Israel & Palestine

The new Israeli elections that will be held on January 28, 2003 highlight the deep political crisis that has paralysed the Israeli political system. The elections come at a time of deepening economy crisis. At the same time no solution is in sight to the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territories. A.Kramer in Israel explains that Israeli workers can expect nothing from the main contenders in these elections and stresses the need for a working class based socialist alternative.

We have received this letter from a worker in Israel which highlights the injustices suffered by the Arab workers under Israeli rule and also the impasse ordinary working class Israelis are facing.

An answer to those who argue that the German and Austrian people have a "collective responsibility" for the Holocaust. The German and Austrian people themselves, and especially the proletariat that was lied to, betrayed and sold out by the Stalinists, the Socials-Democrats and the bourgeois parties, have no guilt to bear. The capitalists push this idea in order to cover up for the responsibility of capitalism in this terrible crime and also to hide the fact that millions of German and Austrian workers were opposed to Hitler, and many Socialists, Communists and Trade Union activists also died in his camps.

What was the real role of British imperialism in the formation of the state of Israel? What position did the Soviet Union and US imperialism take at the time? And how did the PLO leaders pose the question of the struggle against Israel in the past? What solution can Marxists offer both the Palestinian and Jewish workers In this brief article we try to answer these questions and develop a perspective.

Styling themselves on the American organisation of the same name, the Black Panthers campaigned against discrimination and oppression of Sephardic Jews who had emigrated from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The movement led to brutal clashes with the state. The peak of the confrontation between the Panthers and the authorities was in 1972, when 60 people were arrested on the May Day demonstration where they had chanted slogans not just against poverty but against the annexation of Arab lands.

We are publishing an article by Inge Eriksson, University lecturer in 'European studies with a historical orientation', at Malmö University, Sweden. The article analyses the roots and conditions that led to the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.

5000 Palestinians who used to work in Israel and have been unemployed for the past 22 months since the Gaza Strip was sealed off, have been demanding that the Palestinian Authority provide them with either regular unemployment payments or alternative work.

On June 15 Israeli bulldozers began to dig trenches for the building of a fence that will separate Israel from the West Bank. One of our Israeli correspondents comments on the plans to build a huge fence separating Israel from the Palestinian territories.

We are republishing this article from issue 73 of Challenge magazine, on the situation facing the Palestinian people. We believe that the analysis developed in this article by the comrades of the Challenge will be of interest to our readers.

The general crisis of capitalism is expressing itself as a general instability everywhere. Nowhere has this had more destabilising effects than the Middle East. This instability is being fuelled and exacerbated by US imperialism, which has decided that it is free to intervene anywhere it likes under the pretext of the so-called war against terrorism. Ariel Sharon is calling his new military campaign a war against terror. And while it is self-evident that Bush gave him the green light to launch his attack on the Palestinian Authority, Washington is now becoming alarmed at the consequences.

Israel is now using its full might to oust Arafat and drown the Palestinian uprising in blood. On Friday, March 29: Israel launched an all-out drive against the Palestinian areas, smashing into Yasser Arafat's West Bank base, killing seven Palestinians, arresting more than 70 and unleashing a new wave of blood and destruction.

In Israel things are beginning to change. On February 16, over 20,000 people demonstrated for peace. The demonstration was addressed by both Israeli and Palestinian speakers. What was even more significant was the presence of a delegation of the approximately 250 Israeli soldiers (including officers) who have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in the Palestinian territories, and the number is growing daily. One opinion poll has revealed that 31% of the Israeli population supports these protesting soldiers.

A. Kramer sends us an update on the internal situation in Israel. He calls for a united front of stuggle to be built that can challenge reactionary Israeli imperialism and create the conditions for a profound transformation of the whole situation. That is the only hope for the future of both Israelis and Palestinians.