PALESTINE’S ONGOING NAKBA

October 15, 2023

Gaza is home to a dense population – approximately 2.3 million people in a stretch of land 25 miles long and 6 miles wide. Normally, most Gazans can’t leave this enclave. It has become the world’s largest open-air prison.

Since Saturday October 7th Israel has dropped more than 6,000 bombs in Gaza, something it proudly boasts. No regrets. But on Friday October 13th, in northern Gaza, for a moment the bombs stopped; in their place hundreds of thousands of leaflets silently floated to the ground.


(Source: Twitter)

It was an eerie sight. Starting as white specs against a pure blue-sky, they floated over damaged rooftops and glided past destroyed buildings, before landing on blackened debris and smashed rubble and blood-stained streets. For a moment you could be fooled into thinking angels were descending from heaven to collect Gaza’s murdered. But not even angels are permitted into this part of besieged Palestine.

The leaflets were an eviction order notifying the residents of North Gaza and Gaza City, approximately 1.1 million people, to move south beyond Wadi Gaza, a river valley in the centre of Gaza.

Gaza City is the most populated city in the Palestinian state and emptying it is like asking the US to vacate New York. And in the way that New York is symbolic for Americans, Gaza City holds an emotional significance in the Palestinian psyche. Abandoning this place will be traumatic – staying will be fatal. This heart-breaking choice has plagued Palestinians for generations and is responsible for shrinking their homeland to a meagre twenty-two percent of its pre-colonised self.

(Source: Dawnmena.org)

The cycle of violent land theft and forced eviction of Palestinians began in 1948 when Palestine was partitioned displacing between 750,000 to 1 million Palestinians, or about 70% of the Indigenous population. The partition was carried out under the auspice of the United Nations and would probably be considered illegal today as it was ‘contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and their natural right to their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.’ This catastrophe, or Nakba in Arabic, is commemorated every May 15th. In the most bizarre twist, the United Nations itself began commemorating the Nakba in 2023 so it could memorialise the ‘mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 that coincided with the founding of Israel.’ The irony of such a gesture seemed to be lost on all but the Palestinians.

Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, legislator, activist, and scholar. She has drawn praise from Mary Robinson, the former United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, and from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and she is vocal about the injustices inflicted on Palestine and its people. In 2001 Ashrawi gave a speech at the United Nations where she explained how the Nakba wasn’t in fact a single event but a process which holds Palestine hostage to the persistence of colonialism, apartheid, and racism. She called this the ‘on-going Nakba.’

Yesterday Israel ordered the part evacuation of another sovereign state; Palestine is recognised by 137 out of a 193 countries, and did so through threat and intimidation. It is forcibly displacing a population towards Gaza’s already heavily crowded southern border. Beyond that border is Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula – an expanse of desert, largely vacant of inhabitants. It’s tough terrain and would make for harsh living. And it’s the sort of place where people are easily forgotten.

On Friday September 23rd of this year Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations General Assembly. About halfway through his twenty-five-minute speech he raises a map. It is A3 in size and outlines the Middle East. The territory of Israel is marked in solid black and completely consumes Gaza. It’s like Gaza never existed. A land and its 2.3 million people vanished.

(Source: @ShahadehAbou)

I always hoped Ashrawi’s nightmare of a never-ending Nakba was metaphorical, but I worry it’s about to be enacted again – this time across the Sinai Peninsula. I wonder how the United Nations will commemorate this catastrophe in the coming years?

©2023 Sul Nowroz

Six reasons why you should support Palestine
Key arguments about the Israeli state and the Palestinian resistance

By Sophie Squire
Sunday 15 October 2023

SOCIALIST WORKER

Issue 2877

Tens of thousands on the streets of London on Saturday stand with Palestine (Picture: Guy Smallman)

1. Israel was formed out of imperialism

Britain played a crucial role in creating Israel in the interests of its Empire. In 1917, Tory foreign secretary Arthur Balfour publicly pledged to recognise a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Colonising Palestine was part of Britain’s project to reshape its influence after the fall of the powerful Ottoman Empire and the First World War.

Sir Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor of Jerusalem, said the Zionist state would be a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”

These political aims also served to satisfy the plans of the Zionist movement, which had begun to emerge in the late 19th century.

To escape the violence of European ruling classes, Zionists argued that Jewish people would only be safe in an exclusively Jewish state. Palestine, with its historic and religious roots, was just one suggestion.

Other possible locations for a new state included areas in Argentina, Uganda, Azerbaijan, and “empty” land in the US.

Zionism, which many Jewish people rejected, was never about seeking sanctuary for Jewish people. It has always been a colonial project to create a state where Jews are the majority, which is only possible through the expulsion of any other people from the land.

The Balfour Agreement allowed British Zionist administrators to implement these colonial plans. One of these architects of colonisation was the first British high commissioner in Palestine Herbert Samuel.

As commissioner of Palestine from 1920, he passed a series of laws that allowed Zionist settlers to seize land from Palestinians.

From 1919 to 1923, the number of Jewish settlers doubled. The British colonists established the Department of Commerce and Industry to offer generous ­long‑term loans to Jewish businessmen and farmers.

