Gaza: What next?

The guns have fallen silent and the Palestinians are returning to what  was once their homes in the Gaza Strip. The hundreds of international volunteers in the Global Sumud flotilla who were interned after their vessels were seized in international waters by the Israeli navy have all been released. The relatives of the Israeli hostages and the Palestinian prisoners look forward to long-awaited re-unions with their loved ones. And Western politicians and Arab leaders talk about a new civil government that will replace the Hamas administration after the Israelis have gone which will be the first step towards ending the conflict in the Middle East. But will any of this actually happen?
Well the cease-fire will hold at least until the prisoner exchange is over. After that it’s anyone’s guess. Few Palestinians trust Netanyahu to keep his word.The Israeli leader didn’t want a cease-fire. Nor did he want to make a grovelling public apology to the Qataris. But he did what he was told. Because ultimately it all depends on Donald Trump, who has shown over the past few days who really calls the shots in Tel Aviv. But what do the Americans want?
Trump’s 20 point peace plan may be a vague collection of platitudes but the “settlement” the Trump team drew up during The Donald’s first term is pretty precise. Their ‘Abraham Accords’ two-state solution would see the Israelis retaining all their West Bank settlements in exchange for worthless desert in Israel that would be attached to the Gaza Strip and what’s left of the Arab West Bank for the establishment of a powerless  Palestinian ‘state’ whose independence would barely stretch beyond that of an Indian ‘reservation’ in the USA. 
But they can’t crush Arab resistance. They couldn’t stifle the global anti-war movement that called for an immediate end to Israeli aggression. The voice of the oppressed, the millions that support the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs has swept the world.
Now more than ever, our pressure on the British government matters. The government must stop arming Israel and instead use every possible means to facilitate immediate access to humanitarian aid and push any temporary ceasefire into a lasting deal that restores the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs that the world has long recognised.

Trump trumped again

Donald Trump has once again failed to get the Nobel Peace Prize he has so long coveted. It has instead gone to a Venezuelan opposition politician whose only merit is that she is a reactionary leader and a staunch supporter of Israel who believes in “popular capitalism”.
This rubbishy prize, with few honourable exceptions, has long been the preserve of imperialist politicians and prominent agents of imperialism. The anti-communist Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov won it in 1975. The reactionary Polish union leader Lech Walesa got it for his counter-revolutionary campaign in 1983. Gorbachov was similarly rewarded for his treachery in 1990. This year was no exception.
María Corina Machado’s “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” includes supporting imperialist sanctions against her own country and calling for foreign intervention to remove Venezuelan President Maduro on humanitarian grounds.