US Navy seizes attackers who held Israel-linked tanker. Missiles from rebel-controlled Yemen follow

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Armed assailants seized and later let go of a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday before being apprehended by the United States Navy, officials said.

Jon Gambrell,
The Associated Pressabout 2 hours ago

This is a locator map for Yemen with its capital, Sanaa. (AP Photo)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Armed assailants seized and later let go of a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday before being apprehended by the United States Navy, officials said. Two ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen then landed near a U.S. warship aiding the tanker in the Gulf of Aden, raising the stakes amid a series of ship attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

Yemen's internationally recognized government blamed the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for the attack, though the rebels in control of the capital, Sanaa, did not acknowledge either the seizure or the missile attack.

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Attackers seize an Israel-linked tanker off the coast of Aden, Yemen

The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company, the U.S. and British militaries and private intelligence firm Ambrey said.

The U.S. military's Central Command said in a statement early Monday that its forces and allies, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mason, responded to the seizure and demanded the armed assailants release the tanker.

“Subsequently, five armed individuals debarked the ship and attempted to flee via their small boat,” Central Command said. “The Mason pursued the attackers resulting in their eventual surrender.”

The Central Command did not identify the attackers, but said a missile launch from Houthi-controlled Yemen followed early Monday morning.

“The missiles landed in the Gulf of Aden approximately 10 nautical miles (18.5 kilometers) from the ships,” the statement said. “The USS Mason … was concluding its response to the M/V Central Park distress call at the time of the missile launches. There was no damage or reported injuries from either vessel during this incident.”

Early Monday morning, Zodiac said the vessel carrying phosphoric acid and its crew of 22 sailors from Bulgaria, Georgia, India, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam were unharmed.

“We would like to thank the coalition forces who responded quickly, protecting assets in the area and upholding international maritime law,” the company said.

Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

Yemen's internationally recognized government, which is based out of nearby Aden, blamed the rebels for the seizure in a statement carried by their state-run news agency.

“The Yemeni government has renewed its denunciation of the acts of maritime piracy carried out by the terrorist Houthi militias with the support of the Iranian regime, the most recent of which was the hijacking of the Central Park,” the statement read.

The attack happened in a part of the Gulf of Aden that is in theory under the control of that government's forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates are not known to operate in that area.

Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the U.S. and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac's oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area.

The UKMTO put the Central Park's location over 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Yemen's coast, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Djibouti and around 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route.

The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by another Israeli billionaire, came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. Iran has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, nor did it respond to questions from The Associated Press about that assault.

Both the Symi and the Central Park had been behaving as if they faced a threat in recent days.

The ships had switched off their Automatic Identification System trackers, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. In the Central Park's case, the vessel had last transmitted four days ago after it left the Suez Canal heading south into the Red Sea.

Global shipping had increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce has halted fighting and Hamas exchanges hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Earlier in November, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship also linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel off the port city of Hodeida.

However, the Houthis had not directly targeted the Americans for some time, further raising the stakes in the growing maritime conflict. In 2016, the U.S. launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that destroyed three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory to retaliate for missiles being fired at U.S. Navy ships, including the USS Mason, at the time.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the American aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower traveled through the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military said. The Eisenhower was accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, the guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Stethem and the French frigate Languedoc.

___

Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

Missiles target US warship after it nabs gunmen who attacked Israel-linked tanker

USS Mason demands armed assailants release Central Park, captures them when they try to flee; ballistic missile launches from Houthi-controlled Yemen then splash down close by

By AP and TOI STAFF

Today, 

US destroyer USS Mason sails in the Suez canal in Ismailia, Egypt, March 12, 2011. (AP Photo)


Armed assailants seized and later let go of a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday before being apprehended by the United States Navy, officials said. Two ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen then landed near a US warship in the Gulf of Aden, raising the stakes amid a series of ship attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government blamed the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for the attack, though the rebels in control of the capital, Sanaa, did not acknowledge either the seizure or the missile attack.

The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company, the US and British militaries and private intelligence firm Ambrey said.
Together in HellKeep Watching

London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

Early Monday morning, Zodiac said the vessel carrying phosphoric acid and its crew of 22 sailors from Bulgaria, Georgia, India, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam were “unharmed.”

“We would like to thank the coalition forces who responded quickly, protecting assets in the area and upholding international maritime law,” the company said.

In an undated photo released by Zodiac Maritime, the tanker Central Park is seen. Attackers seized the tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on November 26, 2023, authorities said. (Zodiac Maritime via AP)

The US military’s Central Command said in a statement early Monday that its forces, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mason, responded to the seizure and demanded the armed assailants release the tanker.

“Subsequently, five armed individuals debarked the ship and attempted to flee via their small boat,” Central Command said. “The Mason pursued the attackers resulting in their eventual surrender.”

The Central Command did not identify the men but said a missile launch from Houthi-controlled Yemen followed early Monday morning.

“The missiles landed in the Gulf of Aden approximately ten nautical miles from the ships,” the statement said. “The USS Mason … was concluding its response to the M/V Central Park distress call at the time of the missile launches. There was no damage or reported injuries from either vessel during this incident.”

Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is based out of nearby Aden, blamed the rebels for the seizure in a statement carried by their state-run news agency.

“The Yemeni government has renewed its denunciation of the acts of maritime piracy carried out by the terrorist Houthi militias with the support of the Iranian regime, the most recent of which was the hijacking of the Central Park,” the statement read.

Illustrative: Tugboats are moored next to the Israeli-linked tanker MT Mercer Street, off the Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates, on August 3, 2021. (Karim Sahib/AFP)

The attack happened in a part of the Gulf of Aden that is in theory under the control of that government’s forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates are not known to operate in that area.

Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the US and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac’s oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area.

The UKMTO put the Central Park’s location over 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Yemen’s coast, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Djibouti, and around 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route.

The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by another Israeli billionaire, came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. Iran has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, nor did it respond to questions from the AP about that assault.

In this photo provided by Manuel Hernandez Lafuente, the CMA CGM Symi is seen at port in Valencia, Spain, Oct. 22, 2023. A container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean, a US defense official said, November 25, 2023. (Manuel Hernandez Lafuente via AP)

Both the Symi and the Central Park had been behaving as if they faced a threat in recent days.

The ships had switched off their Automatic Identification System trackers, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. In the Central Park’s case, the vessel had last transmitted four days ago after it left the Suez Canal heading south into the Red Sea.

Global shipping had increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce has halted fighting and Hamas exchanges hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

War erupted when the Hamas terror group carried out a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. At least 240 people of all ages, including infants, were abducted and taken as hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded with an air, sea, and military campaign, vowing to destroy Hamas and remove it from control in Gaza

Earlier this month, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship also linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The Houthi government has also claimed to launch a number of drones and missiles at Israel, most of which have been shot down.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the American aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower traveled through the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf, the US military said. The Eisenhower was accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, the guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Stethem, and the French frigate Languedoc.

Attackers seize an Israel-linked tanker off Yemen in a third such assault during Israel-Hamas war

Attackers have seized a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen


By JON GAMBRELL 

Associated Press
November 26, 2023,

In an undated photo released by Zodiac Maritime, the tanker Central Park is seen. Attackers seized the tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023, authorities said. While no group immed...Show more
The Associated Press


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Attackers seized a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday, authorities said. While no group immediately claimed responsibility, it comes as at least two other maritime attacks in recent days have been linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company and private intelligence firm Ambrey said. An American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, also confirmed to The Associated Press that the attack took place.

Zodiac called the seizure “a suspected piracy incident.”

“Our priority is the safety of our 22 crew onboard,” Zodiac said in a statement. “The Turkish-captained vessel has a multinational crew consisting of a crew of Russian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Indian, Georgian and Filipino nationals. The vessel is carrying a full cargo of phosphoric acid.”

Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the attack. Nearby Aden is held by forces allied to Yemen's internationally recognized government and a Saudi-led coalition that has battled Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for years. That part of the Gulf of Aden in theory is under the control of those forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates also are not known to operate in that area.

The U.S. defense official said that it appeared “an unknown number of unidentified armed individuals” seized the ship.

