UK government plans harder clampdown on protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza

Thomas Scripps

The British state is planning to step up its repression of protests against Israel’s war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. As the popular movement in solidarity with the Palestinians grows—half a million attended a national demonstration in London on Saturday—the government and police are seeking new tools to intimidate and arrest protestors.

In the lead-up to Saturday’s demonstration, the media whipped up a torrent of slander denouncing those participating. There have been countless references to a fascistic article by the UK’s Commissioner for Countering Extremism Robin Simcox, published in The Times, “Hate marches in Britain are a wake-up call to all decent people.”

A section of the 500,000 strong March for Palestine demonstration in London assembling at Victoria Embankment

The hundreds of thousands who have protested Israel’s war on Gaza with chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” declares Simcox, are guilty of chanting “death to Jews”. They have “been careful to construe their public displays of support just below the legal threshold for hate crime, glorification of terror, or public order offences… exploiting one of our proudest British values, freedom of expression, to pursue a shameful extremist agenda, the normalisation and promotion of antisemitism.”

His screed continues that this is also “the price that Britain and other Western European countries are paying for a three decade-long failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.”

On Friday, The Times added to this barrage the totally baseless allegations, supposedly citing private conversations with counterterrorism officers, that the Iranian government “is trying to heighten tensions at rallies over Israel’s bombing of Gaza. They have warned of increased hostile-state activity in Britain. It is directly linked to the Iranian regime and includes a campaign of online disinformation and Iranian operatives being physically present at protests.”

On Sunday, head of London’s Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley used these lies as a platform to call for a review of the legal definition of “extremism”, giving his officers a free hand to round up as many protestors as they can get their hands on.

Roughly 100 people have been arrested in connection with the protests since Israel’s war began, but Rowley threatened there would be “many more” in the future: “we’re going to be absolutely ruthless”. Crown Prosecution Service lawyers are now stationed in police operations rooms monitoring the protests to “identify” as many alleged offences as possible.

The London police chief, previously the UK’s lead counter terror officer, did his bit to smear the hundreds of thousands who have taken a stand against Israel’s genocide as Iranian stooges, terrorist accomplices and antisemites: “You’ve got state threats from Iran, you’ve got terrorism being accelerated by the events and hate crime in communities… In the middle of it, we’ve got these big protests.”

He lamented that police could only “enforce up to the line of the law,” since “there’s no point arresting hundreds of people if it’s not prosecutable.”

He added, “There is scope to be much sharper in how we deal with extremism within this country. The law was never designed to deal with extremism, there's a lot to do with terrorism and hate crime but we don’t have a body of law that deals with extremism, and that is creating a gap.”

The next step in this state orchestrated witch-hunt was for Home Secretary Suella Braverman to order a Home Office review of terrorism and extremism laws to consider “tweaks to the wording of existing laws to strengthen policing of the language and slogans at pro-Palestinian demos,” according to Politico.

Given the timescale of a review and new legislation, Communities Secretary Michael Gove has meanwhile been tasked with implementing a new non-statutory definition of extremism by the end of the year. The Times reports that the new wording “will make it easier to crack down on charities, places of worship, universities and other organisations that spread radical ideology or host hate preachers.”

The current definition is already as broad as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values”.

On Monday, Braverman, other senior ministers, national security officials and police took part in a COBRA meeting (which deal with national crises) “to look at domestic security arrangements in the wake of three weekends of protests and rising incidents of anti-Semitism,” in the Times’ words.

Britain's Home Secretary Suella Braverman speaks on immigration at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, September 26, 2023, in Washington. [AP Photo/Kevin Wolf]

Speaking to broadcasters after the meeting, Braverman let rip a barrage of lies and threats, “Let me explain what we have seen over the last few weekends. We have seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets following the massacre of Jewish people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map.

“To my mind there is only one way to describe those marches. They are hate marches.”

Braverman, who is the most notorious hate monger in Britain today, continued, “What the police have made clear is that they are concerned that there is a large number of bad actors who are deliberately operating beneath the criminal threshold in a way which you or I or the vast majority of British people would consider to be utterly odious.” She added that she “would not hesitate” to change the law to facilitate a crackdown.

The ruling class is intent on the brutal repression of a mass movement they have long feared, amid a resurgence of the class struggle now exacerbated by the impacts of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the outbreak of war--first in Ukraine and now in the Middle East. It is using the McCarthyite atmosphere whipped up by the media and the government over any opposition to Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinians to roll out well-prepared plans for a police state.

Rowley was appointed to head the Metropolitan Police for precisely this purpose, having spent the previous few years advising the UK government’s Commission on Countering Extremism. In 2019, the World Socialist Web Site reported how a report on “left-wing extremism” submitted to the Commission, “set out to brand as suspect views held by millions of people” as extremist, among them that “The greatest threat to democracy has always come from the far right” and that “Zionism is a form of racism”.

