighters, medics said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the air strike targeted militants who had fired mortars at Israeli forces… Tuesday evening’s fighting broke out after Israeli tanks and a bulldozer moved 250m into the central part of the coastal enclave, backed by military aircraft, says the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Ramallah. Residents of central Gaza’s el-Bureij refugee camp said a missile fired from an unmanned Israeli drone flying over the area injured another three Hamas gunmen. A truce between the two sides had held since it was declared on 19 June. Israel said the raid was not a violation of the ceasefire, but rather a legitimate step to remove an immediate threat.
  —BBC News, Nov. 5, 2008 [7]

• An Israel Air Force air strike in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least five militants and wounded several others on Tuesday, Palestinians said. Earlier, Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed a Hamas gunman and wounded two others on Tuesday in the first armed clash in the Gaza Strip since a ceasefire was declared in the territory in June, Palestinian medics said… An Egypt-brokered cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Gaza Strip was signed earlier this year, and went into effect on June 19. The IDF argued that the raid did not constitute a violation of the cease fire, but instead was a legitimate step to remove an immediate threat to Israel from Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 5, 2008 [8]

• Two weeks ago, an already fragile humanitarian situation resulting from the mounting effects of months of shortages, saw a dramatic downturn. The fighting resumed, with an Israeli army incursion into Gaza and a retaliatory barrage of militant rocket fire.
  —BBC News, Nov. 20, 2008 [5]

As the cease-fire began to crumble, the violence from both sides intensified. Efforts to redeem the cease-fire ultimately failed.

• Palestinian armed groups in Gaza remain committed to a truce with Israel if Jerusalem reciprocates, Hamas’s Gaza leader said on Friday, even as militants launched more attacks from the coastal territory… “I have met with armed factions over the past two days and they stated their position clearly: they are committed to calm as long as (Israel) abides by it,” said Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s most senior representative in Gaza.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 21, 2008 [9]

• Hamas announced on Sunday that militant groups in Gaza have agreed to cease cross-border attacks if Israel opens crossings into the coastal territory, Ma’an news reported.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 24, 2008 [10]

• After expressing contradictory positions on Sunday, Hamas’ leadership on Monday adopted a united stance: The cease-fire with Israel, which expires this Friday, will not be extended… Hamas’ spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Ayman Taha, said the movement had concluded that there was no point in extending the truce “as long as Israel isn’t abiding by its terms” – though he added that talks on continuing the cease-fire were still taking place. Specifically, Taha said, Israel was supposed to have expanded the truce to the West Bank – something Hamas demanded but Israel in fact never promised – and opened the Gaza border crossings, and “this hasn’t happened.”
  —Haaretz Israel News, Dec. 16, 2008 [11]

Following the end of the cease-fire, Israel moved closer to an invasion of the territory. The Israeli government claimed that this was the only remaining option to eliminate rocket attacks from Gaza. However, as cited in the sources above, this was clearly not the case. Israel had failed to abide by the terms of the cease-fire. For the overwhelming majority of the six-month truce, Israel had refused to ease its military blockade of Gaza to any significant degree. In addition, it was the initial violator of the cease-fire when it sent tanks and aircraft into Gaza and killed six Palestinians on November 4, 2008. In fact, there is evidence that Israel was planning to strike Gaza even while the cease-fire was still in effect.

• Barak told the assembled lawmakers that the defense establishment spent months preparing for the Gaza operation.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Dec. 29, 2008 [16]

In the interest of peace, Hamas, and especially Fatah, have firmly established that they are willing to participate in negotiations that are based on internationally recognized borders and rights.

• On June 6, 2006, Haniyeh met Dr. Jerome Segal of the University of Maryland in the Gaza Strip… At the end of the meeting, Haniyeh dictated a short message he asked Segal to transmit to President Bush… In the second paragraph, Haniyeh laid out the political platform he maintains to this day. “We are so concerned about stability and security in the area that we don’t mind having a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and offering a truce for many years,” he wrote… Haniyeh called on Bush to launch a dialogue with the Hamas government. “We are not warmongers, we are peace makers and we call on the American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government,” he wrote… In his own letter, Segal emphasized that a state within the 1967 borders and a truce for many years could be considered Hamas’ de facto recognition of Israel. He noted that in a separate meeting, Youssuf suggested that the Palestinian Authority and Israel might exchange ambassadors during that truce period. This was not the only covert message from Hamas to senior Bush administration officials. However, Washington did not reply to these messages and maintained its boycott of the Hamas government.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 14, 2008 [12]

• The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel within the 1967 borders… Haniyeh told his guests Israel rejected his initiative… He said the Hamas government had agreed to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians’ national rights… In response to a question about the international community’s impression that there are two Palestinian states, Haniyeh said: “We don’t have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.”… “Our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation,” Haniyeh said.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 9, 2008 [14]

