The Sunday politics shows were, of course, full of self-righteous blather about the role of Trump in bringing peace to the Middle East. Starmer, inevitably, as he acts as Trump's attorney, has claimed that Trump's role has been irreplaceable. That may be true, but not for the reason Starmer, and much of the chattering classes want to suggest. After all, the “deal” agreed is the same that was on offer a year ago, but which Netanyahu rejected. That “deal” is, of course, not a deal at all, but simply an ultimatum given to Hamas. Where Biden provided the weapons for the genocide, but limply set supposed red lines on their use, which were ignored, Trump provided the weapons and said to Netanyahu, “Have at it!”
What “Trump's peace” amounts to is just this. Two men are engaged in a prolonged quarrel. I come along and give one of them a gun, and Carte Blanche to use it. They shoot their opponent. There is peace. On that basis, every arms dealer in he world is a peacemaker, and should be immediately nominated for a Nobel Prize for their efforts. What should happen is that Trump, his regime, and that of Biden and his regime, along with all of those across Europe, such as Starmer, that have armed and facilitated the genocide in Gaza should be arrested, and put on trial for war crimes, alongside the Zionist regime.
What is required is an equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. The concentration camp guards in Nazi Germany, once the war was over, went to great lengths to hide their role in the industrial scale murder of Jews, and others. But, there has never been a greater, openly documented genocide than that carried out by the Zionist regime, in the huge concentration camp that is Gaza. Not only have the leaders of that regime set out, in clear statements, their intention to carry out genocide, but they have, at each stage, documented their commitment to it. Unlike the concentration camp guards, the individual IDF soldiers have gone to great lengths to place their own individual roles in that genocide on video, distributed for all to see, across the internet. What is more, the leaders of the regimes in the US, and its allies were fully aware of those war crimes, and continued to arm and facilitate the genocide.
The difference is, for now, that Nazi Germany lost the war, whereas the Zionist regime, with its US/NATO backing has succeeded, as it inevitably would, given the hugely superior firepower, in destroying Gaza, just as it has, also, imposed its control over wider areas of the Middle East, as it once again engages in its colonialist expansion, fundamental to Zionist ideology, and the need of the Zionist state to ever increase the size of its geographic territory. Despite the fact that Netanyahu and others have been indicted for war crimes, and the Zionist regime is charged with genocide by the UN and the ICJ, Netanyahu is unlikely to ever face trial, as the US, which has already sanctioned judges for daring to even charge him, will press for all those actions to be dropped. At best, it looks like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are being lined up as patsies, whilst Netanyahu will get support from more “centrist” parties, to get the votes required to push through the “peace deal”.
How long even that lasts, once the hostages are returned, we will have to wait and see. The Gazans face months, over the Winter, of living in a devastated wasteland, in which famine, disease and pestilence will continue to ravage their war torn bodies. There is little prospect of Gaza being rebuilt until Trump believes a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem has been achieved. The surrounding Arab states, also, have no reason to pump the estimated $500 billion into Gaza required for its reconstruction, necessitated by the destruction wrought by Zionism, and its imperialist backers. For one thing, they know that Netanyahu was advised to just sign the peace deal to get the hostages back, because, as was said, they can easily manufacture a new pretext for starting the bombing and shelling again. After all, they have unfinished business in the West Bank, and in the other real estate they have in their sights in Lebanon and Syria.
Starmer's Blue Labour government has recognised a Palestinian state. He has done so, in conditions where the Zionist state, in Israel, has destroyed Gaza, and continues its policy of genocide against Palestinians, now, also, in the occupied West Bank. The Zionist state has made clear its intention of annexing, at least, the majority of the West Bank, which, in reality, means it will annex all of it, simply formalising its existing rule over it, and the continued violent eviction of the Palestinian population by Zionist settlers, backed by the IDF. In other words, Starmer's recognition of a Palestinian state, is merely, a grotesque, performative action, designed for domestic consumption, to recognise the existence of a still-born corpse.
At any point, in the last 78 years, following the creation of the Zionist state, in Palestine, and, thereby, the creation of the Israeli nation state, British and other governments could have recognised the existence of a Palestinian state. They chose not to do so so, despite, for at least the last 50 years, many of them claiming to be in favour of a two-state solution! A Palestinian nation state did, after all, already exist, unlike the Israeli nation state, which came into existence, only in 1947, by itself, seizing a large chunk of that Palestinian nation state, and violently evicting 700,000 Palestinians. A Palestinian nation state existed, prior to that, as numerous Al Jazeera documentaries have detailed. But, it was not an independent nation state. It was already a colonial state, under the control of some colonial power, notably the Ottoman Empire, prior to WWI, and, then, Britain.
As with most colonies, the question is not whether a nation state existed, or not, but whether that state was politically independent. A nation state exists, where there is a nation existing, within defined national borders, possessing a common language and customs, and an administrative infrastructure. All of that applied to Palestine, both under the Ottomans, and under the British mandate, just as much as it applied to, for example, India, under British rule. The existence of this nation state, however, does not imply its political independence, and the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries, were precisely about the struggle for the independence of those existing bourgeois states, and not, about the creation of new, bourgeois nation states themselves. It is why Lenin, and the Comintern, distinguished between the national question, and the colonial question.
In terms of the national question, what was being discussed was the creation of new bourgeois states, as national minorities, within existing nation states, sought to separate. The position of Marxism, in relation to that, has always been clear, going back to Marx and Engels. We see it as a reactionary demand, which undermines the unity of the working-class as an international, not national class, and does so, by aligning the workers in each nation with their own rulers, against the workers of other nations. Whilst Marxists in the dominant nation, emphasise that they support the right of any oppressed national minority, to secede, freely, they, nevertheless, continue to argue against them doing so, i.e. argue against them exercising that right. In fact, as Marx set out in his 1850 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, we oppose, also, the weakening of the political unity of the existing state, in the form of the introduction of federal structures, too, because that is the first step to the break up of the state itself, and is used by reactionary nationalist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces to divide the workers.
“The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. A renewal of the present situation, in which the Germans have to wage a separate struggle in each town and province for the same degree of progress, can also not be tolerated. Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers. As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralization.”
In his polemic with the Luxemburg and Pilsudski, in relation to Polish independence from Tsarist Russia, Lenin made clear the reactionary nature of that demand, in dividing the working class.
“See to what monstrous conclusions this monstrous logic leads, even from the viewpoint of the programme demand for Poland’s restoration. Because the restoration of Poland is one of the possible (but, whilst the bourgeoisie rules, by no means absolutely certain) consequences of democratic evolution, therefore the Polish proletariat must not fight together with the Russian proletariat to overthrow tsarism, but “only” to weaken it by wresting Poland from it. Because Russian tsarism is concluding a closer and closer alliance with the bourgeoisie and the governments of Germany, Austria, etc., therefore the Polish proletariat must weaken its alliance with the proletariat of Russia, Germany, etc., together with whom it is now fighting against one and the same yoke. This is nothing more than sacrificing the most vital interests of the proletariat to the bourgeois-democratic conception of national independence. The disintegration of Russia which the P.S.P. desires, as distinct from our aim of overthrowing tsarism, is and will remain an empty phrase, as long as economic development continues to bring the different parts of a political whole more and more closely together, and as long as the bourgeoisie of all countries unite more and more closely against their common enemy, the proletariat, and in support of their common ally, the tsar.”
(The National Question In Our Programme)
And, that point was made even clearer, by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in setting out that, as far as Marxists in the nation seeking to separate was concerned, they should emphasise their opposition to any such separation.
“The Social-Democrats will always combat every attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to supporting every demand for national self-determination. As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.”
(ibid)
With the colonial question, however, what is being discussed is not the creation of some new class state, but simply the political independence of an existing class state. Other than in the case of the French colonies, colonial empires did not incorporate the colony into the state of the colonial power. The state in India, for example, operated within India, under British colonial rule. There were no elections of Indian politicians to the British parliament, and so on. So, the question of the existence of a Palestinian nation state, is quite different to the question of whether this state was ever an independent state, which, clearly, it was not. The Palestinians, never reached that level of development to establish such an independent state, and, after, 1947, as the Zionist state arose, as itself, a colonialist and expansionist state, backed by powerful imperialist states, it took over that role.
