Bourgeois politicians on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to defend Zionist aggression claiming, as usual, that it was Israel’s “right to defend itself” – a right they never recognise when it comes to the Palestinians or indeed anyone else who dares to stand in the way of imperialism.
We know the truth that every act of violence used to sustain a system of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism is by definition illegitimate. It is Palestinians who have the right to resist and defend themselves.
In the occupied West Bank Israel violates international law and pursues unabatedly its expansionist policies. The Zionists continued the building of settlements and the colonising of Arab East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories. The Israelis routinely ignore the protests of the powerless “autonomous” Palestinian Authority they pretend to recognise to evict Palestinians, demolish their homes, steal their land and water and all the other resources that belong to the Palestinian people. A policy reminiscent of ethnic cleansing.
Israel still clings to the dream of dominating the Middle East and colonising Palestine. But its petty ambitions and dreams are not the driving force of Anglo‑American imperialism.
The tail does not wag the dog and Israel and the American “Zionist lobby” do not dictate American foreign policy. They serve it.
In the past they provide Anglo‑American imperialism with a convenient alibi to play the role of “honest broker” in the Middle East. They enabled the feudal Arab oil princes, whose thrones are propped up by imperialist bayonets, to claim that the Arabs’ enemy is not imperialism as such but Israel and this supposedly all‑powerful “Zionist lobby”, which pulls the strings in the United States.
The Zionists get away with it because their interests serve those of Anglo-American imperialism. Israel is in all but name part of the NATO pact, an American protectorate that helps to guard the interests of the big oil corporations that have sucked the life out of the Arab world for the past hundred years.
We reaffirm our support for and solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle to regain their legitimate and inalienable national rights, including the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.
We call for the immediate and unconditional end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and for a comprehensive peace treaty to end the conflict in the Middle East based on past United Nations resolutions.
The UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. All states in the region, including Israel, should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by all the Great Powers.
American imperialism believes it can call all the shots in the Middle East today. The imperialists, and the Arab collaborators who do their bidding, believe that all resistance can be crushed by brute force. But In the Middle East imperialist violence always leads to an equally violent resistance. Imperialism’s refusal to recognise this has led to the spiral of violence and terror that began in 1948 as a regional war, to a conflict that now spans the whole world.
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