Photo Above: A man carries a young girl injured in an Israeli attack on the densely populated, southern Gaza city of Rafah on 8 May 2024. Over 1.4 million Palestinian people have fled to Rafah to oppose Israel’s murderous attacks elsewhere. Now, Israel’s assault on Rafah threatens a new catastrophe for the people of Gaza.
Photo credit: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua
STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
OPPOSE THE U.S. & AUSTRALIAN
IMPERIALIST BACKERS OF ISRAEL
ON ALL THEIR BATTLEFRONTS!
10 May 2024: Over the last seven months, Israel has killed 35,000 Palestinian people. Now they are attacking densely populated Rafah. This Gaza slaughter is only happening because of the massive support given to Israel by the U.S., German, British, Australian and other imperialist regimes. Just two weeks ago, Joe Biden signed into law a package for the U.S. to provide Israel with a further $A21 billion (!!) of weapons. Despite its smaller size, the Australian ruling class is also hugely participating in Israel’s mass murder. Pro-Palestinian activists have rightly slammed the Australian government’s military ties with Israel and the hundreds of millions that the Albanese Labor government gives to Israel through granting Israeli defence firms military contracts. Australia’s rulers are also joining in Israel’s genocide in two even more consequential ways. Firstly, the Australian regime greatly assists Israel to direct its bombing raids through hosting and helping operate the NT- based, Pine Gap ground station for U.S. spy satellites. Secondly, the Australian military is participating in the U.S.-led strikes on Yemen aimed at crushing pro-Palestine actions by the Houthis in the Red Sea.
The world is outraged by the Western rulers’ support for Israel’s genocide. So, these rulers try to appear like they are restraining Israel. The Labor government has publicly given its Israeli allies soft slaps on the wrists. This while the joint U.S.- Australia Pine Gap base is pinpointing Israel’s strikes on Gaza’s people! For its part, the U.S. regime leaked vague claims that it had delayed one weapons shipment to Israel. But the Pentagon then denied that there had been any decision to withhold arms. Washington and Canberra are behaving like a mafia thug who owns a vicious attack dog. The crime boss fears that the dog’s extreme brutality is setting everyone against them. So they give the dog a gentle public scolding. But they still keep on feeding the dog chunky pieces of meat, for they need the dog to keep on attacking their adversaries.
So concerned are the Western capitalist rulers at their damaged credibility that their media have been implying that it is Western governments – and only these governments – that have been opposing an Israeli invasion of Rafah! This, even as it is clear that it is actually Western imperialism’s adversaries – Yemen’s Houthis, Iran, Syria, North Korea, China and Russia – who have (albeit to differing degrees) been the ones opposing Israel’s terror. Yet many are seeing through the deceit of Western mainstream media outlets. There have been large protests in Western countries against their own regimes’ complicity in Israel’s genocide. In Australia, opposition to the ruling class’ racist oppression of people of colour and Muslims is magnifying sympathy for the Palestinian cause amongst not only people of Arab background but people of Asian, African and Islander heritage, as well as anti-racist whites. In Sydney, there have been huge marches organised by the Palestine Action Group, attempts to stop the loading of ships belonging to Israel’s pro-war Zim shipping line and pro-Palestinian protest camps at universities. We in Trotskyist Platform support all these actions. We struggle for the world’s working class movements and all anti-imperialists to take action to demand: Israel stop your terror now! Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank! Stop the massive support being given to Israel by the U.S., Australian, British and German imperialists! Close the U.S.-Australia Pine Gap spy base! U.S., British and Australian forces get out of the Red Sea region! Let’s support the brave Palestinian resistance! Let’s stand with Yemen, Syria and Iran against U.S. and Israeli attacks!
RESIST THE WESTERN IMPERIALISTS
UPHOLDING ISRAEL’S TERROR!
Many activists have shown great energy and courage to stand with the Palestinian people. But for our efforts to actually make a difference, another key factor is urgently needed: a clear political direction. For starters, we need to understand why the U.S. and its allies so intransigently back Israel. Some say it is because “Zionists control America”. But this has it completely the wrong way around! In fact, it is the U.S. capitalist ruling class which controls Israel’s Zionist ruling class. Israel is the attack dog for U.S. imperialism in the oil-rich and strategically-located Middle East. Its role is to weaken all forces in the Middle East that fail to adequately subordinate themselves to Washington – whether they be Syria’s government, certain factions in Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthis or Iran. In imperialism’s new Cold War, Israel’s key designated task is to target countries that choose to have friendly ties with socialistic China. For undertaking this project, the imperialists are prepared to support Israel’s murderous subjugation of the Palestinian people.
The imperialists know that China’s cooperation with developing countries is making it harder for them to super-exploit these countries. Moreover, despite the incomplete, uncertain and deformed nature of China’s transition to socialism, the Western capitalists fear that if China continues to successfully lift her people further away from poverty, the masses in their own countries will eventually be demanding socialism too. And the more that the Western powers see this existential threat resulting from the rise of Red China, the more unconditionally are they willing to back their Zionist attack dog. This is part of why Australia’s imperialist rulers back Israel. With Australia and China both inhabiting the Asia-Western Pacific region, China’s cooperation with the ex-colonial countries is particularly damaging to Australian imperialist plunder in the region. Australia’s ruling class also backs Israel because they want the power of Israel’s U.S. masters to be protected. It is U.S. might that underwrites the Australian capitalists’ plunder of PNG, Fiji, East Timor and other Pacific and Southeast Asian countries. Furthermore, Australia’s rulers are counting on their U.S. allies to spearhead the destruction of the socialistic rule in China that an exploiting class in the Asia-Western Pacific region finds so threatening to its own rule.
