A lull in Lebanon

Everyone will welcome the ceasefire in Lebanon – not least the people of the south who have bourne the brunt of the Israeli incursion that has cost countless lives of innocent Lebanese civilians and wreaked havoc on the villages and towns of the borderland. How long it will last is, of course, another matter.
The fact that the temporary truce was imposed by the United States shows who ultimately calls the shots in Tel Aviv. And the fact that Donald Trump had to do it to get the Iranians back to the negotiating table shows that the Americans have lost the initiative in this war that they started.
Trump gave them his best shots starting with a treacherous surprise attack followed by the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s leaders in a terror bombing “shock and awe” campaign that the Americans and their lackeys thought would force the Iranians to beg for mercy in a matter of days. But the Iranians gave as good as they got laying waste to America’s ring of bases across the Middle East and giving the Israelis a taste of their own medicine with wave after wave of missile attacks that has left much of Tel Aviv in ruins.
Trump open talked of regime change à la Libya and Iraq. Netanyahu bragged about a future “Greater Israel” that the Zionists believe will stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. Both conjured up armies of traitors and quislings that they imagined would take to the streets of Tehran to do their bidding and welcome the imperialists with open arms.
But none of this happened. The Iranians stood firm and so did their Arab allies in Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon – the axis of resistance that refuses to submit to the Americans, the Israelis or and their feudal Arab lackeys.
The Iranians throttled the Big Oil corporations when they closed the Persian Gulf. They watched US imperialism’s allies wash their hands on the American-Israeli offensive in Iran. They ignored Trump’s empty threats of annihilation and they’ve laid down their own terms for ending the conflict – terms that China, Russia and most of the Global South have endorsed as the basis for ending the conflict.
But in Europe the leading members of the European Union have openly refused to join in Trump’s crusade. In Britain the Starmer government sits on the fence, distancing itself from Washington over Iran while still supplying arms to the Zionist entity and allowing the American air-force to use some of the RAF’s bases in operations against the Islamic Republic.
These are volatile times.The old order is being challenged – and not just in the Middle East.
On the street the masses have broken the bourgeois consensus that rarely goes beyond endless “debates” on immigration and the European Union, mealy-mouthed reforms and Atlanticism. The issues of war and peace, imperialism or socialism are, once again, back on the agenda...

One step forward…

 While victory celebrations in Tehran may be premature the sombre faces in the corridors of power in Washington and Tel Aviv tell another story – one of hubris, humiliation and defeat.
Last week Donald Trump ranted and raged against the Iranians. They were going to be wiped out if they didn’t end their blockade of the Persian Gulf and hand over their nuclear plants and oil industry to the Americans. A few days later he’s agreeing to a Pakistani-brokered cease-fire that pivots on the Islamic Republic’s ten point terms for ending the war.
In Washington the blame game has begun. Trump’s friends say their leader was misled by the Zionists and the fools that surround him in the White House. They’re  already pointing the finger at Pete Hegseth, his useless minister of war, and the Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu. Other insiders, mindful of their political futures in the post-Trump world, are telling tales to the mainstream media of a senile old man in the White House whose delusions of grandeur have plunged the capitalist world into a crisis not seen since the height of the Cold War.
No-one can believe a word the US president says. Donald Trump is an incorrigible liar. His agreements are not worth the paper they’re written on. Nevertheless Trump’s minions, led by Vice-President JD Vance, are now in Pakistan for talks with the Iranians. 
The ceasefire, a two-week truce to pave the way for negotiations, is on a knife-edge. The Israelis, who were not party to the secret American parleys with Pakistan, are out to sabotage the peace talks. They’ve stepped up their offensive in southern Lebanon claiming they’re not bound by the terms of the truce the Americans signed up for. The Lebanese resistance and their north Yemeni allies have hit back with a volleys of missiles and drones. 
In Israel they’ve been taught no end of a lesson – getting a taste of their own medicine that has left their capital in ruins and forced hundreds of thousands of Israelis to flee to safety in  Europe and the United States. And needless to say the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to imperialist shipping. 
On the diplomatic front the European powers are rapidly distancing themselves from the United States. France joins Russia and China in blocking an American manoeuvre on the UN Security Council designed to endorse “international” action against Iran in the Persian Gulf while Starmer poses as non-interventionist to curry favour with his old friends in Brussels.
American and Israeli air-power has failed to crush Iran. The Islamic Republic, on the other hand, has destroyed all the American bases on the Arabian peninsula. US troops have been forced to flee to hotels. Others have been evacuated back to the United States.  America’s much-vaunted nuclear aircraft-carriers retreat under fire. Their commando raids are beaten back. The myth of American invincibility has been shattered. The dream of a “new world order” is over.

