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.

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!