The two-state solution was always a reactionary, bourgeois delusion, as I described 40 years ago, and was, in fact, used by imperialism to distract from any real solution to the problem. Ben-Gurion was clear what the acceptance of the wording of a two-state solution, proposed by the Peel Commission, actually amounted to for the Zionists. In a letter to his son in October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to "possession of the land as a whole". That is what has now played out. At the point that all prospect of an independent, Palestinian state has, now, been clearly demonstrated to be impossible, Starmer, and others, who have continued, and continue to back the genocide and destruction of Palestine, recognise its existence!
In the last few weeks, we have seen racists and bigots, organised by the far-right, descend on dilapidated hotels across the country, used to house unfortunate refugees and asylum seekers. In some cases, they used allegations of sexual assault by one of the refugees to justify their riots, even though many of those involved in the riots, were themselves people convicted of domestic and other violence. So, can we expect them to be out in force, at Windsor, as the King welcomes to his castle Donald Trump, a self-confessed sex pest, who brags about grabbing women by the pussy, who is also, a convicted felon, and former friend of the serial rapist and paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, who was also friends with the King's brother, Andrew?
No, of course, those far-right activists will not be protesting Trump or the King. Far from it. They certainly would not be protesting the fact that the King is hosting Trump, whose support for the Zionist regime, and its genocide against Palestinians, let alone his own bombing of Iran, makes him a war criminal. Trump and the King and all of that shoddy clique, have the advantage of being very rich and privileged, unlike those refugees and asylum seekers on which the far right bigots and their coterie focus their anger.
Not that Trump is the only war criminal that the King will be welcoming into Windsor Castle. The visit has been organised by Starmer, whose Blue Labour government has sought to be unsurpassed in its determination to refuse to see any genocide committed by the Zionist state, even though the rest of the world could see it in plain sight, or just read the words from the mouths of the Zionists themselves as they proclaimed the war crimes they were committing, and about to commit. Starmer himself, at the very start proclaimed the right of the Zionist state to commit those war crimes.
That isn't just a consequence of Starmer and Blue Labour's connection, via Lord Glassman to the Zionist state in Israel, the fact that, Labour is stuffed full of Zionists who were formerly paid employees of that Zionist state, and channelled through BICOM, and the Labour Friends of Genocide, nor the fact that those relations facilitated and financed the organised attacks on Labour during the Leadership of Jeremy Corbyn that paved the way for his removal and replacement by Starmer. Of course, during that time it was, also, Peter Mandelson who stated that he woke up every day thinking how he could remove and undermine Corbyn as Leader.
The links of Labour to Zionism go back much further than that. And the links to today, and the sordid relations around Mandelson, Trump, Epstein, and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, also, fit into it. As well as being Epstein's criminal accomplice and friend of Trump and Mandelson, she is the daughter of disgraced former publishing tycoon and Labour MP, Robert Maxwell. He not only had close connections to the Zionist state, being reportedly, also, a member of MOSSAD, but acted in its support, including distributing bugged software, to facilitate Zionist spying on a large number of national governments and financial institutions.
There are many similarities between Maxwell and Trump. Both seem to have made serial bad business decisions, causing companies to be bankrupted, whilst maintaining their own personal wealth. Trump's employees complained about him encouraging them to put their pension funds into his companies, which resulted in them losing that money. Maxwell, simply used the money in his workers' pensions funds to shore up the shares of Mirror Group without any consultation with them, and which, also, resulted in that money being lost.
Yet, the far right and their supporters will not be protesting any of this mob as they are feted by the King at Windsor Castle.
Blue Labour is a party based on reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalism. It is no longer a bourgeois, workers' party. Its ideology is no longer the relatively progressive ideology of the bourgeoisie, of large-scale industrial capital, but a throwback to the ideas of the petty-bourgeoisie, a reactionary attempt to hold back the onward march of history. That is why, although it has claimed that the key to all its programs is economic growth, it stubbornly refuses to accept that the one single thing that would facilitate that growth is to abandon the disastrous commitment to Brexit, and to take Britain back into the EU as soon as they possibly could.
Last night, I watched the BBC Four documentary,“The Improbable Mr. Attlee”, and was struck by the similarities of the egregious unforced errors made by that government, and those being repeated, by Blue Labour, today. As with Starmer, the errors made by Attlee, meant that going from a large majority, in 1945, his attacks on workers, continued implementation of rationing, huge wasteful spending on arms, undermined the economy, and led to the return of the Tories in 1951. But, at least, Attlee had won huge numbers of votes, unlike Blue Labour, which only secured a parliamentary majority as a result of the corrupt nature of the electoral system, and a division in the votes for Tories and Reform.
One of the aspects of those errors was the attempt to cling to the former colonial delusions. In the end, reality imposed itself there too, as Britain scuttled from its former colonies, in turn, leading to conditions that fuelled many of the present conflicts across the globe, including that in Israel/Palestine. The attempt to cling to Empire was one reason that Attlee's government wastefully spent money on weapons, and maintaining an army so big that it constituted 10% of the total workforce, at a time when the economy was desperate for workers to rebuild its infrastructure, and provide all of the goods and services for which workers were in desperate need. To put it another way 90% of the workforce was working to produce the goods and services that the 10% in the army consumed, let alone all of the production that went into the military equipment.
The reflection of that was that whilst, in Europe, economies began to recover and grow, this wasteful arms spending, in Britain, undermined economic growth and capital accumulation – expanded negative reproduction – as it sucked in resources and surplus value that should have gone to real capital accumulation. The other manifestation of that, was that as the economy failed to grow, and as surplus value was drained into this destructive military spending, Attlee's government had to try to boost surplus value, which it did by imposing wage controls on workers, and sending in the troops to break strikes for higher wages. It imposed a continuation of rationing, which even meant that an already meagre calorie consumption by workers, fell further still, even compared to the last year of the war.
But, where Attlee's government, like that of Wilson/Callaghan of the 1960's and 70's, was still miles ahead of that of Starmer, is that those earlier governments were still bourgeois workers' parties. They relied upon the votes of the working-class, and their ideology was that of large-scale industrial capital, whose advance they sought to achieve. That is why that government nationalised the core industries vital for the development of capital, although, as the programme documents, the way it did so, was inefficient and bureaucratic. Of course, they could never consider the idea of placng those industries under democratic workers control, and if they had, the ruling class would quickly have removed them. But, nor did they place them under direct government control, instead following the model in the rest of big business of having Boards of Directors appointed, and those Boards, were inevitably comprised of the same personnel as those that littered the boards of the other large corporations.
But, it was still way in advance of the current Blue Labour government, whose world view is that which extends no further than where it thinks it can obtain the next vote, and always sees it by appealing to the worst sections of society, to the basest elements, to all of the racism and bigotry that festers in the swamp of the large petit-bourgeois mass. So, its no wonder that Starmer has found his soulmates in likeminded reactionary petit-bourgeois regimes across the globe, with his early visit to Meloni in Italy, his fawning at the feet of Trump, as he licked his arse, in hope of some favour or possibly just more personal freebies of the kind that have characterised the corrupt nature of the Blue Labour regime, and, of course, in that same camp is the detestable Netanyahu, to whose Zionist regime, Blue Labour owes the favour, of all of the efforts, of people like David Mencer, former Chair of Labour Friends of Zionism, in removing Corbyn.
Blue Labour has been repaying that debt over the last 20 months, as the Zionist regime has engaged in genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, as well as expanding its war of annexation and colonisation in Lebanon and Syria. Not only has Blue Labour continued to supply weapons to its Zionist friends to carry out that genocide, but it has been more than zealous in even denying the right of anyone, particularly Labour members, to point out that what the Zionist regime was engaged in was genocide. In other words, Blue Labour has carried out the biggest act of genocide denial ever seen. Those right-wing crackpots that over the years denied the Holocaust against Jews, were always a small minority, and always ostracised. But, the genocide being committed against Palestinians is happening in real-time for all to see.