• The Palestinian Authority has placed a full-page advert in Israel’s Hebrew newspapers to promote an Arab peace plan first proposed in 2002. The Saudi-backed initiative offers Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for an end to Israel’s occupation of land captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It also proposes what it calls a just solution for Palestinian refugees. The Israeli government has noted “positive aspects” in the plan but has not formally accepted it… Peace Now, and Israeli campaign group, welcomed the publication of the adverts. “On behalf of a majority of Israeli citizens who support peace with the Palestinian people on the basis of a two state solution – we embrace the Arab Peace Initiative and urge both governments to endorse it and negotiate the final status agreement in its spirit,” a statement from the group said… The text reads: “Fifty-seven Arab and Muslim countries will establish diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for a full peace accord and the end of the occupation.”
  —BBC News, Nov. 20, 2008 [13]

• U.S. President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed himself “very impressed” with the Arab League’s peace plan when he discussed it with President Shimon Peres during a brief visit to Israel four months ago, Peres said Tuesday… The plan, originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002 and later adopted by the Arab League, states that Israel would receive full relations with the entire Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from all the territory it captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem, plus a solution to the refugee problem. The Bush Administration has said it views the plan positively, but its own road map peace plan and the understandings reached at last year’s Annapolis summit have served as the basis of its diplomatic program.
  —Haaretz Israel News, Nov. 19, 2008 [15]

Since Israel began its strike on Gaza, 4 Israelis and 391 Palestinians have been killed [18]. The White House said that Israel will cease its attack when Hamas has agreed to a truce. Hamas said they are open to any cease-fire propositions. A cease-fire has been proposed, but Israel rejected this offer.

• “In order for the violence to stop, Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel and agree to respect a sustainable and durable ceasefire,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
  —BBC News, Dec. 29, 2008 [17]

• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected international calls for a 48-hour truce in the Gaza Strip to allow in more humanitarian aid… The 48-hour ceasefire plan to allow more aid into Gaza, was proposed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told AFP news agency that his group was open to any ceasefire propositions as long as they meant an end to the air strikes and a lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
  —BBC News, Dec. 31, 2008 [18]

The international community must continue to demand that a cease-fire be implemented. In order to be successful, any agreement must call for 1) an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, 2) an end to the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and 3) an end to all rocket attacks into Israel.

References:

[1] “UNRWA chief: Gaza on brink of humanitarian catastrophe.” Haaretz Israel News 21 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[2] “Gaza residents ‘terribly trapped’.” BBC News 4 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[3] “UN warns over Gaza food blockade.” BBC News 11 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[4] “UN ‘has run out of Gaza food aid.” BBC News 13 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[5] “Gazans despair over blockade.” BBC News 20 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[6] “Gazans using tattered notes because of cash crunch.” Washington Post 24 Nov. 2008. www.washingtonpost.com/

[7] “Palestinians die in Gaza clashes.” BBC News 5 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[8] “Hamas: Six Palestinians killed in first IDF raid since Gaza truce.” Haaretz Israel News 5 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[9] “Haniyeh: If Israel abides by truce, so will Palestinian groups.” Haaretz Israel News 21 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[10] “Report: Gaza militants agree to cease rocket fire if Israel opens crossings.” Haaretz Israel News 24 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[11] “Agreement in Hamas: Cease-fire to end Friday.” Haaretz Israel News 16 Dec. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[12] “Haniyeh recognized Israel in 2006 letter to President Bush.” Haaretz Israel News 14 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[13] “Arab plan explained in Hebrew ads.” BBC News 20 Nov. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[14] “Haniyeh: Hamas would accept state under 1967 borders.” Haaretz Israel News 9 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[15] “Peres: Obama ‘very impressed’ by Arab League peace plan.” Haaretz Israel News 19 Nov. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[16] “Barak: We’ll use every resource to stop ‘criminal’ rocket fire from Gaza.” Haaretz Israel News 29 Dec. 2008. www.haaretz.com/

[17] “Israel vows war on Hamas in Gaza.” BBC News 29 Dec. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

[18] “Israel rejects Gaza truce calls.” BBC News 31 Dec. 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/

UPDATE: Palestine protests resources & actions

Socialist Alliance media release Pics of Sydney rally in solidarity with Gaza Pics of Brisbane rally in solidarity with Gaza Download placards here, here and here. Upcoming rallies and meetings:

* Perth protest: Wednesday,December 31, 12.30pm, West Church, Cnr Hay and Murray Sts - organised by Friends of Palestine, Western Australia.
* Newcastle protest: Wednesday December 31, 4pm at the Clock Tower in Hamilton. Contact Niko on 0406 296 141 for more information.
* Sydney:Public Seminar on background to the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza Saturday January 3, 2pm, Sydney Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale. Organised by Resistance & the Socialist Alliance. Info: 02 9690 1977 or 0448 605 203
* 2nd Brisbane protest: - Saturday January 3, 2pm, Queens Park.
* 2nd Melbourne protest: Sunday January 4, 2pm, State Library.