Tag Archives: genocide

Anti-Imperialism, Palestine, U.S.

Ten Ways that Australia’s
Ruling Class Backs
Israel’s Genocidal Terror

Photo Above: Israel’s thirteen month-long genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people has reduced most of Gaza’s people to the verge of starvation; or actual starvation. Here, Palestinians wait to buy bread from the only operating bakery in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis on 23 October 2024.
Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua

Ten Ways that Australia’s Ruling Class Backs
Israel’s Genocidal Terror

FROM PINE GAP TO SANCTIONS ON IRAN,
ALBANESE & CO. ARE KNEE DEEP IN THE SLAUGHTER

WE MUST FORCE THEM TO DO LESS – LESS HARM TO
THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE & LEBANON

2 November 2024 – The Zionist regime’s brutality over recent weeks has exceeded even that of the crimes that they perpetrated over the preceding year.  Especially targeting northern Gaza, Israel is massacring Palestinians in deliberate strikes on schools, homes and hospitals. The Israeli regime has also killed thousands in Lebanon and forced more than a quarter of that country’s people to flee their homes. This terrorism on a mass scale is based on huge support from the U.S., Australian and other imperialist regimes. But with Israel’s crimes battering their image, Western regimes started making calls for “ceasefire now” – by which they mean a ceasefire on Netanyahu’s terms. However, as brave Palestinian and Lebanese – and for their own reasons Iranian state – resistance to Israel intensifies, Western support for Israel has again become more overt. The U.S. has now sent a hundred troops to help Israel operate the THAAD missile system that the U.S. is providing them.

Australia’s capitalist ruling class is also greatly supporting Israel’s genocidal terror. They do this in ten different ways:

  1. The Australian regime hosts and jointly operates with the U.S. the Pine Gap spy base near Alice Springs. Receiving data from two U.S. spy satellites, the base transmits to Israel the location of targets to hit with missiles and bombs. How many times have schools, hospitals, ambulances and rescue workers in Gaza been targeted with the direct assistance of the Australian regime and its Pine Gap terror installation?
  2. Two weeks ago, when the U.S. launched a massive air strike against Yemeni supporters of the Palestinian people, the Defence Department boasted that Australia directly assisted the attack “through access and overflight for US aircraft in northern Australia”. Apparently, the Australian air bases enabled air-to-air refuelling of the U.S. bombers.
  3. Australian troops are in the Middle East directly participating in the U.S. and British-led attacks on Yemeni supporters of Palestine who have been deterring ships linked to Israel and its allies from traversing the Red Sea.
  4. The regime lists Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorists”. That means that Australians who make donations to them face years in jail. Given that Hamas and Hezbollah are non-state groups based in poverty-stricken lands, these groups rely on overseas donations. Since Australia is a richer country with a large Arab diaspora, Australians could be a key source of the funds needed to support these groups’ anti-Israeli resistance. The “terror” bans are thus very harmful.
  5. Australian companies sell military equipment and supplies to the Israeli military.
  6. The regime backs Israel’s arms providers. In February, the Australian military awarded a nearly $917 million contract to Israel’s biggest arms producer, Elbit Systems – known for supplying Israeli forces with killer drones and mortars.
  7. The ALP government provides diplomatic cover for Israel’s terror.
  8. The Australian regime sanctions Iran. Sometimes, Canberra disguises these as measures against the Iranian government’s repressive and anti-women policies. But Australia’s rulers care nothing for the Iranian masses. Their real goal is to support the U.S. and Israeli drive to bring Iran to heel. This was proven a fortnight ago, when the Australian government unleashed new sanctions on Iran in response to her 100% justifiable missile strike on Israel.  
  9. From their police arresting anti-genocide protesters, to their politicians threatening Palestine activists to their universities expelling pro-Palestine students and effectively sacking pro-Palestine academics, Australia’s ruling class are trying to suppress anti-genocide protests.
  10. Australia’s capitalist-owned media have unleashed a barrage of propaganda alibiing Israel.

Despite Australia’s rulers proving to be the enemy of Palestine, some groups keep on appealing for “the government to do more to stop the genocide”. But to say that the Labor government should “do more” is to misleadingly imply that they are actually already doing something positive! That is why the pro-ALP current leaders of our unions and other, “pro-Palestine” ALP hacks keep selling us this “do more” line. So, too, do the Greens. For, although the Greens criticise Albanese’s stance, they do not want Australia’s capitalist order, that they are ultimately loyal to, to be completely discredited. By appealing to the government “to do more” they are covering up the huge amount of harm that the ruling class is actually doing! What we do need to do is to force the Australian ruling class to do less – that is, less participation in Israeli/U.S.-led terror. We need powerful actions to demand: Close Pine Gap! No refuelling or hosting of U.S. warplanes from Australian bases! Australian troops involved in the operation against Yemeni supporters of Palestine: Get out of the Middle East! Lift the regime’s “terror” listing of Hamas and Hezbollah! No military sales to Israel! Cancel Australian contracts to Israeli arms suppliers! Lift the sanctions on Iran! Down with the regime’s attacks on pro-Palestine activists!

17 October 2024, Yemen: Death and destruction in the capital of Yemen, Sana’a following a massive U.S. air strike using long-range B-2 bombers. The attack was aimed at quelling the heroic actions in support of the embattled Palestinian people by Yemen’s Houthi forces. The Australian regime boasted that Australian air bases assisted the attack through “through access and overflight for US aircraft in northern Australia”. Apparently, the Australian air bases enabled air-to-air refuelling of the U.S. bombers. In supporting this attack on pro-Palestinian resistance forces, the Australian regime is actively assisting the Israeli regime to conduct its genocide of the people of Gaza.

It is in the Working Class’ Own Interests to
Stand with the Opponents of Zionist/Western Terror!

Apart from the Western-puppet Taiwanese ruling class (and it has now been confirmed that the Taiwanese firm that made the exploding pagers used by Israel in its Lebanon terrorist attack has long-time links with U.S. intelligence agencies), no rulers administering a population size comparable to Australia’s provide even a small fraction of the support to Israel’s terror as Australia’s rulers do. So when you hear a co-worker say that “what happens in the Middle East has nothing to do with us”, tell them that they are very mistaken! Explain too that given how much the Western regimes have invested in backing Israel, if the Zionist/Western forces were to triumph, it would embolden Western ruling classes. The victorious Australian capitalist rulers would be more confident to attack the rights of workers, Aboriginal people, refugees and all the poor. It is not completely a coincidence that the Australian ruling class launched its biggest attack on the working class in four decades – the forcing of the militant CFMEU workers union into administration – during the midst of the “national security”-obsessed climate fostered by their participation in the Gaza massacre. On the other hand, if those resisting the Zionist/Western forces could hold them off, it would damage the prestige of the Western capitalists. That would facilitate the struggles that we badly need here to defend our unions, to drive down rents, to fight for Aboriginal people’s liberation and to resist racist attacks on people of Muslim, Arab, Asian and African heritage. So it is not only a moral imperative but is in the very interests of workers and all the oppressed here to stand for the victory of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. We must also side with Iran, Syria and Yemen against Israel and their U.S., British and Australian allies.

So why are Australia’s capitalist rulers such intractable Israel backers? It is not because of Zionists within the ruling class. Yes, there are some capitalists who are Zionists. But most are not. And most actually could not care less about the myths of Zionism. Rather they back Israel because they need U.S. power to be upheld, because that is what underwrites their own imperialist rape of the Southwest Pacific and Southeast Asia. That means backing the Israeli attack dog of the U.S. in the strategically located and oil-rich Middle East. In other words, Australia’s ruling class backs Israel in order to uphold its own predatory interests. It is as simple as that! To force this exploiting class to “do this less”, we must threaten their own interests to such a level that the capitalist rulers will find it less harmful to retreat from backing Israel than to continue.

Many of the elements that we need to build a movement that can force Australia’s rulers to retreat from their support of Israeli terrorism are contained within the Palestine Action Group-organised mass protests in Sydney. Speeches by Aboriginal activists have powerfully linked the Australian ruling class’ support for Zionist settler colonialism with their own genocidal dispossession of Aboriginal people. During the marches, we have shouted some apt chants, like: “Albanese – Blood on Your Hands”. But there is an, effectively opposite, political direction coexisting within the movement. One that does not oppose the ruling class as an enemy but appeals to them as a potential albeit misguided ally. When the ruling class-media reports on pro-Palestine protests, they rarely quote the hard hitting chants or most cutting speeches, lest they encourage such sentiments. Instead they quote the appeals to the ruling class to “do more”. As long as the capitalist rulers know that this is the main message issuing from the protests, they will not feel threatened by them (just annoyed). And that means they will not feel compelled to retreat from supporting Israel. This is the problem we must fix!

Those most consciously promoting appeals to the ruling class at pro-Palestine events are the Greens. For although the Greens oppose the most brutal aspects of Zionist terror, they nevertheless uphold the Australian capitalist order that benefits from Israeli aggression in the Middle East. Thus, when on the October 7 anniversary, the Albanese government put a despicable parliamentary motion proclaiming “Israel’s right to defend itself” and condemning Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran for resisting Israel, the Greens refused to oppose the motion and only abstained.

From the Greens’ perspective, Australian support for Israel’s terror is one of Australia’s political order’s few bad aberrations within an otherwise “democratic” system. Thus, when addressing the October 13 protest, Greens senator David Shoebridge contrasted the ALP government’s refusal to support Palestine refugees with what he called its correct support for Ukraine’s war against Russia. But the Western regimes back Ukraine for the same reason that they back Israel: to feed an attack dog that will enforce their world domination – in this case by trying to subordinate Russia, which, while itself under a capitalist regime, refuses to submit to Western hegemony. Every supporter of Palestine should stand for the imperialist backers of Israel to be weakened by defeats in all the theatres that they are fighting in – including in Ukraine. Most crucially, we must oppose the imperialists’ drive to destroy the main state threat to their global tyranny – the Chinese workers state.