“U.S. and coalition forces are in the vicinity and we are closely monitoring the situation," the official said.

Ambrey said that it appeared that “U.S. naval forces are engaged in the situation and have asked vessels to stay clear of the area.”

Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the U.S. and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac's oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area. It issued another warning saying that radio traffic suggested a possible attack had occurred before acknowledging the seizure.

The UKMTO put the ship's location over 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Yemen's coast, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Djibouti and around 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route.

The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by another Israeli billionaire came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. Iran has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, nor did it respond to questions from the AP about that assault.

Both the Symi and the Central Park had been behaving as if they faced a threat in recent days.

The ships had switched off their Automatic Identification System trackers, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. In the Central Park's case, the vessel had last transmitted four days ago after it left the Suez Canal heading south into the Red Sea.

The attacks come as global shipping increasingly finds itself targeted in the weekslong war that threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce has halted fighting and Hamas exchanges hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

With the Israel-Hamas war — which began with the militant Palestinian group's Oct. 7 attack — raging on, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship in the Red Sea off Yemen. The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the seizure of the Central Park.

Second tanker reportedly seized by gunmen in Red Sea after Houthi threats

Yemen's Houthi militant group has warned it could intervene in Israel-Gaza war

A region of the Red Sea off the coast of Hodeidah, Yemen. The Central Park had reportedly been told to divert to the port of Hodeidah. EPA


The National
Nov 26, 2023

Suspected Houthi militiamen have seized a second commercial vessel in the Red Sea, near the port of Aden, shipping security company Ambrey said on Sunday.

The incident involving the Central Park will, if confirmed, be the second attack by the group on commercial shipping in just over a week after the car carrier Galaxy Leader, linked to British-Israeli firm Ray Car Carriers, was seized by Houthis who boarded the boat from a helicopter.

Ray Car Carriers is owned by Israeli billionaire shipping mogul Abraham “Rami” Ungar. The latest alleged incident follows warnings from the Yemeni rebel group that it will target commercial shipping linked to Israel in the Red Sea, as well as US vessels.

The group has warned the US, which backs Israel, that it could intervene in the Gaza-Israel war.

READ MORE

Houthi raid on civilian ship in Red Sea threatens global trade route

Ambrey said "US naval forces are engaged in the situation" after the incident involving the Central Park vessel owned and managed by a UK-based, Israel-linked company.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels had previously threatened to attack the tanker if it did not divert to the port of Hodeidah, it said.

Communications from a US coalition warship had been intercepted warning the Central Park to disregard the messages, Ambrey added.

The boarding took place offshore from the Yemeni port city of Aden, with another vessel in the area reporting "an approach by eight persons on two skiffs wearing military uniforms", Ambrey said.

Israel has vowed to "crush" Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, after the Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages on October 7, according to Israeli authorities.

Gaza's Hamas government says nearly 15,000 people have been killed in Israeli aerial bombardments and ground operations in the Palestinian territory since. 

Security firm: Israel-linked tanker boarded off Yemen

Amid Israel's war against Hamas, Iran-backed Houthis continue board British vessel linked to Israel

AFP

The AFP reported on Sunday that a tanker linked to an Israel-affiliated company has been boarded off the coast of Yemen according to the maritime security firm Ambrey following a series of incidents on the same shipping route. Ambrey stated that "US naval forces are engaged in the situation" after the incident involving the Central Park vessel owned and managed by a UK-based, Israel-linked company. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels had previously threatened to attack the tanker if it did not divert to the port of Hodeida, it said.

Communications from a U.S warship had been intercepted warning the Central Park to disregard the messages, Ambrey added. The Iranian-backed Houthi boarding took place offshore from Aden, a Yemeni port city. Reportedly, the boarding occurred by "an approach by eight persons on two skiffs wearing military uniforms," Ambrey said.

Israeli-linked British vessel boarded by Houthis

(Scheepvaartwest)

The AFP reported that the Houthis, having declared themselves part of the "axis of resistance" of Iran-affiliated groups like Hamas, have launched a series of drone and missile strikes targeting Israel since October, following an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Also, AFP reported that a US defense official said an Israeli-owned cargo ship was damaged in a suspected Iranian drone attack in the Indian Ocean on Friday, a week after the Houthis seized an Israel-linked cargo ship in the southern Red Sea.

Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas, the de-facto government in Gaza, from its leadership and military capabilities. Israel declared war against Hamas following the Hamas-led massacre of about 1,400 people and the abduction of approximately 240 hostages on October 7. Hamas has said that nearly 15,000 people have been killed in war and ground operations in the Palestinian territory since then.

Israel-linked ship attacked off Yemeni coast, after 2 similar cases claimed by Houthis

22 crew members — none of them Israeli — were on board at time of attack, US defense officials say; no group has come forward to claim responsibility

By AGENCIES and TOI STAFF26 November 2023, 

In an undated photo released by Zodiac Maritime, the tanker Central Park is seen. Attackers seized the tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on November 26, 2023, authorities said. (Zodiac Maritime via AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Attackers seized a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on Sunday, authorities said. While no group immediately claimed responsibility, it comes as at least two other maritime attacks in recent days have been linked to the Israel-Hamas war, even as both sides observe a four-day ceasefire.

The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company and private intelligence firm Ambrey said. An American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, also confirmed the attack took place.

Zodiac called the attack “a suspected piracy incident.”

“Our priority is the safety of our 22 crew onboard,” Zodiac said in a statement. “The Turkish-captained vessel has a multinational crew consisting of a crew of Russian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Indian, Georgian and Filipino nationals. The vessel is carrying a full cargo of phosphoric acid.”

Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group.

British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the attack. Aden is held by forces allied to Yemen’s internationally recognized government and a Saudi-led coalition that has battled Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for years. That part of the Gulf of Aden in theory is under the control of those forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates also are not known to operate in that area.

The US defense official said that it appeared “an unknown number of unidentified armed individuals” seized the ship

“US and coalition forces are in the vicinity and we are closely monitoring the situation,” the official said.

Ambrey said that it appeared that “US naval forces are engaged in the situation and have asked vessels to stay clear of the area.”

Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider years-long shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the US and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac’s oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area. It issued another warning saying that radio traffic suggested a possible attack had occurred.

The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean, an American defense official said Saturday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to discuss intelligence matters.

According to the defense official, the Malta-flagged vessel was suspected to have been targeted by a triangle-shaped, bomb-carrying Shahed-136 drone while in international waters. The drone exploded, causing damage to the ship but not injuring any of its crew.

CMA CGM, a major shipper based in Marseille, France, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the vessel’s crew had been behaving as though they believed the ship faced a threat.

The ship had its Automatic Identification System tracker switched off since Tuesday when it left Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. It had done the same earlier when traveling through the Red Sea past Yemen, home to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

This photo released by the Houthi Media Center shows Houthi forces boarding the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on Sunday, November 19, 2023. (Houthi Media Center via AP)

The attacks come as global shipping increasingly finds itself targeted in the war between Israel and Hamas, which began on October 7 when the Palestinian terror group launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing at least 1,200 people and seizing some 240 hostages.

Last week, on November 19, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship in the Red Sea off Yemen and claimed that the ship was Israeli.

However, it was found to only be partially owned by Israeli tycoon Abraham Ungar, and at the time of the attack, the ship was sailing with an international civilian crew, with no Israelis on board.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq also have launched attacks on American troops in both Iraq and Syria during the war, though Iran itself has yet to be linked directly to an attack.

How did Wilders’ far right PVV party win the Dutch election?

The mainstream left is no alternative

Sunday 26 November 2023

SOCIALIST WORKER

Issue 2882


Over 1,000 people took to the streets in Amsterdam against discrimination and Wilders the day after the elections

Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party won the Dutch elections last week. In a parliament of 150 seats, he won 37. Runner-up fusion party GroenLinks/PvdA (Green-Labour) came in second with 25 seats, while the ruling conservative VVD party won 24 seats.

A couple of years ago Wilders’ party seemed irrelevant. The PVV was destined for a place in opposition and a new neo-fascist party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), had appeared to take its place from 2017 onwards.