As Owen Jones says, in this video, no one has any excuse for not recognising that what has been happening and continues to happen in Palestine is a genocide. The Zionists themselves were open about what they were doing, even though, when it has come to individual atrocities, they have always tried to dress it up as being some kind of error, having first denied it ever happened. Its spokespeople like Mencer, who has been, even when he was Chair of Labour Friends of Zionism, either a blatant liar, or a delusional fantasist, continue to lie about the actions of the Zionist state, having grown used to being able to say any bullshit they like and have it repeated as holy script by western politicians and media. But, even they are now seeing the completion of the Zionists' Final Solution, against the Palestinians in its closing stages, and are turning to a balance of concern over their own futures, as against the need to ensure that the Zionists can continue to do their dirty work for them.
So, its no surprise that 28 countries wrung their hands, and cried crocodile tears for the Palestinians, as they meekly implored the Zionists to stop, knowing, of course, that they will not. Their concerns, of course, have not been sufficient to end arms sales to the Zionist state, let alone to suggest a “liberal intervention” to prevent the genocide, as they did in relation to Libya and Syria. Quite the contrary, not only do the arms sales continue, but Britain and other countries have acted militarily against the Houthis, as they tried to stop shipments to the Zionists, and, of course, as the Zionist state extended its war of annexation to Syria and Lebanon, and launched attacks on Iran, NATO has put its own protective shield around Israel, to enable it to continue such attacks, free from the chance of effective retaliation. And, of course, Blue Labour has ridiculously branded Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation for itself taking direct action to protest at UK arms sales used to carry out genocide.
The lying speeches of Blue Labour Ministers are gut wrenchingly awful, and the performance of the media are no better, which continues to repeat the lies of the Zionist state about October 7th and UNWRA being comprised of card carrying members of HAMAS and so on. But, Owen Jones is wrong in thinking that these creatures will be held to account, and face the dock. Short of a widespread international socialist revolution, that is not going to happen. The Zionist regime, as Merz admitted a few weeks ago, has been doing western imperialism's work for it. Those that commissioned that work, in western governments are not going to put themselves in the dock.
Nor should we simply wait for such an event to happen. If we do, we make it all the less likely. The backbench Tory MP, Kit Malthouse, at least, appealed to Labour MP's to call the government to account. There is not much chance of that either, but socialists, via the trades unions, and even still via, their individual membership of the party, as we approach the annual conference, do have the opportunity to call these reactionary scumbags to account. Starmer must go, and all those Blue Labour MP's that stand behind him must be sent packing too. We need to rebuild the labour movement from the ground up, to rejuvenate and democratise the unions, and to use that as the driving force back into the Labour Party itself, to get rid of the ideology of Blue Labour, and to get rid of all those MP's elected to represent it. It needs to be ripped out root and branch.
Supporters of Palestine and the Palestinians are deluding themselves. Repeatedly, we hear comments such as Netanyahu has failed, because Hamas has not been defeated, that a ceasefire has, now, been agreed, in which large numbers of Palestinian hostages are being released from Zionist gaols, and so on. To see in this any kind of victory for Palestine or for the Palestinian people, let alone for the working class of Palestine, or the broader region, is wilful self-deception.
First, of all, as I set out at the start of the Zionist genocide in Gaza, the aim of Netanyahu was never the defeat of Hamas, or release of hostages. That provided a useful justification for the actual purpose of the Zionist onslaught, which was to flatten Gaza, eviscerate the West Bank, and further extend its annexation, as well as to open up new wars of annexation in Lebanon and Syria. The ludicrous, and reactionary attack carried out by Hamas on October 7th, simply facilitated it. It was to enable the latest phase of the Zionist project to create a Zionist state stretching “from the river to the sea”, or a “Greater Israel”, as it is described using ridiculous biblical foundations. In turn, that project fulfils the strategy of US imperialism to create the geo-strategic conditions for a Middle Eastern politico-economic bloc, as set out in the Abraham Accords, with other US clients, such as the Gulf States, Jordan, and Egypt to counter the growing influence of China.
This is nothing less than a 21st century equivalent of the genocides committed against Native Americans, and aborigines in Australia, in the 19th century, to clear the way for the seizure of their land, and more rapid economic development, which their continued resistance frustrated. Those that justified the project of Zionism, either at the time, or later, including those who did so on the basis of the cover of arguing for the illusory, two-bourgeois states solution, bear responsibility for all of the inevitable wars between that expansionist Zionist state, and its neighbours, all of the death and destruction, the creation of conditions in which all sorts of reactionary, nationalist ideologies, medievalist clerical-fascist ideologies, and divisions between the working-class of the region, could thrive. Its no wonder that some of those that are responsible for that are willing to delude themselves, once more, into believing that a peaceful, progressive solution for Palestinians might, now, open up, with a rebuilding of Gaza, arising out of the ceasefire.
But, on the other side, those that adopted an equally reactionary nationalist stance of supporting Hamas, or likewise, Hezbollah are also responsible for those same divisions and so on. Not for nothing did Lenin and the early Comintern argue that our goal is not national self-determination, but the self-determination of the working-class, as an international class. Not for nothing did they set out in the Theses on The National and Colonial Questions, that communists only give support to bourgeois-national struggles where the revolutionary proletariat plays a leading role, and where, therefore, the possibility of permanent revolution exists. Not for nothing did they specifically warn against the reactionary role played by the khans, clerics and so on, and of Pan-Islamism.
That is true, whether that support for those reactionary nationalists takes the overt and crude form of groups such as the SWP and its various splinters, or the more subtle form of that of the CPGB/Weekly Worker, which continually confuses and conflates the question of support for an abstract right of self-determination of nations, with the support for the concrete struggle being waged by reactionary, nationalist organisations and governments. It is simply a continuation of the Popular Frontist strategy of the Mensheviks and Stalinists, which has repeatedly led the working-class into disaster, as with Stalin's support for Chiang Kai Shek, and the KMT government.
In fact, as Owen Jones has set out, from the start of the Zionist genocide, in his videos, you did not need to look hard for the real agenda of Netanyahu and his government, which makes Jones' own repeated refusal to face the facts of what is going on even more puzzling, and illustrative of that self-deception. From the start, the Zionist regime, from top to bottom, made open statements about their intention to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, men, women, children, babies and their property and livestock, with full biblical rhetoric in citing Amalek. That is what they proceeded to do, with no concern about hostages, or whether, in that process, Hamas managed to protect itself, in large part, or whether, as a consequence of the genocide, other similar organisations would be created to take its place. On the contrary, despite the fact that the majority of hostages were released as result of negotiations, rather than military operations, and despite the continual demonstrations inside Israel, the Zionist regime, repeatedly obstructed negotiations, and continued with its genocide, backed to the hilt by US, UK and EU imperialism.
We have large headlines in western newspapers, on Monday, rightly stating that we should “Never Forget”, the Nazi Holocaust that slaughtered six million Jews, and yet the sickening, gut-wrenching hypocrisy of those headlines, and of those newspapers, and other media organisations, is that they have forgotten, when it comes to standing up against the very genocide happening in front of their eyes, in Gaza, a genocide that they have not only permitted, but actively encouraged and provided cover for.
For the reality is that Netanyahu, and the Zionist regime have not suffered any kind of defeat, or failure. In fact, Netanyahu, who was facing electoral defeat, would probably win an election, tomorrow, and, on that basis, rather like his friend Trump, would also sweep aside the legal challenges he faces, too. And, Netanyahu's friend Trump, also spells out that reality more clearly. Trump is truly a moron, but one benefit of that is that he simply blurts out what his intentions are, as with his desire to seize Greenland, and the Panama Canal, and now his desire to clear Gaza, sending its population to Jordan or Egypt, to make way for its annexation by the Zionist state, and the development of Gaza's “prime beach front”, no doubt including the erection of Trump hotels, casinos, and golf courses! As with the open statements about their intentions, given at the start by the Zionist regime, we should take Trump at his word, a word that has been openly seized upon, by Smotrich, and others.
If we take the other supposed victory of the Palestinians, it is the release of large numbers of them held in Zionist gaols. But, anyone with any sense knows that, having flattened Gaza, much of Lebanon, and having eviscerated any capacity for the Palestinians to fight back, the current ceasefire, is merely a means of the Zionist regime completing its victory. As soon as the remaining hostages are released, the bombing and shelling will resume. Indeed, the shooting, bombing and shelling have never actually stopped, the occupation of Lebanon and of Syria has continued, in defiance of the terms of the deal, and, no sooner than the ceasefire, inevitably collapses, the Zionist regime will simply round up even more Palestinians from the West Bank than it has released! It has given UNWRA until Thursday to cease operations in Gaza.