Trump in Davos

In Roman days the Emperors surrounded themselves with flatterers who fawned over every word they said while the slaves and the overly ambitious were kept in their place through fear of the legions, the lash or crucifixion. But these “rulers of the world”, who were worshipped as gods, realised that terror was not enough. The generals and the patricians with their vast estates and hordes of slaves had to spread some of it about with free food, blood-soaked ‘games’ and the ferocious races of the arena to entertain the well-to-do and keep the poor and the slaves happy. These days the “leader of the free world” simply relies on brute force and economic blackmail to get his own way and gives little or nothing back in return.
Donald Trump, who seeks to “Make America Great Again” largely at the expense of his European allies, did little to mask his contempt for  them at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. At Davos he tried to belittle and brow-beat them into handing Greenland over to the United States. He’s now settled for some sort of deal that will give the Americans more military bases in the Arctic territory as well as exclusive rights to the mineral wealth that supposedly lies under the ice-caps of the Danish territory. 
Trump is getting on. He’s frail and may well be losing his marbles. But the hard-headed industrialists, hi-tech tycoons and the leaders of the energy corporations who stand behind him are not. They are well aware of the fact that Starmer and his friends in France and Germany are clearly hoping to stand-still all the American president’s initiatives until Trump’s final term of office ends to prolong the proxy war against Russia that the Europeans fear is going to be settled over their heads in secret talks with Putin.
These people put Trump into the White House in the first place. When Trump goes they’ll find another to do their bidding. They don’t want the Democrats or the “new world order” though we can see that they certainly want some sort of oligarchal “new order” for the United States.
Starmer and the leaders of Franco-German imperialism seem to think that they pulled one over The Donald by making him lose face over Greenland and boycotting his rubbishy “Board of Peace” which the White House wants to supervise the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. That, of course, remains to be seen.

Burnham’s call

The resignation of a Manchester MP has paved the way for a comeback for the Mayor of Greater Manchester at the by-election in a safe Labour seat which Andy Burnham needs if he is ever going to make his bid for the Labour leadership. Starmer’s gang and the ageing Blairites who surround him have already launched a whisper campaign against Burham who has done little to mask his political ambitions in recent days. But Starmer has been warned by backbenchers and union leaders that any stitch-up to prevent Burnham potentially returning to Westminster would split the party. If that happens the Greens and the Corbynistas are waiting to pick up the pieces...

Stand by Venezuela!

Last year Donald Trump told the world he deserved to get the Nobel Peace Prize. A few weeks ago he dubbed himself the “President of Peace”. Now he seems to have had second thoughts. He’s kicked off the New Year by raiding Caracas to seize the Venezuelan leader for a show trial in New York on trumped up charges of drug trafficking. He says he’s going to “run” Venezuela and take all their oil. He tells us that Colombia and Cuba are next on the list along with Greenland, which is an autonomous part of Denmark – an American ally and member of NATO. He justifies all this by saying he’s applying a modernised version of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which asserts Washington’s “right” to control the entire Western Hemisphere, that he now modestly calls the “Donroe” doctrine.

We’ll he can kiss his Nobel prize goodbye though this immensely vain man doubtless now imagines that throwing his weight around in the Caribbean puts him in the same league as Alexander the Great and Napoleon. Others dismiss him as a senile old man with delusions of grandeur. But at the end of the day it’s not what Trump thinks that counts – it’s what those who put him back into the White House want.
The Trump administration seeks to “Make America Great Again”, largely at the expense of its own allies, and boost American manufacturing through tariffs and protectionism while using secret diplomacy, military force and economic blackmail to achieve its goals. Gone are the days of the “West”, the “special relationship” and the “new world order”. British and Franco-German imperialism once believed that accepting American leadership would give them a share of the spoils.  But the “West” has gone. They can scrabble around with their “coalition of the willing” all they like. They’ll get nothing from Trump & Co.
American “isolationism” means Big Oil, Silicon Valley, Aerospace and the rest of their manufacturing sector. It’s the other side of the reactionary coin – the thinking of those sections of the American ruling class that realise that world domination is beyond their grasp and so seek to restore their hegemony in the Americas  and much of the Global South while maintaining their control of the world’s oil and energy market. But even this may soon prove to be beyond their reach.
When the Americans moved to normalise relations with People’s China in 1972 the Chinese side stressed that “wherever there is oppression, there is resistance. Countries want independence, nations want liberation and the people want revolution – this has become the irresistible trend of history”.
It was true then and it’s true now. Most of the Donbas is free. The Ukrainian fascists are on their last legs. The Israelis have failed to crush the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. The Venezuelan government has not collapsed. 
The world communist movement says imperialist aggression must be confronted. Maduro must be immediately and unconditionally freed and all the revolutionary, working-class and popular forces of the world must mobilise and express active solidarity with the Venezuelan people resisting American aggression.