Whether it is waging Cold War against socialistic China, arming a proxy war against Russia or backing Zionist terror and genocide, the Australian and other imperialist rulers are driven by their quest to reinforce their world “order” that facilitates their looting of the poorer countries. Far from Australian ruling class support for Israel’s Gaza genocide being an exception to the rule, it is typical of this class’ whole history. This country’s capitalist order is based on the genocide of Aboriginal people and the continued brutal oppression of this country’s First Peoples. That was highlighted by the brave and inspirational protest twelve days ago by independent senator, Lidia Thorpe, against Australia’s visiting head of state, King Charles, when the Aboriginal woman shouted: “You committed genocide against our people…. F_ck the colony!… You are not our king!” Moreover, in executing civilians, massacring onion farmers and slitting the throats of teenage boys, Australian regime forces that participated in the occupation of Afghanistan perpetrated the same type of racist crimes that Israeli troops are committing on a huge scale in Gaza. It is not only pro-Palestine protests that Australia’s rulers are trying to suppress. Politicians are threatening to throw Lidia Thorpe out of her senate seat for protesting against the blood-stained monarch, while the CFMEU union has been taken over by regime administrators for daring to stand up too staunchly for workers rights.

We must junk all illusions that we can appeal to Australia’s capitalist rulers to support Palestine or indeed support any other just cause. Such appeals are worse than futile. They are preventing the pro-Palestinian movement from becoming a force of unalloyed opposition to the ruling class that is backing Israel’s terror. Many of us have put much effort into joining pro-Palestine protests. But we want the actions to do more than make us feel good for protesting against the genocide. We need to turn the actions into ones that so implacably oppose the ruling class, so discredits them, so destabilises their political order that they will be compelled to retreat from their backing of Israeli terror. Everyone who understands this has a duty to not only join the rallies but to do so with placards that will help steer the movement in this direction. Come bearing signs like: “Resist Australia’s Capitalists and Monarchy that Supports Israel’s Terror and Brutally Oppresses Aboriginal People!”, “Stand With Palestine! Shut Down Pine Gap! Smash the U.S./Australia Attacks on Yemen!” and “Down With Support for Israel! Defend the CFMEU! For a Working-Class Intifada in Australia Against the Capitalist Elites!”

Uncategorized

Issue 27

Campaign to Drive Down Unaffordable Rents in Australia

“Human Rights Watch”:
Facilitators of Imperialist Terror, Enemies of Socialism

Free the Thousands of Leftist, Anti-War
and Anti-Nationalist Political Prisoners in Ukraine

Stand with the Palestinian People. Oppose the U.S. and Australian
Imperialist Backers of Israel on All Their Battlefronts!

A Call For Revolutionary Health Care Reform in Australia
For Truly Free, Universal Public Health Care in Australia

Free Di Sanh Duong!

Expand Rental Supply Now:
Confiscate Vacant Houses of the Ultra-Rich!

The Regimes Joining in Israel’s Gaza Genocide Are
the Only Ones Claiming China is “Persecuting Uyghurs”

In addition to the above articles contained in the print version, the following important articles below also form an integral part of Issue 27. All these articles had been published as leaflets and mailed out to subscribers in the period before Issue 27 appeared in print form. They were not included in the print version only to allow space for newer articles given the large volume of articles issued in this period:

Turn the Pro-Palestine Marches into a Movement of
Intransigent Opposition to the Australian Ruling Class!

U.S. and Australian Militaries: Get Out of the Red Sea!

Australia’s Subjugated First Peoples Need Real Political Power!

Energetic Protest Opposes the
Australian Rulers’ Cold War Witch-Hunt

Resist the Cold War Repression!

Defend Socialistic Rule in China Against the
AUKUS Regimes’ Political and Military War Drive!

Rally Calls to Rip the Electricity and Fuel Sectors From the Tycoons
and Bring Them Into Public Hands

Anti-Imperialism, Palestine, Unions

STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!

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!

Sydney, 28 April 2024: Thousands march to oppose Israel’s genocidal assault on the people of Gaza. Shown here are some of the placards that Trotskyist Platform supporters carried at the action.
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!

China, Palestine

Turn the Pro-Palestine Marches into a Movement of Intransigent Opposition to the Australian Ruling Class!

Photo Above: Tens of thousands of people march in Sydney in defence of the Palestinian people. This 25 February 2024 action was one of the large protests organised by the Palestine Action Group that have been held in Sydney every weekend since Israel escalated its terror against the people of Gaza last October.
Photo credit: Sydney criminal Lawyers

THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITALIST REGIME
IS PARTICIPATING IN ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE

Turn the Pro-Palestine Marches into a Movement of
Intransigent Opposition to the Australian Ruling Class!

9 March 2024: Israel has been mass murdering the Palestinian people. Now, by massacring people queuing up to receive food, destroying infrastructure and blocking aid trucks, Israel is also murdering Gaza’s people through starving them to death. We must build militant, mass actions 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 and their puppets in the Bahraini and Taiwanese regimes! Let’s support the brave Palestinian resistance! Let’s support Yemen’s blocking of Israeli, U.S. and British ships in the Red Sea! No to business as usual while genocide is being committed!

The U.S. and Australian rulers now try to look concerned about Palestinian lives. They fear that those sections of their own populations outraged at Israel’s crimes could turn on them. Knowing that the Western powers’ bogus claim to be the guardian of “human rights” is a crucial propaganda weapon aimed at socialistic rule in China, the U.S. and Australian governments worry that it’s simply being blown to pieces by the hypocrisy that’s there for all to see in their backing of Israel’s brutal killing spree. So, U.S. vice president Kamala Harris now publicly calls for a “ceasefire”. Except she demands that Hamas accept Israel’s “ceasefire” conditions! This shows how simply calling for a “ceasefire” without taking the unambiguous side of the Palestinian resistance can play into the hands of Israel’s backers who mean “peace” based on the still more intensified subjugation of Palestine. Such talk of “peace” is a con! The truth is that the U.S. is providing Israel with as much military support as ever! By providing Israel with 21,000 precision guided munitions, other weapons and intelligence support, it is U.S. backing that makes Israel’s massacre in Gaza possible.

Under the same pressures as Biden, in December the Albanese government voted for a ceasefire. After this, some speakers at pro-Palestine rallies started describing Canberra’s position as “neutral”. The Greens claimed that the ALP government had been dragged into taking a better stance. But this is absolutely all not true! That the ALP government has suspended funding to the UN agency providing food to Gaza shows just how firmly they are on Israel’s side. Most significantly, the Australian regime greatly assists Israel to direct its air and artillery strikes through helping operate the NT-based Pine Gap ground station for U.S. spy satellites. As a result of this, the political support that ALP government ministers have given for Israel’s killings of Gaza’s civilians and the fact that Australian governments have approved 322 defence exports to Israel since 2017, more than a hundred lawyers in Sydney have referred Albanese and his cabinet to the International Criminal Court as acessories to genocide. Moreover, the Albanese government – egged on by the Liberals – is one of only eight other countries to participate in the U.S.-led strikes aimed at crushing pro-Palestinian actions in Yemen. Let us demand: Close the Pine Gap base that’s helping direct Israel’s massacres! U.S. and Australian militaries: Get out of the Red Sea! Down with Australian arm sales to Israel and Australian government purchases from Israeli arms suppliers!

STANDING BY PALESTINE REQUIRES WAGING
POLITICAL WAR AGAINST THE AUSTRALIAN
CAPITALIST RULING CLASS THAT BACKS ISRAEL!

Some say that “all powers [presumably including not only the Western powers but China, Russia and even South Africa and Indonesia] are complicit in Israel’s genocide”. But saying this equates those that are actually joining in Israel’s genocide with those who are in fact verbally opposing Israel’s onslaught but need to more courageously challenge the U.S. superpower and the other Western imperialists behind Israel. And let’s get this straight, when we say the Western imperialists, we actually mean the imperialists … full stop! Because, today, the Western capitalist rulers are the only imperialists in the world. Therefore, portraying all powers as the same gets these imperialists behind Israel off the hook. To do that is especially disorientating here in Australia. For this is a country ruled by one of these imperialist ruling classes!

Many believe that Australia’s rulers back Israel because of their cowardice in the face of U.S. dikdats or because of Zionist lobbying. If either were true, we would only need to exert more pressure than Washington and the pro-Israel lobby and the government would swap its stance. However, the real reason that Australia’s capitalist rulers back Israel is because Israel is the USA’s enforcer in the strategic Middle East and Australia’s capitalist exploiters need U.S. dominance to be protected because they need U.S. power to guarantee their imperialist exploitation of PNG, East Timor and other South Pacific and Asian countries. Moreover, since Israel’s rulers are already despised by most of the world, Israel is vital for conducting missions that are too embarrassing for other Western powers to openly undertake. During Apartheid, when South Africa’s rulers were facing a communist-influenced black revolt, the imperialist powers delegated Israel and another of their attack dogs – the rogue Taiwanese regime that is also hated by most of the peoples of Asia, the Middle East and Africa – to help the Apartheid regime acquire nuclear weapons. Today, the Israeli regime continues to prop up the Taiwanese regime (while Taiwan is one of Israel’s most rabid supporters). This work is of great service to the imperialists. For a beefed-up capitalist Taiwan is crucial to their drive against the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Meanwhile, it appears that Israel joined Taiwan – and likely the U.S. and Australia – in fomenting the 2021 riots in the Solomon Islands against the Sogavare government that has dared to defy the Australian and U.S. imperialists by establishing friendly ties with the PRC. In the midst of these riots, amongst the pro-Western mobs demanding that the government switch their recognition back from the PRC to Taiwan was unfurled a huge Israeli flag! In short, Israel is a both an indirect and direct enforcer of the interests of the imperialists – including the Australian ones. And that is why they back Israel. Thus, while some pro-Palestine protesters have depicted Albanese as a puppet of the U.S., the truth is that Albanese supports Israel because he is actually a puppet of Australia’s own capitalist class.