2. Zionism meant ethnic cleansing

The new Zionist state developed a systematic plan to grab Palestinian land and ensure a Jewish majority.

At least 850,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes during the Nakba, meaning Catastrophe. Half of their villages and towns were “wiped out, leaving only rubble and stones”.

Supporters of Israel still say that no such plan existed. They claim Palestinians fled because of a war with neighbouring Arab states.

But the Plan Dalet was an approved military operation to clear out Palestinians. The techniques it used were clear—“By destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their rubble).

“In the case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.”

Settlers rolled oil barrel bombs into villages, as they drove vans with loudspeakers telling people to flee for their lives. These techniques developed in the months leading up to Israel’s formal creation, as well as after.

The Zionist army, the Haganah, carried out atrocities and massacres. In the city of Haifa, where Jews and Arabs both lived, the Haganah besieged Arab areas with heavy shelling and sniper fire.

The brigade’s commander Mordechai Maklef—who later became the Israeli army’s chief of staff—gave simple orders. “Kill any Arab you encounter. Torch all inflammable objects and force open doors with explosives.”

David Ben-Gurion, the then-prime minister of Israel, signed Israel’s founding declaration on 14 May 1948. The UN ratified the declaration, stating that 55 percent of Palestine would be given to Zionist settlers.

Before 1948, just 600,000 Jewish settlers were living in Palestine. This number almost doubled in three years following the Nakba. The first country to recognise Israel as a state in 1948 was the United States—Israel’s biggest imperialist ally.

3. How Palestinian resistance was formed

During the 1950s, the slow process of building a national liberation movement gathered pace in the refugee camps scattered around the region.

Palestinian refugees accessed meagre support from UN agencies but were denied political rights by their host countries. Wealthy or middle class Palestinians gravitated towards the Gulf, where they played key roles in public services and the media.

It was among these circles that a new Palestinian movement was born. Fatah was founded in 1959. Among its founders were Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is the current president of the state of Palestine.

One of Fatah’s core principles was “non-interference”—Palestinians should not take sides in the struggles within the Arab countries they live in. Deeply problematic but it meant it focused on Palestinians’ armed resistance against the Israeli state, inspired by the guerilla tactics of other anti-imperialist groups.

The Six Day War in 1967 saw Israel obliterate a coalition of Arab states, including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. By the end of the war Israel seized control of Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli troops defeated and captured resistance fighters, many of which were exiles.

But it suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Fatah fighters in Karameh in Jordan in 1968. Fatah began to dominate the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), set up by the Arab regimes in 1964 as the official representative of the Palestinian people.

The Fatah-controlled PLO moved away from the idea that it was possible to liberate the whole of Palestine. It made concessions to the idea that a mini-Palestinian state alongside Israel would be enough and was drawn into false peace negotiations.

The leaders of the PLO, because of their own class position, imagined they could be part of the Palestinian ruling class, closely backed by Arab leaders.

4. The first Intifada changed everything

From the 1950s until the 1980s, political and military direction lay with the Palestinian leadership in exile, not within the Occupied Territories themselves.

In 1987 frustration with the misery of life under occupation exploded in an uprising, or Intifada. It took both the Israelis, the US and the PLO leadership by surprise.

The First Intifada revealed the brutality of the Israeli occupation to the world. Protests were sparked after Israeli forces rammed their truck into a line of cars, killing four Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp in December.

Only a day after their funeral, attended by 10,000 people, Israeli soldiers shot into a crowd of protesters. They killed 17-year-old Hatem Abu Sisi.

Across the Occupied Territories Palestinians rose up and mobilised protests, riots, strikes and created networks of local committees to provide health care and education.

From 21 December, Palestinian workers struck mainly in the fruit and hospitality industry. The Palestinians’ ferocity during the First Intifada was impossible for the Israeli state to contain for more than five years.

The First Intifada ended because of the promise of peace talks with the Israeli state in the early 1990s. The PLO had never seen the road to liberation as being through revolts of ordinary people and was happy to be part of these talks.

5. The peace process was an imperialist trap for Palestine

Supposed “peace deals” brokered by the West have always been a sham. One such was the Oslo Accords signed in 1993.

The true purpose of this was to enshrine Israel’s hold over land under the pretence that Palestine would be handed a state that could exist alongside Israel.

The deal was accepted by the leaders of the PLO after they had squandered the opportunities won by popular struggle through the Intifada. But Palestinian academic Edward Said called the Accords “an instrument of Palestinian surrender”.

PLO officials were satisfied with the weak promise of a small amount of Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These were to be implemented over five years.

Meanwhile the rest of what was Palestine would be kept under Israeli sovereignty. The newly formed Palestine Authority (PA), dominated by Fatah, was handed 18 percent of the occupied West Bank. Around 22 percent would be supposedly governed by the Israelis and the Palestinians together.

The rest—66 percent—would be left to the Israelis, including control of imports and exports. The Oslo Accords made it even more impossible for Palestine to survive without Israel.

Border closures strangled the Palestinian economy. Before the Accords, one third of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip worked in Israel. By 1996 that had collapsed to 15 percent, while earnings from work in Israel dropped from 25 percent of Palestinian GDP to 6 percent.

