As with the similar platitudes that were offered up year after year asking the apartheid state in South Africa to not be so beastly, whilst all the time, western imperialist powers poured billions of Dollars into that regime, and called Nelson Mandela a dangerous terrorist, so too, now, with the racist, colonialist state in Israel. Only when the black workers of South Africa eventually organised themselves to be able to destroy the apartheid regime, did western imperialism, jump on the bandwagon, and discover what a thoroughly good chap that Nelson Mandela actually was, as they sought to ensure the possibility of doing deals with his new bourgeois nationalist regime.
No amount of barbarism, no amount of flaunting UN resolutions, no amount of war crimes, such as the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh by the Zionist state seems to have been enough to warrant the EU taking any action against it. Trade between the EU and Israel, after all amounts to nearly €50 billion a year. But, as soon as the Palestinians respond, albeit in ways that no socialist would advocate or support, the EU, like every other western imperialist power, immediately imposes its own punishment beating on ordinary Palestinian civilians, by freezing its €691 million of development aid.
EU spokespeople, when questioned were somewhat shamefaced about the decision, when it was pointed out that it was Hamas that had carried out the attacks, not the Palestinian Authority, which receives most of the money. They tried to claim that it had only been decided to review the funding, but journalists immediately pointed out that the decision was not to review the funding, but immediately freeze it!
What that decision undoubtedly does, as well as exposing the reactionary nature of EU imperialism, just as much as the reactionary nature of US and British imperialism - a lesson to those bourgeois internationalists who think that counterposing EU imperialism to British imperialism is any more of a progressive alternative for workers than vice versa - is to encourage a further twist and shift of sections of the global population suffering oppression and exploitation, into the hands of others, such as Russia and China. Neither Russia, China, nor their regional satellites, such as Iran, offer any progressive solution for workers or the oppressed either, but desperate people, are forced into desperate measures, and to take assistance from wherever it may be offered.
The decision of the EU to remove funding for the PA, currently dominated by Fatah, will only act to strengthen Hamas, and other militant Islamist groups. Even more will they look to Iran to provide them with financial and military assistance, and standing behind Iran stands Russia and China, the latter having the capacity not only to provide funds, but also arms, trade and investment. If China starts up trade with Gaza, along with Russia, across the Mediterranean, breaking the Zionist blockade, will the Zionists open fire on their ships, inviting an immediate military retaliation?
The EU might try to claim that freezing funding does not amount to collective punishment, but that cat is already out of the bag, because they said up front from the start that the decision was directly in response to the attacks carried out by Hamas. In other words it is definitely a punishment, and one that is not directed at those that actually carried out the attacks, but at ordinary Palestinian men, women and children. The decision, however, was not fully supported, with Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain saying they did not support it.
Socialists across the EU should demand the EU reverse this decision, and indeed, demand increased aid be sent to Gaza. Gaza needs more than just money and humanitarian aid, however. It also needs the same kind of air defences that Israel enjoys with its Iron Dome. The problem with that is that, the government in Gaza is in the hands of the anti-working-class forces of Hamas. Socialists cannot support the provision of arms to our class enemies, whether they are engaged in a national independence struggle or not. Workers across Europe, need to establish contacts with socialist and workers organisations in Gaza, and in the rest of occupied Palestine. We need to encourage them to establish factory committees, and where possible local workers councils, we should aim to provide financial and military aid only to these genuine revolutionary forces, as Trotsky proposed in relation to China in the 1920's, and Spain in the 1930's, consistent with the principles of Permanent Revolution, and the Comintern's Theses On the National and Colonial Questions.
Workers across the world should blockade any war supplies and financing being sent to the Zionist war machine, including blacking all materials, and components that can be used by it to oppress the Palestinians, as well as supplies of energy. That includes workers taking industrial action in the imperialist heartlands to black all work for their own military, and its barbarous support for the Zionist butchers. And, that includes calling upon Israeli workers - Jews and Arabs - to engage in a General Strike against the war. The Main Enemy Is At Home, and nothing has changed in that regard from the situation when over recent weeks millions have taken to the streets in Israel against the rapid drive towards fascist dictatorship undertaken by Netanyahu. The true nature of the opposition politicians, in that regard has also been exposed, as they rushed to offer their support to the Nazi Netanyahu, in exchange for seats in his government.
The only progressive solution, in Israel and Palestine, as much as in Ukraine-Russia, rests upon the international solidarity and action of the global working-class. Turn these inter-imperialist wars, into civil wars of the workers against our real enemy, the global ruling class of imperialist butchers.
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