To make the Australian government retreat from a position that is in the interests of the class that they serve will take a movement that is both intransigently opposed to the capitalist rulers and that has the power of the workers movement behind it. Obstructing the latter is the reality that most of our workers unions are currently led by supporters of the ALP, who stifle struggles that challenge the ALP government and mislead workers into backing the foreign policy goals of the capitalist class. However, fury at unaffordable rents, falling real wages and the lack of secure jobs can drive working class people into alliances with other victims of this ruling exploiting class. Moreover, the core human material for the type of movement needed is already there within the large, weekly pro-Palestine protests. These actions also have some elements of the unyielding opposition to the ruling class that is needed. Thus, one of the slogans that we have been chanting is the very apt: “Albanese You Can’t Hide – We Charge You with Genocide!” However, the overall line of pro-Palestine protests in Sydney is still to appeal to Australia’s rulers – even while sharply criticising them – to come over to the side of Palestine, rather than opposing Australia’s rulers as an enemy themselves. The Greens and those left-wing groups soft on the Greens have especially pushed this strategy. Thus, they have promoted appeals to Australia’s rulers to join the ICJ action against Israel, strongly “speak up for peace” and “implement sanctions against Israel”. But while we can force the Australian regime to stop doing the terrible harm that it is doing, it is impossible to win them over to being an actual ally of the Palestinian cause. To appeal to them to do so only serves to whitewash what the Australian regime is actually doing (note that there was an open letter that included such appeals that on two news sites incorrectly listed us in Trotskyist Platform as a signatory). For it makes out that they are a wavering neutral power just needing to be pushed over to the right side when they are actually knee-deep in Israel’s bloodbath. The main reason that we oppose making such futile, positive appeals to Australia’s imperialist rulers is that such appealing impedes pro-Palestine movements from developing into movements of intransigent opposition to the ruling class. And only if the movements develop in this direction will Australia’s capitalist rulers feel threatened enough to retreat from their participation in Israel’s genocide. Therefore, we call on consistent anti-imperialists to join us in waging a conscious struggle within the workers and pro-Palestine movements to oppose all illusions in the potential benevolence of Australia’s ruling class, to resist the agendas of the ALP and Greens and to steer the pro-Palestine movement into a force that is uncompromisingly opposed to the Australian capitalist ruling class that is participating in Israel’s genocide.

OPPOSE GENOCIDE-SUPPORTING IMPERIALISM
ON ALL ITS BATTLE FRONTS!

Israel is not the only attack dog of the imperialists. They have also turned Ukraine into their proxy to weaken Russia – which while also capitalist is too unsubdued for the imperial powers to tolerate. Meanwhile, the imperialists are backing all number of proxies as part of their drive to strangle socialistic China. These include the anti-working class Taiwanese regime, pro-colonial Hong Kong rich kids and a small right-wing faction of the Uyghurs who speak of “national rights” to mask their anti-communist agenda. If the imperialists lose on any of these fronts, they will be weakened and thus less able to wage war on others. A very helpful event for the Palestinian people would be the defeat of the NATO/Australian proxy war against Russia. Unfortunately, many groups active in Palestine solidarity – including Socialist Alternative (SAlt), Socialist Alliance (SA) and Solidarity – support the imperialists in many of their other battle fronts. SAlt and SA not only support imperialism’s proxy war against Russia but welcome the huge Western arms supplies to Ukraine. And all three of these groups support the imperialist-backed forces arrayed against socialistic China – from supporting the Hong Kong anti-communist rich kids to retailing the blatant lies that China is persecuting Uyghurs (claims that not only have all the Muslim majority countries of Asia, the Middle East and Africa refused to endorse but which most – including Palestine – have completely rejected by instead signing onto statements positively praising China’s treatment of Uyghurs). In doing so these groups are harming the Palestinian cause. While these groups pretend that these issues are “separate”, the imperialists know that they are not! Biden is seeking to push through a bill that would simultaneously give Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan a total of $A144 billion in new U.S. military assistance. In light of this, it is now a matter of fact that anyone who supports U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine will, effectively, also be supporting the export of weapons that are to be used in the ongoing genocidal onslaught on the people of Palestine.

Of all the non-Middle Eastern battles that the imperialists are waging, the one that Palestine supporters should most want them to lose is their Cold War against socialistic China. Although China’s leaders futilely seek “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism, the PRC’s character as a workers state can push her into an anti-imperialist stance. Two weeks ago, China went further than any other major power in backing Palestine when she told the ICJ that “Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression” is an “inalienable right.” This stance was hailed by Palestinian resistance groups. We call on the PRC to now go further and resume the training of Palestinian fighters that it was actually engaged in during the 1960s and 70s.

The Hague, 22 February 2024 (Above): Chinese Foreign Ministry legal representative Ma Xinmin tells an International Court of Justice hearing that: “Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is [an] inalienable right. This recognition is also reflected in the International Convention for example, the Arab Convention for Suppressing of Terrorism of 1998 affirms I quote, ‘the right of peoples to combat foreign occupation aggression by whatever means including armed struggle in order to liberate their territories and secure the right to self-determination and independence’, end of quote. Armed struggle in this context is distinguished from acts of terrorism.” By backing the Palestinian people’s right to armed resistance, Red China has gone further than any other major world power in backing the Palestinian people. We now appeal to socialistic China to go a step further and provide arms and training to the Palestinian resistance forces. This is what Red China indeed did in the period from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. China provided these arms and training in China to PLO fighters for no cost. Below: Armed PLO fighters at a training camp in Jordan in 1970 read “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong” (also known as the “Little Red Book”). By the early 1970s, three quarters of the PLO’s arms came from China. If China were to resume such urgently needed military support to the Palestinian resistance she would be following in the footsteps of her socialistic North Korean neighbour and ally, which has laudably been providing arms to both Palestinian and Yemeni Houthi fighters.

Photo credit (above photo): Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China
Photo Credit (below photo): Rolls Press – Popperfoto

Yet, Red China can contribute to Palestine liberation in a still more decisive way. Although China’s transition to socialism is precarious and as yet incomplete, the fact that she has so successfully lifted people out of poverty and increased workers’ real wages means that if China’s per capita income were to catch up with that of the imperial powers, the restive masses in these countries will soon be demanding socialism too. Imperialism will be overthrown from within and the genocidal Zionist regime will fall with it. That is why every true supporter of the Palestinian people must stand for the unconditional defence of socialistic rule in China against all the threats that the imperialists are unleashing against her – from their naval incursions into the South China Sea to their Taiwanese puppets to the anti-communist groups that they back within mainland China and Hong Kong. Let’s unite this struggle with the direct fight to defend Gaza’s people as part of turning the vibrant pro-Palestine protests into a movement of intransigent opposition to the genocide-supporting Australian capitalist rulers. Defend the Palestinian people! Down, Down Israel! Down, Down, U.S. and Australian imperialism!

Anti-Imperialism, China, Palestine, U.S.

U.S. and Australian Militaries:
Get Out of the Red Sea!

Photo Above: Houthi fighters on board a helicopter seize the Galaxy Leader, when the ship owned by Israeli capitalist billionaire, Abraham Ungar was passing through the Red Sea. It is in the service of Israel’s rich capitalist exploiting class, whom Ungar is part of, and their counterparts in the U.S. ruling class that the Netanyahu regime is waging its genocidal assault on the people of Gaza.
Photo credit: Houthi media centre

Support the Pro-Palestine
Actions of Houthi Rebels!

U.S. and Australian Militaries:
Get Out of the Red Sea!

Close the Pine Gap Spy Base that’s
Helping Direct Israel’s Genocidal Hellfire

10 January 2024: Israel’s rulers would not be able to massacre Gaza’s people without the support of the U.S. and Australian capitalist regimes. Even while pretending to care about “minimising Palestinian civilian deaths”, the U.S. is sending Israel huge new weapons caches. For its part, the Australian regime greatly assists Israel to direct its air and artillery strikes through helping operate the NT-based Pine Gap ground station for U.S. spy satellites. Most recently, the U.S. and its allies are insisting on “stopping the conflict from widening”. Their lying media make this seem like a “peace” initiative. But it is the very opposite! The Western powers want to protect the Israeli onslaught by preventing actions in support of the Palestinian people. The “widening of this conflict” through non-Palestinian forces supporting the Palestinian resistance is precisely what is needed! We say: Urge the intensification of attacks on the Israeli military by the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi pro-Palestine groups! Welcome socialistic North Korea’s supply of weapons to the resistance! Hail the acts in solidarity with Palestine by Houthi rebels!

Houthi attacks demanding an end to Israel’s onslaught have disrupted Israel’s trade. When the Israeli rulers are massacring Palestinian people, such economic sabotage is 100% justified. For although they hurt ordinary Israeli people, they also block supplies to the Israeli military and hit the profits of Israel’s capitalist class – the class behind the genocidal regime in Israel. It is possible that some Houthi actions have inadvertently targeted ships not travelling to or from Israel. And it is bad that the resistance acts do put at risk the lives of workers on ships. However, such unwanted consequences are what inevitably happens when brave but poorly-armed resistance forces take on a much more powerful oppressor. Moreover, by forcing several Western shipping firms to redirect shipping from the Red Sea to the much longer route around the tip of Africa, Houthi actions are causing Western company owners to lose big profits. When the regimes that serve these Western capitalists are participating in the Gaza genocide, such blows against Western capitalist profits are what is needed.