The eruption of a mass, global movement against the imperialist powers and their Israeli client state is exposing the real state of political relations the world over: deeply isolated and despised governments stand opposed to the vast bulk of the working class and youth.

US condemns calls for Gaza ceasefire, as Israel accelerates ground offensive

Andre Damon

Palestinians leave their homes following Israeli bombardment on Gaza City, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

The United States, a leading instigator and supporter of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, has once again publicly rebuked global calls for an end to the war.

At a news briefing Friday, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked to comment on Friday’s overwhelming 140-15 vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We do not believe that a ceasefire is the right answer right now,” Kirby said. “We believe that a ceasefire right now benefits Hamas, and Hamas is the only one that would gain from that right now.”

Kirby reiterated the talking points of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vocally condemned all those both within Israel and worldwide who are calling for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism,” Netanyahu told reporters, vowing, “That will not happen.” He continued, “Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7.”

Netanyahu referred to the Palestinians as “the forces of barbarism,” adding, “If Hamas and Iran’s axis of evil wins, you will be their next target,” referring to Israel’s imperialist allies. Netanyahu asked if “the civilized world [is] ready to fight the barbarians,” saying that Israel’s opponents want to “usher in a world of fear and darkness,” calling them the enemies of civilization.

Kirby and Netanyahu made these statements as Israeli tanks and soldiers pushed further toward Gaza City, with video showing Israeli troops shooting indiscriminately at civilian vehicles. Israeli ground troops entered Gaza last week and have steadily moved to encircle Gaza City from multiple directions. Israel has blocked food, water, and fuel from entering into the enclave of two million people and is only allowing in a trickle of assistance to flow in from Egypt.

The advancing troops were accompanied by a relentless bombing campaign that continues to kill hundreds of Palestinians every single day. Between October 28 and 29, 302 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The death toll has soared to over 8,000, of whom 67 percent are women and children. Nearly three-quarters of the population of Gaza, or 1.4 million people, have been internally displaced. Throughout the country, UN refugee facilities reported that they are at three times their intended capacity.

The massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is accompanied by a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, whose activities are given quasi-official sanction by the Israeli government. According to the United Nations, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in the West Bank over the past three weeks. Another 121 Palestinians in the West Bank were displaced after Israeli forces demolished their homes. At least seven Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli settlers since October 7, and more than 100 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli police and military forces over the same time period.

As Israel’s onslaught against both Gaza and the West Bank continues, it is becoming increasingly impossible to deny that the Netanyahu government has seized upon the events of October 7 to initiate a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In remarks on Monday, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, stated bluntly at the United Nations, “What happened and continues to happen is forced displacement.

“Civilians remaining in the north are receiving evacuation notices from the Israeli forces, urging them south to receive scarce humanitarian assistance,” he said. “But many, including pregnant women, people with disabilities, the sick and the wounded, are unable to move.” He added, “Hunger and despair are turning into anger against the international community.”

On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the Israeli government is seeking to relocate Palestinians into Egypt’s Sinai Desert. In an article entitled, “Netanyahu lobbied EU to pressure Egypt into accepting Gaza refugees,” the FT wrote, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to convince European leaders to put pressure on Egypt into accepting refugees from Gaza.” The FT quoted a Western diplomat as saying, “Netanyahu pushed quite hard that the solution was for Egyptians to take Gazans at least during the conflict.”

The FT quoted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as saying Egypt “rejects ‘any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region’.” The plans by Netanyahu are consistent with a leaked proposal from Israel’s intelligence ministry calling for the population of Gaza to be relocated to tent cities in the northern Sinai desert and not to allow the population to return.

Amid the escalating ground invasion, Israel is intensifying its bombardment of hospitals throughout Gaza. In its daily update on the situation in Gaza, the United Nations wrote, “Over the weekend, the vicinities of Shifa and Al Quds hospitals in Gaza City and of the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza were reportedly bombarded, causing damage. This followed renewed calls by the Israeli military to evacuate these facilities immediately. All 13 hospitals still operational in Gaza City and northern Gaza have received repeated evacuation orders in recent days.”

On Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said that Israel threatened to bomb the Al Quds hospital, where 14,000 people are sheltering. The UN also reported, “The Turkish Friendship Hospital, which treats cancer patients in Gaza, was severely damaged by intense bombing in its vicinity. The bombing caused several injuries.”

In his remarks to the UN Security Council Monday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini said, “More than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza every day.

“Save the Children reported yesterday that nearly 3,200 children were killed in Gaza in just three weeks. This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019,” Lazzarini said.