The FvD even won the Senate elections in 2019. All this has changed now. Why?

The PVV always revolved around its leader, Wilders, who was also the party’s sole member. The FvD tried to establish a party movement. The FvD’s leadership clearly stands in a fascist tradition, but its broader membership base was not ready yet to build an openly antisemitic and “scientific racist” party. After its election win, the party suffered from a series of internal crises.

Last summer, the fourth government led by former VVD leader Mark Rutte collapsed. The VVD pressured its coalition partners to make increasingly more concessions on the matter of refugees, even limiting the right of children escaping war to find refuge in the Netherlands.

By making the government collapse on this point, the VVD sought to make migration the primary topic for the elections and intended to form the next government with the far right.

A month later, the VVD broke its commitment not to form a government with Wilders. In this way, they legitimised the racist politician who in 2017 was sentenced for hate speech due to his call for the ethnic cleansing of Moroccan-Dutch people.

Suddenly Wilders had an opportunity to govern, and his supporters felt emboldened.

Wilders was further mainstreamed by the media, which portrayed him as moderate. His alleged abandonment of the explicit demand for “de-Islamisation” was an example of this.

But in his election programme, named “Dutch people back in first place”, Wilders still called for the removal of “Islamic schools, mosques and the Quran”.

At the same time, Wilders’ racism towards Muslims and refugees became more and more mainstream. Most right-wing parties have embraced the same agenda.

Prime minister Rutte, who now aims to become the leader of the warmongers of Nato, brokered a deal together with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni with Tunisia. The agreement would make it possible for European states to deport some refugees to north Africa.

Meanwhile, the Greens and the PvdA participated in the elections with a joint list. They hoped to counter their respective electoral decline by joining forces.

This worked, but only on the basis of moving even more to the right. The alliance leader Frans Timmermans, for example, compared Hamas’ resistance against the Israeli occupation with a “death cult”, contrasting it with a Western “culture of life”.

Other left wing initiatives all suffered severe losses.

In the next weeks and probably months the PVV needs to see whether it can form a government.

Its prominence will turn the spotlight on its other racist candidates as well as Wilders. Forming a government will take a lot of time because all parties now need to appear as if they oppose governing with Wilders. But it could result in a Wilders-led government.

For the Dutch ruling class, Meloni’s government serves as a reassuring example.

The left is in a difficult position, but there are now openings to unite different social movements against the far right. In different cities thousands of people took to the streets in the days after the elections. Rank and file networks in the trade unions are relatively weak, but the movements around climate justice and Palestine give confidence that the left is able to mobilise a lot of people

Ewout van den Berg is head editor of De Socialist, the paper of the International Socialists, sister party of the SWP in the Netherlands

SDLP* councillor appeals for more to be done to tackle hate crime across Ireland


Lillian Seenoi-Barr speaking at last year's Black Lives Matter protests.

Amy Cochrane

Today 

An SDLP councillor who was in Dublin as rioting flared says there are parts of the city she does not feel safe walking in.

Lillian Seenoi Barr also warned that more needs to be done on both sides of the border to protect minority ethnic groups.

Ms Seenoi Barr sits on Derry and Strabane District Council and said that “the smell of burning tyres” welcomed her to Dublin city on Thursday evening.

The chaotic scenes - which involved far-right elements - saw Garda cars, buses and trams set alight, and shops looted and damaged after a knife attack on three children and their care assistant outside a school in the north inner city.

“We were on our way from a meeting in Belfast and on our way, we were being sent videos and voice notes of people saying to stay at home and not to go to the city centre,” she said.

“As soon as we arrived the smell of burning tyres is what welcomed us to the city on the way to our hotel.”

Ms Seenoi Barr said that gardai should have been more prepared and is “surprised” that they did not see this coming.

Speaking on Sunday Politics she pointed out that this kind of behaviour has been visible on the streets for some time.

“It is important to note that many of us saw this coming, there has been an organised group of people instigating fear and violence within our streets against immigrants living in Ireland for some time now and it is very unsettling,” she said.

“It has been very live on social media and visible on our streets where people seeking asylum are being harassed and intimidated by far-right movements.

“In the north we have seen them go to businesses owned by these people as well, it is no surprise for us.

“But we are surprised that the gardai said they were not prepared for it.”

When asked if she would feel safe walking the streets of Dublin tonight, for example, Ms Seenoi Barr said that many people are fearful not just in Dublin, but right across Ireland.

“People are aware there is a voice note circulating on social media calling for people to harm them and kill all the immigrants in this country,” she said.

“It is very unsettling, everyone is living in fear on edge right now.”

Ms Seenoi-Barr added that something needs done to tackle hate crimes across Ireland.

“We have to do something about this, we can’t keep ignoring it and pretending that this is some small minority. It is an organised terrorist group of people wanting to harm immigrants in this country, radicalising young people and encouraging them to harm others and those wanting to live a peaceful life in this country,” she said.

“We have to take action now.

"As politicians we don’t have a hate crime legislation to tackle this, in the north or south of Ireland, we do not have a strategy to protect minority ethnic people and now we need to step up now.”

*SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY

How Europe’s far-right is using the Gaza war to whip up divisions against faith communities

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Today

The October 7 atrocities promise political gains for the far-right across Europe, which has been boosted by Geert Wilders' – aka the ‘Dutch Trump’ - gains in the Netherlands.

Right-Wing Watch

Veteran anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders’ dramatic gains in the Dutch elections this week sent shockwaves across Europe, where far-right ideology is on the rise.

Known as the “Dutch Trump,” partly for his swept-back dyed hairstyle, but more so for his rants against immigrants and Muslims, which have included calling Moroccans “scum” and holding competitions for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Wilders has built a career from his self-appointed mission to stop an “Islamic invasion” of the West. Among his promises is to move the Dutch embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in a show of support for the Netherlands’ “close friend and the one true democracy in the Middle East.”

Nationalist and far-right leaders around Europe were quick to praise Wilders’ achievement. In France, Marine Le Pen said it “confirms the growing attachment to the defence of national identities.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, sent his praise, saying: “The winds of change are here! Congratulations.”

Since the Hamas attack on October 7, it has been suggested that these hard-right European leaders have been using the conflict to stir up divisions against faith communities. Accusations have been made that the demonisation of religious groups is a deliberate ploy by populists to promote their anti-immigrant agenda, and, ultimately, achieve their political goals. And, as so often with the far-right, the hypocrisy is astounding.

In France, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is expected to make her fourth presidency bid in 2027, has been on a mission, to, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz describes, “rebrand the extremist, antisemitic party she inherited from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.”

The Israel-Hamas war presents, according to the Haaretz report, “a glittering opportunity for Europe’s right-wing populists, where leaders like Orbán are pointing to their countries as sanctuaries for Jews and Christians.”

Jean-Marie Le Pen was repeatedly convicted of antisemitic hate speech. The founder of the then National Front party also played down the scope of the Holocaust.

Recognising the need to scrub the party’s image, Le Pen kicked her father out of the party and changed its name from the National Front to the National Rally. In an attempt to ‘cleanse’ her party further, on November 12, the leader attended a march in Paris against rising antisemitism in France. Her presence attracted a cacophony of criticism, with critics saying it was an attempt to leverage the Israel/Hamas war to make herself more palatable to mainstream voters. Critics also argued that despite growing political legitimacy, the once-pariah party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage.

French government spokesman Olivier Veran said that Marine Le Pen’s party “does not have a place” at what is dubbed as a “grand civic march.”

Through fears that the French way of life is being upended by a migrant – mainly Muslim – ‘submersion,’ Marine Le Pen has a long history of anti-Muslim hate speech. In 2015, she appeared in court for allegedly inciting racial hatred over comments that she made during a party rally in Lyon in 2010, when she compared Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation.

Similar opportunistic hypocrisy over faith communities in the wake of the war in Gaza can be found within the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Founded in 2013, the AfD is known for its Euroscepticism, and for opposing immigration in Germany. Felix Flein, who was appointed as Germany’s antisemitism commissioner in 2018, has accused the AfD of condoning antisemitism and backing forces that have sought to downplay the Holocaust.