To crush Houthi resistance, the U.S. has sent military forces to the Red Sea. The ALP government is dispatching eleven soldiers to back this anti-Palestinian action. We must demand: U.S./Australian military, get out of the Red Sea! We call on all maritime workers unions to refuse to load or crew any ships that shipping lines schedule to traverse through the Red Sea. This is necessary both to support the pro-Palestinian Houthi acts and to protect workers aboard the ships.

The Norwegian-flagged tanker, Strinda. On 12 December 2023, Houthi fighters damaged the tanker with an anti-ship missile after the vessel rejected several warning calls from the rebels. No crew were injured but the ship suffered significant damage. The Strinda was passing through the Red Sea to unload its cargo and then pick up oil or chemicals from a Mediterranean port for scheduled delivery to the Israeli port of Ashdod on January 4. Four days after the attack on the Strinda, the Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas Container Line, owned by one of China’s socialistic state-owned enterprises, COSCO Shipping, announced that it “will stop cargo acceptance to and from Israel with immediate effect until further notice”. The Houthi actions have affected the import of some supplies for the Israeli military and by making Israel’s imports more expense and disrupting Israel’s trade have hurt the profits of Israel’s capitalist class – the class behind the country’s mass murdering regime.

What the Australian Government’s Refusal to
Send a Warship to the Red Sea Means and Doesn’t Mean

Although the ALP government is sending troops to the anti-Houthi operation, it declined Biden’s request to send a warship. Some have welcomed this as a sign of the government asserting “independence” from the U.S. and retreating from support for Israel. However, as it explained itself, the government only declined to send the warship because it wanted to concentrate its forces in this region – especially in the South and East China Seas. In plain speak, the Australian regime wants to focus on squeezing socialistic China. This is hardly a noble agenda! Nevertheless, it is good that the warship was not sent. That weakens the anti-Palestinian operation. But Albanese deserves no credit! The credit should go to Red China. For, inadvertently, socialistic China has drawn the fire of the Australian military and that has weakened the Red Sea operation. This is a symptom of a momentous change that is taking place in the world. That is that the rise of a socialistic power in China is challenging the global tyranny of the Western imperialists. Although China’s compromise-seeking rulers do not themselves want to overthrow imperialism and although China’s transition to socialism is wobbly, the successes of her system based on public ownership of key sectors and working-class state power inevitably threatens the hegemony of the Israel-supporting capitalist powers. And the imperialists know this! That is why all those on the side of the people oppressed by the Western capitalists – from the masses of the Global South to the Palestinian people to the working classes and subjugated First Peoples within the West – must unconditionally defend socialistic China. We must demand: U.S and Australian imperialists, stop your provocations against China and get out of the South and East China Seas! Down with the propaganda against China that is used to justify the war drive against her – from the slanders against her highly successful COVID response to the lie that she is persecuting Uyghurs.

Rafah, 14 December 2023: Palestinian children look through the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. On that day alone at least 111 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza. Israel would not be able to carry out this genocidal terror without the massive support it is getting from the U.S., Australian, British and other Western capitalist ruling classes.
Photo credit: Khaled Omar/Xinhua

For Class War against the Australian Capitalist Ruling Class
That is Participating in Israel’s Genocide!

The greatest force that can topple the imperialist “order” that is massacring Palestinians is the world’s working class. Here, the working class has the power to undermine the Australian regime’s participation in Israel’s massacre through waging class war against the ultra-rich capitalist class that is behind the regime. Mobilising such struggle is possible because the Israel-supporting capitalist class is driving many workers into poverty by slashing real wages, jacking up prices and putting up rents. The fact that many trade unionists and other wage workers have been energised by the huge pro-Palestinian marches – a movement that has brought together Palestinians and other Arabs with Aboriginal people, Asians, Africans, anti-Zionist Jews and anti-racist whites – provides an important platform for building the type of actions needed.

However, for our pro-Palestine movement to be able to push the Australian regime back, we must change its direction. To be sure, there have been terrific speeches at the events – especially by Aboriginal activists – that have indentified Australia’s capitalist rulers as an enemy that needs to be defeated. However, other speeches and slogans have instead sought to win over Australia’s ruling class. Although this latter agenda is still very critical of the rulers, it blames the regime’s stance on the particular stripe of the government or on the government’s lack of courage to resist the U.S. rulers and the pro-Israel lobby. Therefore, according to this latter political line, through either appealing to the humanity of the rulers and beseeching them to show greater resolve to resist harmful influences, or through threatening to change the stripe of the government, the Australian regime can be pulled over to a more humane stance. It is this latter political line that is overall dominant at the pro-Palestine protests. The problem with this agenda is that it is not based on reality. The truth is that Australia’s capitalist ruling class – and all the parties bidding to administer their system – is inherently loyal to Israel. Hence the capitalist rulers cannot be won over. Rather, they must be compelled to retreat. However, as long as the Palestine movement appeals to them as if they could be future, at least partial, allies, the ruling class will not feel threatened by the movement … and hence will not be forced to step back from their pro-Israel stance.

Let us examine some of the flaws in our movement that need correction. Some slogans have appealed to Albanese to “grow some balls” or “get a spine”. The message is that he should follow his own “conscience” rather than being pressured by Washington or the Israel lobby. However, although those pressures exist, the reason that Albanese supports Israel is because that is what is in the interests of Australia’s capitalist class. Australia’s capitalists back Israel because Israel is the USA’s enforcer in the oil-rich Middle East. And Australia’s capitalists need U.S. dominance to be protected because they need U.S. power to both underwrite their imperialist exploitation of PNG, East Timor and other South Pacific and Southeast Asian countries and to lead the charge against socialistic China. Although the ALP has a working class base, the Labor party’s program is to bow to the capitalists on key questions. When Albanese backs Israel’s tyranny, he is merely doing what he does on all other crucial issues – serve Australia’s capitalist exploiting class.

After Canberra voted at the UN for a “humanitarian ceasefire” four weeks ago, some hailed this as the government being dragged into finally taking a more humane stance. Especially pushing this narrative is Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi – who takes a more pro-Palestine position than the Greens’ overall line which is to (despicably) equally condemn Hamas and Israel. But the truth is that the government’s December UN vote does not represent any shift towards a more humane line. Not while the regime has not pulled back one bit from directing Israeli strikes on Gaza through the Pine Gap spy base! And not while Australian troops are taking part in the Red Sea operation! The government’s UN vote was rather an attempt to protect the regime’s “human rights credentials”. They worry too that an escalation of Israel’s massacre could further expose the true colours of Western capitalism and, moreover, provoke such resistance that it destabilises Zionist rule. As both their words supporting Israel’s agenda to drive out Hamas and their actions in Pine Gap and the Red Sea show, in as much as the Albanese government actually wants a ceasefire, they want it to be on Israel’s terms.

Some speakers at the Palestine rallies have vowed to oppose Labor at the next elections. We sure agree with that! At the last elections, unlike the rest of the Left, we in Trotskyist Platform opposed a vote for any of the parties currently in parliament – whether it be the Liberals or the ALP or Greens. But many now rejecting the ALP suggest supporting the Greens. But the Greens, who embrace capitalists amongst their ranks, are just as committed to upholding the rule of the capitalists – the class whose interests lie with supporting Israel. Thus, just like their German counterparts, if the Greens were actually in government they would likely also end up backing Israel. Moreover, when the Australian ruling class sees the Palestine movement today advocating support for the Greens, it reassures them that the movement will not resist their class rule. And that gives them confidence that they do not need to retreat from their support for Israel.

Pro-Greens influence is part of the reason why the Palestine movement has thus far not made opposing the Pine Gap base a central slogan of the protests. Subconsciously in part, leading activists know that highlighting how Australia’s rulers are actually participating in Israel’s genocidal war undercuts their current agenda of trying to win over through pressure sections of the ruling class. They would rather be appealing to the regime to “stand up for humanity” than condemn it as the enemy. However, as we have stressed, as long as Australia’s ruling class do not see the movement opposing them as their enemy, they will not be compelled to retreat. Moreover, if we are not taking a stand on Pine Gap and the Red Sea operation, we are failing to oppose the regime here’s main role in the war on Gaza. Therefore, we make the following appeal to our fellow pro-Palestinian activists: Come to the protests bearing signs demanding the closure of the U.S.-Australia Pine Gap spy base and the removal of all U.S. and Australian forces from the Red Sea! Convince others to also carry such signs! Advocate support for the rise of socialistic China that is threatening the Israel-supporting imperialist order! Expose the Australian government’s con job with its UN “humanitarian ceasefire” vote! Expose illusions in the Greens! Work hard to turn our pro-Palestine movement into a pro-working class movement of irreconcilable opposition to the Australian ruling class that is participating in Israel’s genocide! Support the downfall of murderous Zionism by relentlessly shaking the Western imperialist branches on which it is perched!

Anti-Imperialism, China, Palestine, U.S.

Down, Down Israeli, U.S. and Australian Regimes!

Photo Above: Tens of thousands of people again marched in Sydney on 3 December 2023 to protest Israel’s genocidal attack on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
Photo credit: Dean Sewell

Long Live the Palestinian Resistance! Don’t Be Fooled by the Powerless UN Vote! The Australian Regime is Still Participating in Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza. 

Down, Down Israeli, U.S. and Australian Regimes!

Resist Imperialism through Workers Struggle and
Supporting the Rise of Socialistic China!