Today the PA might have some appearance of power. It has an elected body of 132 representatives. It even has its own police force—a condition of the Oslo Agreement.

But Israel still does what it likes in areas assigned to Palestine. The PA, controlled by those who once dreamed of waging armed resistance against Israel, is a mechanism for maintaining colonisation.

Hamas soon became the party representing the disillusionment of the Palestinian people, offering a more radical and military alternative that the PA. Hamas was central to the Second Intifada.

This sparked after the Camp David Summit in 2000 between Israeli prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, PA chairman, failed to achieve anything.

6. Only a single state for Arabs and Jews offers a solution

The Palestinians have suffered more than 100 years of violence, brutality and racist laws at the hands of the Zionist settlers and their backers. Promise after promise has been broken, while Israel has continued to snatch more Palestinian land for its own.

While Palestinians have been left with worse than nothing, Israeli settlers have been emboldened. A so-called two-state solution has failed. It will continue to fail because the Israeli state is still committed to building a Jewish majority and expunging all Palestinians.

Israel will never willingly hand the Palestinians a state from the land it has stolen or allow return for the millions of Palestinian refugees.

Today, the Israeli state continues to strengthen its own one-state solution. Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli government, seize homes and land from the Palestinians.

Socialists must argue that a secular and democratic state where Muslims, Jews, Christians and others live together is possible. This kind of state existed before Balfour’s agreement, so it is possible again.

Even if the Oslo Accords had produced a viable Palestinian state and dismantled Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza there would still not be justice.

This would not address the historic crime on which Israel’s existence is based. It would also leave in place a racist, colonial state, armed by US imperialism to be its watchdog in the region.

But winning this will take revolutionary upheaval across Palestine and the Middle East region that can upend the Israeli state and its imperialist backers.


Free Palestine: Why we say by any means necessary

Following the assault on Israelis by the Palestinian resistance, there are those who say a violent fightback is never justified. Isabel Ringrose explains that the oppressed have a right to take up arms against their colonisers


Independence Day celebrations in Algeria following years of struggle, violent and otherwise

Uprisings against colonial rule are violent because violence is an inherent part of imperialism and colonialism.

That’s why the resistance by Palestinians against the racist Israeli terror state is wholly justified. All the deaths, horrors and destruction—all of them—are rooted in violent Israeli occupation and dispossession. And this is the case not just in Palestine. Wherever imperialism has gone, violence has followed.

Colonialism means states viciously enforcing their rule, snatching resources for themselves and subjecting citizens to dire inequality and reigns of terror.

That violence took its form in how 48 million died in major famines between 1770 and 1943 in India caused by British colonial rule. It manifested in over a million dying in famines manufactured by the British in Ireland.

Violent colonisation led to the elimination of Indigenous populations by the Spanish and British and to European nations carving up and ransacking Africa for their own greed and domination.

Such violence led to violence in return from those in revolt. But their violence was on a massively smaller scale compared to the slaughter by the imperialists.

The anti-imperialist violence was a fight to liberate society from a system of torture and murder. The violence of the oppressed is therefore utterly different to the violence of the oppressor.

The slave who murders the slave master, who torches the master’s house and perhaps kills the “civilian” slavers’ family and servants is wholly justified in their act.

Palestinians in Gaza breaking from their open-air prison for the first time were taking part in an act of liberation against Zionist and the imperialism that defends it.

Yet every time the oppressed have ­confronted the violence of the system and retaliated, they have been met with criticism and moral condemnation.

Resistance should stay peaceful, liberals say, and not have a bloody side. Or else, they warn, it is comparable to the violence of the oppressor.

But why should the oppressed listen to this advice? Why should they sit back and take whatever violence their oppressors deem necessary? Should the Algerian people have remained peaceful when the French invaded in 1830, stamping their authority on the country through violent massacres and rapes?

France killed up to three million Algerians in 30 years. Up to 1951 the French lost just 3,336 soldiers. After an anti-colonialist demonstration in 1945, with the movement growing after the Second World War, French authorities killed some 40,000 in Setif.

The horror led to an armed fight and sparked the war for independence nine years later. The independence-fighting group the National Liberation Front (FLN) attacked military and civilian targets of the French state and the French settler middle class, the Pied Noirs.

Anyone associated with France was a target. More Algerians fell behind the pro-independence fighters as France ramped up its violence with torture, bombardment and napalm.

The FLN and its supporters advocated for violent revolution. Independence fighter Frantz Fanon described colonial ­society as one entirely shaped by violence.

He wrote, “Colonialism is not a thinking machine. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.” We disagree that only “greater violence” can win.

We stress the crucial role of organised workers, strikes and workers’ militias in an insurrection. But Fanon was right about the core of colonialism.

Random raids, shootings and bombings by the FLN led to the French declaring a state of emergency. The massacre of Pied-Noirs european settlers in 1955 in Philippeville was the first major FLN attack on non-military and government targets. Some 123 people were killed, with the French then killing 1,273 Algerians.

By 1956 there were 500,000 French troops in Algeria. The FLN had 20,000 with fewer weapons. The French guillotined two FLN fighters in Algiers in June 1956 so in retaliation, the FLN shot 49 Europeans in the streets over four days.