He accused the party of wanting to ban the kosher slaughter of meat. “If the AfD wants to curtail Jewish dietary laws, that is a threat to Jewish life,” Klein told DW.

But as Haaretz reports, the recent devastation in Gaza has resulted in the AfD seizing the moment to “shelve its antisemitism, at least in public, and unleash instead its unabashed Islamophobic agenda.”

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán has shown just how confused the hard right can become about all those groups they hate. A recently unveiled billboard campaign raised concerns that the far-right Hungarian prime minister is returning to using antisemitic tropes to further his political goals at home.

In 2019, a controversial campaign funded by the Hungarian government, took aim at the Hungarian-American businessman George Soros (a familiar villain among the Right) and then-European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker. The campaign prompted the commission to accuse Budapest of promoting a conspiracy theory.

Orbán appears to be returning to a familiar strategy, with the unveiling of a billboard showing Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, and Alex Soros, current chair of the world’s largest human rights funder, the Open Society Foundations, and son of George Soros. The slogan on the billboards, which are part of a so-called national consultation “on the defence of our sovereignty,” reads: “Let’s not dance to their tune.”

The new campaign has renewed concerns that the Hungarian government is promoting antisemitic narratives. Attila Ara-Kovács, a member of the European parliament from Hungary’s opposition Democratic Coalition party, warns:

“Orbán tried to undermine Juncker by linking him to Soros, now he’s trying to do that with Soros’ son and von der Leyen.”

“The European Commission led by von der Leyen is too soft” on Orbán, the parliamentarian said, adding that the Hungarian government’s behaviour was “antisemitic and anti-EU.”

Following the unveiling of the propaganda campaign against Soros, Orbán’s newfound solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people has been called into question, not surprisingly.

Over the past decade, Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu have formed what has been described as a “fruitful political partnership.”

In a special report on the Israeli and Hungarian prime ministers, Haaretz describes the parallels between the two men as “astonishing.” It informs how the pair have known each other for over a decade, sharing a web of political contacts and advisers reaching from Jerusalem to Washington.

“They have given each other advice on political messaging – including on what phrases to use in speeches,” said one senior Israeli official.

The roots of Orbán’s strong bond with Israel and its prime minister have been scrutinised in the wake of the current conflict in the Middle East. In a report on the relationship between the two leaders, Balkin Insight argues: “Hungary’s solidarity with Israel may seem contradictory in light of its propaganda against US billionaire Soros and the historical antisemitic figures in the Fidesz party’s intellectual milieu.”

Rafaela Dancygier, a Princeton University political scientist, has voiced similar concerns, warning that the Hamas October 7 atrocities promise political gains for the far-right across Europe.

“They allow these parties to demonise Muslims in Europe and to advocate for severe immigration restrictions – which they have been doing all along, but now just with added ammunition,” she explains. But there is a twist.

“To some, the far right now appears more respectable than the far left,” where several prominent figures have hailed Hamas’ October 7 massacre, or at least cast it as legitimate resistance,” she says.

In Britain, where, as we know, a cohort of right-wing Tory MPs stand beside Viktor Orbán (Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh quite literally at a gathering in Budapest), similar hypocrisy involving earlier demonisation and recent lauding of faith communities among the Right, has been evident in recent weeks.

In the strange topsy turvey post-October 7 world, traditional homes of anti-semitism have now taken up the pro-Israel cause. The Daily Mail, for example, backed Hitler and Mosley in the 1930s and opposed Jewish immigration. For the Mail in 1930, Hitler, his party and their success, represented the “birth of Germany as a nation.” In 1934, the newspaper ran with the headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” in an article celebrating Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists (BUF). The piece was authored by Lord Rothermere, the then owner of the Daily Mail, who praised Mosley and the Blackshirts, seeing them as the correct party to “take over responsibility for [British] national affairs.”

Since the recent conflict in Gaza broke out, the same newspaper has been decidedly pro-Israel, with reports elevating pro-Israel rallies, while deriding the pro-Palestine ‘mob.’ Sharing similar language as the former home secretary Suella Braverman, the right-wing papers seized on the pro-Palestine marches, presenting them as a symbolic attack on British values.

And look who the Express gunned for this week… George Soros, the same figure targeted by Vitkor Orban’s new campaign which has sparked concerns that the Hungarian government is promoting antisemitic narratives. The Express’ ‘exclusive’ report takes aim at Soros’ apparent funding of openDemocracy, and backing of a recent “Break Up of Britain?” conference in Edinburgh.

Sadly, in Britain, which is home to a successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, both antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes have risen since October 7, as they have around the world.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warns against the “inflammatory, toxic and hateful rhetoric” that has been “used by political leaders.”

Thankfully our home secretary was, eventually, sacked for what was seen as provoking far-right hostility by using incendiary terms like ‘hate marchers’ and ‘mobs.’ But her inflammatory narrative lives on within right-wing political and media circles.

It could be argued that right-wing factions are being noisily pro-Israel to deliberately create divisions and chaos inside Labour. A ploy which seems to be working.

As we know, the Tories’ ratings in the polls are dismal, but as Haaretz argues in a report on how the Israel/Hamas war is rattling British politics, the conflict is “far more resonant and convulsive for the riding-high-in-the polls Labour.”

In resolutely resisting demands for a ceasefire from his own constituencies, instead calling for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities, Starmer has been hit by an internal rebellion, with eight frontbenchers resigning over his position.

Naturally, the right-wing press has seized the opportunity to exaggerate Labour’s divisions over Gaza. ‘Shots fired Sir Keir Starmer civil war erupts as Sadiq Khan and Anas Sarwar join Labour MPs defying him by calling for a ceasefire,’ was a recent headline in the Sun.

The damage done to Britain over 13 years of Tory rule is undeniable, and the Gaza war does offer a distraction from the Tories’ appalling governance. More cynically still, it could be argued, it gives them the chance to demonise Muslims, who historically have been more likely to vote Labour.

Europe’s far-right may have been given a boost by Geert Wilders’ gains in the Netherlands, but strangely, Britain, where neofascism does not have widespread appeal, could emerge as a model against the populist tide. Maybe, just maybe, the sacking of a hard-right home secretary, shows that a more centrist tradition in the Conversative Party still just about breathes. That, together with people’s continued support for the right to protest, might mark a slight turn in the tide. At least we can live in hope.

Right-Wing Media Watch – Tory press glorify Hunt’s ‘cynical’ tax cuts

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement dominated the front pages this week and if you paid too much attention to the Tory newspapers, you could be mistaken in thinking that he was on the side of working people.

‘New Year’s Wayhey,’ splashed the Sun. ‘We’ve delivered on triple lock to protect you,’ effused the Express. ‘Biggest tax cuts since the 1980s,’ raved both the Mail and the Telegraph, seizing the words spoken by Hunt during the statement.

Their reports of course made no reference to reactions by the unions, which all agreed that it was a politically motivated attempt to bolster the party’s dismal poll ratings while noting how investment in public services – which are on their knees – failed to get a mention.

In fact, the whole budget depends on five years of projected public expenditure cuts for ‘unprotected’ services which includes universities, local government, environmental protection, and above all, welfare.

UNISON leader Christina McAnea summed the Statement up in a few words: “A cynical ploy that won’t fool the public.”

As the poor souls working on the news desks at the right-wing press were under orders to conjure up captions that sold the Statement as something for ordinary people to celebrate, the liberal press offered more truthful analysis. ‘Biggest tax cuts since 1980s’: Who are they kidding?’, asked the Independent’s front page, while the Guardian called the cuts for their timing, saying: “Hunt reveals £20bn in tax cuts as Tories move on to election footing.”

But for Camilla Tominey, the Telegraph’s associate editor, Hunt has pulled a ‘rabbit out of the hat’ in a ‘belated bid to cast a new spell on voters.’

“An impressive feat of prestidigitation,” the PM and Chancellor have performed in “taking the fight to Labour – at last,” Tominey argued.

The bid to cut taxes has long been driven by the right-wing media, and internal Tory dynamics. Who can forget the front page of the Daily Mail following the disastrous Truss/Kwarteng mini budget. “At last, a TRUE Tory budget,” the newspaper gushed.