The Trump Trajectory

A frisson of fear swept across the corridors of power in London and the European Union on the publication of Donald Trump’s national security strategy last week.
It admits that “after the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.  Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest. They overestimated America’s ability to fund, simultaneously, a massive welfare regulatory-administrative state alongside a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex”. 
But as the Chatham House imperialist think-tank put it “saving the harshest critiques for Europe’s current trajectory, the 33-page grand strategy pushes commercial ties, strategic stability with Russia, and a strong US hand in Latin America”.
The “Prince of Peace” as Trump styles himself these days tells us that “the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over”. His strategy upholds the concept of  “America First”  defining the national interest solely as the interest of the ruling class. And while it rejects the old theories of global domination
it declares that the main priority of the United States is to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere” – which in Trump-speak means the entire Americas from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
The Trump administration seeks to “Make America Great Again”, largely at the expense of its own allies, and boost American manufacturing through tariffs and protectionism while using secret diplomacy and economic blackmail to achieve its goals. Gone are the days of the “special relationship”, the “new world order” and the “project for the new American century”. British and Franco-German imperialism believed that accepting American leadership would give them a share of the spoils. But they didn’t get much out of the fall of the Soviet Union  or the forever wars that followed in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and the Arab world. Now they’re going to get nothing.
This is what American “isolationism” means. It’s the other side of the reactionary coin – the thinking of those sections of the American ruling class that realise that world domination is beyond their grasp and so seek to restore their hegemony in the Americas  and much of the Global Southwhile maintaining their control of the global oil and energy market.
Whether Trump’s national security strategy becomes the programme for the rest of his term of office remains to be seen. In Washington the isolationists now have the upper hand. The deep state war-mongers are down – but they are definitely not out...

Trump has a plan…

.

..but whether it will bring peace is another matter altogether. It’s very difficult to take anything that Trump says seriously these days – let alone a 20-point plan to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip that specifically rules out any role for the resistance movement that has governed the beleaguered Palestinian enclave since 2007. 
You would have thought that any proposal that envisages a new international administration for the Palestinian enclave called the “Board of Peace”  led by Trump himself with Tony Blair as The Donald’s chief gofer would be laughed out of court.
Far from it. The oil princes of Arabia and the other craven Arab politicians long in America’s pay love it. It gives them another excuse to do nothing, Likewise the Western politicians in Britain and the European Union who talk about Palestinian rights but, at the end of the day, will routinely do what they’re told to do in Washington.
To be fair the Trump plan does call for an end to the fighting, a prisoner exchange and a staged withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. It even makes a nod towards eventual Palestinian independence. But few, if any, Arabs seriously believe that the Israelis will honour what they signed up to in the White House. Trump, of course, could force the Israelis to obey him. The question is does he want to...

Meanwhile…

...Israel has hijacked the international peace convoy sailing to Gaza to deliver aid and detained the civilian activists on board. The commandeering of the Global Sumud Flotilla boats shows the contempt Israel has for the Palestinians and the international norms that the West pretends to uphold in their “rules-based order”.The civilians on board the flotilla were attempting to deliver aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, to break Israel's immoral and illegal siege. 
Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip is a component of its genocide, which has killed many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and caused the complete devastation of civilian infrastructure and an intentionally engineered famine.
Earlier this month, the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded what we already know –that Israel is inflicting a genocide on the Palestinian people. The report outlined that signatories of the Genocide Convention, including Britain, have an obligation to prevent further acts of genocide and punish those responsible, including by ending the arms trade with Israel.
Four of the boats in the fleet were British-flagged. The Starmer government has a legal duty to defend these vessels and the civilians on board, who have been subject to an attack clearly breaching international humanitarian law. The British government must intervene to demand the immediate release of those detained, and urgently address the issues to which the flotilla was responding to by ending all arms trade and military collaboration with Israel. 

The future beckons

While the imperialists live in the past with their “American Dream”  their “new world order” and “Making America Great Again” the Global South aims for the future – a better tomorrow that was charted out in Beijing by the leaders of the people’s democracies and the leaders of the Global South during the top-level discussions on the sidelines of the Victory Day celebrations in the Chinese capital last week.
Donald Trump and the other old men who lead the bourgeoisie in America and Europe have nothing to offer the new generation apart from tales of an imagined glorious past when imperialism in all its forms ruled most of the world and promises of never-ending poverty, austerity and war in the future.
These people pose as defenders of what they still call the “free world”. They say that socialism means dictatorship and that capitalism stands for freedom. But it is freedom only for the exploiters to continue to rob and plunder working people across the globe to ensure that a tiny handful of parasites can live the lives of Roman emperors at our expense.
They preach their “freedom” with their bombers and drones, their special forces and blockades against all those who dare to stand up for themselves. We see what the ruling class meant by “freedom” in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. We see it today in the Gaza Strip,
They say we have free speech and democracy, but it’s democracy and freedom only for themselves. Their elections are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes.
Now a new economic and political counter to US‑led imperialism is being built by China, Russia and the rest of the Global South. BRICS and the Belt & Road initiative provides an alternative to imperialism’s tariffs and one-sided “deals” and “partnerships” that solely serve the interests of the trans‑national corporations of the imperialist world.
In Beijing the Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined five core principles that should be the driving force for global reform: sovereign equality, adherence to international law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach, and focus on practical action. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, backs China’s new initiative on global governance, calling it “timely and positive”. He reaffirmed Russia’s support for China’s proposals, which aim to build a more effective and fair international system amid Western dominance. 
The history of humanity is a history of exploitation and class struggle. For century after century working people – the slaves, the peasants, the artisans, dreamt of justice and equality. But in the modern era with the rise of the working class and the development of scientific socialism it is now possible not only to dream of a better world but also concretely to build it.
The imperialists think that their guns will ensure that they can ignore the will of the people for as long as they like. But they were proved wrong in the 20th century and they will be proved wrong today. The days when people listened to the rich men who told us that the greatest virtue of humanity was the possession of the largest amount of money are over. 

