Solidarity 076, 7 July 2005

Debate & Discussion: Social revolution in Israel?

I believe David Merhav (letters, Solidarity 3/75) when he says that victory for Amir Peretz in the contest for leader of the Israeli Labour Party would be better than victory for Shimon Peres. However, David’s claim that Peretz’s leadership “can become a true source for social revolution in Israel... socialist transformation of Israeli society” seems way out to me. In the past we have regarded the Israeli Labour Party as not even a bourgeois workers’ party on the model of the old Labour Party in Britain, because it was the chosen party of the majority of the Israeli upper class, and the...

Debate & Discussion: Ban smoking?

A good reason for a ban on smoking in public places is that it may stop the health risks bar and restrauant workers are exposed to. If measures to mitigate the effects of smoking (no-smoking areas, efficient ventilation) are not adequate then a ban on smoking, at least in bars and pubs, would be a good thing. But that is not the reason the Government wants the ban. Blair apparently sees the ban as a “legacy issue” — it will be a great crusading effort for better public health for which he will be remembered in years to come. With this ban the Government is basically saying, “You can’t smoke...

Debate & Discussion: A new era for Europe

About 200 organisers from across Europe met in Paris on 24-25 June, on the initiative of Expaces Marx (close to the French Communist Party) and the Fondation Copernic (Socialist Party people who voted “no” to the Euro-constitution). The French CP called for a cross-Europe petition “to have the ‘no’ vote respected” and the French LCR backed it; ATTAC announced its “ABC” plan for a “democratic refoundation of Europe”. The same day, 700 activists met in Nanterre (near Paris) for a national gathering of the 900 “collectives for a left-wing no” set up before the 29 May referendum. There was debate...

Police hem in Gleneagles protest, 6 July

Sacha Ismail and Karen Johnson report. On Wednesday 6 July a determined hard core from the G8 mobilisations took their message to the site of the G8 summit itself, which started that day at the Gleneagles Hotel, near the village of Auchterarder. The police had surrounded the hotel with a huge fence, five miles long, twelve feet high. In places it was a double fence, with police, or extra fences, between the two main fences. In the morning the police told people getting on coaches in Edinburgh that the demonstration had been banned or cancelled, and backed down only after people started...

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