Protests in Ukraine demand return of soldiers from the front

Jason Melanovski

The friends and families of Ukrainian soldiers protest forced conscription and the treatment of soldiers by the Ukrainan military.

In an indication of growing fatigue with and opposition to the NATO proxy war against Russia in the Ukrainian population, protesters gathered in cities throughout Ukraine on Friday to demand the return of their friends and family members at the front. Some of them have been deployed without pause since the very beginning of the bloody NATO-provoked war on February 24, 2022.

Testifying to the widespread frustration in Ukraine with unending mobilization, protests were held in the capital city of Kiev, as well in smaller cities such as Ternopil, Odessa, Dnipro and others throughout the country.

In Kiev, family members and friends of deployed soldiers prepared a document demanding that both President Voldymyr Zelensky and General Valery Zaluzhny clarify exactly how long soldiers are expected to remain at the front. After gathering on Independence Square, protesters marched to the office of President Zelensky to present their demands, such as the passing of a bill to limit mobilization to 18 months of service.

According to the appeal, within Ukraine, despite the “general mobilization” declared at the start of the war, “some are serving without the terms of release known to them, while others are not serving at all.”

“The situation of uncertainty about the terms of service leads to the deterioration of the moral and psychological state of servicemen, to social tension between military and civilians, as well as to the demoralization of personnel,” the document stated.

“Our relatives have been at the front since February 24. Many servicemen have never been home. Their families wake up and go to sleep with only one thought they want to hear: I’m alive, I’m going home. We wrote a collective appeal, where we ask that we be given the terms of service and demobilization, which should be according to the law according to the Constitution of Ukraine,” stressed protester Anastasiya Chuvakina.

Protesters insisted they will continue to gather in Kiev and throughout the country until the government and military make public the terms of mobilization.

“We will seek to clarify the terms of demobilization. Let it be a year and a half, let it be a little longer, but they should know the terms. They should know that the country for which they give their lives stands behind them,” said one soldier’s wife.

In July, Ukraine’s parliament voted to extend martial law and mobilization for another 90 days until November, marking the eighth extension since the beginning of the war. Many reports from Ukraine have documented the criminal methods through which men are forcibly drafted into the army after being effectively kidnapped on the streets and in shopping malls. 

Despite calls for parliament to approve a bill limiting deployments at the front to 18 months, Zelensky’s own Servant of the People political party holds an outright majority in parliament and will be unlikely to move any legislation forward that could potentially impair the war effort without the President’s support. The office of President Zelensky has yet to publicly state how long his government believes soldiers are expected to serve at the front.

Zelensky’s much publicized four-month long “counteroffensive” has now effectively ended with tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers reportedly killed over the summer in a barrage of senseless charges at Russian defenses that according to the New York Times actually resulted in a net loss of Ukrainian-held territory.

In much of east Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers are now on the defensive, attempting to hold onto cities such as Avdiivka. Located just 40 miles from the major city of Donetsk, the city “arguably has more strategic value than Bakhmut,” according to the Washington Post. Bakhmut, colloquially known as the “meat grinder,” was seized in May by Russia after a months-long battle that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.

According to figures by the Russian government, Ukraine has lost 90,000 soldiers in just four months of its counteroffensive operations. 

In August, Ukraine’s main supporter, the United States, estimated total Ukrainian deaths at 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, while retired United States Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor has estimated that up to 400,000 Ukrainians soldiers have been killed in action. Whatever the true number, it is clear that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are in desperate need of soldiers to continue the war following Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive. The pre-war Ukrainian population was under 30 million, and it has significantly shrunk since, with at least 6 million having left the country since the beginning of the war. 

Amid the ongoing carnage at the front, Ukrainian men continue to flee the country illegally as unemployment skyrockets and the destruction of the Ukrainian economy, which was already the poorest country in Europe before the war, continues.

A recent story from Business Insider highlighted the dilemma facing many working class Ukrainians. The outlet referenced the story of war veteran Bohdan who was forced to hide his identity for fear of being identified by the country’s fascistic security forces. Bohdan spoke of the horrors at the front and was now supporting the attempts of his 21-year-old son Artem to escape the country before he was conscripted.

According to Bohdan, apart from facing death at the front, “There is not much work or quality education for young men during wartime, so some of them want to leave, but they can’t.”

Recently, Ukrainian news outlet Slovo y Delo reported that thanks to the war, Ukraine had entered the top 10 list of countries with the highest unemployment rates in the world.

According to data from National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s unemployment rate of 21.1 percent in 2022 was actually an improvement from the previously projected 26 percent. Other countries on the top 10 list include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Botswana and Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Zelensky government plans for a further expansion of the conflict with the use of the newly delivered army tactical missile system (ATACMS) missiles from the United States, which can strike targets more than 100 miles away and employ cluster munitions.