The thin end of the wedge

Though the supporters of Palestine Action have won their bid to legally challenge the British government’s decision to ban them in the High Court the witch-hunt continues as the Establishment lashes out in feverish attempts to put a lid on the mass movement in solidarity with the Palestinians who are being starved to death in the Gaza Strip.
The ludicrous interpretation of the anti-terrorism laws has led to a protester being threatened with prosecution by a policeman in Canterbury for holding a Palestinian flag and displaying signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide” and the arrest of hundreds of others across the country on terror charges. In most cases simply for carrying a placard supporting the banned direct action movement at a demonstration.
Now the campaign set up to overturn the ban on the direct action group, which the government banned on the grounds that spray-painting RAF jets and vandalising the offices of arms manufacturers that supply weapons to Israel constituted acts of “terrorism”, has also been shut down. 
The Defend Our Juries website was taken down this week. The Terrorism Act 2000 specifically ensures that it is lawful to organise for the de-proscription of a group. But their web hosts imply that the campaign may have been in breach of their terms and conditions. Defend Our Juries have checked it out. They say there is no breach. 
Innuendo, threats, the hidden hand...this is what happens when a witch-hunt begins. 
Thousands of people have now been blocked from legal information to ensure their legal rights are upheld. This is an attack on our supposed freedom of speech. This is what happens when the Government uses anti-terror law to silence dissent.

It's still the same old story…

...a fight for love and glory – that’s how the old song goes. Or as Napoleon said: a soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon. And some people, even today, crave for the acclaim of the world and the medals and fame that go with it. Men like Donald Trump who does nothing to mask his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. 
Though the Donald has been nominated for the Nobel on four occasions over the years
 his supposed efforts to promote peace and resolve global conflicts have, so far, failed to impress the Nobel Peace Committee.
He, no doubt, hopes that the committee will now be more than impressed by news from Moscow that suggests that an end to the war in Ukraine is finally in sight.
The Russians say they’ve received an “acceptable” offer from the Americans on settling the Ukraine conflict following a visit by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow this week. There’s even talk of a Trump/Putin summit, possibly in the Emirates, later in the month.
Though not in the same league as Obama or a Biden Trump still has plenty of blood on his hands. Syria; Iran; the Gaza Strip – not a good start for a wannabe peace prize winner. Still he’s now got a new nomination from the Cambodians. Whether his latest initiative on Ukraine can tip the balance in his favour when the Norwegian Nobel Committee meets, however, remains to be seen...

Stop the drive to war

Trump walks out of the G7 conference in Canada. He threatens to kill the Iranian leader and join Israel in its offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran. All in all it seems that the American establishment, the “deep state” or war lobby that cuts across the bogus political spectrum in the United States, that represents the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class is back in charge if the mercurial acts of the man in the White House is anything to go by these days. That, of course, we won’t know for sure as Trump’s bargaining style is a heady mixture of lies, bluff and threats What we do know is that the entire Middle East will be set ablaze if US imperialism does openly join in the war to save the skin of its Israeli puppet.
That’s why the Stop the War movement and the rest of the Palestine solidarity coalition has added the slogan No War on Iran as part of its mobilisation for the big national demonstration in London this weekend. That’s why we, as communists, must also help in the effort to stop British involvement in any future American aggression in the region.
The Americans will almost certainly want to use Diego Garcia, the Anglo-American military base in the Indian Ocean, as a staging post to conduct strikes on Iran. They may also want the RAF squadron in Cyprus to join them in what the Israelis are openly calling “regime change” in Iran. 
Crawling to the Americans is second nature to Labour and Tory politicians who still drone on and on about trans-Atlantic “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout the world. So we shouldn’t expect much from the Starmer government that bleats on about “de-escalation”, says Iran must never have a nuclear bomb while supporting Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” whenever anyone demands a serious response to Zionist war-crimes from the British government. 
Stop The War convener Lindsey German says Trump has “absolutely no business bombing or attacking the country in any way. To do so would be a completely illegal war crime which will cause misery to millions and drive the world into the worst Middle East war ever.
“The claims that Israel is simply defending itself against the attacks by Iran over the last week are completely false. 
“We know from the past 20 months of Israel’s assault on Gaza they’re not defending themselves, they’re engaged in an aggressive and genocidal war, and they intend the same for Iran”.
 In Britain the ruling class would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for Labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media they think they can play this cynical game for ever and ever. We must prove them wrong and stop this war.