All of this was part of the justified struggle by the Algerians. And today the vast majority of people across the world would recognise that it was a legitimate struggle.

The Palestinians deserve the same respect. There are many other important examples. The British forced their way into Kenya in 1888 and 1895 to set up the East Africa Protectorate. By 1920 Britain turned it into a colony. The British seized around seven million acres of land in the fertile hilly regions, becoming rich off its produce.

By 1952, the Mau Mau, also known as the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, began a campaign of attacks against settlers. Mau Mau was the militant wing of a growing movement for political representation.

Its guerrilla attacks happened at night using improvised and stolen weapons. It made its first killings in October 1952. The racist British rulers saw the Mau Mau as savages rather than an independence movement that could cause damage. Britain declared a state of emergency and arrested 180 alleged leaders.

The racist British used the Mau Mau’s attacks on civilians to dehumanise their fight. Their rhetoric used terms similar to “human animals” to describe their opponents.

Within 18 months, over one million Kikuyu tribe members were forced by the British to live in reserves surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. In total up to 320,000 people were taken to concentration camps.

Some 1,090 Mau Mau suspects faced capital punishment. Prisoners were flogged, set alight, sexually assaulted, castrated and electrocuted.


The brutal legacy of Britain’s colonial rule in Kenya
Read More

It was not until December 1963 that the Colony of Kenya ended, but the Mau Mau’s resistance still managed to shake their colonial masters to their core.

Revolutionaries should always support the resistance of the oppressed against their oppressors. The brave resistance to the violence of colonial and imperialist rule shows that their victims still have agency and can fight for themselves.

Our slogan is that our support is “unconditional but not uncritical”. Socialist revolutionaries do not agree with Hamas over class politics women’s and LGBT+ rights or many other questions.

But we don’t make our support for Hamas against Zionism and imperialism conditional on their adoption of a socialist position around these issues.

We are for the Palestinian resistance always and everywhere, even if it does not accept our views on other matters. Anything less is a collapse into pro-imperialism.

Today much of the left says it can’t support the resistance because Hamas is “backward” or uses violence. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin faced the same argument in 1916 when the Irish Republicans rose against British rule. They used armed struggle, and many of those involved were heavily influenced by religion and cross-class nationalism.

But Lenin pointed out, “To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, is to repudiate social revolution.

“So one army lines up in one place and says, ‘We are for socialism’, and another, somewhere else and says, ‘We are for imperialism’, and that will be a social revolution!

“Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it. “Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.”

We are in unconditional support of anti-imperialist revolt even when it’s tough to do so—as it is now in some quarters. And we are critical even when it’s easy to be supportive.

Even at the height of the popularity of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, it was necessary to point out the cross-class politics of the ANC would be disastrous.

Our criticism is not that of detached observers. It’s because we want to see real victories over imperialism and the capitalist system that produces it. Overcoming the imperial might of states like Israel or the United States won’t happen just through military resistance or guerrilla tactics.

There has to be a wider strategy in place to tear up the systems that are rooted in violence. Crucial to that strategy is class struggle. Turning resistance into a socialist revolution that can topple a system that creates unimaginable levels of brutality and violence is the only way to win complete change.

UK

MORNINGSTAR 

Editorial:Palestine: anti-imperialism and solidarity belong to the working class

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2023

Protestors during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, in Paris, October 14, 2023

THE size and breadth of demonstrations in support of Palestine and in opposition to the cruel onslaught by Israel against Gaza this weekend are an encouraging demonstration of the strength of solidarity among working people in Britain — even in the face of a co-ordinated campaign by the state and monopoly media.

The demonstrations organised over the weekend by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others stretched from London to Aberdeen and took in many towns and cities in between, big and small, and saw strong turnouts with a determination to send a clear message.

It cannot be ignored that this weekend’s manifestation came despite a shameful pro-Israel propaganda offensive by the British state and ruling-class politicians of every party, as well as wall-to-wall coverage in the monopoly media and the BBC.

The intention is clear: to justify and whitewash the occupation, Israeli apartheid and war crimes, and to legitimise Britain’s clear role in supporting it and the actions of imperialism across the wider Middle East.

Ignoring the root causes and responsibility for the current situation — the far-right Netanyahu government, the increasingly cruel strangling of Gaza and all occupied territories, and all the historic injustices inflicted upon the Palestinian people — the attempt was and is being made to blame Palestinians for their own collective punishment.

This completely ignores and obscures the fact that escalation was the entirely predictable response of a people to military occupation, apartheid and constant attack and humiliation.

This is entirely consistent with the manufactured media consensus on Palestine. Any Palestinian response to their relentless oppression, however small, justifies the harshest and most disproportionate retribution by Israel, using the most advanced weaponry available provided by the United States, including against civilians.

The ruling class works hard to maintain this consensus here in Britain.

As well as hypocritical moralising and attempting to decry and defame any vocal opponents of Israel, we have seen the cynical attempts to portray all and any opposition to Israel’s policies as anti-semitic. These efforts are disingenuous and trivialise real anti-semitism.