Last week, in an online address to the parliamentary summit of the Crimean Platform, Zelensky warned that his country would be ramping up its attacks on Crimea and within Russia, signifying a further escalation of the nearly two-year long war. “We have not yet gained full fire control over Crimea and surrounding waters, but we will,” Zelensky said. “This is a question of time.”

Thousands protest in Israel calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza

Jean Shaoul

Israelis joined millions of people throughout the world, opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, taking to the streets in several towns and cities to demand the government end the war and do everything necessary to bring home the 230 hostages being held in Gaza.

In Tel Aviv, hundreds of angry young protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday evening holding banners saying, “Ceasefire now” and “Bring back the hostages, alive, now.”

Haim Rubinstein, for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, demanded, “Is there a plan? We don’t know. That’s what we want to find out.” She added, “We also want to know the meaning of what happened last night,” referring to the IDF ground invasion of Gaza and the bombardment of 150 Hamas underground targets, including tunnels where the hostages are believed to be held.

Hundreds demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, accusing him of responsibility for the war, demanding he resign and chanting, “Take responsibility for the sake of the people.” At a demonstration in Jerusalem, banners called for a prisoner exchange. Hundreds took part in a rally in the northern port city of Haifa, home to both Jews and Palestinians, with other rallies held in Beersheba, Herzylia, Netanya and Kfar Saba and other towns.

Supporters held at least 20 vigils for the hostages’ families and memorials for those killed around the country on Saturday night.

These protests followed a rally Tuesday when hundreds protested in Tel Aviv, demanding the government secure the release of the hostages. At an earlier rally on October 14, angry demonstrators turned on Netanyahu, chanting “Go to jail, Bibi! [Netanyahu’s nickname]” and “Leave.” Placards read, “Bibi, you have blood on your hands,” “We’ve been abandoned,” “Return the hostages immediately,” and “There’s no trust, quit.” They accused Netanyahu and his government of being more interested in their own survival than the Israeli people.

While these protests are small and reflect a Zionist opposition to the Netanyahu government, they are indicative of growing concerns about the purpose and direction of the war that threatens to escalate across the region, putting the survival of the state itself at risk.

The scale of the destruction of Gaza is unprecedented. More than 8,000 people have been killed, including 3,000 children, more than 1,700 women, and dozens of families killed together when their houses collapsed on them. More than 17,000 people have been injured, with another 2,000 still missing under the rubble. At least 16,000 residential units have been destroyed and a further 11,000 made uninhabitable.

At the same time, the US is surging troops, warships and aircraft to the Middle East to be deployed against Iran and its allies, Hezbollah, Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. The Biden administration is not only supporting Israel’s war against Gaza and inflaming public opposition to US imperialism and its Arab allies who have not lifted a finger to defend the Palestinians, but providing the weapons Israel is using to carry out attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.

On Saturday, representatives of families with relatives held hostage in Gaza met Netanyahu and urged him to agree to an “everyone for everyone” prisoner exchange with Hamas, one of whose demands in launching the attack on Israel on October 9 was the release of all the Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

Meirav Leshem-Gonen, father of a 21-year-old hostage told the press the families had pleaded with Netanyahu not to launch military operations that could endanger their loved ones, a reference to the planned ground invasion. Malki Shemtov, the father of another hostage, said the families had insisted they were all in agreement that they don’t care how many concessions the government had to make to get all captives back home safely.

Netanyahu cynically told the families that freeing the hostages was a chief goal of the war, a soporific that flatly contradicted his bloodthirsty “We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins” declaration. In all the government’s pronouncements, the hostages have not so much as got a mention. It has taken three weeks for Netanyahu even to meet the families.

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, issued a statement saying, “We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance.”

Amid the official howls of outrage against Hamas, according to B’tselem, as of last June, Israel was holding 4,499 Palestinians—mostly from the West Bank and East Jerusalem with 183 from the Gaza Strip, in detention or in prison on what it defined as “security” grounds. At that time, the Prison Service was also holding 850 Palestinians, 3 of them from the Gaza Strip, for being in Israel illegally.

Most significantly, the number of prisoners has doubled to more than 10,000 since October 9 after Israel arrested around 4,000 labourers from Gaza who had permits to work in Israel, detaining them in military bases in the Negev desert, with reports from Palestinian lawyers and officials of severe mistreatment, assaults and inhuman conditions, including being subjected to starvation and thirst. It has also arrested 1,070 other Palestinians in overnight army raids in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, most of whom are being held in administrative detention without charge.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday in Ramallah, Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees’ Affairs, said recent developments are “unprecedented” and “dangerous.” “Everyone who is arrested is assaulted. Many of the prisoners have had their limbs, hands and legs broken… degrading and insulting expressions, insults, cursing, tying them with handcuffs to the back and tightening them at the end to the point of causing severe pain… naked, humiliating and group search of the prisoners,” he explained.