A new lease of life for Labour?

Labour’s victory in the south Lanarkshire by-election this week has surprised the bookies, dented the prestige of the SNP and boosted the standing of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. But while the nationalists were expected to hold their Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse seat the political pundits always said it would be a close run thing.
And so it was with Labour’s Davy Russell beating the nationalists by a margin of 602 votes. The Faragists came a close third while the Scottish Tories were well behind with the also-rans.
Labour’s U-turn over pensioners’ winter-fuel payments and the expansion of the free school meals scheme clearly helped sway voters – as did the decision to keep Sir Keir Starmer well away from the constituency during the campaign. 
But though Labour and the nationalists were neck and neck in Hamilton the SNP still retain a clear lead in the national polls. Professor John Curtice says “the recent message from opinion polls are the SNP is running at just over 30 per cent, Labour is around 20 per cent, so it seems a reasonable expectation that such a result would not mean Anas Sarwar is Scotland’s next First Minister”.

No arms for Israel!

Too much even for Britain or France to stomach – the latest American veto at the United Nations shows the true colours of the Trump administration as the instigator of the Zionist massacres in the Gaza Strip. But while the Starmer government likes to pose as “even-handed” or even sympathetic to the legitimate demands of the Palestinians it continues to supplies arms and intelligence to the Zionist entity. 
Now a new Opinium poll reveals huge British public support for arms embargo on Israel by the UK government alongside other sanctions. The British public support a full arms embargo on Israel by more than 4 to 1, including 72 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2024. 54 per cent of the British public support Israel being expelled from the United Nations, with only 16 per cent being opposed. And 50 per cent of respondents supported the idea that supermarkets should no longer stock any goods produced in Israel, in line with the Co-op’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods at its AGM.
Now we’ve go to turn these polls into reality. Get the message across at the monthly mass protests in London and the weekly demonstrations throughout the country.  From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!

Pastures new?

It didn’t take long for differences between Donald Trump and Elon Musk to degenerate into smears and common abuse. Musk is peddling all sorts of unsavoury stories about his former ally while Trump leaves it to his acolytes to call for Musk’s deportation as an “illegal immigrant”. 
The South African-born oligarch became an American citizen in 2002. He is still, apparently,  a Canadian citizen. But as he is unlikely to be welcomed back in either of his past homelands he should seriously consider the offer of a new safe haven in the Russian Federation.
Communist MP Dmitri Novikov, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on International Affairs in the Russian parliament, told the Moscow media that he could always seek political asylum in the Russian Federation. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek Novikov added that while he didn’t think Musk would need it “Russia, of course, could provide it”.
Indeed. Musk should take it while the going’s good given the irascible and unpredictable nature of the The Donald these days...