There should be no conflation of Jewish people with the Israeli state by opponents of these crimes — nor should we allow the Israeli state to opportunistically do the same.

The threats by Rishi Sunak’s Tory government to criminalise expressions of support for Palestine, as well as being another stab at drumming up support among a right-wing base, are just another manifestation of this ideological campaign. It is consistent with the broader Tory offensive against our democratic rights and civil liberties.

The idea that opposition to Israel is anti-semitic is readily debunked by the many Jewish people in Israel, Britain, and around the world who are actively opposed to Israeli apartheid and participated in the weekend’s demonstrations.

More fundamentally, this is an inspiring example of working people being able to overcome ruling-class propaganda, regardless of their race or religion.

What is key to building this solidarity that can unite people across ethnic divides and, indeed, across continents, is an understanding of the nature of imperialism and its crucial role in maintaining capitalist society.

It is only with this class understanding that we can oppose ruling-class attempts to lead people down false paths and narratives that ignore the reality of oppressor and oppressed.

The ruling-class media offensive has involved a clear attempt, in this case and in recent years, to bastardise concepts of imperialism and solidarity, and in doing so, render them useless.

We must defend our anti-imperialism and our working-class internationalism and solidarity as we build the movement to oppose Israeli aggression and war crimes, end the occupation and free Palestine.

Labour urges MPs not to attend Palestine-related protests

ELIZABETH SHORT
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2023

People take part in a demonstration in support of Palestine in Birmingham, October 15, 2023

LABOUR MPs and members have been urged not to attend Palestine-related protests, emails leaked on Saturday revealed, as Israel intensifies its assault on Gaza.

Ahead of protests in support of Palestine and Gaza, right-leaning Labour general secretary David Evans gave MPs “strong advice” not to take part in the demonstrations. He went on to urge members to “exercise similar caution.”

However, another email leaked to ITV News revealed that the wording was much harsher than “strong advice.”

According to the email seen by ITV, council representatives were told “they must not, under any circumstance” attend any protest or demonstration.

Determined to prevent any affiliation between the party and the protests, the email to all members requested that no Labour Party banners be taken to any of the rallies.

Mr Evans’s reasoning for this was thus: “Individuals will not have the ability to control who they will be photographed alongside, and this risks threatening the Labour Party’s ability to campaign against any form of racism and discrimination.”

The Labour general secretary went on to say that the party leadership “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself,” yet claimed that Labour has called for humanitarian access to Gaza for food, water, electricity and medicine.

The statement contradicts what party leader Sir Keir Starmer had expressed earlier in the week at the Labour conference, where he stated Israel had “the right” to restrict water and food supplies to nearly two million people in Gaza.

Speaking to the BBC this morning, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has said it was “right” that Labour MPs do not attend Palestine-related protests. He went on to add that Labour should be “careful and cautious” about who they appear alongside.

He said: “It’s important that as we want to be the next government, that people do not share platforms with people who do not share Labour values, that they’re careful and cautious.”

Momentum wrote on X: “It is utterly shameful that the Labour leadership have failed to speak out against the war crimes perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.

“But it is worse still that they are trying to silence public solidarity with Palestinians facing a humanitarian catastrophe.”

So far more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, a quarter of them children, making it the deadliest of the five Gaza wars.

MORNINGSTAR  CPGB

Over 100,000 march for Palestine


Labour Outlook

Amplifying socialist voices, supporting frontline struggles, building international solidarity.

“We demand an immediate ceasefire and a lifting of the siege on Gaza so that humanitarian aid can reach the population”.Palestine Solidarity Campaign

The Labour Outlook team report from yesterday’s Palestine solidarity demonstration.

Yesterday, after an escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine that has killed thousands and injured thousands more, over 100,000 people marched in London, with other demonstrations across the UK, to ‘demand an immediate ceasefire and for Israel to lift the siege on Gaza so that humanitarian aid – including food, fuel, and medical supplies can reach the population’.

In a statement in the runup to the demonstration, the organisers of the march, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said ‘every humanitarian will be appalled and horrified, as we are, at the scenes we are witnessing of a severe escalation of violence since October 7th. International law must be the framework within which all actions should be judged. International law makes it clear that the deliberate killing of civilians, hostage-taking and collective punishment are war crimes. Such crimes must be condemned no matter who perpetrates them.’

The demonstration was also co-organised with Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Speaking at the demonstration, Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador and head of the Palestinian mission to the UK said, ‘the horror in Gaza is indescribable. The official casualty count is already in the thousands. The real casualty count will be much higher. Israel is indiscriminately bombing civilian infrastructure – homes, hospitals, schools, entire neighbourhoods.’

‘Israel has cut food, water, electricity, fuel supplies for 2.3 million Palestinian residents in Gaza. This is a war crime. Israel is leaving 1.1 million Palestinian children without power, without water, without food, without medicine, without shelter, without anywhere to go. This is a crime against humanity’.

Responding to calls from the Israeli military that 1.1 million Palestinians should move from the north to the south of Gaza to avoid the bombardment and imminent ground invasion, Ben Jamal, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Director, said ‘this is not a humanitarian gesture. Israel is signalling its intention to commit war crimes on in immense scale. It is seeking to pre-emptively justify the mass slaughter of many thousands of civilians, on the basis that they were warned to leave and should do so if they care for their lives.’