13 December 2023: Israeli forces are continuing to massacre children and other Palestinian civilians. They have already seized large parts of Gaza. Yet the far-right Israeli regime and their Washington senior partners want to subdue through terror Palestinian people even further. That is why the U.S. vetoed last week’s UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. Now, the UN General Assembly has just voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire in a non-binding resolution. The only governments to oppose or abstain on the vote were those of the U.S. and some of its most obsequious allies, like Britain, Lithuania and the Ukrainian regime that is waging the U.S.’s proxy war to subdue Russia. Also refusing to back a ceasefire are a majority of those regimes that are so servile to imperialism that they recognise the rogue, Western-propped up Taiwanese regime rather than the Peoples Republic of China as the legitimate rulers of China. These include the regimes ruling Paraguay, Guatemala and Nauru as well as those running Palau and Marshall Islands, both of which are Pacific countries where the U.S. has control of their defense arrangements under a colonial-style “Compact of Free Association”, as they do with Micronesia, which also failed to vote for a ceasefire. Also refusing to support a ceasefire are most of the openly far-right governments, like those running Italy, Hungary and Argentina.

Among those that voted for last night’s ceasefire resolution were not only governments known to have a pro-Palestine position – like those of Russia and socialistic China – but even some of Israel’s staunchest backers. This includes the liberal government of Canada, the right-wing government of New Zealand and the Labor government of Australia. With much of the world horrified by Israel’s heinous cruelty, these governments knew that maintaining public opposition to a ceasefire would expose their own brutality and the hypocrisy of their claims to be guardians of “human rights.” With Australia’s capitalist rulers (and “like-minded” ruling elites) only too aware that dishonestly wielding the club of “human rights” is a vital component of their strategy to achieve their main foreign policy goal – to crush socialistic rule in China – they felt compelled to gloss up their soiled “human rights” credentials by voting for a ceasefire. However, although the Australian government had previously opposed a ceasefire, their recent vote should not be seen as a weakening of their support for Israel’s occupation. Indeed, the Australian regime also voted for a failed U.S. amendment that put the blame for the suffering on Hamas. After the vote, Australian regime representatives decried that the U.S. amendment – that aimed at whitewashing the brutality of Israel’s 75 year-long occupation – was not included in the resolution.

What most makes the Australian government’s UN vote such a cynical, window-dressing ploy is the fact that the Australian ruling class continues to militarily back Israel. Not only does the Australian regime maintain military ties with Israel, the Pine Gap U.S.-Australia joint spy base is playing a MASSIVE role in Israel’s assault on Gaza. Operated by U.S. and Australian military personnel, the base near Alice Springs downloads information from U.S. spy satellites about targets in Gaza which are analysed and passed on to Israel. This enables the Israeli military to pinpoint its missiles and artillery so that they strike actual human targets rather than empty land or structures. In other words, the Albanese Labor government is doing more than supporting genocide. Through hosting and jointly operating Pine Gap, they are actually committing genocide! And they continue to do so! No symbolic vote for a non-enforceable UN resolution will change that! Just like Netanyahu and Biden, Anthony Albanese and foreign minister Penny Wong are war criminals.

Above: The U.S.-Australia joint spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs. Receiving data from U.S. spy satellites monitoring the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, U.S. and Australian personnel at the base then analyse the data and pass on to Israel the geolocations of targets. This enables Israel to pinpoint air and artillery strikes to ensure that Israeli missiles, rockets, shells and bombs hit human targets rather than vacant space or empty structures. Below: Apartment blocks – and no doubt many of the Palestinian people living in them – are destroyed by yet another Israeli air strike on Gaza City.

Photo credit (above photo): Felicity Ruby
Photo credit (below photo): Adel Hana/Associated Press

Stand with the Palestinian Resistance!

The huge pro-Palestinian rallies have had some impact in making even Israel’s staunchest backers want to appear like they are concerned for Palestinian civilians. In Sydney, the weekly protests have had some powerful Palestinian and progressive Jewish speakers. The highlight has been many of the speeches given by Aboriginal activists. At last Sunday’s (December 10) Sydney protest, the Aboriginal speaker was especially impressive as he insightfully connected the oppressions of Aboriginal and Palestinian people and attacked capitalist rule in Australia and its window-dressing schemes. We in Trotskyist Platform encourage people to join in these weekly Sydney pro-Palestine marches organised by the hard-working Palestine Action Group (in which the Socialist Alternative group plays a prominent role). We also condemn those nominal defenders of Palestinians who are discouraging participation in the protests. After all, those seeking to demoralise activists by saying that their participation is “meaningless” are only playing into the hands of the likes of Albanese, Peter Dutton and premier Chris Minns, who have all sought to sabotage the PAG-organised actions.

At the same time, the longer that this Israeli onslaught goes, the more that the current flaws in the political strategy of the PAG limits the impact that the protests can have. Thus, while many of the slogans that rally organisers have promoted  correctly take an unambiguous stance in support of the Palestinian resistance – like “Intifada, Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free!” – some take an “even-handed” position. Chief among the latter is the call for “Ceasefire Now!” To be sure, many defenders of the Palestinian people call for a “ceasefire” because what they are seeing now is a one-sided slaughter. When they demand “ceasefire”, they mean that Israel should stop firing. However, as last night’s UN vote by the likes of Australia and France shows, when Western imperialist regimes call for a “ceasefire” they mean something very different. This was made clear after the vote. Foreign minister, Penny Wong, reiterated Australia’s support for “Israel’s right to defend itself” and Australia’s UN representative, James Larsen, ranted that “Hamas must be defeated and dismantled.” In plain speak that means that they are calling for supporting the Israeli military, which is precisely what the Australian ruling class are doing! Australia’s capitalist rulers want a “ceasefire” on Israel’s terms and are working to strengthen Israel’s military campaign so that any “ceasefire” will end up as favourable to Israel as possible. They, however, worry that further Israeli murder of civilians could provoke such broad resistance that Israel and its occupation ends up weakened. Indeed, a big part of why the Australian – and several other imperialist – regimes are now calling for a ceasefire is because they believe that Israel has already sufficiently strengthened its occupation over these last two months: by landing blows against the Palestinian resistance and by annihilating Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. We must not shout slogans that can accommodate such anti-Palestine agendas! And we certainly must not pressure the Palestinian resistance to “ceasefire”! Instead, we must give 100% support to the Palestinian resistance. Hail the courage of Palestinian resistance forces and their Yemini Houthi allies! Socialistic North Korea and other countries providing arms to the resistance: increase your supply of arms! Other non-Western countries: start sending arms to Palestinian fighters – especially to those secular and leftist groups that are taking part in the Hamas-led resistance! Let us demand: Israel out of Gaza! All Israeli troops and racist settlers out of all of the West Bank. For the complete right of return of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants!

Take Mass Action against the Australian Ruling Class
that is Participating in Israel’s Onslaught!

Another problem with the “Ceasefire” chant is that it makes pro-Palestinian rallies come off as half-neutral. That makes the actions less offensive to the Israeli regime and its backers and thus far less likely to compel them to retreat. It will actually take an enormous amount to compel the regimes that facilitate Israel’s terror to back off. The U.S. imperialists prop us Israel in order to have a reliable enforcer of their predatory interests in the strategically-located and oil rich Middle East. Australia’s capitalist rulers in turn back the Israeli attack dog of the USA, because they want U.S. power to be upheld. For it is U.S. power that underwrites Australian capitalists’ plunder of South Pacific and southeast Asian countries. And it is U.S. might that Australia’s rulers hope will squeeze socialistic China so tightly that she will no longer be able to obstruct imperialist exploitation of poorer countries through mutually beneficial cooperation with them. Against such over-riding self interest, we can only compel Australia’s ruling class to retreat from their participation in the Gaza slaughter if we can seriously threaten their class interests. The PAG-organised rallies are not yet doing this. For the overall line of the actions – some particular excellent speeches excluded – while rightly very critical of the Australian government, do not brand the Australian ruling class as an enemy. Thus, when the Australian ruling class see rallies mainly opposing their Israeli and U.S. allies they are angered but not politically frightened. However, if they were to instead hear tens of thousands of people saying not just “Down, Down Israel, Down, Down USA” but shouting, “Down, Down Israeli, U.S. and Australian Regimes!”, they would be truly alarmed. And, thus, far more likely to back off!

What will especially frighten the Australian ruling class is workers’ political strike action in support of the Palestinian people. With working class people suffering under falling real wages, soaring rents and unaffordable prices, there is a definite opportunity to combine opposition to capitalist profiteering by the ruling class with opposition to its participation in the massacre of Palestinian people. We support the attempted port blockades – with union approval – of Israeli Zim shipping. At the same time, we say that blockades and industrial action would be far more effective if they directly target the interests of the Australian capitalists and their regime. After all, Israel is far away. The amount that its ruling class would be frightened by action in Australia targeting Israeli companies is limited. In contrast, if actions hurt the profits of big-time Australian capitalists at home or caused their regime’s operations to be disrupted, Australia’s ruling class would be terrified. Let’s build workers industrial action – supported by pro-Palestine pickets – to target the Australian ruling class and demand: Stop Pine Gap’s participation in the Gaza massacre – Close Pine Gap! No Australian arms exports to Israel. End Australian military ties to Israel! The fact that huge numbers – including many compassionate, intelligent youth spurred into political activism for the first time – have joined the weekly rallies can provide a crucial stepping stone for building the type of actions needed. But the step up must be made! Through the placards that we carry and the leaflets that we distribute at the protests, Trotskyist Platform has been working hard to turn the rallies into a Palestine movement that is unequivocally opposed to the Australian ruling class – the type of movement that has the potential to compel the Australian capitalists to retreat from their role in the Gaza slaughter.