The Trump plan to deport the Palestinians

by Fouad Baker

The Trump plan to deport the Palestinian people from Gaza and the West Bank cannot be viewed in the same way as his rhetoric about purchasing Greenland from Denmark, merging Canada with the United States or controlling the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico.
The plan to deport Palestinians is presented with high seriousness, and preparations for it are taking place behind the scenes to move the residents of Gaza to Egypt and from the West Bank to Jordan. This plan is based on communications between Donald Trump and his counterparts, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, King Abdullah of Jordan, as well as secret communications with other countries, such as Albania and Indonesia as well as some members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, especially Saudi Arabia.
During Donald Trump’s first presidential term, from 2016 to 2021, he altered the equations that Palestinians had established, which emphasised that no regional settlement could occur without resolving the Palestinian issue. Trump undermined this equation when he imposed the “Deal of the Century” in 2020, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights that Israel seized in 1967.
Trump also signed the Abraham Accords, which are treaties and agreements to normalise relations with Israel, that included Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, (UAE), Morocco and Sudan, as well as forming a military alliance under the guise of so-called economic peace.
With his new term, since assuming office on 20th January 2025, Trump has reintroduced the issue of resolving the Palestinian cause, this time with his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize and end wars in the world. However, this also comes at the expense of the Palestinian people and their inalienable national rights, as outlined in international legal resolutions, including the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the right to self-determination and the right of return as per [United Nations] Resolution 194.
Secret diplomatic moves
The new US administration, alongside Israeli diplomats, has quietly begun seriously discussing Trump’s vision of deporting Palestinians. They are engaging with several Arab capitals to push this plan forward and apply heavy pressure, through the gateway of accepting Palestinians as short-term humanitarian refugees, pending the reconstruction of Gaza.
This plan involves a period of taking in Palestinians for between six months to a year, with their return to Gaza in 2026 once the reconstruction is complete. The plan subtly includes, though not openly stated, the possibility that these Palestinians may not return to their cities and villages – much like in 1948, when their departure was intended to be temporary, but they still have not been allowed to return despite all international resolutions.
According to diplomatic sources, Israel is communicating with certain countries like Albania and Indonesia, to see if they will accept Palestinian refugees. The discussions are revisiting aspects of the 2020 Deal of the Century, particularly the integration of Palestinians displaced in 1948 into the countries that hosted them, such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Israel has also opened a dialogue with some members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) over a plan to resettle 5,000 Palestinian refugees annually over a span of 10 years, totalling around 50,000 refugees.
Now the Trump administration is striving to engage with Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel and to abandon its conditions relating to the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative. According to sources close to decision-makers in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom has become more flexible in its approach to the Arab Peace Initiative, under the pretext that it cannot be implemented all at once, but rather gradually, starting with normalisation with Israel, to open political dialogues and prospects related to the Palestinian issue.
The new Trump administration has returned to its previous tactics from the first term, exerting economic pressure on the Palestinian Authority. It has cut aid and support for American development projects in the West Bank and plans to use the reconstruction of Gaza as leverage against Hamas.
The aim is to pressure Hamas not to reclaim authority over Gaza by stalling reconstruction efforts, holding back funds and donations from other countries and preventing them from being transferred to Gaza. The Trump administration also seeks to control the reconstruction fund, which is currently being organised by some European countries and certain Arab regimes that oppose Hamas’ control over Gaza.
According to technical experts, Gaza will require several years to rebuild, to erase the remnants of Israeli aggression and clear the rubble of destroyed buildings. In this context, the new Trump administration justifies the temporary humanitarian refugee status for Palestinians in Gaza for six months, while being fully aware that reconstruction would take at least eight years if it were to proceed – assuming there are no political obstacles or funding restrictions.
Possible scenarios
The scene of Palestinians returning to their homes in Gaza through the Netzarim checkpoint – now destroyed – illustrates the deep connection of the Palestinian people to their land, despite the widespread devastation. This shattered the illusion of absolute victory that Netanyahu spoke of.
Hamas, with a tactical move involving the release of the Israeli prisoner Arbel Yehud, achieved strategic success by securing the return of residents from northern Gaza. It has become increasingly difficult for Israel to resume the war, even if the ceasefire agreement  were to collapse, especially with the unsearched civilians walking through the Netzarim crossing.
Furthermore, the renewal of the war is no longer in the hands of Netanyahu or [Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, who opposed the ceasefire agreement. The decision now lies with Trump, who seeks to rescue Israel from military defeat and turn it into a political victory by deporting Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
This plan would continue the annexation of Palestinian territories, normalise relations with Arab countries — specifically Saudi Arabia — and undermine the two-state solution. The true deal this time will be an American-Saudi-Israeli deal.
Trump is attempting to replace the genocide that was inflicted on the Palestinian people [by the Israelis during the Gaza war] with political genocide. This time, it is not only aimed at the authority in Gaza, but also at the Palestinian Authority [that runs the “autonomous” West Bank zones].
By besieging the Jenin camp and confronting the Palestinian militias in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority seeks to present its credentials to the new US administration in an effort to maintain its political position and prevent its collapse.
In the absence of a unified Palestinian national strategy, Trump’s plan remains intact, and it is difficult to counter it. This first and foremost falls on the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which refrains from implementing the Beijing Declaration, calling for a meeting of the unified Palestinian leadership, and the PA’s failure to form a national unity government that includes everyone, thus avoiding collective responsibility in confronting the American-Israeli plans.
This calls for international efforts to confront the looming danger to the Palestinian cause, with the goal of pressuring the Palestinian Authority to implement the Beijing Declaration, form a national unity government that includes competent national figures, hold comprehensive Palestinian elections, rebuild Gaza and overcome external obstacles in order to block Israel’s questionable projects.
The Palestinian people have affirmed to the entire world, through the powerful scene of their return to northern Gaza, their unwavering attachment to their land and their rejection of the forced displacement plan, despite all the destruction and massacres committed against them.
No matter how much Israel tries to impose racist and colonial policies against them, the Palestinian people will resist until their last breath. As Israeli historian Ilan Pappe states in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: “the olive tree has pierced the trees imported by Israel from outside Palestine and planted in Palestinian land to reinforce their narrative that they are the rightful owners of the land”.
Similarly, the Palestinian people will defy all these plans with their will and rejection of colonial projects and policies of fait accompli. They will invent new forms of resistance, as they have done in previous stages, and they will amaze the world with their diverse strategies.

The author is an international lawyer and a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)

Freedom for Palestine – no to ethnic cleansing!