Commenting on the displacement order, the CEO for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said ‘the international community must immediately demand that Israel rescind its warning and ensure Palestinian civilians are protected from attack. They should remember their responsibility to protect against atrocity crimes, including ethnic cleansing’.

You can see the demonstration in pictures, below.You can support the work of the Palestine Solidarity campaign here, and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles in the UK and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.

Demonstrators waved Palestine flags to show their solidarity.

The streets were filled with flags, banners and placards.

Demonstrators made connections between what is happening in Gaza and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Those on the protest made the point that the people in Gaza had nowhere to flee.

Many trade unionists joined the demonstration

.

Protestors highlighted the number of children in Gaza

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The demonstrators filled Whitehall with the final rally taking place outside Downing Street.

Thousands join pro-Palestinian march in Birmingham

PublishedShare

Image caption,

Crowds in Victoria Square chanted in response to a speaker

By Susie Rack

BBC News, West Midlands

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have taken to the streets across Birmingham.

Crowds met on the city's High Street at 14:00 BST before marching towards Centenary Square.

It followed several pro-Palestinian demonstrations held in cities across the UK, including London and Coventry on Saturday.

Crowds held Palestinian flags and chanted in response to speakers outside Birmingham's Town Hall.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October, with its fighters entering communities near the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,300 people, and taking scores of hostages.More than 2,300 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes.

Israel has warned 1.1m people in northern Gaza to evacuate before an expected ground invasion.

Image caption,

Thousands of people joined the Birmingham protest, the latest in a series of rallies across the UK

West Midlands Police said it would respond to any demonstrations appropriately and "balance the right to protest against any disruption to communities".

Assistant Chief Constable Claire Bell added: "Behaviour that crosses the line into criminality will not be tolerated and equally we will take the strongest action against perpetrators of hate crime."

The force said it extended its support to all communities in the West Midlands affected by the conflict.

Thousands take part in pro-Palestinian rally in Belfast


Thousands have taken part in a rally in support of Palestinians in Belfast

 (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)
By Jonathan McCambridge, PAToday 

Thousands of people have marched through the centre of Belfast as part of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

Insults were exchanged as a small group carrying Israeli flags confronted the rally as it arrived at the City Hall.

The protest took place against the backdrop of the deepening conflict in the Middle East as civilians continue to suffer under a total siege imposed by Israel in the wake of an unprecedented incursion by Hamas militants.



A small group carrying Israeli flags met the rally as it neared Belfast City Hall (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)

The United Nations, senior EU figures and aid agencies have all expressed alarm as many Palestinians struggle to flee ahead of a “co-ordinated” offensive in the Gaza Strip involving air, ground and naval forces.

The rally gathered at Writer’s Square in Belfast on Sunday and numbers swelled as it marched along Royal Avenue, with participants carrying flags and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans.

The PSNI mounted a significant security operation which included closing many of the main arterial roads in the city centre.

As the rally neared City Hall, a small number of people stood in front of the gates carrying Israel flags.

There were angry scenes as the two sets of demonstrators exchanged insults and police moved in to keep them apart.



Dr Raied Al-Wazzan, from the Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality, took part in the rally in Belfast (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)

Taking part in the pro-Palestinian rally was Dr Raied Al-Wazzan from the Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality.

He said: “We need to send a message to the Palestinian people that we support you, we are with you, we are against the bombardment of civilian people.

“We are against the blockade of Gaza.

“We want people to live an equal life, we want them to have the same rights as everyone else.”


Sinn Fein MLA Pat Sheehan was among the marchers (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)

Sinn Fein MLA Pat Sheehan was among the marchers at the front of the rally.

Earlier, he had unveiled a mural in west Belfast in support of Palestinians.

Speaking at this event he said: “One would be forgiven for thinking it is the Israelis who are living under occupation, rather than the Palestinians.”

Israel has been given a carte blanche to act outside international law and the basic rules of warfarePat Sheehan, Sinn Fein

He added: “It is clear to all of us here that those governments that demand the implementation of international law in other conflicts are totally silent when Palestinians are being slaughtered in their thousands.

“Israel has been given a carte blanche to act outside international law and the basic rules of warfare.

“The response of the international community in the west has been shameful.

“What is happening in Palestine today is the outworking of 75 years of brutal occupation.

“The Israelis cannot and will not inflict a military defeat on the desire of Palestinians to be free and to have their own independent Palestinian state.”

SCOTLAND

Humza Yousaf's wife 'not comforted' as Foreign Office work to get parents out of Gaza

Nadia El Nakla said she had barely slept after receiving a panicked 1am call from her parents, who are visiting a sick relative in the war-torn area. She told Sky News about the toll the constant panic is having on them.

Connor Gillies
Scotland correspondent @ConnorGillies
Sunday 15 October 2023


The wife of Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf has told Sky News the Foreign Office is working hard to negotiate her parents' escape from Gaza but she is "not comforted" by the chance of success.

The US has been trying to broker a deal to reopen Egypt's Rafah Crossing with Gaza to allow foreigners to leave and humanitarian aid to be taken in.