And we know where the impetus behind Truss’s ‘growth’ strategy came from – a network of think-tanks closely connected to Truss and her advisors. It also left the right-wing, Truss-loving media eating its words.

Only time will tell whether the triumphant claims made in the Tory press this week that Hunt has ‘waved his magic wand’ in the bid to woo voters, will bear any truth.

But given the crisis within the NHS, and with the nation’s schools literally crumbling, perhaps the public would like to see taxes increase so more can be spent on public services? A poll in the summer of 2022 when both Truss and Sunak were promising tax cuts during the Tory leadership race, suggested as much.

You can’t help but feel that Hunt’s bid to revive the Tories’ election chances will prove futile and this week’s grandiose headlines will leave the right-wing press eating their words, again.

As Chris, a 68-year-old from Manchester, told Right-Wing Watch: “Cheers for the pension rise Mr Hunt, but I still won’t be voting for you.”

Woke-bashing of the week – ‘Anti-woke’ columnist fails to gauge mood of country while inciting yet more hatred towards Palestinian cause

“If you ever wanted more evidence that Westminster is dangerously disconnected from the rest of the country, look no further than the events of last week,” wrote Matt Goodwin for the Daily Mail

.

If you ever wanted more evidence of a ‘visible scholar on the hard right,’ as the New Statesman’s Oliver Eagleton described him, getting the current mood of the country wrong in another depressing bid to whip inflammatory rhetoric and hate towards the ‘woke Left,’ and those who support the Palestinian cause, then read the rest of Goodwin’s column.

In the op-ed, entitled: ‘The woke Left and extreme Islamism have joined forces to try and reshape society around values that are deeply divisive and unBritish,’ Goodwin, a professor of politics, argues against the sacking of Suella Braverman. Most people in Britain are ‘absolutely convinced’ that our borders of ‘out of control,’ as “an assortment of activist lawyers, pressure groups and unelected judges, cheered on by the radical woke Left, blocked the only thing that might deter people against entering the country illegally,” he wrote.

“With Braverman gone, no frontline politician is left to voice the concerns of the vast majority of voters on issues such as immigration, multiculturalism and the breakdown of our borders.

“Nor is there anyone who will take on the two big threats that are rapidly undermining our shared identity, history, values and culture. And what are these threats to Britain, exactly?,” he asked, before pointing to the “hundred or so rallies held across the country as part of the ‘Palestinian Day of Action.’

Since when was calling for a ceasefire and peace considered ‘unBritish’ and against British values’? Adding to the insult is the fact that the majority of pro-Palestine marches in Britain have passed off peacefully, and it’s been far-right counter protestors who have predominantly caused disturbance, incited by the type of language Goodwin is using to frame his argument.

But for Goodwin, who has previously spewed out anti-woke insults, having condemned the ‘woke BBC’ for apparently suggesting much of the country want to see our borders flung open,” recent events are an example of, “The woke Left and radical Islamism are not just feeding off one another but are, together, undermining British values that have prevailed for centuries.”

Not only is coupling the ‘woke Left’ and ‘radical Islamism’ deliberately provocative and potentially inciteful, despite not really making sense, but the article fails to acknowledge the true mood of the country. Polling shows that most people (57 percent to 20 percent) think the sacking of Braverman was the right thing to do. That’s true even among Tory voters, though to a lesser extent (44 percent to 39 percent). Goodwin also ignores that the majority of people in Britain want to see a ceasefire in Gaza, as polling also shows, AND how the Supreme Court’s decision to stop the deportation of immigrants to Rwanda, has been widely praised in Britain.

Seemingly void of any fact-checking practices, it’s no wonder Wikipedia once voted to ban the Daily Mail as a reference on its site, citing a reputation for ‘poor fact checking and sensationalism.’

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The Wood Theft Laws and the beginnings of Marxism

Submitted by Zac Muddle

 14 November, 2023 - 

 Author: John Cunningham

https://www.workersliberty.org/

LONG READ

Introduction

In the Ariège Department in Pyrenean France, between 1829 – 1831, men dressed up as women revolted against their landowners in what became known, curiously, as the ‘Girl’s War’ or ‘Maidens’ War’ (Guerre Des Demoiselles). 

They were trying to protect their long held right to forage for firewood and graze their animals in the forests. A new forestry code passed in 1827 denied them this right and the rebellion spread across the region with many pitched battles taking place. So strong was feeling amongst the local populace that it became difficult to recruit anyone for the mayoralty lest they became ‘tainted’ with the detested new laws. The resistance of the ‘Maidens’ continued sporadically until 1872. Around the same time, over in the Rhineland, a part of Prussia, peasants hired a local Advocate (roughly equivalent to a lawyer in the British legal system), one Heinrich Marx of Trier, to fight a court case on their behalf in an attempt to affirm and uphold their long held right to collect firewood from the forests around Koblenz. The legal proceedings ran on for a staggering 27 years (outlasting Heinrich by seven years), prompting his slightly more famous son, Karl, (left) to write a series of articles in a liberal-radical newspaper (Rheinische Zeitung, RZ) about what became known as the Wood Theft Laws. What connects these two historical events, separated by geography and a few years? The answer is simple and complex at the same time: in both cases rural communities were denied a long established right to help themselves to firewood from the forests and surrounding woods. It sounds unimportant, trivial even, yet it became a burning issue – if somewhat localised – of the time, evoked much controversy and was indicative of wider and deeper trends. It was also important for the political development of the young Karl Marx.

All over Europe ideas and practices about ownership and inherited rights were in flux as economic needs, modes of production and demographic patterns changed. The last vestiges of feudalism were being erased and replaced by the new, dynamic yet more brutal mode of capitalism. The court case pursued by Heinrich Marx began when Karl was only nine yet it ran on into his adulthood and, in total he wrote five articles for the Rheinische Zeitung on this issue, all in 1842. It was not the first of his forays into radical journalism but it was one of the most important for the future author of The Communist Manifesto, written at a time when ‘Marxism’ was unheard of and the word ‘communism’ was being used for the first time in Germany. The young journalist from Trier, on the banks of the Moselle, considered himself a radical liberal, certainly not a communist or any of those other new-fangled labels that were just starting to circulate and soon to become common currency in Europe and elsewhere, particularly in the period leading up to the revolutions of 1848-9 and beyond. Socialist and communist thought (the two terms were interchangeable at this time) began to take root in Germany in 1842 starting with a key publication: Lorenz von Stein’s ‘The Socialism and Communism of Present Day France’. This book had strange origins particularly in light of the role it would later play. It was originally commissioned by the Prussian government and planned as a report on the influence of leftist ideas among German immigrant workers in Paris. Stein was no socialist but inadvertently his book became widely read and helped spread the ideas of socialism in Germany (no doubt to the embarrassment of the Prussian government).

Throughout Europe, for generations, those who worked on the land (loosely labelled as ‘peasants’, although this was not in any sense a homogenous class), had certain rights. In England these rights went as far back as the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). For our purposes there were two main elements to this entitlement: firstly, the right to access common land to graze pigs and cattle and secondly the right to access the forests to gather firewood for domestic use. In some areas wood-burning to make charcoal was also included in these rights although the charcoal burners and wood gatherers would occasionally clash. The situation varied from place to place: killing a deer generally brought severe retaliations from landowners but catching the odd rabbit for the pot was sometimes allowed, likewise fishing in rivers was permitted in some areas but banned in others. Collecting the ‘fruits of the forest’ (mushrooms, berries, nuts etc.) was also part of this complex and varied but well-established package of rights. There were other activities such as gleaning (scouring fields after the harvest for left-over grain

‘The Gleaners’ (Les Glaneuses) by Jean Francois Millet, completed in 1857. Gleaning, although somewhat outside of the terms of our discussion, was another ancient right which came under attack from farmers and landowners and was fiercely contested by the French peasantry. The practice continues to this day and modern day gleaners can also be found in those groups who search the ‘waste’ bins of supermarkets to procure foodstuffs which are still edible, as depicted in Agnes Varda’s film The Gleaners and I (2000).