The willingness of supporters of Palestine to delude themselves that what has happened is anything short of a disaster for Palestine, let alone the idea that it is some kind of defeat for the Zionist state, stems from their own impotence, other than to issue one pious wish after another. It is the result of seeing the world as some kind of morality play, a struggle between good and evil, in which, ultimately good wins out in the end. Unfortunately, its not just bourgeois liberals that have adopted that world view, but the vast majority of “the Left”, including those that proclaim themselves to be Marxists. For actual Marxists, history is not a morality play, but the consequence of class struggle, determined on the basis of material conditions, which unfolds according to objective social laws.
On that basis, its impossible to describe what has happened in Palestine as anything other than a disastrous defeat for the Palestinians, but more importantly for the global working-class, whose political leadership has been found missing in action once more, and in criminal dereliction of its duty.
Western mainstream media has been full of stories over recent days about “anti-Semitic” pogroms in Amsterdam. The King of the Netherlands came out to make a public statement about it referring back to the Holocaust, and the terrible role that the West European, bourgeois, ruling-class played in cooperating with the Nazi occupying forces in the slaughter of millions of Jews in their countries. Though, of course, he did not phrase it in that way!
All of this outpouring came at a time that Germany has just passed a law making any criticism of the Israeli government illegal, and defining it as being “anti-Semitic”. But, of course, as everyone now knows, who looks at social media, the reports of these “anti-Semitic” pogroms in Amsterdam, are all a lie, and the truth is the total reverse! It was Zionist football thugs, there to “support” Tel Aviv Maccabi, who engaged in well documented pogroms against local Palestinians and Muslims, attacking individuals, tearing down Palestinian flags from buildings, chanting their support for the genocide in Gaza, as well as disrupting the one minute silence in recognition of the victims of the flooding in Valencia.
That imperialism, and its media, should so overtly distort the truth is of no surprise. The Zionist state in Israel is the construct of western imperialism, and the puppet of US imperialism, without which it could not exist. Just as with Ukraine, and with Taiwan, it acts as the proxy of US imperialism, in the current phoney war between US imperialism and its subordinates, against Russia~China, and their subordinates. So, of course, that western imperialism is going to lie about the nature of the genocide being committed by its Zionist proxy, and cannot allow any criticism of it, even when its actions are, there, for all to see across the globe, in lurid living colour, and all its gore.
When that is reflected on the territory of that western imperialism, it is even more forced to lie about it, as happened with its attacks on protests by students on US campuses, against the genocide, for example, and as with the claims about “two-tier policing”, first raised by Zionists and their supporters in relation to the regular marches against genocide, months before the same refrain was raised by the likes of Farage, in relation to the racist riots that took place on an orchestrated basis. The flagrant lies told about the pogroms undertaken by the Zionist thugs in Amsterdam, last week, are simply a continuation of that.
It has been something long in the making, as the latest German legislation illustrates, which is the logical conclusion of the equation of Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism, and which, also, flows from the demand that the IHRA definition of Anti-Semitism be accepted. As part of that process, it was claimed that the IHRA definition did not prevent criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, but the reality is that the definition, with its examples, always did make any such criticism impossible, as has been repeatedly seen, even when that government has been engaged in the most obvious genocide against a people in living memory!
That genocide, and intensified attempts to exterminate the Palestinians over recent months is not inexplicable, but is part and parcel of the drive of the Zionist state, acting as the proxy of US imperialism and its NATO subordinates to create a viable Zionist state, “from the river to the sea”, as Netanyahu has proclaimed, which can act to, then, normalise relations with the other bourgeois Arab states, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so on, who are already, themselves, clients of US imperialism, as set out in the Abraham Accords, to act as a regional politico-economic bloc, and to act against the growing influence of China~Russia/BRICS, and their proxies such as Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The levelling of Gaza, accelerated occupation and clearing of the West Bank, the flattening of Lebanon, are the visible expression of that strategy. In the coming months, as I wrote a while ago, the Zionist state, will move on to an invasion of Syria, annexing further territory to that it has held for decades in the Golan Heights. In the last week, it has already started bombing Damascus.
Over the last few months, we have seen US imperialism, and its UK lapdog actively support Zionist genocide, and its annexationist drive, not just in the provision of weapons and armaments, but also in its involvement in the fighting, attacking the Houthis in Yemen, for example, and increasing its military presence, on a large scale, as well as shooting down Iranian drones and missiles fired in response to the Zionist attacks on Iran, and its embassy in Damascus.
So, of course, that imperialism, and its media will lie with alacrity when it comes, not just to the actions of its Zionist proxy and its genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, but also, when it comes to the actions of Zionists in undertaking pogroms in Europe and North America, even when those pogroms are undertaken against the citizens of those countries. Such is the idiocy of talking about “the people”, when it comes to nations that are actually comprised of different classes, with antagonistic class interests. The ruling class, and its state, in every country is not primarily concerned with the interests of its “people”, but only with their own naked class interest.
In 1982, the British government proclaimed that it was engaging in the Falklands War in defence of the interests of the few hundred Falkland Islanders. It was, of course, nonsense. They showed no such similar concern for the interests of the Chagos Islanders, for example, who they cleared from their homes, in order to establish the US military airbase on Diego Garcia! When it comes to the rights and interests of citizens in every bourgeois state, they always come second to the interests of its tiny ruling class, and, in the age of imperialism, those interests are, themselves, always inseparable from the interests of the global ruling class.
Indeed, the same applies in relation to the interests of Jews, which are subordinated to, and sacrificed in order to defend the interests of Zionism. Zionism is, itself, one of the principal sources of anti-Semitism. Zionism could not exist without Anti-Semitism, and so, Zionism has always had a need to ensure the perpetuation of it. Even so, the central argument of Zionism that Jews required their own bourgeois state, in order to avoid anti-Semitism, and a repeat of the Holocaust, has visibly failed to convince Jews themselves, across the globe. Only 40% of Jews live in Israel, as many live in the US. That is in contrast to every other nation, where around 90% live within the particular nation state. Across the globe, Jews have found that their interests are served, not by moving to Israel, despite all of the incentives provided by Zionism, and its allies to do so, but by integrating into the society in which they reside, and particularly, for Jewish workers, by allying themselves with the working-class, and labour movement, in those societies.
That poses an existential threat to Zionism, whose ethno-nationalist ideology, requires an acceptance of the idea that no such alternative is credible. So, when Jews do not accept that racist ideology, as increasingly Jews across the globe, including the US, have done, they are defined as being not really Jews! Zionism insists upon the identity of Zionism and Judaism, and is consequently Anti-Semitic, towards all non-Zionist Jews, denying them, even legitimacy. Indeed, Zionism has more in common with fundamentalist Christian Zionists than it does with world Jewry, and it is amongst those Christian Zionists, not just in the US, but in Europe too, that it has exerted its greatest influence, as with the support for Trump et al.
It is no surprise, therefore, that amongst the Zionists and pro-imperialists in the labour movement, such as the AWL, this is also reflected. At no time in the past would it even have been considered that socialists would support the idea of demanding that workers stand shoulder to shoulder with fascists and open racists, as they confront some other group of fascists and racists. Yet, that is what the AWL have done, as they demand that workers, including Muslim workers, whose family members are being exterminated in Israel/Palestine, by Zionists, must stand with Zionists in Britain, to oppose the fascists that engaged in the riots of the last few months! They wrote,
“If ‘Zionist’ here means ‘anyone who sees a connection with Israel, or identifies with the Israeli state in some manner’, then this graphic failed to encourage ‘community self-defence’ – in fact, it was actively opposing it.”
Well, if ever there was a case of making Palestinian or Muslim lives matter less than even the chance that Zionists, or those that continue to support the genocidal acts of the Zionist state, and feel a connection with it, as it undertakes that genocide, might simply be offended, that is it. It not only epitomises the AWL's Zionism, and pro-imperialism, but is also the natural consequence of the policy of lesser-evilism, and of the descent of the left into the liberal/social-democratic/Stalinist politics of the Popular Front, as against the Marxist-Leninist policy of the United Front in action.
