Israel/Palestine

See our publications on Israel/Palestine, and articles on fighting left antisemitism.

The life of Rachel Corrie

Robin Sivapalan reviews My Name Is Rachel Corrie, now showing at the Playhouse Theatre London It is three years since American International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel was deliberately ploughed down by an Israeli Defence Force bulldozer in Gaza while trying to stop Palestinian houses from being demolished. The ISM have now disbanded. Palestinian homes are still being demolished. And Rachel Corrie’s diaries have been adapted into a performance monologue. It is a genuinely moving play, and Rachel Corrie’s life and outlook is inspiring. The title comes from video footage of the activist...

As we were saying: Should we boycott Israeli goods?

A new attempt is being made to set up a movement in Britain to support the Palestinian Arabs by organising a boycott of Israeli goods on sale here. It would be a campaign like the decades-long boycott of South African goods. According to press reports, it already has pledges of support from as many as twenty MPs, mainly Labour, and including Clare Short. Socialist Organiser [forerunner of Solidarity] supports the Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and we support those within Israel fighting to get the Israeli army out of the occupied territories and for...

Palestine: towards an imposed carve-up?

By John O’Mahony Throughout the second intifada, the revolt of the Palestinians against Israeli colonial rule, there could be seen a tragic entanglement, almost a tacit alliance, between Hamas on the Palestinian and Likud on the Israeli side. Together they made impossible any progress out of the conflict. Again and again, their actions strengthened each other at the expense of more conciliatory forces on both sides. The use of vastly disproportionate military force, against civilians and in circumstances in which civilians were predictably going to be the victims, by the Israeli state. Suicide...

hamas victory: “a terrible defeat”

The Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) has been debating the left’s response to the victory of the Islamist party, Hamas, in the Palestinian legislative elections on 25 January 2006. An initial response by Nicolas Qualander appeared in the LCR’s paper, Rouge, of 23 February. We print here a translated extract of a reply to Qualander by Christian Picquet published in Rouge, 2 March 2006. Often, when confronted by reactionary ideological forces that challenge the established order while resting on the exasperation of the oppressed, the revolutionary left has tried to reassure itself by...

Why Israeli Labour is about to fail: Criticism and Outlines for a Way Forward

By David Merhav (in Haifa) The elections in Israel are about to come. Israeli Labour has launched a campaign in which it has started to discuss the possibility of allying with the Kadima (Forward) party, founded by Ariel Sharon and now led by Acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. A few weeks ago, the Labour chairperson, Amir Peretz MP, promised to win the elections or to serve as militant opposition to Olmert. Olmert, an enthusiastic supporter of the right wing neo-capitalist policies carried out by Binyamin Netanyahu (now chairman of the Likud party, actually the remnants of the historic Likud...

“Left” anti-semitism is no myth

The charge of “anti-semitism” is thrown at critics of Israel by the crassest of the uncritical, and sometimes paranoid, apologists for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians? This is true. And therefore? Therefore, there is no anti-semitism; where just and valid criticisms are made of Israel, there can be no anti-semitism, even if the conclusion from the criticism is that the Israeli Jewish nation should be destroyed; and therefore, there is no anti-semitism in the stark root-and-branch antagonism to Israel which dominates the hard left, and is now spreading rapidly through the rest of the...

“Zionists” to blame for apartheid too?

In February the Guardian published a lengthy two part feature comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa, written by the "award winning" Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal. The false and unfounded portrayal of Israel as an “apartheid state” is certainly not a new phenomenon, but one that has been revived and promoted as part of a deliberate campaign and strategy to demonise and delegitimise Israel… Those who urge a worldwide boycott of Israel use this comparison in order to rally the same forces that used the international divestment sanction as a major factor in bringing the white...

Hamas set to make gains

By Mark Osborn As Solidarity goes to press the Palestinians go to the polls in the first parliamentary election since 1996. 1.27 million Palestinians are eligible to vote and commentators predict an 85% turnout, with Hamas and Fatah closely contesting the election on 25 January. Hamas did not participate in the last parliamentary poll, but recently beat Fatah in municipal elections in the main West Bank cities. Seven hundred and twenty eight candidates are contesting 132 seats in the Legislative Council. Half will be elected by constituency and half by proportional representation. The Israeli...

Israel and the Palestinians head for the polls

By Mark Osborn "Sharon is still 'fighting for his life', between operation room and intensive care, but the myth-making is already going on at full speed", comments Adam Keller's alternative briefing, The Other Israel. "The overwhelming majority of Israeli commentators describe Ariel Sharon as the tragic hero stricken by fate while only halfway through with what should have been the apotheosis of his biography: the man of war ultimately achieving peace. He is compared with Ben Gurion and with the murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak RabinŠ The myth of Sharon the Peacemaker actually started from the...

Workers' news round-up

Indonesia A wave of protests — including on May Day — by Indonesian workers has forced the government to put off its draft labour law. According to union leader Dita Sari, the stakes are high because the labour law “will become a normative regulation that will be binding on workers for years and years into the future”. However the overall situation for workers is not great. One danger is the government’s emphasis on copying China and Vietnam, which have lower wages than Indonesia and no independent trade unions. Sari said: “The president’s reference to Chinese and Vietnamese models of labour...

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