Israel/Palestine

Report from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom : At the same time as Ehud Barak was ordering the army to start the bloody ground offensive against Gaza, some ten thousand protesters from all over Israel marched in Tel-Aviv in a massive demonstration against the war. All four lanes of Ibn Gvirol St., one of the city's main throughfares, were packed full of demonstrators who marched the two kiolometres from the Rabin Square to the Cinemateque, chanting and waving banners all the way. “One does not build an election campaign over the dead bodies of children!” shouted the protesters in Hebrew...

"[Israeli peace activist] Uri Avnery noted, "Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to withdrawal from the occupied territories and the settlements there." Similarly, M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Center observed, "the fact is that Israeli (and American) right-wingers are rooting for the Palestinian extremists" since "supplanting ... Fatah with Islamic fundamentalists would prevent a situation under which Israel would be forced to negotiate with moderates..." Read more about the USA's and...

The second day of emergency demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington was about the same size as the day before, even though it was a working day. Again, young people of a Muslim background were the most radical and pushed through the police barriers early on, and blocked Kensington High St again for about three hours. This demonstration was formally called by the Palestine Solidarity campaign, the Stop the War Coalition and the British Muslim Initiative. The presence of socialist activists was smaller than in previous years’ mobilizations about Palestine and the Middle East...

The misery being inflicted on the people of Gaza by the Israeli state is now more intense and violent than ever. Israeli troops are mounting a ground offensive and around 300 people have been killed and 1,400 injured since the assault began on Saturday. Children make up 5% of the dead and will be the most vulnerable as general conditions of life deteriorate further. We condemn these murderous acts. We share the huge rage towards the Israeli state, and complete solidarity with the people of Gaza. We also regret the loss of the one Israeli civilian killed so far. For us, this war like many...

The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom mobilised an immediate demonstration of about 1000 in Tel Aviv on 27 December against the new bombing of Gaza. Gush Shalom said: Bloodshed and suffering on both sides of the border could have been avoided. It is possible to return immediately to the ceasefire, make it stronger and firmer. The war in Gaza, the bloodshed, killing, destruction and suffering on both sides of the border are the vicious folly of a bankrupt government. A government which let itself be dragged by adventurous officers and cheap nationalist demagoguery, dragged into a destructive and...

February's national elections are coming 18 months early. They were set in motion in September when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he would resign to fight corruption charges. Before the assault on Gaza opinion polling indicated that Tzipi Livni’s Kadima was closing the gap with Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. The survey showed Likud winning 29 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, up from its current 12, followed by Kadima with 25. Kadima currently has 29 seats. The poll forecast that Labour, headed by current Defense Minister Ehud Barak, will win just 10 seats, becoming the fifth...

Iran In late November, Education International (international federation of teaching unions) received information from contacts inside Iran that Kurdish teacher activist Farzad Kamangar was being prepared for execution in the notorious Evin Prison. There was a flurry of activity, with many thousands of people around the world responding to the request to email Iranian president Ahmedinejad against Kamangar’s execution. Latest reports suggest that Kamangar is still alive, but he remains in imminent danger. Kamangar has been convicted of involvement with the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) but his...

I got something wrong in my previous comments on the current Weekly Worker campaign - which consists of wriggling out of debate with AWL on Israel and Iran and at the same time claiming that we evade debate with them . An article by Peter Manson in Weekly Worker 746 contains nothing new on the campaign, but provides a suitable occasion to correct the error. It also provides an opportunity to alert readers to a new political turn by the WW, being undertaken under cover of the smokescreen provided by the campaign. Strictly speaking, Manson's screed includes one new thing: a complaint that AWL...

In two previous articles , I have responded to Moshe Machover's polemic against my discussion piece from July, "What If Israel Bombs Iran?". There remains to consider Moshe Machover's proposed solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict, his programme. I have in the articles noted such strange things in Moshe Machover's polemic as his description of the USA as "humanity's worst enemy" and his nod - to put it its weakest - towards the notion of a manipulative Zionist conspiracy operating in the background of 20th century history and controlling events. No less strange is his programme for solving the...

"Matgamna [Sean Matgamna of AWL] knows he would be forced to state openly that he believes an Israeli attack [on Iran] justified...", claims Mark Fischer in Weekly Worker 745 (13 November). And what would "force" Matgamna to do that? Presumably also to "state openly" that two plus two equals five, and that the Weekly Worker tells the truth? According to Mark Fischer, what would "force" it is the holding of a debate under the title "What If Israel Bombs Iran". You see, Sean Matgamna doesn't justify or support an Israeli attack on Iran (let alone a nuclear one!). He said in a face-to-face debate...