On Wednesday, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, approved a plan reducing the minimum living space for each prisoner, previously 3.5 square metres, to accommodate the rising numbers and has made it easier to arrest Palestinians both in the occupied territories and in Israel itself on mere suspicion.

Russia’s war-time budget

Andrea Peters

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, left, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, arrive at The Peter and Paul Fortress to attend the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, July 30, 2023. [AP Photo/Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo]

Under conditions of the US and NATO’s ongoing escalation of the war in Ukraine, Moscow is placing the country’s economy on a war footing, with a massive increase in military spending slated for 2024-2026. On Thursday, the Russian Duma gave initial approval to the Kremlin’s proposed federal budget, which will raise defense expenditures to 10.7 trillion rubles (about $113 billion) next year. This is a record 6 percent of gross domestic product, the largest military-spending to GDP ratio since the dissolution of the USSR.

These outlays, while still minuscule in comparison to the trillion plus dollars that the US spends annually on defense, are a 70 percent increase over 2023. When the additional 3.4 trillion rubles ($36 billion) dedicated in 2024 to “national security” is added to the bill, nearly 40 percent of Russia’s federal budget will soon go to war-making and intensifying the state’s repressive powers.

Compared to 2021, Moscow will have now tripled its disbursements in these areas. For the first time ever, Russia’s expenditures on defense and security will dwarf those directed towards “social policy.” The government is planning to devote nearly double to the military-industrial complex and its related institutions than it does to financing pensions, public sector wages, and other social programs, which will now account for just over 21 percent of all federal expenditures, the lowest level since 2011. Even these numbers are an underestimate, as many defense and security expenses are either classified information, included under other categories, or handled at the level of regional budgets.

The budget comes after 19 months of war in Ukraine. Speaking for the parasitic oligarchy that emerged out of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, the Putin regime had invaded Ukraine after years and decades of imperialist provocations, based on the bankrupt conception that it could quickly force the imperialist powers to the negotiating table and discuss terms for a “peaceful existence”. This strategy has catastrophically backfired. Whatever their own military setbacks, the imperialist powers have continued to escalate and expand the war in Ukraine. Now, in the Middle East, where the US is backing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, a new front is opened up through an escalation of conflict with Syria and Iran, both allied with Russia.

Under these conditions, the Russian oligarchy is feverishly trying to beef up its defenses in order to deal with the intensifying war and the efforts by the imperialist powers to break up Russia, a central part of their larger scramble to re-divide the world.

US President Biden, who has already funneled $75 billion in assistance to Kiev since February 2022 according to the Kiel Institute, is now demanding tens of billions more to finance Ukraine’s killing machine, as well as wage war in the Middle East, where new fronts along which Russia must wage combat will emerge. Washington is pursuing a policy of, as characterized by the RAND Institute in 2019, “overextending and unbalancing Russia” through “cost-imposing options” that are intended to stress “Russia’s economy and armed forces.”

Clearly concerned that the economic strains of financing the war will aggravate social discontent in a country with extremely high levels of social inequality, the Kremlin is attempting to present the new budget as a policy of equally “guns and butter.” Speaking at a meeting of a Duma committee last week, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov insisted that the country’s 2024-2026 financial plan was not a “military budget,” but rather devoted to “social issues.”

Over the course of the last year the Putin government has been making small increases to pensions by indexing them to inflation, providing some subsidies to families with young children, granting minor bonuses to certain public sector workers, and so forth. This is allegedly to continue in the forthcoming years. Allocations for social spending are slated to rise in 2024 by one trillion rubles ($10.5 billion) to a total of 7.7 trillion ($82 billion).

However, behind this nominal increase is a major attack on the working class.

First, as noted in an article published in the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta on October 17, the government’s plan actually rests upon a “tightening of both fiscal and monetary policy.” Inflation and the current low value of the ruble—the latter of which is essential to the government’s revenue calculations and foreign trade balance—will cancel out any positive impact that increases in social spending might have for ordinary people. “The indexation of public sector wages and pensions in real terms will be zero” and “public investment will be reduced in real terms,” observe researchers at the Institute of National Economic Forecasting (INEF) in a recently released study of the new budget.

In addition, expenditures on education, healthcare, and utilities are slated to substantially decline over 2024-2026 as a percentage of the overall budget, as well as in real terms. Starting next year, the Russian government will allocate just 4.4 percent of its account to healthcare, down from 5.2 percent currently. That number will fall further by the time 2026 is reached, with the state intending to shave off another 5 billion rubles by the end of its fiscal cycle.