The reason that the PAG leadership has not sought to turn the movement in such a direction is because, no doubt with many misgivings, they are currently betting on an alternative strategy – one that seeks through pressure to win over the Australian regime. While rightly denouncing the Albanese government’s stance, PAG leaders promote the notion that that through pressure the ALP government can be partially won over; or that greater numbers for the Greens in parliament could change the regime’s stance. However, the reality is that the Australian regime’s support for Israel’s terror flows naturally from its own essence. Capitalist Australia was formed out of genocidal massacres of this country’s First Nations peoples. No amount of window dressing can cover up the fact that Australian regime forces continue to kill Aboriginal people in custody and continue to remove Aboriginal children from their families. Moreover, while today facilitating Israel’s crimes, the Australian military, earlier, directly committed war crimes during its participation in the occupation of Afghanistan. There, Australia’s elite SAS troops massacred onion farmers, executed civilians and slit the throats of children. The problem is that no matter which particular parties control parliament, the current Australian regime has been designed to serve the capitalist class. In wealthy Australia, this class – which consists of wealthy business owners of all ethnicities but in Australia is mostly made of white Christians with just a small percentage of Jewish capitalists – not only exploits workers in this country but exploits workers and plunders natural resources at an even greater rate in the South Pacific and beyond. This class has calculated that its interests lie very much with supporting its U.S. godfather’s Israeli henchman. Therefore, this Australian capitalist class, which is the ultimate power in this country that all governments must serve, will always support Israel as long as the capitalists rule this country.

Even if the Greens win office, the Australian regime will continue to support the subjugation of Palestinian and Aboriginal people and will continue to enforce the exploitation of workers. This is especially true given that the Greens include capitalists in their ranks and refuse to stand for class struggle against the capitalist class. To be sure, the Greens appear a lot better on Palestine than the ALP and the right-wing Coalition. They at least condemn Israel’s war crimes. But their support for Palestine is limited. Feeding into the imperialist narrative that downplays the impact of Israel’s brutal 75-year-long occupation of Palestine and denying the fact that Hamas’ October 7 attack included heroic blows against the Israeli military (alongside some wrong attacks on civilians that were, however, dwarfed by the Israeli military’s killing of its own civilians through carpet bombing of contested sites during the Hamas-led incursion), the Greens harmfully equate the October 7 attack with Israel’s war crimes. Thus, an October 16 Greens statement, stated that:

“We all watched in horror at the brutality and callousness of Hamas’ October 7th attacks on innocent civilians. The State of Israel’s siege and destruction of Gaza continues the cycle of violence. It is civilians in both places paying the price.

“The Greens reject and condemn all forms of violence, especially against civilians. We again call for an immediate ceasefire between the State of Israel and Hamas, an immediate halt to the forced removal and transfer of Palestinians in Gaza, a release of hostages, and an end to the military siege.”

Of course, as sly politicians looking for votes, Greens politicians make sure that they sound a lot more pro-Palestinian than their official position when they speak at pro-Palestine protests. But if one wants an idea of how the Greens in government would actually act, one should look at the governments that their overseas counterparts are part of. In Germany, Greens foreign minister Annalena Baerbock is a hardline supporter of Israel’s onslaught and is part of a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party that has banned pro-Palestine protests. In Austria, the Greens, in coalition with a conservative party, are part of a government that voted against last night’s UN ceasefire resolution from an extreme pro-Zionist standpoint. It is telling too that, reflecting the interests of Australia’s capitalist class, the Australian Greens, for their part, only call to “renegotiate” the U.S.-Australia alliance rather than to scrap it.

What we need to do to support Palestinian and Aboriginal peoples and all the downtrodden of this country is to wage mass struggle against Australia’s capitalist rulers with the aim of forcing them into retreats. Any illusions that the regime can be persuaded to take a more progressive stance or that it will fundamentally change if the Greens gain a greater stake in parliament obstruct such struggle. PAG leaders are hardly alone in having such illusions. False hopes in the potential future benevolence of the Australian regime and in the Greens in particular are also widespread amongst the ranks of those joining the protests. Given the weight of propaganda and nationalism, the hardest ruling class to oppose in any imperialist country is always the ruling class in one’s own country. It is far easier to brand only the Israeli and U.S. regimes as enemies, while referring to the Australian regime as a currently deviant entity that can, however, be won over. Yet such a strategy will not be effective in restraining the Australian regime’s participation in the Gaza bloodbath. The change in direction in the movement must be made! The leap in the political consciousness of the activists participating in the movement must be achieved. With the horror of Israel’s terror and the depth of Western imperialist support for it pushing many to rethink their political perspective, such a leap in consciousness is possible. Therefore, at this time, those that understand the need to turn the pro-Palestine movement into one that is unequivocally opposed to Australia’s imperialist rulers have an extra special duty to bring that understanding to their fellow activists. 

Australia’s Labor prime minister, Anthony Albanese meets U.S. president Joe Biden at the White House in late October 2023 as Israeli missiles and bombs are massacring the people of Gaza. Albanese reiterated the Australian regime’s support for its U.S. ally’s Israeli henchmen in its genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people.

Photo credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA

“Threaten” the Global Tyranny of the
Imperialists who Prop Up Israel –
Support the Rise of Socialistic China!

Israel’s subjugation of Palestine is set to become even more brutal. That is why supporters of Palestine must learn key lessons from these last ten, intense weeks. One lesson arises from the reality that the capitalist rulers of various Arab and Muslim majority countries – like those of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – have at this crucial moment refused to do more than lip-service to stand by Palestinian people. Indeed, especially in the case of Egypt, with its restriction of supplies to the resistance, they have even been complicit in the Israeli onslaught. All this proves the Marxist doctrine that exploiting classes ultimately act in their own material interests rather than complying with notions of ethnic or religious solidarity; and, moreover, the political imperatives of these ruling classes are what shapes religious doctrines … and not the other way around. These countries will start standing by the Palestinian people only when their toiling classes take state power and totally free these countries from the grip of Western imperialism.

The most vital lesson for activists in Australia to learn from these last weeks is that Israel is only able to get away with its terror because it has the support of the U.S. and US imperialist allies like Australia. Therefore, truly standing with the Palestinian people means opposing the Western imperialists in every battle that they are engaged in. That means that we must stand for the defence of Russia – despite its reactionary, also-capitalist rulers – against the U.S., NATO and Australian imperialists and their Ukrainian proxies. Indeed, an indication of the, at-bottom, pro-imperialist nature of the Greens is that the Greens rabidly support the U.S.-led imperialists in their proxy war against Russia. These avowed “pacifists” even support Australian arms transfers to Ukraine! Harmfully, so do two left groups that far more sincerely support the Palestinian struggle than the Greens – Socialist Alternative and Socialist Alliance.

The biggest state challenge to imperialism comes from socialistic China. This is despite the currently unfinished and precarious nature of China’s transition to socialism. The U.S. and Australian imperialists know that if China continues to succeed in socialistic development, this will not only obstruct their subjugation of the Global South but could eventually encourage their own masses to fight for socialism and thereby topple them from power. If this were to happen, Israel’s tyranny over Palestine will collapse. That is why all supporters of Palestine and all anti-imperialists must defend socialistic rule in China. In doing so we must draw another crucial lesson from the events of the last ten weeks: that is that the Western capitalist rulers and their media are masters of deceit. And given that while protecting Israel is an important tactic that the U.S. and its allies have for buttressing their power, crushing socialistic China is their main strategic goal, it follows that the imperialist rulers and their media are even more biased against Red China than they are against Palestine! This is indeed the case! For example, their claim that China is persecuting her more European-looking, Muslim Uyghur population in China’s northwest is a lie cut out of whole cloth. This claim has been rejected by almost every Muslim-majority country and is largely only promoted by the regimes that today support Israel’s terror.

That imperialist propaganda against the Chinese workers state is even more intense than it is against Palestine makes it much harder to stand by socialistic China than it is to stand by Palestine. Indeed, several of the groups active in building solidarity with Palestine – including the Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance and Solidarity groups – ape Western propaganda against China, even while opposing some of the anti-China military build up. In 2019, these groups stood with Union Jack-carrying, pro-British colonial Hong Kong expatriates in anti-communist rallies encouraged by the Australian ruling class. A year ago, these same groups hailed the small, Western-backed, “A4 protests” in China over her COVID response that were incited by overt anti-communists. In contrast, we insist that to truly oppose the imperialists, one must have the fortitude to defy the propaganda vilifying the main “threat” to their global tyranny – socialistic China. Let us demand: U.S., British and Australian imperialists (and their lackeys in the far-right, Ferdinand Marcos Junior government in the Philippines), stop your provocations against China in the South and East China Seas! Down with Western support to the anti-communist Taiwanese regime! Down with all the Western-backed forces threatening socialistic rule in China – from anti-communist, Hong Kong rich kids to the “A4” COVID conspiracy-mongers.

Hebron, 21 October 2023: Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron protest in support of the people of Gaza. Protesters carried portraits of the leader of socialistic North Korea, Kim Jong-Un. This was in honour of North Korea’s provision of arms to the Palestinian resistance and her verbal support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. Many Palestinians see North Korea as a symbol of defiance of the Western imperialists who so brutally subjugate the Palestinian people. North Korea and especially her socialistic neighbour and ally, the Peoples Republic of China are the main targets of the imperialist powers.

When the working classes and all the downtrodden of the U.S., Germany, Australia, Britain, Japan and other imperialist countries seize state power and join China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos on a socialist path, brutal national and colonial oppression – like that of Palestinian, Aboriginal, Tamil, Kashmiri and Kanak peoples – will have no powerful backers. Indeed, it will have no reason for existence. We look forward to such a world. Let’s work tirelessly and unflinchingly towards its realisation. In doing so, we will never forget the horrific suffering that Palestinian people have borne over the last 75 years and especially over the last ten weeks. We look forward to the day when Netanyahu, Biden, Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, Annalena Baerbock and Rishi Sunak will face war crimes tribunals and be given the appropriate decisive punishments. We look forward to the day when the Palestinian people will be truly free and living happily in a socialist Palestine together with their Jewish sisters and brothers.