And other crops such as grapes left on the vine) which existed as long-established rights and they too came under attack. The extent to which the peasantry relied on these rights to survive (particularly in times of a bad harvest or a harsh winter) is hard to assess but it can be said with some certainty that the right to gather wood for the home fire was essential for heating and cooking, without which life would be grim indeed. The erosion of the right of access to common land and the forests was fiercely contested. Peasants would often engage in stand-up fights with the landowners and their stewards and bailiffs and it was not unusual for the military or police to be called in to crack open a few peasant skulls. In one notorious instance in the village of Newton on 8 June 1607 in Northamptonshire, England, over 40 villagers were killed in fighting. While this was an exceptional case, deaths were not uncommon. The erosion of commons rights was an issue, but not the main one in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and was a central motivating element in the Jack Cade Revolt of 1450 and Kett’s Rebellion of 1549 (all in England). It was also a concern of the Levellers and Diggers during the period of the English Revolution. In Scotland the Highland Clearances (roughly 1750-1850) took on an exceptionally brutal aspect as whole families were forced off their land to make way for sheep rearing, many being forced to emigrate to North America.

In Switzerland, herdsmen take their cattle to the commons for summer grazing. From ‘A Short History of Enclosure’ by Simon Fairlie in The Land No. 7. Summer 2009.

In England, common land was closed off mainly for sheep grazing in order to supply the growing and extremely lucrative wool trade. By the reign of Henry V (1413-1422) around 63% of the Crown’s total income came from a tax on wool exports. Wool was big business – the commons simply got in the way. It was a long process and there had already been many enclosures before the first enclosure facilitated by an Act of Parliament in 1604 (there were others). In practice, this meant that a landowner had simply to apply for an enclosure to Parliament and it was usually granted. Many more applications were to follow, over 5,200 individual cases. To take just one of a myriad of examples: the last enclosure in the Sheffield area occurred in 1837 when 1,200 acres in the district of Totley were enclosed. The last enclosure in Britain, astonishingly, occurred as late as 1914! On mainland Europe the seizure of the commons did not always lead to such confrontational and bloody showdowns as at Newton but nevertheless the peasantry of the Rhineland, France, Sicily (which enclosed its commons in 1789) and elsewhere fought to protect their ancient rights, whether through the courts or through guerilla warfare, acts of sabotage or open conflict. The resort to the courts, as in the Rhineland, was unusual as legal cases were often too expensive a course to pursue and, of course, the judges were frequently drawn from the landowning class. This was not a time for the faint-hearted, many were prepared to stand up and fight for what they saw as their inalienable rights and death threats were not unusual, though it is not possible to know how many were actually ever carried out. The anonymous sentiments expressed below were probably not that usual, though in this particular case, the Lord of the Manor, wasn’t gunned down in the street.

Anonymous letter received by John Edward Dorington (and his son) Lord of the Manor, Gloucestershire, England, in 1864:

‘You are robbing the working class of the Parish and their offspring for ever in fact you are not gentlemen but robbers and vagabonds, however if it [the common land] is enclosed you shall never receive any benefit thereby as there are several on the lookout for you both and so help my God I am on the alert for you and if I have one chance of you I will shoot you as dead as mortal.’

To put it simply: firewood ceased to be something you picked up on the floor of a nearby forest and took home; it became a commodity to be sold on the market, as explained by Karl Kautsky in the first of his two volume work The Agrarian Question, written in 1899,


Once urbanisation had made wood into a desirable commodity – and in the absence of coal or iron a much more important building material and fuel than now – the feudal lords tried to grab forest lands, either by taking them off the Mark [German village with a strong communal ethos] communities to whom they belonged, or, where they themselves owned them, by restricting peasant access for the collection of wood and straw for grazing. (Kautsky 24)

As in Britain this was no recent development. Over 350 years before Kautsky put pen to paper, the rebellious peasants of the 1525 Peasant War, issued a famous statement of their beliefs. The peasants, ill-equipped and with little or no military training, were slaughtered at the Battle of Frankenhauser (15 May 1525) but they left to posterity their famous Twelve Articles, drawing attention to their ancient rights such as wood gathering and couched in the religious idiom of the time. The famous leader of the peasants, Thomas Muntzer did not write this but he penned a supporting document, The Constitutional Draft. Sections four and five of the Twelve Articles read as follows:

The Fourth Article. – In the fourth place it has been the custom heretofore, that no poor man should be allowed to catch venison or wild fowl or fish in flowing water, which seems to us quite unseemly and unbrotherly as well as selfish and not agreeable to the word of God. In some places the authorities preserve the game to our great annoyance and loss, recklessly permitting the unreasoning animals to destroy to no purpose our crops which God suffers to grow for the use of man, and yet we must remain quiet. This is neither godly or neighbourly. For when God created man he gave him dominion over all the animals, over the birds of the air and over the fish in the water. Accordingly it is our desire if a man holds possession of waters that he should prove from satisfactory documents that his right has been unwittingly acquired by purchase. We do not wish to take it from him by force, but his rights should be exercised in a Christian and brotherly fashion. But whosoever cannot produce such evidence should surrender his claim with good grace.

The Fifth Article. – In the fifth place we are aggrieved in the matter of wood-cutting, for the noble folk have appropriated all the woods to themselves alone. If a poor man requires wood he must pay double for it (or, perhaps, two pieces of money). It is our opinion in regard to wood which has fallen into the hands of a lord whether spiritual or temporal, that unless it was duly purchased it should revert again to the community. It should, moreover, be free to every member of the community to help himself to such fire-wood as he needs in his home. Also, if a man requires wood for carpenter’s purposes he should have it free, but with the knowledge of a person appointed by the community for that purpose. Should, however, no such forest be at the disposal of the community let that which has been duly bought be administered in a brotherly and Christian manner. If the forest, although unfairly appropriated in the first instance, was later duly sold let the matter be adjusted in a friendly spirit and according to the Scriptures.

The historian Christopher Clark in his monumental study of 1848-9, Revolutionary Spring, highlights how the enclosures and wood theft laws closed down the open spaces previously accessible to the rural population. The forest skirmishes and land battles in pre-1848 Europe were ‘… often (though not always) rearguard actions against the more homogenous and spatially delimited forms of ownership that would become characteristic of modern society’. (Clark 88) Clark’s academic language should not be allowed to hide the brutal reality of what this meant: hunger, starvation, immiseration and death for thousands of rural people throughout Europe.


In the Rhineland

In Prussia (which included the Rhineland) the issue became so toxic that between 1830-1836, 77% of all prosecutions were concerned, in one way or another, with forestry, hunting and pasture rights. Generally speaking peasants had, under the old system of rights, been allowed to gather wood which was lying on the ground. In some cases there were maximum dimensions to the wood which you could pick and cutting down branches was not allowed and could result in a severe penalty. Now, under the increasing restrictions being introduced even this wasn’t permitted. Given the large number of prosecutions it looks as if this policy was energetically policed by the landowners, through their bailiffs, hired hands and the police and then pursued through the courts.

Urban growth in the Rhineland during the 1800s was the fastest in the whole of what was to become Germany in 1871: The figures below show urbanisation rates (in %) between 1815 – 1850 in the Rhineland.

Although these figures are not as great as some areas in Europe they nevertheless indicate an increasing escalation in the urban population. These people had to be fed and they needed fuel for their fires. Urban growth was to have a profound effect on rural life, not least in the drift of the rural population to toil in the workshops and factories now beginning to develop in the new towns and cities; increasingly the rural economy was geared to feeding the urban population and centuries old patterns of agricultural practice were swept away. Marx’s words in the Communist Manifesto, ‘All that was solid melts in the air’ were rarely so appropriate. Wood was now collected by the landowners to be sold on the market in the growing towns and cities. If peasants collected firewood they could not use it for themselves unless they paid for it, or they could sell it to the landowner who in turn would sell it to merchants in the towns, at a profit of course.

