Yesterday saw the open alliance between British fascists of the EDL, and other far-right groups, with Zionism, and its genocide against Palestinians. The fascists on the streets had been whipped up into a frenzy by the far-right/fascistic elements of the Tory Party, like Braverman, and sections of the Tory press, increasingly petrified by the realisation that they are within weeks or months of being thrown out of government (I've seen lots of Tory literature sent out in the last couple of weeks, reminiscent of a snap election), and with no control over the state, leaving them, as with Trump, increasingly reliant on the use of paramilitary forces. The alliance between fascists and Zionism is not new. Its not just seen, here, and in the forces behind Trump, in the US (as against the majority of non-Zionist Jews in the US, who form a large contingent of the opposition to both Trump and Netanyahu), but goes back to the very beginnings of Zionist ideology itself.
For more than a week, the Tories and the Tory media tried to have the demonstration, in support of a ceasefire in Palestine, banned. It was not just the desire to ban the demonstration that was significant for the Tories, but, the fact that, seeing the numbers on such demonstrations rise significantly each week, to ban this one, would have, broken the momentum, and set a precedent. Seeing the size and scale of the Zionist state's genocidal assault on Gaza, they, undoubtedly, hoped that, in two weeks time, the slaughter would already have been mostly completed, with only the corpses and body parts left to be counted.
The arguments for such a ban were pathetic, based on the fact of it coinciding with Armistice Day. It didn't even coincide with Remembrance Sunday, when the main ceremonies take place at the cenotaph, with the presence of Royals and politicians. Moreover, the demonstration, itself, came nowhere near the cenotaph, at any point. The whole country, including comedians pointed to the lunacy and hypocrisy of trying to ban a demonstration calling for a ceasefire on the grounds that it coincided with “Armistice” Day, i.e. with the day that celebrates, precisely, the achievement of a ceasefire in World War I!. That shows how much many of those making that argument see it not as a celebration of peace, and remembrance of those, on all sides, who died in a senseless war, fought for the benefit of imperialism, but as a celebration of war itself, and of the military victory of British imperialism.
During all of the previous demonstrations, the Tories, and Tory media, had tried to present a case of violent demonstrators, but without success, because, despite the huge size of the demonstrations, there was little trouble, and fewer arrests than the average football match, or other large gathering. But facts are never to be allowed to get in the way of a good story for the Tories and Tory media. Having failed to get the Metropolitan Police to ban the demonstration, showing the extent to which the Tories are alien to the interests of the ruling class, and its state, and have no control over it, Braverman fumed, and, like Trump, called on the forces of fascism to come to her aid, instead. Rather like Trump, on January 6th., however, that simply showed how pathetically feeble those fascists are, when not actively supported by the capitalist state.
It was, of course, not the pro-Palestinian, peaceful protesters that were the source of trouble on Armistice Day, but the forces of those fascists, called on to the street by the Tories and Tory media, in support of its backing of the fascist government of Netanyahu, and its genocide against Palestininans. It was the fascists that turned up to the cenotaph, not the pro-Palestinian demonstrators; it was the fascists, drunk on booze, and high on drugs, whipped into a frenzy by Braverman and the Tory media that launched into their hooliganism, and infantile chants, and assaults on the police. In fact, given the tiny numbers of fascists, as against the half million or so, pro-Palestine demonstrators, it would have been better had the police not acted as a buffer, because the fascists would have got battered, had they attacked the march, and its our own strength we should rely on, not that of the state, which, on another day, will be used against us.
We hear a lot from liberals, social-democrats and moral socialists about the “red-brown front”, i.e. the alliance between national socialists of both Right and Left. That is, of course, a consequence of the fact that the labour movement itself has been dominated by the ideology of statism (nationalisation etc.), and petty-bourgeois nationalism, and infects the ideas of the liberals, social democrats, reformists and centrists, just as much. But, the blue-brown front, the alliance between the imperialist bourgeoisie, and the nationalist petty-bourgeoisie, organised within the fascist leagues is where the real danger lies, and has always resided, because that signifies that the ruling class and its state has decided that the proletariat represent an imminent threat to its interests, requiring the use of these paramilitary forces. Currently, that is not the case.
The picture is also clouded by the fact that, after 40 years of a conservative social-democratic (neo-liberal) model that has collapsed, the main workers' parties (Labour, Democrats etc.) are still trying to breathe life into it, whilst electoral requirements have driven them on to the ground of economic nationalism, in search of the votes of reactionary nationalists and bigots. Missing is any large pole of attraction around which the forces of progressive internationalism can coalesce. In addition, the antagonistic interests of US imperialism, as against EU imperialism, have become sharpened, as now, starts to become clear, as various EU governments and politicians, like Macron, break ranks, and begin to demand a ceasefire.
The strategy of Biden and US imperialism seems to have become clear, which is to have the Zionist state smash Hamas, in Gaza, even at the cost of a huge genocidal slaughter of Palestinians, and, then have the Palestinian Authority of Abbas take control of the rubble left in Gaza, so as to reach a deal with US imperialism and the Zionist state. That is the strategy the US sought in Iraq, then in Libya, and Egypt, as well as in Afghanistan, and, to a lesser extent, Syria. In Iraq, they had picked out Chalabi as their chosen stooge, but, he had no support in Iraq, and the strategy collapsed.
In Libya, the same, as the administratively appointed Libyan National Council, was also just a phantom, with no social reality other than what NATO military power gave it, and it collapsed, with power on the streets falling into the hands of competing warlords. In Egypt the same, as the large, reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, voted in the Muslim Brotherhood, and Morsi, requiring another military coup to remove them. Pretty much the same is true of Ukraine, where the US backed 2014, coup was intended to put in place a US stooge, as seen in the leaked discussions of the US Ambassador at the time.
This reflects the political limitations of imperialism, as against the direct rule of colonialism, which itself was abandoned because of the huge costs of maintaining colonial administrations, and the armed forces to keep them in place. Instead of a stooge doing its bidding in Iraq, the US, now faces, an Iraqi regime that supports Iran, against it, in the region.
US imperialism is losing its global hegemony. It needs Israel, as one of the last dependable powers in that region to support its strategic interests, which is why it has been prepared to sacrifice so much political capital backing the genocide committed by the Zionist state, and has committed so much military hardware into the area to deter any further action against it, from neighbouring states. But, that gives Netanyahu incredible leverage to simply ignore Biden's pleas for restraint, scuppering Biden's plans for handing Gaza to Abbas. But, of course, Abbas, like Chalabi, himself has no majority support either, and his actions during the current onslaught have diminished it even further.
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