The border was closed because of airstrikes early in the war. Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said it is proving "incredibly difficult" to allow people through.

Nadia El Nakla said she had barely slept after receiving a panicked 1am call from her parents who are visiting a sick relative in the war-torn area.

Ms El Nakla told Sky News she and her husband, the SNP leader, had fallen asleep moments before they were alerted about a possible imminent strike on the Gaza property where her parents are staying. It turned out to be a false alarm.

Israeli forces have positioned themselves along Gaza's border, besieging the territory, ahead of what Israel says will be a broad campaign to dismantle the Hamas militant group.

Ms El Nakla, who is an SNP councillor, told Sky News her relatives were in ongoing talks with the Foreign Office.

She said: "The negotiations are happening. They said to me that, look, it's personal for them. They have stuff there and it's they desperately want people out.

"But the negotiations are ongoing. And as much as I truly believe that it's not a comfort to myself, I just want them out there as soon as possible."

Read more on Sky News:
Scotland's FM makes tearful plea over family in Gaza
Live updates on Israel-Hamas wa

Humza Yousaf's mother-in-law 'trapped' in Gaza

'That feeling of helplessness is really poignant'

Mr Yousaf's wife talked about the toll the constant panic is having on them.

She said: "My mum called at like 1am. The minute I heard Humza say 'it's your mum' I just immediately felt sick and she was just crying and she said: 'We've left the house, we don't know where we're going.'

"What was really difficult was they're very much asking me what they should do and I don't know what to do to keep them safe. So that feeling of helplessness is really poignant right now."

Earlier on Sunday the SNP conference passed an emergency motion, which calls on the UK government to back United Nations demands for a humanitarian corridor to be set up, allowing people to leave and for aid to get into the territory to "mitigate the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza".

The statement said the SNP "unequivocally condemns the terrorist attacks by Hamas, calls for the unconditional release of all the hostages and recognises the right of Israel, in commons with all nations, to protect itself from terror".

Family members 'having to say goodbye as if it's the last time'

Ms El Nakla told the SNP's conference in Aberdeen that her family members are saying goodbye to each other "like it's the last time" as civilians in Gaza are ordered to evacuate the north.

"Families like mine are having to move and they are having to say goodbye to each other as if it's the last time," she said.

"My dad yesterday - when we hoped he would leave - said goodbye to my grandmother for what we thought was the last time. Every person in Gaza is waiting to die."

Ms El Nakla told the conference an "unimaginable horror" was unfolding, adding that "every person in Gaza is waiting to die".

She added: "No food, no water, no electricity. We are seeing an attack on humanity and my heart feels like it is starting to turn to stone.

"Gaza is being obliterated like never before."

Ms El Nakla used her speech to call on the UK and world leaders to "give the children of Gaza a chance of life".

"Instead of sending spy planes, the UK should be sending supplies," she told the conference.

She added: "We are not watching a natural disaster, this can be stopped.

"This can only happen when the world leaders use diplomacy, instead of weaponising, and strive for peace over war."

Mr Yousaf embraced his wife after she spoke to the conference and then wiped away tears.

In an interview with Sky's Beth Rigby earlier this week, a tearful Mr Yousaf said he felt "powerless" to protect his family.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Barristers consider withdrawing services over legal aid payment delays


Lawyers said they were having to wait up to six months for payment in legal aid cases

 (Katie Collins/PA)
By Jonathan McCambridge, PAToday 

Criminal barristers are being balloted over withdrawing services as part of a protest over delays in receiving payment for publicly funded legal aid work.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said it would hold a day of action in November.

The CBA said lawyers were having to wait up to six months for payment in legal aid cases.

The bar has highlighted that the public policy of speeding up justice and increasing throughput requires an increased budgetCriminal Bar Association

A spokesperson said: “The Bar of Northern Ireland has over many months called for urgent action from the Department of Justice (DoJ) to avoid such action taking place.

“The bar has highlighted that the public policy of speeding up justice and increasing throughput requires an increased budget.

“However, to date, no tangible solutions have been offered by the DoJ.

“The department’s policy of delaying payment for work done means that dedicated and skilled lawyers are having to wait for up to six months for payment after completing their work.

“These delays are exacerbating the difficulties caused by reductions in legal aid rates which, when adjusting for inflation, have plummeted by between 47% and 58% since 2005.”

The barristers who provide these legal services in Northern Ireland are often facing intolerable cash-flow pressures that their counterparts in other UK regions do not have to endureCriminal Bar Association

The spokesperson added: “Criminal barristers are committed professionals who work on the most serious and difficult of cases.

“The criminal justice system depends on these lawyers to apply their time and skill in the best interests of their clients and broader society.

“The barristers who provide these legal services in Northern Ireland are often facing intolerable cash-flow pressures that their counterparts in other UK regions do not have to endure.

“It is a matter of regret that, as part of a range of measures to be taken in response to this crisis in our legal aid system, criminal barristers have felt compelled to consider a withdrawal of their services.”

The Department of Justice has been contacted for a response.