With annual inflation currently at 5.4 percent, the value of the 1.62 trillion rubles ($16.9 billion) that Moscow will spend next year on healthcare will be a significant drop in real terms—by one estimate, 9 percent. Previous promises to expand treatment for vascular conditions, update oncology centers, invest in medical research, and modernize primary care are expected to be scrapped.

Already, Russia’s healthcare system is in crisis. In January, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko revealed that the country is short tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, and medical personnel. The overriding problem is extremely poor pay, an issue that has only worsened as officials have cut special compensation granted when the covid-19 pandemic was officially recognized.

In June in the small southern Siberian town of Abakan, healthcare workers at an ambulance station protested because while they had received a small pay increase, they ended up making less than before because they were stripped of various bonuses. Overall, they saw their incomes drop by between 5,000 and 15,000 rubles.

According to the website Medvestnik, based on the new budget, in 2024 a nurse working in primary care will be eligible for a federally-financed “social payment” of 6,500 rubles, about $68. Paltry as it is, this is still 40 percent more than the special allotment for junior medical staff in emergency departments, which will be 4,500 rubles.

The educational system in Russia will likewise receive less than nothing in the forthcoming three years, with federal budget expenditures dropping from 1.54 trillion rubles in 2024 to 1.41 trillion in 2026.

The country’s utilities systems will fare even worse. From today’s high of 857 billion rubles, spending in this area will drop to just 381 billion rubles in 2026—a fall of more than 50 percent. The impact on Russia’s already failing water, heating, and sewage infrastructure will be huge. In October of last year, 200,000 residents of Volgograd—the city, formerly Stalingrad, where the Red Army inflicted a major defeat on the Nazis in 1942—experienced the collapse of a sewer line.

The federal government is also planning to make significant cuts to transfers and subsidies for Russia’s 87 regions, which will undermine local expenditures on all manner of things and cause officials to turn to borrowing. Currently, one Soviet republic, Udmurt, has debts that are 100 percent of the value of its income. Another 9 regions are running at 70 percent.

Concerned about the implications of this austerity plan, parliamentary deputies from the Stalinist Communist Party (KPRF) and Just Russia voted against the budget on Thursday. They are not opposed to the vast expansion in military financing, but rather alarmed by the political consequences of the looming cuts in social expenditures.

In his remarks to the Duma, KPRF head Gennady Zyuganov combined denunciations of the 2024-2026 for failing to be a “victory budget” that adequately increases defense spending and centralizes state power with criticisms of the corrosive impact that gutting social funding on social and political stability.

There are also concerns that Russia’s forthcoming budget rests on shaky ground. A week ago, Russia’s Accounts Chamber criticized the government’s plan. According to the Russian business daily Kommersant, the state’s auditor pointed to the fact that the “macro forecasts of the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank,” which have to guide the budget, are in conflict with one another. It also “reproached the Ministry of Finance for the lack of explanation for the adjustment of the budget rule” that shapes the government’s financial calculations, “identified the risks of failure to achieve the new cut-off price of oil at $60 per barrel,” which is what the Kremlin is basing its revenue assumptions on, and raised concerns over the fact that there is “an increase in the share of defense spending and debt service with a decrease in the share of state investment and transfers to regions.”

Lawmakers’ budget calculations assume that the ruble will continue trade at a low value relative to the dollar, such that exports, primarily sales of oil valued in dollars, will generate large ruble revenues. Currently, for instance, the ruble is trading at about 90 to dollar, such that if a barrel of oil sells at $60 (the base price assumed by lawmakers for 2024-2026) it will yield 5,400 rubles. If, however, the ruble strengthens in value—e.g. it trades at 75 rubles to the dollar—the Russian treasury’s ruble income will fall precipitously. And should the price of a barrel of oil drop below $60, the country’s coffers will also be in trouble.

Finance Minister Siluanov acknowledged a week and a half ago the vulnerability of Russia’s budget to currency swings. 'A change in the exchange rate by one ruble will lead to an increase or a decrease in budget revenues (of) around 100 billion rubles,” he observed.

Despite the immense impact of the sanctions by the US and its NATO allies, the Russian economy could so far rely on revenues from oil exports to China and other countries. After a fall in GDP in 2022, the economy is once again showing signs of growth.

Another primary pillar of the economic and industrial growth has been military spending, with industrial output in key sectors being geared towards war-related production. This, in turn, rests on increasing defense outlays and the government’s ability to sustain them going forward. At the same time, Russian corporations are under pressure because the country is experiencing a labor shortfall caused, at least partly, by the fact that tens of thousands of workers have been drafted into the military.