Given that his father was the Advocate in the long-running legal battle around the Wood Theft Laws it is hardly surprising that the young Karl Marx became interested in the issue. Marx paid close attention to the debates in the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly about the Wood Theft Laws which took place between 23 May to 25 July. The Rhine Province was created in 1822 from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg; its capital was Koblenz. The Assembly was formed a year later and was hardly democratic. The system of election was based on landownership which gave landowners a comfortable majority when it came to voting. Apparently, he attended all the sessions where the issue was discussed but, for reasons which are not clear, was not supplied with any of the relevant documentation pertaining to the issues raised in the chamber. Fortunately, he was an assiduous note-taker.

He reported, analysed and commented on what he heard in the Rheinische Zeitung (RZ) which had been established in January 1842 with Moses Hess as its editor. In October Marx was appointed to the editorial board. Before looking at what Marx wrote it is worth mentioning that, at this time in his life he was heavily influenced by the German philosopher Hegel who had taught at Berlin University before Marx arrived there. Although Hegel died in November 1831 and Marx arrived in Berlin in October 1836 the Hegelian influence was still very strong. Many of Marx’s early collaborators were Hegelians and he too fell under the spell of this philosopher who did much to shape the intellectual landscape of Germany and other parts of Europe. One result of this philosophical influence is that it renders some of what Marx wrote about the Wood Theft Laws rather abstract. In later years Marx turned away from Hegel (although never totally abandoning him) towards a class analysis based on historical materialism and a concentration on economic analysis as manifested in his monumental study Das Kapital, the first volume being published in German in 1867.

As a contributor and later as an editor on the RZ, Marx addressed a number of issues not least of which was the question of press censorship which was widely practiced at the time and would ultimately signal the death knell for the RZ in 1843. His concern for the Wood Theft Laws could be seen as an element in Marx’s growing awareness of what was often referred to, at the time, as the ‘social question’. There were numerous writings about the social conditions of the newly emergent working class which proliferated in the first half and middle of the 19thC: James Kay, Bettina von Armin, Heinrich Grunholzer, Ange Guépin and Eugene Bonamy were just five of these chroniclers of urban labour, poverty and destitution, to which we must add the classic study, The Condition of the Working Class in England written in 1845 (by which time Marx and his family were living in Belgium) by Marx’s future friend and collaborator Frederick Engels. Hal Draper elaborates,




Concern with the “social question” was not only new, it was the special characteristic of the pioneer socialists and communists whose ranks Marx was still unwilling to join. What was characteristic of these early radicals was that they mostly dissociated the “social question” from the “political question” (gaining freedom in the state) […] It was precisely Marx’s contribution to develop a communism that integrated into one consistent perspective both the battle for political democracy and the struggle on the “social question”. (Draper, Marx’s Theory of Revolution Vol. 1. p. 66)


Marx’s articles in the Rheinische Zeitung

Turning now to what Marx wrote in the RZ about the Wood Theft Laws, it is striking that he expends much energy writing in a mode that, from today’s perspective, could be called satirical (in fact throughout his life Marx displayed an abundant talent for this kind of expression and rarely missed an opportunity to ‘have a go’ at an opponent). He clearly regards the Assembly Deputies as a bunch of idiots and there are many examples of his talent for put-downs and insults, although he mentions no-one by name. Marx’s articles on the Wood Theft Laws are not easy to follow (apart from other considerations he thought the debates were ‘tedious and uninspired’). There are detailed accounts on what constitutes a right, what punishments are appropriate or not and the appointment of Forest Wardens and the role they play; none of which need detain us any further. What follows is an attempt to pick out the main issues and summarise what Marx wrote, not to provide a blow-by-blow account of what transpired in the debating chamber.

His first article (although they are usually referred to as Supplements) appeared in the RZ 298 in 25 Oct. 1842. The other Supplements appeared in No. 300 (27 Oct.), No. 303 (30 Oct.), No. 305 (1 Nov.), No. 307 (3 Nov.). Two main themes soon begin to emerge:

a) the rights of property versus the rights of the people.

b) the relation between the state and the property owner.

One of the key aspects of the wood theft debates is to what extent does an inherited right have over a new law which clearly works to the disadvantage of those who have previously benefitted from the old, well-established practice? Does a new law simply sweep away the old rights? The dynamo of capitalist development was rapidly changing the face of Europe (and the rest of the world would follow), what chance did a relatively small number of peasants in the Rhineland and elsewhere have of maintaining a practice that was perceived by many (particularly landowners) as outmoded and flew in the face of the inexorable march of modernity? What did it matter that a few peasants would have to abandon an age old right and, probably also, at some point, abandon their whole way of life and move to the cities? Why not succumb to the inevitable? Marx did not see it this way, his sympathies were clearly with the wood gatherers.

Marx argued in RZ 300 that ‘Little thought is needed to perceive how one-sidedly enlightened legislation has treated and been compelled to treat the customary rights of the poor…’ (in all quotes from RZ italics are as in the original). The very question of whether wood lying on the floor of the forest was property or not was a matter of debate as was the question, if indeed it was property, to whom did it belong? Marx elaborates,


‘…all customary rights of the poor were based on the fact that certain forms of property were indeterminate in character, for they were definitely not private property, but neither were they definitely not common property being a mixture of public and private right, such as we find in all institutions of the Middle Ages.’

‘Indeterminate’ is a key word here. The wood on the forest floor is not private property (as opposed to the trees themselves). The scattered branches are ‘accidental’ and ‘elemental’ and belong to what Marx called ‘occupation rights’, in other words to ‘those excluded from all other property’ (in this case the peasantry). Marx likened the loose wood to the ‘alms of nature’ and just as the poor could claim alms (money or food distributed to the destitute) which were given out in the street, so they could claim branches and twigs lying on the forest floor. The wood becomes an ‘accidental appendage of property’. The landowners were having none of this – an attitude starkly illustrated by the apparently innocuous practice of picking berries in the forests. Traditionally, this task was left to children and was another long-established customary right. The landowners did away with this practice and the berries too became part of the monopoly of the landowning class. As a Deputy explained in the Assembly and quoted by Marx ‘…in his area these berries have already become articles of commerce and are dispatched to Holland by the barrel.’

What was particularly striking to Marx was the way the Wood Theft Laws represented the power of the landowners over the elements of the state at both regional and local level. The authority of the state has become a servant of the landowners, ‘All the organs of the state become the ears, eyes, arms, legs by means of which the forest owner, observes, appraises, protects, reaches out, and runs.’ (RZ 303) Marx continued on this theme in RZ 305, ‘What then are the harmful results? Harmful is that which is harmful to the interest of the forest owner.’ The Deputies even discussed taking punishment out of the hands of the law and, in effect, giving it to the landowner. The possibility arose of making a convicted wood thief work (unpaid of course) for the landowner meaning that the landowner would actually profit from the activity of the wood thief. In this way crime would ‘pay’ twice over but only for the landowner. Marx, evoking the spirit of Jonathan Swift, commented, ‘We are only surprised that the forest owner is not allowed to heat his stove with wood thieves.’

In his final article on the Wood Theft Laws (RZ, 307 3 Nov. 1842) Marx attempted to sum up the situation. Private interest (i.e. of the landowners/capitalists) was paramount, all else was subordinate, ‘Our account has shown the Assembly degrades the executive power, the administrative authorities, the life of the accused, the idea of the state, crime itself and punishment as well, to material means of private interest.’ Considering that his father was a legal Advocate it must also have impressed itself upon the young Marx how the law was ‘outvoted’ by the Assembly Deputies. The principles of law, supposedly so sacrosanct to the ruling classes, were sacrificed to the interest of forest protection, for the sole benefit of the landowners,


This abject materialism, this sin against the holy spirit of the people and humanity, is an immediate consequence of the doctrine which the Preussische Staats-Zeitung [Prussian State Gazette – an official publication] preached to the legislator, namely that in connection with the law concerning wood he should think only of wood and forest and should solve each material problem in a non-political way, i.e. without any connection with the whole of the reason and morality of the state.’