Black History Month: Celebrating and Saluting our Scottish Sisters

” … remember that Black history is our collective history and that we are writing the story of tomorrow today with every choice we make. This Black History Month; let’s stand with our sisters and choose a fair and just Scotland without racism” argues Khutso Dunbar.

Black History Month is in full swing with programming and events across the country aimed at bringing attention to the often ignored and sometimes silenced voices of the Black and ethnic minority community. As Scottish society becomes increasingly diverse, this month becomes more meaningful as a time to reflect on how history has impacted the present. While we lament and learn from the past ills of slavery, colonialism and the ongoing racism that plagues our society- we must also respond and recognise the opportunities for a better future. 

Aminatta Forna

This month’s theme is: ‘Celebrating and saluting our sisters’- an opportunity to shed light on the contributions of Women of Colour. In Scotland, we have much to salute and celebrate. We start by paying homage to a lesser-known suffragist Jessie Margaret Soga, born in 1870 to a Black South African father of Xhosa heritage and a White Scottish mother. Soga was one of the key members of the Women’s Freedom League branch in Hillhead, Glasgow and known as Scotland’s only Black/mixed race suffrage campaigner. She was also a singer and music teacher performing as a soloist with the Kelvingrove United Presbyterian Choir at the Coatbridge Corporation Recitals. Soga used her music career to help fund the efforts of the Women’s Social and Political Union, a Women’s rights political group to which she belonged. Women received the right to vote in 1918 and Soga’s activism and contributions in Scotland were noted as significant.

Other figures of note include Aminatta Forna, OBE, a multi-award-winning author born in Bellshill, Scotland to a Scottish Mother and a Sierra Leonian physician father (pictured above). Along with her writing, Forna has also worked as a reporter, produced various documentaries for the BBC and is a founder of a charity to build schools in her father’s home of Sierra Leon. Jacqueline Margaret Kay, CBE, FRSE, FRSL is another celebrated author of Black heritage who was born in Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and Scottish mother and grew up in Bishopbriggs. Jackie Kay as she is widely known; is a poet, playwright and novelist who was Scotland’s Makar (national poet laureate) from 2016 to 2021.

Debora Kayembe

Three of Scotland’s universities have also added to the accolades of Black History by recently appointing Black women as rectors. The University of St Andrews appointed Leyla Hussein, OBE, as their third female rector and first woman of colour in 2020. Along with her rectorship, Hussein is a psychotherapist and social activist who heads multiple non-profits aimed at safeguarding women against violence. This historic appointment was followed by the appointment of Martina Chukwuma-Ezike in 2021 as the first Black woman rector at the University of Aberdeen. Originally from Nigeria, Chukwuma-Ezike is the CEO and founder of Scotland’s only dedicated asthma charity, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation and advocates for better awareness.  In the same year, the University of Edinburgh appointed Debora Kayembe, a human rights lawyer, linguist and political activist, who came to the UK in 2005 as an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Kayembe is currently a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and the founder of the charity ‘Full Options’ which promotes human rights and peace. In recognition of her contributions to Scottish society, she became the first African to have their portrait erected by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2019.

Martina Chukwuma-Ezike

These exceptional women are exactly that, the exception and not the rule in Scotland. Their phenomenal achievements are even more remarkable because they sit against a backdrop of longstanding societal inequalities and racism which pose vexing barriers to achievement for most people of colour. Women of colour are further marginalised by compounding gender discrimination. In Scotland, Ethnic minorities, who make up 4% of Scotland’s population, have the worst rates of poverty in the nation, according to government statistics. While the percentage of White Scots living in poverty stayed the same between 2020 and 2022 at 18%, the disparities experienced by ethnic minorities have grown- with the percentage of Black and Mixed populations living in poverty increasing from 43% to 48% between 2020 and 2022, while the percentage of British Asian/Asian groups increased from 41% to 49% in the same period. Additionally, compared to all other priority groups, such as 28% of homes with a disabled family member and 38% of single-parent households, ethnic minority households had the highest prevalence of child poverty at 39%. Some of these vulnerabilities can occasionally coexist such as in an example of an ethnic minority, disabled, single parent who would face intersecting and compounding disadvantages.

Jackie Kaye

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that there is a gender pay gap of 18.4% and an ethnicity pay gap of 10.3% in Scotland. This means that ethnic minority Scots are paid less than White Scots in comparable positions and ethnic minority women are doubly jeopardized. Furthermore, Scotland’s ethnic minority population is much more likely to have qualifications at “degree level or higher,” at 59% compared to 35% of the White Scottish population. Yet, despite these accomplishments, employment outcomes for qualified ethnic minorities are worse, with an employment rate of 73.0% vs 86.5% for the equivalent white population. These disparate labour market conditions combine to produce poor economic outcomes for ethnic minority women in Scotland who already face lower employment rates of 64% for Black female Scots compared to 72% for White female Scots. 

These statistics show that inequality is an unconscionable stain on Scottish society. So, as October rolls on, we give a nod to all the women of colour around us who despite the challenges and injustices of prejudice and discrimination are pushing forward to build a better, more socially just Scotland. We also remember that Black history is our collective history and that we are writing the story of tomorrow today with every choice we make. This Black History Month; let’s stand with our sisters and choose a fair and just Scotland without racism.