Thousands of US pharmacy workers mount 3-day “pharmageddon” wildcat strike

Benjamin Mateus

“Behind closed doors with the top brass of any chain pharmacy, their ultimate truth would sound something akin to, ‘Patient safety is the primary focus if and when it doesn’t affect our profitability.’”—Shane Jerominski, independent pharmacist and labor organizer

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, October 30 through November 1, thousands of pharmacists at Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid and other drugstores across the United States will take part in a wildcat strike action against the conglomerates that control the vast majority of US pharmacies.

Shane Jerominski, formerly a pharmacist at Walgreens and now an independent pharmacist and labor organizer, told the World Socialist Web Site that he and other pharmacists are planning the three-day walkout to protest unsafe working conditions that put pharmacists, techs and their patients across the country at risk on a daily basis.

Jerominski, a licensed pharmacist with more than 15 years of experience in the field who is leading the walkout, has dubbed the event “pharmageddon.” This will be the third such work action by non-unionized pharmacy laborers on the heels of the Kansas City CVS walkouts in mid-September and the Walgreens three-day walkout in early October. Jerominski said he expects about 4,500 employees to take part and possibly tens of thousands more if they did not fear retaliation by their employers.

The pharmacy workers are using the social media platforms Reddit and Facebook to organize and conduct their labor action, recently posting that “Organization for pharmageddon is underway.” In their call to action, they cited the lessons learned from the October Walgreens walkout, dubbed “Operation Spotlight,” writing:

The public and our patients support us. The media reports were huge and were followed by millions. The overwhelming majority of comments were positive. Reddit trolls, corporate shills, and Walgreens lied. The support center number for participating stores [in Operation Spotlight] was over 600. Due to Walgreens’ quick crackdown on team members talking to the media and our lack of rallying, Walgreens got away with some of those lies.

The organizers are planning to hold rallies outside select locations across the country to put a visible face to their strike action and demands. In their statement, they note that “Walgreens has cut raises. The new 4 C’s rating scale makes it nearly impossible to get good reviews. Walgreens says bonuses aren’t looking good. And at the same time, they announced they won’t be changing the dividend strategy.”

Jerominski made the media rounds over the weekend, speaking with Bloomberg and CNBC and explaining that many of the pharmacy workers have told him they are reaching their breaking point. Understaffing has become a severely chronic issue for the pharmacists, while insufficient pay and cutbacks in hours for pharmacy techs means the growing workload is being carried out by fewer staff working shorter hours.

Jerominski noted that the Kansas City CVS walkouts were effective because they were able to provide the pharmacy technicians “strike pay.” The organization he runs had raised about $25,000 with the aim of forming a union for pharmacists, the vast majority of whom are not unionized. When he heard about the Kansas City strike action, he offered a “living wage” assistance of $20 per hour for an eight-hour workday, far more than the workers’ daily earnings of $16.60 an hour at a reduced six-hour day. They were able to provide wage assistance to 175 technicians across the country. Once workers caught wind of this, Jerominski said, “donations began to pour in.” Since that time, they have raised over $60,000.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the chain pharmacy retailers have become characterized as “fast-food” vaccination centers by the pharmacists, as they now prioritize immunization due to their high profitability of $70 for each flu shot administered.

The vast increase in vaccination rates at the pharmacy chains places greater demands on the pharmacists’ limited time, as they are now required to ensure that labels are printed correctly, drug interaction alerts are checked and insurance and co-pays are addressed. With the cutback in the number of hours pharmacy techs work, the entire smooth operation of the pharmacy rests on the shoulders of the pharmacists, whose license is on the line if any medication errors lead to a serious health consequence.

Jerominski said that turnover rates are high for pharmacy technicians, who on average are earning far less than $20 per hour and work under incredible amounts of stress. Meanwhile, pharmacists, who also work on an hourly wage, oftentimes come in several hours before their shift and stay late to ensure prescriptions are filled out and ready for the patients. They often have to skip lunch to finish their ever-growing mountain of work, leading to significant mental and physical health consequences that include even deaths among pharmacists.

Jerominski explained that internal documentation has revealed that many pharmacies are backed up on their work logs, stretching the limits of the 14-day window they have to ensure prescriptions are ready for patients. A pharmacist working solo may at times have to fill out 3,000–4,000 prescriptions per week to ensure corporate meets its requirements. This translates to about 10 to 15 seconds of time to fill a prescription, said Jerominski, including oftentimes having to address prompts that the computer flags on possible drug interactions or health concerns.

In other words, pharmacists, out of an obligation to their patients and fear of losing their license if they make a mistake, are providing corporate pharmacies their labor for free to get through the backlog of prescriptions needed to get to patients depending on them for their well-being.