The relationship of the state and local authority to the landowner was one which Marx had not yet fully worked out; this would come later beginning in 1843 with some critical notes on Hegel and The German Ideology (written in 1845-6 but not published till much later). At the time Marx has no developed analysis of the state and he expects the state authorities to defend the wood gatherers, which of course, is precisely what did not happen. Another crucial aspect of Marx’s thought, which he is only just beginning to understand, is the notion of class. He does not talk about the working class in his articles on wood theft although he does refer to the poor as the ‘elemental class of human society’. He sees in the poor many virtues and here we can also locate an area where Marx moved away from Hegel. The latter was utterly disdainful of the poor who he referred to as Pöbel (usually translated into English as ‘rabble’). All in all, Marx’s writings on the Wood Theft Laws were important stepping stones in his political development, as mentioned by Hal Draper, ‘His article on the Wood Theft Laws anticipated his critique of Hegel: the Diet debases the state officialdom into “material interests of private interests.” His article on the Moselle peasants emphasised the narrowmindedness of the bureaucratic mentality’. Much later, when Marx was dead, Engels, writing to R. Fischer in 1895, made much the same point, ‘I heard Marx say again and again that it was precisely through concerning himself with the wood theft laws and with the situation of the Moselle peasants that he was shunted from pure politics over to economic conditions, and thus came to socialism.’

The Rhineland at this time, although developing quickly was not a place where the industrial bourgeoisie yet held sway and in Germany as a whole, even after 1871, landowners, nobility and the new bourgeoisie all vied for control while keeping an eye over their shoulder at the growing proletariat in the cities. One key aspect of Bismarck’s rule was his attempt, not always successful, to play-off one class or section of a class, against another and later Marx and Engels were to regard his regime as Bonapartist in the same way (though not exactly) as the Bonapartism of the the great Napoleon’s less illustrious, nephew Louis. In time, Germany was to develop as one of the industrial powerhouses of the world, defeating France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, flexing its imperial muscles overseas (in Morocco for example), building a navy, a large army and gearing up for the First World War. None of which would have been possible without a powerful, highly productive industrial base. In this complex and unstoppable process the needs and rights of the Rhineland peasants were swept aside.



Sources and notes:

For general background reading there are a number of biographies of Marx which mention, in varying degrees of depth (and quality), his engagement with the Wood Theft Laws and, although it is not a biography, Hal Draper’s Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution Vol. 1. particularly chap. 2. ‘The Political Apprentice’ is excellent. The reference to the ‘Girls’ War’ or ‘Maidens’ War’ can be found in The Revolutionary Spring by Christopher Clark. The full text of the five ‘Wood Theft’ articles by Marx in the RZ can be found in various sources, I used the Marxist Internet Archive website which was also useful for footnotes giving background information (social makeup etc.) to the Assembly. For general background to issues around the question of land, land rights, enclosures etc. the journal The Land proved invaluable; the information about enclosures in Sheffield came from an article by Peter Harvey in the website our Broomhall.org.uk in 1982. The text of the threatening anonymous letter to John Edward Dorington can be found in a review by Dinah Birch of Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters by Emily Cockayne in London Review of Books, 21 Sept. 2023. Karl Kautsky’s classic study The Agrarian Question was published in English (for the first time) in two volumes by Zwan Publications in 1988. The Twelve Articles can be easily found on various websites. Some ideas about Marx and Hegel were derived from Draper (see previous reference) and ‘The Virtue of Poverty: Karl Marx’s Transformation of Hegel’s Concept of the Poor by Erica Sherover, Canadian Journal of Political Social Theory Vol. 3. No. 1 (Winter 1979) pp 53-66. Figures for urban growth in the Rhineland came from: ‘Population Growth and Urbanisation in Germany in the 19th Century’, Jurgen Reulecke in Urbanism Past and Present. No. 4. (Summer, 1977) pp 21-32. Engels’ letter to R. Fischer (15 April, 1895) is quoted in Draper, see previous reference p. 75.

Note on a source not used: For various reasons I was not able to locate a copy of Daniel Bensaїd’s The Dispossessed: Karl Marx’ Debates on Wood Theft and the Rights of the Poor (University of Minnessota Press, Minneapolis, 2021). However, I understand that Bensaїd’s text uses Marx’s writings on wood theft primarily to discuss various issues arising in the 21st century and this is outside the remit of my basic introduction to the topic. Bensaїd was a highly respected theoretician and activist long associated with the international Trotskyist movement who died in 2010. A beautifully written assessment of his life and work can be found in chapter 11 of Paul Le Blanc’s Revolutionary Collective: Comrades, Critics, and Dynamics in the Struggle for Socialism (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2022).

Cover illustration: Peasants on a path in the forest (oil on panel, painted in 1626) by Jasper van de Lanen of Antwerp (1585-1634).

India Labour Solidarity ups activity

 22 November, 2023

Author: Mohan Sen


The India Labour Solidarity campaign (ILS), established late 2022, has been active on several fronts.

On 15 November ILS held an event at Parliament, organised with socialist MP Nadia Whittome and NGO Trade Justice Movement, to discuss a potential UK-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The event briefed MPs, parliamentary staff, trade unionists and others on the issues and made the case for negotiations to be suspended, a position supported by the TUC but not campaigned for in the labour movement.

Another organisation participating in the 15 November event was Unau Welfare, representing members of the Kuki-Zo tribal community, which is experiencing brutal persecution in the eastern Indian state of Manipur. ILS has been working extensively with Unau Welfare to raise awareness of Manipur in the UK.

The campaign recently helped launch a statement in support of Bellsonica workers in Haryana state, auto components workers whose union is being attacked for attempting to organise agency workers.

ILS promoted, participated in and reported on the 1 October demonstration by garment workers in Leicester, predominantly of Indian heritage or origin, fighting against job losses and for improved wages and conditions in the industry.

The campaign tries to make opposition to caste discrimination and caste oppression central to its work. It has been working with the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance to launch a new initiative seeking to raise caste in the UK labour movement, chairing its first public event on 25 October.

On 27 October ILS co-sponsored a meeting on outsourcing of workers and systemic racism with the IWGB union and Black Lives Matter UK. On 22 November an ILS comrade is speaking about India at a Workers’ Liberty meeting in Sheffield.

The campaign has also attended Gaza demonstrations, and promoted statements from Indian unions opposing the war.

• See the ILS website for model motions, briefings, etc. and here to sign up for updates.

Community fights for elderly Indian woman facing deportation from UK

Gurmit Kaur (78) came to the UK in 2009 and was initially living with her son. After becoming estranged from her family, she has been relying on the kindness of strangers.

Gurmit Kaur came to the UK in 2009 and applied to stay but has been refused even though she has no family to return to in Punjab. (Screengrab from @iamgurmitkaur on Instagram)

Press Trust of India
London,

UPDATED: Nov 26, 2023 
Posted By: Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam

The case of an elderly Indian Sikh woman, which first came to light back in 2019, has continued to attract widespread community support in the West Midlands region of England as her supporters fight against her deportation.

Gurmit Kaur, 78, came to the UK in 2009 and Smethwick has been home to her ever since, reads an online petition attracting over 65,000 signatures since it was launched in July 2020.

More recently, “We Are All Gurmit Kaur” has been running across social media as the local community continues to rally around the widow.

“Gurmit Kaur has no family to turn to in the UK and no family to return to in Punjab, so the local Sikh community of Smethwick have adopted her,” reads the petition on Change.Org.

“Gurmit applied to stay but has been refused even though she has no family to return to in Punjab, India. Gurmit is a very kind woman, even though she has nothing she is still generous and will always give what she can, when she can. Most of her days are spent volunteering at the local gurdwara,” it reads.

The UK Home Office maintains that Kaur was still in contact with people in her home village in Punjab and would be able to re-adjust to life there.

Salman Mirza, an immigration advisor for the Brushstroke Community Project who started the petition and is among those helping Kaur through the visa appeals process, told the BBC that her ordeal has been like torture for her.

"She has a derelict house in the village, with no roof and would have to find heating, food, and resources in a village she hasn't been to in 11 years. It's like water torture, it's like a slow death, she's never had the right to work and provide for herself," he said.

A Home Office spokesperson said that while it cannot comment on individual cases, "all applications are carefully considered on their individual merits and on the basis of the evidence provided".

Kaur first travelled to the UK in 2009 to attend a wedding and was initially living with her son.

After becoming estranged from her family, she went on to rely on the kindness of strangers. She has widespread support within her local community where she regularly volunteers at local charities.