So, its not only the pro-imperialists of the AWL, for example, that adopt that same position of standing by and allying with the fascists of the Azov Battalion, and Right Sector, but the rest of the Ukraine Solidarity Committee. The same is seen in the AWL's stance in respect of the US Presidential Elections, which pitted two reactionary, anti-working, class candidates against each other, both of them supporting the genocide in Gaza, both of them having supported the attacks of the US state, alongside US Zionists, on students and others peacefully protesting that genocide.
In 1979, the AWL's predecessors in the International Communist League, argued that socialists could not simply call for a vote for Labour in the election of that year, given its own bourgeois politics, and yet, recognised that many millions of workers would want to oppose the Tories. They established the Socialist Campaign for Labour Victory, on precisely that basis, calling on workers to oppose Labour's actual election manifesto, and instead to support Labour candidates standing on its alternative platform. Yet, the bourgeois politics of Labour in 1979, look progressive compared to the reactionary politics of Harris/Biden and the US Democrats in 2024. Nevertheless, in stark contrast to 1979, the AWL called on US voters to back the anti-working class, Harris, and , thereby, her continued support for the genocide in Gaza, simply on the basis of a lesser-evil alternative to Trump.
“Socialists should from now until November support the Harris-Walz ticket, not because they represent a significant progressive alternative, but because it gives us four more years in our democracy — such as it is — to organize social and political movements to fight for the working class and the oppressed and raise the ideal of democratic socialism.”
And, indicating the extent to which they have abandoned the revolutionary tactic of the United Front, in favour of the Stalinist Popular Front, they even perform their usual trick, as epigones, of distorting the words of Trotsky to justify that position. They wrote, quoting Trotsky's opposition to the madness of the Third Period, and suggesting that US socialists should, thereby, have voted for Harris,
“The wiseacres who claim they see no difference between Bruning [the conservative who led Germany before the Nazis took power] and Hitler are in fact saying: it makes no difference whether our organisations or whether they are destroyed … If fascism comes to power, it will ride like a tank over your skulls and spines … Only a fighting unity with social democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, communist workers; you have little time to lose.”
As usual, just a look at what Trotsky writes, here, exposes the lying nature of the AWL's politics. What Trotsky says here, is not that German workers should have VOTED for Bruning as a “lesser-evil” to Hitler, far from it. What he argues is that fighting the fascists required not dropping your own revolutionary politics and calling on workers to support their class enemies, in the election, but sharply demarcating yourself from them!! Elsewhere, Trotsky wrote, setting that out,
"Fascism is a form of despair in the petit-bourgeois masses, who carry away with them over the precipice a part of the proletariat as well. Despair as is known, takes hold when all roads of salvation are cut off. The triple bankruptcy of democracy, Social Democracy and the Comintern was the prerequisite for fascism. All three have tied their fate to the fate of imperialism. All three bring nothing to the masses but despair and by this assure the triumph of fascism."
(Phrases and Reality, in Writings 1938-9, p 19)
In the quote that the AWL epigones give, Trotsky, even spells it out, not a passive, lesser-evilist capitulation, and throwing in your lot with the electoral fortunes of the imperialist bourgeoisie, but, an active “fighting unity with social democratic workers”. That is the tactic of the United Front of march separately, strike together. It is the position that Trotsky set out in The Action Programme for France, for fighting fascism, not by supporting or giving any credibility to the sham of bourgeois-democracy, but of building a fighting working-class opposition to the fascists, and their attempts to destroy even those bourgeois rights and freedoms that bourgeois-democracy claimed to provide for workers.
“In the struggle against fascism, reaction and war, the proletariat accepts the aid of petty-bourgeois groupings (pacifists, League for the Rights of Man, the Common Front, etc.), but such alliances can be only of secondary importance. Above all, the task is to secure the united action of the working class itself in the factories and the workers’ neighbourhoods of industrial centres. The alliance of the important workers’ organizations (Communist Party, Socialist Party, CGT, CGTU, Communist League) will have no revolutionary value unless it is oriented toward the creation of:
1. Committees of struggle representing the mass itself (embryo soviets);
2. Workers’ militia, always united in action, even though organized by various parties and organizations.
To reinforce the struggle of both the workers and peasants, the workers’ committees should establish close collaboration with the peasant committees. Constituted as organs of popular defence against fascism, these workers’ alliance committees and these peasant committees must become, during the course of the struggle, organisms directly elected by the masses, organs of power of the workers and peasants. On this basis the proletarian power will be erected in opposition to the capitalist power, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commune will triumph.”
US/NATO imperialism, and its agents in the labour movement, such as the AWL, is engaged in a phoney war against the rival imperialist bloc of Russia~China. In Ukraine, that war is not even at the stage of phoney war, but of an active shooting war. In the Middle-East, Zionism is conducting a war against the clients of Russia~China, on behalf of US imperialism, whilst fulfilling its ideological commitment to create a Zionist state “from the river to the sea”. Consequently, US imperialism, and its agents within Europe and the labour movement can brook not even the slightest criticism of the actions of the Zionist regime, as it pursues its genocide. Hence the insistence on the IHRA definition, and on the German legislation, the fake anti-Semitism, witch hunt in the Labour Party, the blanket use of charges of “anti-Semitism” against any criticism of the genocide, and the outright lies told by politicians an the media, both in relation to that genocide in Gaza, and in relation to its transfer on to European and American soil, by the supporters of Zionism, and their pogroms against Muslims, as seen in Amsterdam.
It is forced into not just lying by omission, in its reporting of the genocide, but active lying and distortion, as the deletion of the Sky News report indicated, and as has been even more blatantly seen in the use of the video footage of pogroms conducted by the Zionist thugs in Amsterdam, which were then presented as being attacks on them, and for which, they have had to make apologies when challenged by the teenage videographer!
Joe Biden has described the murder of Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, by the Zionist state as “A Measure of Justice” for the many people killed by Hezbollah. These four words are extremely revealing. It again, illustrates the thoroughly hollow and sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, and its commitment to the rule of law, and an international rules based system. It required, perhaps, the US, as a society that, itself, arose on the back of religious intolerance on the part of the Pilgrim Fathers, and progressed by violence against Native Americans, and the stealing of their land, and which for much of its history has been based on gun law, and which, today, still routinely murders its own citizens by legal execution, to be so forthright.
But, let us set aside the US's penchant for murdering its own citizens, via legalised execution – a barbaric practice, long since abandoned by most civilised societies in Europe – which, of course, results in a disproportionate number of its poorer citizens, and black and Latino citizens, being executed, because, not only do they not have access to the fancy, expensive lawyers that the rich do, but also that their conditions of life are far more likely to place them in the kinds of violent situation, and desperation that will leave them sitting in the dock in the first place. Yet, even if we set aside this barbaric practice of legalised murder by the state, bourgeois-democracy, and the rule of law requires the idea of “innocent until proved guilty”, at least in legal systems based upon English Law, such as exists in the US.
Biden seems to be confusing “Retribution”, the concept of “an eye for an eye”, contained in the Old Testament, with “Justice”, the concept that everyone should have their day in court, and be proved to have committed a crime. Of course, the notion of “Justice”, of “The Rule of Law”, is itself a sham, even if we, also, set aside the points above, about the fact that it is always disproportionately the poor and oppressed that are placed in the position of breaking the law, and so on.
A look, for example, at the way the law worked in Britain, in the 19th century, showed a clear class bias, even in the way it was framed. Take the contract of employment. If an employer broke such a contract, this was treated as a civil matter, requiring the worker to take the employer to court, and sue for breach of contract. If the worker broke the contract, this was treated as a crime, and the worker was prosecuted by the state, and sent to jail! This kind of class bias is contained in the operation and formulation of the law in every bourgeois society, and legal system.
And, of course, although, in theory, bourgeois democracy, and its rule of law, claims to operate on this basis that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and is entitled to their day in court, so that justice can be seen to be done, that never happens, in practice either. The most obvious example of that is the many poor people, often black and ethnic minority people, who are routinely treated as being guilty until proven innocent. Just look at the way bourgeois society and politicians deals with the question of immigration, for example. Not only does the narrative in support of immigration controls, place all immigrants in the condition of, in some way, being a problem, who must, therefore, be kept out of the country, rather than, the reality, which is that immigrants are a fundamental means of societies meeting their needs for labour, and who also, enrich the cultural development of the society, but, also, this same narrative, then, makes all those in the society, who look like “immigrants”, the target of suspicion.
That is codified in laws, which lead to disproportionately larger numbers of black and ethnic minority citizens, being subject to repeated stop and search by the police, for example. And, of course, at its worst and most blatant, it means that large numbers of black people and other ethnic minorities are simply shot dead by the police, guilty or innocent, without any trial, any concept of justice, or of being innocent until proven guilty, any concept of the right to a fair trial. That is rampant across the US, but it is also seen in Britain, as with the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, for example. But, Britain was also guilty of implementing such policies of state murder on a systematic basis, against members of the Provisional IRA, for example, despite claiming that the IRA were simply criminals, rather than that they were engaged in a war.
In the period since then, especially as drone technology has developed, both the US and UK, have routinely murdered their political and military opponents, without any recourse to the idea of a fair trial, even a fake, bourgeois fair trial, or the idea of being innocent until proven guilty. When Russia does that, by using poisoned umbrellas, and so on, it is, of course, branded as barbarous, and flouting the norms of the international order, which just shows the extent to which both are guilty of the same crimes, and yet, in the West, those crimes are justified, as being, somehow, “a measure of justice”!!
When the British state murdered those members of the IRA, it did so up close and personal. That is not the case when the US and UK, or its proxies, such as the Zionist state, in Israel, now, carry out such actions. The use of drones to murder opponents, let alone the use of high-powered bombs and missiles, do not target and kill just those they are aimed at. Biden's claim that the murder of Nasrallah, which involved the widespread bombing and destruction of large swathes of not just Beirut, but also other cities such as Tyre, by its Zionist proxy, is like Britain had gone after Martin McGuinness, by dropping huge amounts of bombs on Belfast, and justified it by claiming it had intelligence that he was there, and that, taking him out brought “a measure of justice” to those killed by the IRA!
What is the corollary of that? Well, if we look at what actually happened both in Northern Ireland, and in Lebanon, its instructive. Before 1969, when Britain sent in its troops to the streets of Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA was an insignificant force. Its predecessor, the Official IRA, had abandoned armed struggle, in favour of bourgeois-democratic politics. When, that same bourgeois-democratic politics, undertaken in the form of the Civil Rights Movement, demanded equal political rights for Catholics, something that should not even have to be demanded given the basis of bourgeois-democracy, the Protestant community, which had been given privileges by Britain, in order for it to act as its own agent in Ireland, much as Britain envisaged the role of Zionism in the Middle East, when it set out The Balfour Declaration, rebelled, violently.
The British troops on the ground, in 1969, were supposed to be there to prevent that violence, and were welcomed by Catholic communities, in that light. But, it did not take long for the real purpose of their presence to be felt, which was to suppress the Catholic community itself, and its demands for equal political rights. It was that, emphasised by events such as Bloody Sunday, of again, the cold blooded murder of unarmed Catholics by the British Army, which soon drove Catholics into the arms of the petty-bourgeois nationalists of PIRA, which they saw as their defenders, and whom they provided support for within their communities.
This of course, is the inevitable consequence of nationalist ideology, and national struggles, as against class struggle. A national struggle, be it one to establish some new bourgeois nation state, fought against some existing oppressor nation state, or a straight forward war between two opposing nation states, inevitably, breeds even greater nationalism, and nationalist antagonism between the masses of the two opposing states. It is why Lenin, argued that, as Marxists, we are opposed to such struggles for the creation of new bourgeois states, we are generally, opposed to the idea of national self-determination, and rather in favour of the abolition of national borders, as part of our struggle for the self-determination of the working-class, and its maximum class unity across borders.
"As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state."
The same is seen with Hezbollah, and Zionism. The narrative being given by Zionism and its imperialist sponsors is that the Zionist state was led to invade Lebanon, because of the role of Hezbollah, much as later, Britain, claimed that its military occupation of Northern Ireland, its use of concentration (internment) camps, where people were imprisoned, for years without trial, was in response to the actions of PIRA, whereas, PIRA only grew, because of the actions of the British Army in Ireland after 1969. The reality is that, prior to the invasion of Lebanon by the Zionist state in 1982, when it intervened in the Lebanese Civil War, in order to try to install a right-wing, Maronite-Christian, regime, Hezbollah did not exist. It was created, in a similar manner to the PIRA, in response to the external invasion, and as a means of defence of a local community.
As Marxists, we neither support the petty-bourgeois nationalism of groups like Hezbollah or PIRA, but nor do we give any ground or support to the forces of imperialism and Zionism in their hypocritical attacks on them, because it is the actions of that same imperialism, and of Zionism that creates the conditions in which those petty-bourgeois nationalist organisations spring up in response to them, and their brutal oppression of the communities who turn, in desperation, to such groups.
Of course, the further hypocrisy of US imperialism is that its own history is one in which it resorted to the same terroristic methods, in its struggle for independence from British Colonialism, in the 18th century. And, even more obviously, and recently, the Zionist state, itself, was created by the terrorists of the Irgun and Stern Gang. Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin, as Prime Minister of Israel, was the one that organised the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that led to the siege of Beirut, which was only turned back a a result of the creation of Hezbollah, as a resistance movement to it.
Similarly, prominent Stern Gang terrorist, Yitzhak Shamir, was Prime Minister of Israel, between 1983-4 and 1986-92. US imperialism, as with British imperialism has no problem with terrorists, so long as they are “their” terrorists, or, as in the case of people like Nelson Mandela, after they have ceased being a part of the threat to imperialism, and have been absorbed by it.
Whilst Marxists have no reason to support petty-bourgeois nationalism, or terroristic acts by such organisations, which are generally counter-productive, ineffective, and also act to drive divisions between workers, we do understand, why, in the absence of large, revolutionary workers parties, to lead such struggles, the natural response of oppressed peoples is to lash out by whatever means, and to be driven into the hands of these reactionaries. In considering, our sense of justice, we do not at all equate the violence of the oppressor, particularly the violence of a huge well armed oppressor such as the Zionist state, with its even bigger sponsor US imperialism standing behind it, with the violence of the oppressed that responds to it.
But, if we take Biden's words, what might we then conclude. To murder Nasrallah, US imperialism, using its Zionist proxy has flattened a large swathe of Beirut, and is continuing with that slaughter across Lebanon, as it has done in Gaza. In Gaza, the official figures show more than 40,000 people killed, whilst the real figure, even before we consider those about to die from disease, famine and so on, is more like 100,000. No serious person is in any doubt that the vast majority of those killed are innocent civilians, with the figures themselves showing around 70% are women and children.
The same kinds of figures are being seen in the attacks on Beirut, by the Zionist state. So, what, then, could Biden say, if the families of those innocent civilians in Beirut, and in Gaza, were to look at the murder of their relations at the hands of Zionist state terror, backed by and made possible by US, UK and EU imperialism that provides the bombs, missiles and planes, and were to draw the same conclusion. What Biden's statement means, is that those Palestinian and Lebanese families could look at any assassination of Netanyahu, Biden/Harris/Trump, Starmer and so on, and conclude that, at least, it gave them too, “a measure of justice”. That is what the sham of bourgeois-democracy, and of its rules based order really comes down to, not order and justice at all, but simply an application of mafia-style vendetta.
Blue Labour has spent the last year acting as apologist for the Zionist state in Israel as it openly committed genocide in Gaza, and continued to violently steal land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including the use of organised rape and torture of Palestinians. When the ICJ ruled that there was a prima facie case that genocide was being committed by the Zionist state, Starmer and Blue Labour continued to deny it, and that holocaust denialism was emphasised by their suspension, and subsequent expulsion of Labour candidates and members for merely stating the truth about that genocide already announced by the ICJ, and subsequently ICC, as it issued arrest warrants for the main Zionist butchers, hopefully to be followed with warrants for the arrest of its accomplices in the governments of the US, EU, and Britain.