The Israeli regime is not imperialism’s only attack dog. The anti-working-class Taiwanese regime has long been built up by the capitalist powers to be an unsinkable aircraft carrier targeting the Chinese workers state. For its part, imperialism’s Ukraine attack dog has been designated the task of waging a proxy war against Russia and the anti-Western inclined, Russian- speaking community in Eastern Ukraine. Although Russia is itself ruled by a reactionary capitalist class, Russia and the Russian-speaking East of Ukraine are too independent for the Western masters of the world to tolerate. That is why twelve days ago, Australia’s government announced that it was sending yet another $100 million of weapons to Ukraine.
There is a perverse “solidarity” among imperialism’s attack dogs.The Taiwanese and Ukrainian regimes are among Israel’s most rabid supporters. Most significantly, the very same U.S. law that granted $A21 billion in weapons to Israel, gave billions in military aid to Taiwan and an incredible $92 billion (!!) to Ukraine. This proves just how much imperialist support for Israel and their opposition to the Chinese workers state and to unbowed Russia go hand in hand. Conversely, true support for the Palestinian people means standing for the defence of socialistic rule in China and taking the side of Russia and Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine against NATO and its Ukraine proxies. Unfortunately, some of the groups supporting Palestine are actually backing Israel’s Western masters in their proxy campaigns. The Socialist Alternative and Socialist Alliance groups even back imperialist military support for their Ukrainian proxies. Yet, it is very obvious that the liberation of Palestine requires the weakening and not the strengthening of Israel’s Western imperialist backers.
WAGE POLITICAL WAR AGAINST THE
AUSTRALIAN CAPITALIST RULING CLASS
THAT IS PARTICIPATING IN ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE!
Photo credit: Trotskyist Platform
Given how much Israel’s terror depends on imperialism’s support, it is crucial that the pro-Palestine movement becomes a movement that fights to degrade the imperialists by opposing them on every single one of their battlefronts. Most of all, the movement here must become a movement of unyielding opposition to Australia’s capitalist ruling class. For Australia’s rulers will not be swayed one bit by appeals to their conscience. The only thing that will make them retreat from their support for Israel is the prospect of a resistance movement that undermines their rule. There are aspects of today’s movement that are promising. Aboriginal speakers have powerfully exposed the connection between the rulers’ brutal oppression of Aboriginal people and their support for Israel’s terror. Meanwhile, protesters have aptly chanted: “Albanese Your Hands are Red, Fifteen Thousand Children Dead!” When the ruling class hears such determined opposition and see activists making the connection between their support for Israel and their tyranny at home, it makes them very worried.
However, there are other aspects of the pro-Palestine movement that will be a relief to Australia’s ruling class. They are reassured when they see some at the protests appealing to them to be “independent of the U.S.” To be sure, the capitalist rulers do not agree with this appeal as their alliance with the U.S. is in their own interests. But the ruling class will be comforted that those pushing such calls are only appealing to them to change their policy, rather than staunchly opposing them as supporters of genocide, as some protest chants are doing. Other calls have downplayed the crimes of the Australian government by promoting the illusion that it could be a positive force for the Palestinian cause; or by appealing to the government “to do more to oppose Israel’s war.” Do more?! Far from having done anything at all to defend the Palestinian people, this government has been actively supporting Israel’s slaughter. Among those consciously pulling the movement back from unyielding opposition to the Australian ruling class are ALP “Left” forces, soft-on-Labor groups and pro-ALP union officials who have joined the pro-Palestine protests. The Greens are also pushing in this direction. For although individual Greens politicians like Mehreen Faruqi have spoken up against Israel’s terror, the fact is that the Greens ultimately uphold the rule of the capitalist class whose interests lie with supporting Israel. That is why when the Greens were part of a de facto coalition government with the ALP from August 2010 to February 2013, the Australian government continued to back Israel’s subjugation of Palestine. Today, the Greens German counterparts and the Greens foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, are among the most rabid supporters of Israel.
Although some consciously hold back the movement from becoming one of staunch opposition to Australia’s rulers, in other cases, one and the same activists simultaneously hold sentiments of intransigent opposition to the capitalist rulers alongside support for slogans that pull the movement back from such a direction. Therefore, the duty of all pro-Palestine activists who understand the need for resolute opposition to the capitalist rulers is to strengthen such attitudes amongst fellow activists, while dispelling illusions in the potential benovelence of Australia’s capitalist class. The same political struggle is needed within our unions in order to turn verbal union statements in solidarity with Palestine into concrete actions – such as wharfies’ action refusing to load and unload Zim ships. This struggle to turn our unions into bodies of relentless opposition to Australia’s capitalist class is precisely what is also needed to make our unions weapons in the struggle to secure real wage rises, win a massive increase in public housing to drive down rents and fight for the conversion of casual jobs into secure ones. In short, the struggle to mobilise the workers movement in support of Palestine is one and the same struggle as the fight for workers rights and the struggle to oppose imperialism on all its battlefronts.
Let’s force Australia’s rulers to pull back from their support for Israel’s genocide! Let’s do this by making the pro-Palestine and union movements forces of unrelenting opposition to the capitalist rulers! If we succeed, we will inspire similar struggles in the U.S. and other Western countries. Two and a half million people in Gaza need us to succeed!