No one, apart from the Israelis, can take Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza seriously.The Zionists always denied that the true aim of the genocidal assault on Gaza has been the destruction of the Palestinian population, and denial of all of their rights including the right to self-determination. They lied. 
So did those lackeys of US imperialism in Britain and Europe that not only provided diplomatic cover for Israeli aggression but armed and funded the Zionist state in its drive to crush the Palestinian resistance.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour Party who now heads the Independent Alliance bloc in Parliament has, however, taken the principled stand  holding Israel and those who are still sending arms to the regime rrsponsible for genocide in Palestine.
"The death toll in Gaza has already been updated to 61,709," Corbyn said. "The true scale of Israel's atrocities is only just emerging - and officials must face justice for every single life lost. So should those who continued to send weapons, knowing full well they were enabling genocide”.
Trump’s proposal is. of course, nothing new. It echoes plans that have been discussed by Israeli officials for many decades. Kicking out the Palestinians to turn the Gaza Strip into a millionaires playground may seem a good idea to the likes of Trump and Netanyahu but it is only a recipe for yet another war – and this time round, going on what Trump is saying, it will be American troops confronting the Arabs.
The Americans came unstuck in Iraq and the Israelis lost the Gaza war. Trump’s threats will not succeed in what the Zionist guns failed to achieve. Trump will not achieve what Biden could not do. 
Despite their vast resources, US imperialism and its Zionist lackeys have not broken the will of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people, who faced Zionist terror armed with American weapons for 15 months, will not bow to the empty threats of Donald Trump.

New Labour woes

This week a Scottish Labour MP  warned that the next government may be a “hard-line far-right effort” if Labour does not deliver “improved living standards”. Brian Leishman, who represents Alloa & Grangemouth, criticised his own party's government for not providing financial compensation to the ‘Waspi’ women who campaign against the way in which the state pension ages for men and women were equalised at the expense of many women.
Leishman was one of 10 Labour MPs who supported a Bill introduced by the SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn that would require ministers to publish measures to address the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report which recommended paying compensation to women born in the 1950s whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men.
Labour’s embrace of Tory austerity has led to further unpopularity on the street. And this week a new public opinion poll puts Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party ahead of Labour and the Conservatives. A YouGov survey puts Reform, at 25 per cent, narrowly ahead of Labour at 24 and the Tories on 21 per cent. The Liberal Democrats stand on 14 per cent, while the Greens are now at nine.
The Starmer government pleads poverty to justify means-testing the pensioners’ winter fuel benefit. It won’t pay compensation to the three million or so women born in the 1950s who were not properly informed about the state pension age increase. But it can find plenty to fuel the proxy war against Russia and pay for Trident and the rest of our so-called nuclear deterrent.  

A united front over coronavirus

Labour and the unions formed a united front this week to call for an extension of the coronavirus furlough scheme beyond its cut-off date at the end of October. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady is urging the Government to act to prevent “a tsunami of job losses” that will follow while the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer calls for “urgent talks” with Boris Johnson to set up “new targeted support” when the job-retention scheme ends.
     But while there’s no doubt that the Prime Minister can be swayed by mass pressure – as his past U-turns on many key issues have shown – the response of the Johnson team on this issue has not gone beyond the usual platitudes regularly used by the ruling class to fob off plebeian demands.
    Chancellor Rishi Sunak says he will be “creative” in helping people find work. He says it’s his “top priority” but “indefinitely keeping people out of work is not the answer” while Employment Minister Mims Davies hedged his bets by suggesting that there could be a more targeted approach when the Chancellor unveils his budget later in the year.
     The Labour leader told the “virtual” TUC Congress that “a better approach is possible” which in Starmerspeak means when Labour is next back in office. Under our ludicrous fixed-term parliament rules that possibility, barring a dramatic split in the Tory party, will not arise until after the May 2024 general election. That leaves the ball in the unions’ court.
     While the RMT is calling for a fight against austerity in the transport sector the senior officers of Unite and Unison, the giant unions that dominate the TUC, talk about “new deals” and no return to the “pre-pandemic normal”. But all we’ve seen at the moment is the support of some of the smaller unions for the People Before Profit campaign – which is calling for an “emergency programme for jobs, services and safety”
     Words must be turned into action to stop another round of austerity to make the workers’ pay for the coronavirus crisis. The unions have a central role in mobilising the workers to demand state intervention to restore the economy and stave off mass unemployment .
    Meanwhile Johnson’s plan to revise promises made to Brussels last year that would jeopardise Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status has sparked off another Remainer revolt amongst the Tories in parliament. The Eurocrats say it may scupper any hope of a favourable UK post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union while Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington says there is “absolutely no chance” of a US-UK trade deal passing through Congress if the Good Friday Agreement is undermined.
    Starmer has wisely decided to keep a low profile during the current row within the Tory ranks over Brexit. The man who was seen as the Labour Remainers’ front-runner seems to have had a Pauline conversion, “I accept that the Leave-Remain divide is over,” he said in last week’s Sunday Telegraph. The country needs — and wants — to move on . . . from this torturous debate”.
    Starmer clearly has his eye on next year’s Scottish, regional and local elections which will the first test of his leadership since taking over from Jeremy Corbyn earlier in the year. Whether he has genuinely seen the light or is merely seeking to win back the swathe of Labour voters who swung to the Tories in the northern “red wall” over Brexit at the last election remains is clearly debatable.

Starmer’s true colours

Starmer’s true colours

It hasn.t taken long for Sir Keir Starmer to reveal his real agenda for Labour now. He talks about “unity” but what he means is closing ranks behind the neo-liberal ‘New Labour’ agenda and unity around the Blairite has-beens in parliament that backed his cause. His first act has been to call for a Brexit delay. His first response to the coronavirus crisis has been simply to call on the Government to produce a lock-down exit strategy and his reaction to the damning Labour internal report on the treacherous role of the Blairites in undermining the Corbyn leadership was to call for a probe into who leaked it.