Gaza-December-2023Download
Anti-Imperialism, DPRK, Palestine

Close the U.S./Australia Pine Gap Spy Base That Is Directing Israel’s Genocidal Attacks

Photo above: Residents of a Gaza neighbourhood look through the rubble on 31 October 2023 after yet another Israeli bombardment.
photo credit: Xinhua

Close the U.S./Australia Pine Gap
Spy Base That Is Directing Israel’s
Genocidal Attacks on Gaza’s People!

1 November 2023: Israeli forces have killed over 3,500 Palestinian children in Gaza in just the last 24 days. Indeed more than two out of every five people that Israel has killed in its latest onslaught are children. This is not “self-defence” – this is a massacre! Defending their people against Israel’s invasion, Palestinian fighters are putting up heroic resistance. Let us work with all our energy for the defeat of Israel and the victory of the Palestinian resistance and their allies! That means that here in Australia we need to build towards workers industrial action and other militant, mass actions that will demand: End the Australian regime’s support for the Israeli military! End the Israeli assault! Lift the blockade of Gaza! All Israeli troops and settlers out of the West Bank! For the complete right of return of all Palestinians!

The reason that Israel is able to unleash this terror is because of the support that it gets from the U.S. and its allies. In the last 24 days, the U.S. has sent Israel huge amounts of weapons. This includes bombs and artillery shells – the very weapons that have killed the most Palestinians. Moreover, U.S. president Joe Biden has even sent high-ranking U.S. military officials to “advise” Israel’s attack. U.S. rulers are not just supporting Israel’s invasion, they are directing it!

It would be very politically difficult for the U.S. to support Israel if no other power backed this stance. That is why the other Western ruling classes play a criminal role in providing diplomatic cover for Washington. Last week, when prime minister Anthony Albanese met Biden, he lavishly praised Biden’s support for Israel’s assault: “Mr President, we applaud the personal resolve you have brought to this troubled part of the world.” This diplomatic backing is especially crucial to Washington as Australia is one of the very few non-NATO powers that are supporting Israel’s attack. Make no mistake about it, Albanese is a war criminal complicit in the U.S./Israeli massacre! Do not be fooled at all by his gentle calls for Israel to minimise civilian deaths. The Australian regime does not care about Gaza’s people – they are only trying to minimise damage to their completely fake, self-created image of being “human rights” defenders.

Above: War criminals Anthony Albanese and Joe Biden at their recent meeting in Washington. Albanese reiterated to Biden the Australian regime’s support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. Below: Palestinian children wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza City on 11 October 2023 receive treatment. By the end of October, Israeli forces had killed over 3,500 children in Gaza since October 7.
photo credit (above photo): Drew Angerer
photo credit (below photo): Madhyamam

Australia’s Capitalist Regime is a Direct Participant
in the Massacre of Palestinian People

The Australian regime does more than provide crucial political backing for the U.S. and Israel. They also have military links that support Israel’s war. Their biggest contribution is through the joint U.S./Australia Pine Gap base just south of Alice Springs. This base is used to position U.S. spy satellites that cover a vast stretch of land from Africa to the Middle East to all of Asia. The highly secretive facility was built in the 1960s to aid the capitalist powers’ Cold War against the then socialistic, Soviet Union. In the 21st century, its capability has been greatly expanded. Apart from intercepting people’s phone calls and E-mails, Pine Gap receives from spy satellites the geolocation data of weapons systems, radio communication devices and cell phones. This information is then transmitted to the U.S. and allied militaries. Pine Gap has been actively used in the U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and other countries that have killed thousands of civilians. The base’s unique and crucial role in the U.S. and its allies’ war drive comes from its remote location far from any coastline. As a result, Pine Gap has been used in every single U.S. war in the 21st century. This fact combined with Biden’s announcement that the U.S. was providing full intelligence support to Israel means that it is 100% certain that the U.S./Australia spy base would be participating in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.

Pine Gap’s main function in Israel’s invasion is to locate Palestinian targets. By precisely locating cellphones, the spy base ensures that Israeli’s missile and artillery strikes kill the maximum number of people rather than land in uninhabited areas. Especially through hosting and operating Pine Gap, the Australian regime is not only a supporter of Israel’s genocide but an active participant in it. Every supporter of the Palestinian people must demand the immediate closure of the spy base. This must become a key demand of the large pro-Palestinian protests in Australia.

The U.S./Australia Pine Gap spy base.
 photo credit Kristian Laemmle-Ruff/@kristianlaemmleruff

Turn the Pro-Palestinian Protests Against the
Australian Imperialist Regime That’s
Participating in Israel’s Genocide!

Australia’s ruling class backs Israel because Israel is its U.S. ally’s attack dog that enforces U.S. domination of the oil rich and strategically located Middle East. To understand why Australia’s rulers back their U.S. counterparts, one has to examine the nature of this ruling class. This rich capitalist class not only extracts profits from exploiting Australian wage workers but seizes huge profits from plundering the South Pacific and parts of Asia. The Australian ruling class relies on U.S. power to underwrite this tyranny. In other words, Australia’s rulers back their U.S. counterparts – including in strengthening its Israeli attack dog in the Middle East – in the same way that a local mafia thug always stands by the mafia godfather that guarantees their despotism over their bit of turf. With socialistic China’s mutually beneficial cooperation with countries in this region enabling these countries to start to free themselves from Australian imperialist subjugation, Australia’s rulers are counting on Washington to drive out such “Communist Chinese interference”. That is why they have become even more reliant on their U.S. counterparts and thus even more unequivocal in backing Israel.

Given the self interest that Australia’s ruling class has in backing Israel, how are we going to make it retreat from this? Encouragingly, huge numbers have joined pro-Palestinian protests. People of Palestinian and other Arab heritage have been joined by other people of colour, white Australians and progressive-minded Jewish people. However, the direction of the rallies is not yet one that can force the Australian ruling class to back down. Although protesters have rightly chanted, “Albanese you can’t hide – you’re supporting genocide”, the rallies’ main target has not been Australia’s rulers. The problem is that while Australia’s rulers won’t be happy with rallies opposing their allies, they also know that such actions won’t do too much damage to allies located so far away. But what if protesters instead of only saying “Israel, USA, How Many Kids Have You Killed Today” were saying “Israeli, U.S., Australian Regimes: How Many Kids Have You Killed Today”? What if when criticising the Australian rulers it is not done from the futile point of view of appealing to them as if they are potential allies but by denouncing them as enemies. What if instead of only saying “Down, Down Israel, Down, Down USA”, tens of thousands are passionately shouting, “Down, Down Israeli, U.S. and Australian Regimes!” Then Australia’s rulers would be truly worried! They would consider retreating from their support for Israel in order to stop hostility to their political order spreading. This is especially if the movement was able to link its opposition to Israel’s terror with the broader masses’ grievances. So it is great that Aboriginal activists addressing the rallies have connected Palestinian people’s oppression with the Australian regime’s brutal subjugation of Aboriginal people.

What would also make Australia’s ruling class think twice about backing Israel is if they suffered economic damage from union political industrial action. Encouragingly, some union contingents have joined the Palestine protests. However, to turn this into actual industrial action requires a political struggle within our unions to challenge the loyalty of current union tops to the very Labor government that is supporting Israel’s massacre. To win union ranks to taking the big step of launching industrial action also requires steering the pro-Palestinian protests onto a path that can appeal to workers’ class interests. The movement must loudly point out that opposing the U.S. rulers’ Israeli proxies would weaken the Australian ruling class that is driving more and more working class people into poverty through raising prices, driving down real wages and jacking up rents. Of course, those pro-Palestinian people from amongst the 5% to 8% of the population that form the capitalist class (and its henchmen) will not like the movement being reoriented in a pro-working class, anti-Australian-capitalist-regime direction. So be it! Their support for Palestine will ultimately be inconsistent because they profit from the political order that supports Israel. Turning the pro-Palestine movement in a pro-working-class, anti-Australian-ruling-class direction is what we need for this movement to make a real difference.

Oppose Western Imperialism’s “Rules-Based
Democratic Order” That Underpins Israel’s Terror!

The ultimate targets of the Pine Gap base that is today pinpointing Israeli attacks are socialistic China and North Korea. Indeed, the U.S. and its allies’ support for Israel and its opposition to socialistic states are closely intertwined. Washington backs Israel in part to enable Israel to threaten Middle Eastern countries that pursue friendly ties with China and North Korea. Little wonder then that, to her great credit, North Korea is providing arms to Palestinian resistance forces. China for its part is the major power that most stands by Palestine. However, as a socialistic state, its stance should become far more intransigent. For starters, we say that when China’s president Xi Jinping meets with war criminal Albanese in five days time, Xi should publicly condemn the Australian regime for its complicity in Israel’s slaughter.

China’s impact on the Palestinian struggle is far wider than its direct stance on the question. Her cooperation with developing countries is enabling them – including some Arab ones – to slowly squeeze out from under Western imperialism’s boot. The ultimate fear of the U.S. and Australian imperialists is that China’s successes will not only undercut their subjugation of the Global South but will eventually encourage their own masses to fight for socialism and topple them from power. If either of these things were to happen, Israel’s tyranny over Palestine is doomed. That is why all supporters of the Palestinian struggle and all anti-imperialists must defend socialistic rule in China. Resist all military and political attacks on China by the Western capitalists and their “pro-democracy” proxies within China.

Outrage at Israel’s crimes and the Australian rulers’ support for them has compelled many young people to participate in their first political actions. Events are pushing them to rethink their own politics and engage in lively debates. These compassionate people need their energy to be channeled into a direction that can force the Australian regime to retreat from its participation in Israel’s massacre. Let’s turn the pro-Palestinian protests into a pro-working class movement against the Australian imperialist regime that is joining Israel’s genocide! Let’s fight for the immediate closure of the Pine Gap spy base! Let’s build toward union industrial action against the Australian regime’s support for Israel! Let’s fight against the world domination of Western imperialism that underpins Israel’s tyranny over Palestine!

Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Racism, China, U.S., USSR

Stand with the Palestinian People! Defend Their Resistance!

Above photo (Reuters): Israeli police attack brave Palestinian protesters and worshippers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque complex, Islam’s third-holiest site. These despicable Israeli attacks using rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades was the prelude to their launching of murderous air strikes against the people of Gaza.

Stand with the Palestinian People! Defend Their Resistance!

RESIST THE U.S. & AUSTRALIAN REGIMES
& THEIR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL’S TERROR!

Socialistic China: More Assertively Condemn Israel’s Brutal Violence!

13 May 2021: Israel’s military is slamming missiles into the already embattled population of Gaza. They have destroyed several civilian housing blocks. Already, in just a few days, Israeli forces have killed 83 people in Gaza – including 17 children. The workers movement around the world and all opponents of racism must stand with the Palestinian people against the Israeli terror machine. Israeli military, cops and right-wing colonising settlers get out of all of the West Bank and Gaza!

The immediate prelude to Israel’s latest air strikes was Israel’s push to evict Palestinian people from a Jerusalem neighbourhood to make way for Israeli settlements. When Palestinians protested they were met with brutal attacks by Israeli police and a fascist Israeli settler group. Israeli police then repeatedly unleashed rubber-coated steel bullets into Palestinians gathered in worship and protest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites of Islam. These despicable assaults left hundreds injured. Many worshippers are now fighting for their lives. Palestinian people then retaliated. Palestinians are resisting not only in the Occupied Territories. Palestinians who live within Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries have bravely defied police and far-right mob attacks to protest and raise Palestinian flags over buildings. Now the Israeli regime, headed by the corrupt butcher Netanyahu, is threatening Gaza with a full-scale assault like the genocidal attack of 2014.

Israel gets away with massacring Palestinian people because of the massive support it receives from the Western capitalist powers, especially the USA. New U.S. president Joe Biden is carrying on from where rabidly anti-Palestinian Donald Trump left off. Today, Biden defended Israel’s murderous attacks on Gaza, proclaiming his “unwavering support for Israel’s security.” To make Israel retreat, we must force the U.S. and the other imperialists, like the Australian regime, to back off from their support for Israel. Down with all U.S. and Australian military and economic support for Israel!

OPPOSE THE U.S. AND AUSTRALIAN REGIMES THAT
SUPPORT THE SUBJUGATION OF PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

We need to stop Australia’s capitalist rulers from doing harm to the Palestinian cause. However, we should not be looking to them to make a positive intervention. They never will! The U.S. built up Israel to be a Cold War ally against the socialistic USSR in the Middle East and as an enforcer of U.S. domination of the region’s oil wealth. From invading Lebanon, to unleashing attacks on Syria, Iran and other neighbours, to assisting the CIA to overthrow “disobedient” governments, Israel sure has played that role! Today, as socialistic China’s mutually beneficial engagements with some Middle Eastern countries “threatens” to allow these countries to gain a degree of independence from the U.S., Washington needs Israel more than ever. Hence it is willing to allow its Israeli attack dogs to operate on a longer leash. Australia’s ruling class, whether served by Liberal or Labor governments, supports this, because they want to maintain U.S. domination of the world. It is U.S. might that underwrites the Australian imperialists’ exploitation of the South Pacific and beyond.

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Moreover, Australia’s rulers have a special affinity with their Israeli counterparts. For they have much in common. While Israel’s rulers benefit from being Washington’s deputy sheriff in the Middle East, Australia’s rulers enthusiastically play a similar bullying role in the South Pacific. Furthermore, while Israel was built on the murderous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, White capitalist Australia was built through the even more genocidal dispossession of Aboriginal people. Today, the Australian regime continues to brutally oppress Aboriginal people. Closer to Palestine, the Australian regime has participated in both invasions of Iraq. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Australian troops have been committing such horrific acts of torture and murder of Afghan children, peasants and prisoners that it has shocked even soldiers from the U.S. military. Then when people try to flee the carnage resulting from such imperialist marauding, the Australian regime imprisons them for years in hell-hole refugee detention camps. Such a racist, imperialist regime can never be a friend of the Palestinian people! Moreover, even if the Australian regime and “like-minded” powers did intervene into Palestine under the guise of “bringing peace” they would do far more harm than good.

The biggest problem with appealing to Australia’s imperialist rulers to help the Palestinian people is that this undermines opposition to these imperialists. By depicting Australia’s racist rulers as a potential saviour of one people facing genocidal oppression, it undercuts Aboriginal people’s struggle against the barbaric oppression that they are copping from these very same rulers. Moreover, any allusion to a possible progressive role for the Australian regime makes the Palestinian solidarity movement dial back its opposition to this capitalist regime in the hope that it can be won over to their side. Such a half-opposing, half-appealing movement will not trouble the capitalist rulers. They will simply ignore it! What we need is a movement that will be irreconcilable in its opposition to Australia’s imperialist rulers. In other words, we need a movement that will scare the regime with the threat that if it continues to back Israel this will lead to greater and more militant social struggle against it. What can most frighten the Australian regime is if workers take industrial action against the capitalists whom this regime serves as part of demanding an end to support for Israel. Such action can be built because it is in the very interests of the working class to undermine the U.S. imperialist godfather – and hence America’s crucial Israeli ally – that protects the power of the capitalist class that exploits workers here.

STOP IMPERIALISTS DISTRACTING FROM ISRAEL’S REAL GENOCIDAL OPPRESSION
BY FALSELY ACCUSING CHINA OF “GENOCIDE”

In equal proportion that they hide and excuse Israel’s crimes, the U.S. and its Five Eyes partners have hysterically accused China of committing “genocide” against its Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s northwest. This claim is a complete lie! It is only backed by the same Western imperialist powers that are propping up Israel. Not one Muslim-majority country has endorsed this accusation. Instead, most Muslim-majority and Arab countries have positively praised China’s treatment of Uyghurs, including Palestine’s UN representatives. The small minority of anti-China Uyghurs that Washington is backing are led by filthy rich capitalists who want to overturn China’s socialistic system. They want to establish in China’s northwest a regime servile to Western imperialism like the UAE and Bahraini regimes that collaborate with Netanyahu. If we are to focus the world on the real genocidal subjugation of Palestinian people and the racist oppression of Aboriginal people and also Muslims, Asians and other people of colour in Australia, then we must completely rebuff the West’s lying accusations against China. There is another reason that we must reject these lies. The growing strength of Red China could allow some Middle Eastern countries that choose to befriend her greater room to support the Palestinian struggle. During the period of the existence of the USSR, that socialistic country similarly enabled countries like Syria, Libya and Iraq to have greater independence from the imperialists and that allowed them to provide some backing for Palestinian resistance. This was always inconsistent and very partial as these countries remained under capitalist rule. However, it allowed the Palestinian resistance to be in a much stronger position than it is in today. Similarly, a rising socialistic China will be good for the Palestinian people – just as it is a good thing for the working class and all others hurt by capitalist rule in Australia and worldwide. That is why all supporters of the Palestinian cause and all working class people must stand with socialistic China against the Cold War drive of the U.S. and Australian capitalist regimes.

Indeed, as the world’s only non-capitalist power, China’s rulers are one government that Palestine supporters should seriously appeal to. Unlike Washington and Canberra, Beijing has somewhat sided with the Palestinians. However, its support is way too mild. China’s rulers pursue a policy of “friendly coexistence” with imperialism in the hope that the capitalist powers will not undermine China. This is a failed policy – the imperialist powers are doing everything possible to crush socialistic China. We say to the Chinese people: the only way to protect your great achievements won through socialism is to wake up from the dream of “coexistence” with imperialism and to, instead, build solidarity with the toilers and oppressed also targeted by imperialism. This means, China must more aggressively support the Palestinian cause!

STOP ISRAEL’S TERROR THROUGH STRUGGLE
BOTH OUTSIDE AND WITHIN ITS BORDERS

Even when not unleashing bombs, Israel brutally subjugates the Palestinian people. It evicts ever more Palestinians from their homes and even destroys their water infrastructure. It consigns most Palestinians to a hellish life. But even for many working class Jewish people, Israel is not great. They face high unemployment and non-European Jews, especially from Africa, face racist discrimination. The growth of extreme right-wing groups incited by the regime’s ever more vicious oppression of Palestinian people threatens non-white Jews still further and endangers trade union activists and women’s rights activists too. In the end, the only people who clearly benefit from the Zionist project are the U.S., its allies and Israel’s capitalists who use racial supremacist notions to keep the masses that they exploit loyal to them.

Today, a small number of Israeli Jews courageously refuse to endorse the subjugation of Palestinian people. In the end they must prevail. For the fact that alongside the huge number of Palestinian people killed in the last few days, seven Israelis have also died proves that the Zionist project is not sustainable. Like a bullying resident who constantly impeaches on all their neighbours’ land but then finds out that being hated by all their neighbours is no fun at all, a chunk of the Jewish working class in Israel will eventually realise that living in a racialist state, built on ethnic cleansing Arabs from land in a region surrounded by 350 million Arabs, is a stupid idea. Yet the massive support that Israel receives from the U.S., Australian and other Western imperialist regimes presently allows the Israeli ruling class to dupe most of the masses that they exploit with the fallacies of Zionism. That is why it is so crucial that we resist the U.S. and Australian regimes that support Israel’s terror. Let us make the nest of Zionist expansionism fall by vigorously shaking the imperialist branches on which it is perched and which give it support! For workers industrial action to oppose U.S. and Australian backing for Israel! Encourage the brave Palestinian resistance and any brave acts of solidarity by pro-Palestinian, leftist Jews in Israel!