Its no doubt with this latter possibility in mind that the facilitators of that genocide in the US, EU and Britain have, more recently, tried to provide themselves with some fig-leaf of cover against future prosecutions and incarceration for their part in what is the worst atrocity, so far, of the 21st century, and, on a proportional basis, already ranks as one of the worst atrocities committed in the last hundred years, exceeding those in Rwanda, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Kenya and elsewhere.
The US, of course, simply used its power as world hegemon to attack and sanction the ICJ and ICC themselves, illustrating that its so called “democratic imperialism”, and international rules based order, is just a mask covering the iron fist of its own global interests, and intent on enforcing them, militarily, irrespective of any concept of freedom or democracy, or morality. Like the absolute monarchs of previous centuries, it believes that, when it comes to global relations, it is the law, it is the state, and “apres moi, la deluge”. It is why, the US never accepted the jurisdiction, and never signed up to the ICC.
But, it is clear that these holocaust deniers in the governments of the US, EU and UK, and even more those that may soon be ejected from those positions, recognise that, across the globe, they are in an increasing minority, and, now, at risk of having some other country, slap the bracelets on them for their nefarious acts, and drag them in front of the world's court, in a way they thought they had so structured things that it would only be the politicians of their enemy states that faced such action. The pictures of that happening to one of their favourite dictators of the last century – Pinochet – must flash before their eyes, as they go to bed at night.
So, Biden/Harris have tried to give themselves a fig-leaf of a court defence, by claiming that they have pressed the Zionist state to accept a ceasefire. But, that is as meaningless as their statements, over the last 50 years, that they were seeking the chimera of the Two State Solution. Without the support of the US, the Zionist state would collapse, and so, if they really sought a Two State Solution, they would simply have told the Zionists to stop preventing it.
There are already two states on the territory of Israel-Palestine. It has proven no solution, simply because the more powerful Zionist state, militarily prevents the Palestinian state from functioning, and it is supported in doing that by US imperialism, backed by British and EU imperialism, and their hangers on in NATO. No Marxist can have any excuse for not understanding that that was inevitable, because it is the way imperialism works, of the bigger more powerful states, inevitably dominating the less powerful states, just as larger capitals dominate and eventually eliminate smaller capitals.
As Trotsky put it more than a century ago.
“Capitalism in its international relations pursues the same methods applied by it in “regulating” the internal economic life of the nations. Competition is the means of systematically annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises and of achieving the supremacy of Big Capital. World competition of the capitalist forces means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and the greatest capitalist powers. The more developed the technique of capitalism, the greater the role played by finance capital, and the higher the demands of militarism, all the more grows the dependency of the small states on the Great Powers. This process, forming as it does an integral element of imperialist mechanics, flourishes undisturbed also in times of peace by means of state loans, railway and other concessions, military-diplomatic agreements, etc. The war uncovered and accelerated this process by introducing the factor of open violence. The war destroys the last shreds of the “independence” of small states, quite apart from the military outcome of the conflict between the two basic enemy camps.”
But, of course, the US and Western imperialism, has no interest in a two-state solution, and it has used it simply as a sop to bourgeois, Palestinian and Arab politicians, and to gullible liberals and moralists in the West. The Zionist state is its vehicle in the Middle-East, alongside its other client states in the Gulf, and yet, even they, as well as those in Egypt and Jordan, have shown themselves not to be dependable, not least because of their lack of stable support from their own populations, as seen in the downfall of Mubarak in Egypt, and election of Morsi, requiring yet another military coup to remove him.
And, in the Gulf, as the BRICS+ imperialist bloc rises in significance, with the driver of Chinese industrial capital, opening up the world, so too those Gulf economies are being lured away from the US, and towards that alternative pole. As I noted recently, its why Trump has merely said openly what the policy of US/western imperialism is, in that regard, when he called for Netanyahu to be left to finish the job of exterminating the Palestinians, much as European settlers did against American natives, and Britain did against the aborigines in Australasia.
So, as the Zionist state implements that genocide and extermination of the Palestinians, and as western imperialism not only stands by and watches, but provides it with the weapons, finance and technology to do it, those politicians in the governments of western imperialism, also, need to keep a weather eye on their own necks, and potential for being hauled before the world court at some future time. The epitome of it was the action of Blue Labour at the point where its continued opposition even to a ceasefire was becoming untenable and an albatross around its neck ahead of the General Election. It could not be seen to be backing the SNP motion that called for a ceasefire, on the basis of noting the genocide being committed by the Zionist state, and so used its muscle over the Speaker, to have him prevent the SNP motion being discussed, and have the watered down Blue Labour motion discussed instead, which made no reference to the genocide.
That bureaucratic method is typical of the Bonapartism of Blue Labour. Blue Labour is a representative of the same reactionary, petty-bourgeois, nationalist interests and ideology that stand behind Zionism. As Marx set out, in The Eighteenth Brumaire, the petty-bourgeoisie are too amorphous to become the ruling class, but they are large in numbers, even today. As I have set out recently, since the 1980's, in Britain, they have grown by around 50%, reversing a two century trend of relative decline.
It is that increase in their relative social weight that is the material basis of the movement of the Conservative Party from being a conservative social democratic (neoliberal) party, based on the petty-bourgeoisie, but representing the interests of large-scale, socialised capital, to being a petty-bourgeois, nationalist party, representing the interests of that petty-bourgeoisie, as indicated by Brexit. That same process is seen with the Republicans in the US, and similar parties across Europe.
Blue Labour has sought to also occupy that ideological and electoral space. But, precisely because the petty-bourgeoisie cannot form the ruling-class, and because the interests of petty-bourgeois nationalism are antagonistic to those of large-scale, socialised capital, the petty-bourgeoisie can only govern on the basis of Bonapartism. It requires that the main classes, the bourgeoisie and proletariat are themselves weak and divided. Bonapartism itself can take numerous forms on a spectrum of superficial democracy that looks a lot like bourgeois democracy, to at the other end outright military rule, and dictatorship. Those features are seen in Starmer's approach inside the Labour Party, and are, now, transferred into the realm of government itself.
So, when Blue Labour's David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, announced the pitiful restriction of just 10% of Britain's arms sales to the Zionist regime, it was no surprise that he spent most of the time reiterating his own Zionism, and support for that Zionist regime, even as it carries out that internationally recognised genocide, as well as trying to pretend that the lack of equivalence between that Zionist state, and Hamas was all on the side of the Zionist regime!
Of course, there is no equivalence, but contrary to Lammy, it is the Zionist state, a huge permanently mobilised, military regime, a clear manifestation of Bonapartism, backed by the world's most powerful military machine, which has all of the power, and which has used it continuously, over the last 80 years to impose itself on the Palestinians, and surrounding Arab states! To try to claim some lack of equivalence, based on the false notion that this reactionary, Bonapartist regime is “democratic” is ludicrous, and were it to be true, would only demolish completely the old argument that “democratic” states do not carry out genocides! Lammy's argument is, not surprisingly, the same argument of non-equivalence that Farage, and the other reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalists used in relation to the policing of the recent riots by far-right thugs, of two-tier policing.
Blue Labour is a manifestation of those class relations. It represents the interests of reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalism. That petty-bourgeois nationalism is antagonistic to the interests both of the ruling class of speculators, whose revenues ultimately depend upon the profits of large-scale socialised capital, which itself depends on the free movement of that capital, as manifest in the growth of the EU, and of the process of globalisation, and of the working-class, which is the collective owner of that socialised capital. The ruling class is itself tiny, amounting to only around 0.1% of the population, and its power comes from its ownership of the vast majority of fictitious-capital, and control of the state, through which it also controls the real industrial capital. The working-class, is currently weak, having suffered a severe defeat in the 1980's, and relative diminution in its social position, from which it is still recovering.
But, the petty-bourgeoisie represents only around 30% of the population, and is amorphous. Blue Labour required the vote of the working-class, and professional middle-class, at the same time as seeking to attract to it the votes of that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, symbolised by the “white van man”, and its attendant layers of lumpen proletarians, visible in the ranks of those that turned out on the streets to riot in the recent weeks. The multiple contradictions it faces in trying to hold that electoral coalition together are more than obvious. And, in the election itself, it was apparent in the fact that Blue Labour got less votes than Corbyn's Labour obtained in 2019, and only around the same share of the vote, whilst its share of the vote, and number of votes cratered compared to Corbyn's Labour in 2017.