Some within the Starmer camp dream of high office in a ‘government of national unity’ whilst the usual fake lefters bleat on about the need for a new ‘Marxist’ party to challenge Labour in the polls. None of them can explain why all previous attempts to do so have failed dismally.

The New Communist Party has never confused the Labour Party with a revolutionary party nor imagined that we can gain a workers’ state through parliamentary elections. But a Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the trade unions, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity, and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions. We support those in the Labour Party fighting for left policies, which is part of the struggle for a democratic Labour Party.

More Trump madness

Donald Trump says he’s going to suspend US funding of the World Health Organisation (WHO), claiming it was pro-Chinese and that it had made mistakes that “caused so much death” as the coronavirus plague spread across the globe. Whether the President of the USA has the power to take this action without the approval of Congress remains to be seen. It will certainly be challenged by his Democrat rivals.

The WHO is a United Nations agency whose primary role is to direct international health within the UN system and to lead partners in global health responses. But Trump says that it “failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion”, and he claims it “pushed China’s misinformation about the virus, saying it wasn’t communicable and there was no need for travel bans”.

Trump is an immensely vain man with an ego of Neronian proportions. But Nero, at least, had something to boast about. That the brutal Roman emperor was an accomplished poet and sportsman was something even his enemies did not deny. Trump, on the other hand, has nothing to brag about unless one counts his incoherent ravings as some sort of street poetry.

This is the man that Theresa May and Boris Johnson fawned over when he came to London for talks with the Government. This is the leader of the US imperialist system that the Blairites and the rest of Labour’s right-wing admire and uphold. This is a man clearly unfit to hold public office.

Last week the WHO’s top official urged leaders against politicising the outbreak “if you don’t want to have many more body bags”.

“At the end of the day, the people belong to all political parties. The focus of all political parties should be to save their people, please do not politicise this virus,”  Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

He called for unity across the globe, warning that: “If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it. If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicising it.”

Trump declares war on the Arabs

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MILLIONS of people have taken to the streets throughout the world to protest against US imperialism’s decision to recognise Israel’s annexation of Arab East Jerusalem. Across the Arab world, from Morocco to the Gulf, demonstrators are denouncing Donald Trump, the chief American war-lord, and demanding action in solidarity with the Palestinians struggling against the barbarous Zionist regime. In occupied Palestine itself, some protesters have been killed and many more wounded in clashes with the Zionist police and security forces.

Moqtada al-Sadr, the militant Iraqi Shia cleric whose Mahdi Army led the Shia Muslim resistance to the American occupation, has called for the expulsion of all Israeli diplomats on Muslim soil and Lebanese cleric Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia resistance movement in Lebanon, has called for a united front “in the field” to support the Palestinian resistance against this “foolish decision”, which he hoped meant the “beginning of the end” of Israel.

The Zionists have always dreamt of dominating the Middle East and colonising Palestine. But their petty ambitions are not the driving force of US imperialism. The tail does not wag the dog, and Israel and the American ‘Zionist lobby’ does not dictate American foreign policy. They serve it. They provide American imperialism with a convenient alibi to play the role of ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East. They enable the feudal Arab oil princes 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 USA. Trump has now revealed the true face of US imperialism to those venal Arabs who claimed that the Americans could push forward the “peace process”.

The tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs began when British imperialism occupied their land in 1918 and encouraged Zionist immigration. British imperialism sought to create a Zionist community that would prolong their occupation of Palestine indefinitely.

The Zionists helped British colonialism crush the Palestine Revolt in 1936. But in the immediate post-Second World War situation the Zionists seized the opportunity to push for a separate state of their own. In 1948 the British colonial mandate ended and the State of Israel was proclaimed. On that day the first Arab—Israeli war began. It has never ended.

The first war led to the expulsion of a million Palestinian Arabs from their homes by the Zionist regime. Those refugees and their descendants have never given up their right to return to their land. And this is the heart of the crisis in the Middle East that has led to five full-scale wars and continuing simmering conflicts.

Israel is economically and politically entirely dependent on American imperialism, and successive Israeli governments have existed to serve the needs of American imperialism in the region. And those needs are to weaken and divide the Arabs to ensure that the big oil corporations can continue their exploitation and plunder of Arab oil until it eventually runs out.

US imperialism believes it can call all the shots in the Middle East today. The imperialists believe that all resistance can be crushed by brute force and they still believe they can find willing Arab tools to do their bidding, hoist up the white flag and sign a surrender peace.

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.

We call for the immediate and unconditional end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights, to pave the way for a comprehensive peace treaty to end the conflict in the Middle East based on past United Nations resolutions. A lasting solution must be based on the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and an independent Palestinian state, with Israel giving up all territories seized since 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem.