By Gerry Downing

Palestinians assess the massive damage on 6-9-24 following Israel’s attack on Jenin that lasted 10 days.
 

Working class consciousness of ITSELF does not and cannot develop in single, isolated countries. Joe Stalin’s Socialism in a Single Country is a fool’s illusion as is capitalism in a single country, as seen in Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Brexit pitch towards English nationalism.

In the European elections the far right has advanced alarmingly in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Ireland. The AfD’s fascist leader Björn Höcke, won almost 33% in Thuringia on September 1 and they came a close second in Saxony. Donald Trump and his fascistic Mega Republicans may well win in November despite Kamala Harris’ recent surge.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are essentially US organs of power to suck the life blood out of Africa, Southeast Asia etc. The US dollar still dominates as the world’s trading and reserve currency to reinforce this domination. The drive to WWIII is inherent in the need for US imperialism to reassert its global domination over China, Russia and Europe and the expanding Third World BRICS block. The ability of Russia to evade even the most severe sanctions imposed by the US over the war in Ukraine is very bad news for the US.

The honeymoon for the Starmer government was very short; the far right riots came only six weeks into his premiership. Nigel Farage and the far rightists in the Tory party, like Suella Braverman etc., are savouring their turn. Starmer’s politically nationalist reactionary politics is quickly failing all progressive expectations.

That is why the great inspiring mass marches for Gaza are posing the internationalist class solidarity solutions we need. Biden and Blinken hypocritically claim to want to minimise civilian casualties in Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza and to stop the attacks now escalating on the West Bank also but continue to provide them with all the armaments and credit to do so, without which they could not continue.

The war chest that was passed by the US House and Senate in April included $60.8bn to Ukraine, $26.3bn to Israel and $8.1bn basically to prepare war against Iran and China in the Indo-Pacific region. And these ‘aid’ packages continue still.

Shamefully trade bureaucrats like Unite’s Sharon Graham, RMT’s Mick Lynch and many others absolutely refuse to call on their members not to produce or transport the armaments that are wrecking the genocide. We are inspired by the potential of the actions of workers in stopping weapons and other war materials from being manufactures and transported to Israel.

We salute Palestine Action who shut down the Leicester factory of Israeli drone supplier Elbit hours after the massacre at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on 17 October 2023, killing 471 people.

Early on Wednesday 8 May, Palestine Action targeted multiple arms manufacturers – smashing a lorry into one Elbit-owned site to shut down operations, and blockading another. Workers in Belgium, the US and elsewhere have stopped weapons bound for Israel and others have stopped weapons for the fascistic Ukraine regime. Workers everywhere should black all weapons heading for Israel, for Ukraine and the coming US/Nato WWIII.

 But surely also greatly inspiring are the occupations of the University campuses by the students in the US, and now globally, often led by Jewish students and academics. As for Hamas we must not equate the violence of the oppressed with the violence of the oppressor. So we defend Russia, China, Iran and North Korea against US/Nato despite the reactionary character of these leaderships.

Although Hamas is no less reactionary and more so on social issues than US/Israeli stooge Mahmoud Abbas’ bogus Palestinian Authority nevertheless it is fighting Israeli terror now. It expresses the anger of the oppressed, in a very distorted way it is true, so it deserves unconditional but critical support against Israel.

  The two state solution is utterly reactionary. This would be a constantly-bombed Bantustan for the Palestinians and Israel would remain the unsinkable US aircraft carrier there. We must be for the destruction of the apartheid settler-colonial state of Israel and for a multi-ethnic workers’ state of Palestine from the river to the sea. ▲

The AfD’s candidate in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, convicted of using Nazi slogans, hailed a “historic victory”.