Yet, the propagandists of Blue Labour have continued to present this as a landslide of historic proportions. That is only true if, like a good Bonapartist, you are not ashamed to achieve those results on the basis of what amounts to an electoral system based on ballot-rigging. So, its also no surprise to see Zionists and right-wing Labourites such as Eric Lee, defending Blue Labour's performance against criticism from consistent democrats and Marxists, as he set it out in the Zionist rag of the AWL. He wrote,
“American astronauts did not set foot on the Moon in July 1969. In 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were brought down by a controlled explosion, and not by hijacked airliners that flew into them. Russia did not invade Ukraine but merely launched a “special military operation” in self-defence against the threat of a Nazi regime in Kyiv. Climate change is not real. The earth is flat.
Let’s add one more to that list: the Labour Party did not win the general election last week.”
Even Lee can't claim that critics of Blue Labour do not recognise that, in terms of Britain's corrupt undemocratic electoral system, it won the election. But, his whole argument is based upon the defence of that lack of democracy of the system! He rightly criticises Trump for claiming that he didn't lose the 2020 election, but, on that basis, you might also justify the election of George Bush against Al Gore, even though Gore obtained more votes in total, or the election of the Tories in 1951, even though they polled fewer votes that Attlee's Labour Party, and won a smaller share of the vote.
Lee tries to justify this by claiming that it was all about utilising the system effectively, even though, as I've shown, that argument is flawed, also, because even where Blue Labour was supposed to have targeted its efforts in particular seats, it still didn't improve its support over 2019, in most cases, and in pretty much every case, did worse than in 2017. In reality, Lee's argument is that of every Bonapartist, or bureaucratic, basing themselves on manipulating the system, rather than building real majority support. It is the method of Stalin, who said its not the casting of the votes that determines elections, but who counts them.
This is a house of cards that has been built on rotten foundations. Its collapse is inevitable.
When the vile, clerical-fascists of Hamas attacked mostly civilian, Israeli Jews on October 7th 2023, they carried out horrendous and brutal acts against those civilians, including sexual violence, not to mention murder, including the murder of women and children, including a baby. The Zionist regime, was, of course, entirely justified in describing those acts for the barbarity they represented, even if its own barbarity in the treatment of Palestinians, as a whole, for the last 75 years, has been a contributory factor, in producing a reflex response.
But, as Owen Jones and others have reported, in the period since that time, based on the actual facts, as detailed in, even, official Israeli documents, and reports from investigators in Israel, what the Zionist state did was not to simply report the truth about those barbarous attacks, but to grossly embellish them, and to entirely fabricate material, which they, then, used as incendiary propaganda to further inflame racist hatred of Palestinians in Israel, and amongst supporters of the Zionist state, across the world, in a way that is identical to the way fascist groups in Britain, used the murder of three young children in Southport, to fabricate stories designed to whip up racist, and Islamophobic anger in Britain, as a pretext for their, clearly pre-planned acts of violence and thuggery, across Britain.
The Zionists, and supporters of the Zionist state, in the West, from Starmer and Biden, to the AWL, were, of course, quick to accept as gospel the grotesque lies of the Zionist regime, about babies being beheaded, women being raped and so on, which turned out to have been fabricated, and simply embroidered what were, in themselves, barbaric acts. Joe Biden claimed to have seen with his own eyes, the pictures of the beheaded babies, which was a lie. He could not have seen any such pictures, because none existed. No babies were beheaded. Official Israel reports show only one baby killed on the day, and that was as a result of being shot, whilst being held by its mother, as they huddled in a panic room. The baby was shot, as a result of the attackers shooting through the door. That, in itself is an horrific act, so why the need to embellish it, with further grotesque distortions and lies?
The same was true of the report of a woman being raped, given in graphic detail by The New York Times. It was, also, proven to be a fiction, drawn up in the Zionist Ministry of Disinformation, and spread by its propagandists across social media, and eagerly swallowed by the racists and Islamophobes, including those in the high offices of state across America and Europe, again, much as the lies circulated by the fascists about the murders in Southport, and elsewhere, were swallowed and used as justification for their own subsequent thuggery and violence. The Zionist spokesman who was responsible has since been replaced, but his replacement is the fantasist and former President of Labour Friends of Israel, David Mencer, who claimed to need to take his family out of Britain, because of the danger posed to Jews by Jeremy Corbyn!! Well, Palestinians certainly face a real threat to their lives from the Zionist state that Mencer, now is part of, and for whose benefit he now acts as apologist.
So, why did the Zionist state need to grotesquely exaggerate the nature of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th? As Owen Jones has noted, because, on October 7th, 1,300 Israeli Jews were killed, but, it was clear, from the start that the Zionist regime was going to kill far more Palestinians in response. The total Palestinian death toll, officially, now, is 40,000, but the real figure is way, way more than that, because it does not include all those bodies still lying beneath the rubble that have not been uncovered. Nor does it include all those that are dead and dying from the subsequent effects on their health from the Zionist genocide and destruction of Gaza. David Mercer, of course, claims that those figures can't be trusted, despite the fact that they are backed by the reports by various international medical and humanitarian organisations, and, in the past, the figures reported from Gaza, have proved to be under-estimate, not overestimates. In fact, given the WHO and other assessments of the fact that almost the entire population of Gaza is suffering from various forms of infectious diseases, not to mention malnutrition, and a devastated healthcare system, so that people are dying from lack of treatment of all conditions, the numbers are likely to run into the hundreds of thousands, when the final toll of the genocide is calculated.
So, to justify a genocide, and the slaughter of tens of thousands, let alone hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the Zionist state and its supporters had to grotesquely embellish the original, and already horrific attacks by Hamas, to provide their justification that they were dealing with “human animals”, by which they meant, now, not just Hamas, but all Palestinians, because, just as Zionists believe that you cannot be a real Jew unless you are also a Zionist, so they have argued that all Palestinians in Gaza are supporters of Hamas, even babies, who they claim could become future terrorists.
Of course, the genocide taking place in Gaza, supported by western imperialism, armed by western imperialism, and justified on this basis of “the right to self-defence”, a right, also proclaimed by the Zionists and pro-imperialists of the AWL, is leading to Palestinian babies being beheaded by those bombs and shells rained down on them, as well as their tiny bodies being rent asunder by those munitions, and many more being cooked alive, as they are trapped in the rubble of buildings as they burn. Even for those that survive such butchery, they face the prospect of their injuries being treated without anaesthetic, or adequate sterile conditions. So, to justify all of this perversion and inhumanity, the Zionist state and its apologists in the West, needed to fabricate the various stories about beheaded babies, systematic rape and so on.
But, it has now been shown that, not only were most of the more grotesque claims fabricated, not only have thousands of Palestinian babies, actually been the ones beheaded and dismembered by Zionist/imperialist bombs, but also the systematic rape and torture has been carried out by the Zionist state, and it is openly admitted, discussed in parliament and on TV, where it is justified!
But, what has also transpired shows that the arguments being used in those discussions to justify the rape and torture of Palestinians bear a striking resemblance to the arguments used by the fascist thugs in justifying their attacks on migrants, and minorities in Britain. The fabrication in relation to the murder of the three girls in Southport was only one instance of that.
That the arguments and methodology of the Zionists should be comparable with that of the fascists in Britain is no surprise. Zionism itself is an ultra-nationalist, authoritarian ideology that based itself on the same ethno-nationalism that was used by the Nazis. As this Al Jazeera documentary about the Stern Gang illustrates, and as can be seen by a simple search of Wikipedia, they not only sought alliances with Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, but based their ideas about the future Zionist state on the same ideology of racism and totalitarianism.
But, we don't have to look back in history for such connections. The supporters of Trump, amongst those that took part in his farcical coup attempt, included Zionists. Of course, in the US, the majority of Zionists are not American Jews, the majority of whom, now, oppose Zionism, but right-wing Christian Zionists. Trump's connections to Farage in Britain, are also well known, as are the latter's connections to the likes of Tommy Robinson, though in recent days, those relations seem to have soured. In turn, both Farage and Trump have links with Putin, and Putin, in turn has links with Netanyahu, as do Trump, and Farage.