Jerominski explained that most pharmacists are not asking for higher pay, but rather for more support staff to ensure the smooth operation of their pharmacies. Despite claims by the corporations that they do not have funding to support such staffing, acquisition costs and prices they charge on medications clearly demonstrate there are ample funds available to provide an adequate staff with living wages.

Jerominski highlighted the nasal spray fluticasone, which used to alleviate nonallergic runny stuffy noses. Although the cost runs less than $2.50 per bottle to acquire, CVS and Walgreens retail it at $57, or a markup of more than 20-fold.

As for medication errors, Jerominski said that if the pharmacy discovers it, they are under no obligation to report it to the Board of Pharmacy. However, if a patient reports it, the major consequence befalls the pharmacist, who may be placed on probation and lose their job, while the corporation would only incur a minuscule fine.

In an attempt to short-circuit the grievances raised by pharmacy workers for the last several years that have culminated in the current courageous strike actions, Michael Hogue, the executive vice president and chief executive officer of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), published an open letter on September 8, 2023, in which he wrote:

Pharmacists, let’s also speak candidly about the undercurrent issue that is at play here. Understaffing of pharmacies is a major problem. Negative stories in the media don’t help the issue—it becomes harder to recruit the best and brightest into our great profession. Truthfully, the work environment in most community pharmacies is not ideal or supportive of optimal patient care.

APhA is fully aware of this, and we are working very hard on these issues. Our board of trustees are practicing pharmacists across the span of health care settings, including community and hospital pharmacy, and including frontline pharmacists.

This problem is not new, and the solutions are complex. We know that it feels to many of you like nothing is happening, but something is happening. APhA is driving change. APhA’s workplace and well-being issues task force has issued recommendations and resources for the profession. Commitments have been made by large employers to make changes, and while change can’t happen fast enough, incremental change is happening.

In response, Jerominski replied,

[Mr. Hogue,] the examples you cited like shortened shifts are nothing more than corporate cost cutting measures. When a chain pharmacy makes the decision to decrease hours of operation this doesn’t magically correlate to a lower prescription volume. If anything, this has the potential to further burden a staff already struggling to keep pace with demand. As for the improved compensation for pharmacists and technicians this was a consequence of the abysmal working conditions, not the efforts of APhA. Many markets experienced frequent store closures. Not due to a shortage of available pharmacists but merely the lack of pharmacists willing to work in an environment so unsafe it would put their patients and license at risk.

Jerominski noted that the current reimbursement structure and costs of pharmaceuticals, tightly controlled by Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) systems, have contributed to both the exorbitant prices paid on prescriptions and the current state of working conditions for pharmacists.

Despite claims by PBMs that out-of-pocket expenses on prescription drugs have been falling for decades, pharmacy advocate groups have found that between 1987 and 2019, patient out-of-pocket costs have increased 222 percent (from $16.7 billion to $53.7 billion). Prescription drug benefit costs have risen 1,279 percent in the same period from $26.8 billion to $369.7 billion. Meanwhile, price inflation had grown only 126 percent in the 30 years.

As the report explains, PBMs set reimbursements to pharmacies at rates far below actual costs of medications, leaving the pharmacies “on the hook to pay the differences and later appeal their losses.” However, these regulatory bodies also have the power to deny these appeals or take months to reimburse pharmacies for the claims.

According to the report, 630 rural communities lost all local pharmacy services by March 2018 and another 302 fell to having just one pharmacy open. Meanwhile, independently owned pharmacies are at higher risk of closing due to preferentially being denied reimbursements. In short, this is leading to a form of acquisition and merger of these resources in which corporate pharmacies who also own these PBMs can acquire the lion’s share of the distribution networks that include how these drugs are priced.

Jerominski concluded his letter to Hogue by writing:

The current PBM structure is decimating independent pharmacies to the point of extinction. Fines and predatory audits that unfairly target small businesses are serving their intended purpose. Chain pharmacies will slowly absorb that market share, then when they’ve done so turn attention towards fixing the issue of fair reimbursement.

He added,

Let’s be honest though, if chain pharmacies were suddenly more profitable as a result of better reinsurance reimbursement their first priority wouldn’t be to make stores safer. The financial boon that was COVID for both Walgreens and CVS sent them on a merger and acquisition spree, not a billion dollar investment in improved safety standards.

Israeli military announces plans to attack hospitals and schools

Andre Damon

Bodies of Palestinians killed by an Israeli airstrike at the Ahli Arab hospital are gathered in the front yard of the al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. [AP Photo/Abed Khaled]

On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) delivered a statement announcing its intent to attack “schools, mosques, and hospitals” in Gaza, amid a systematic campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that has already killed 8,000 Palestinians.

The statement, addressed to the population of Gaza, said, “Hamas puts your life in danger by placing weapons and forces within civilians’ areas in Gaza, including schools, mosques, and hospitals. The impending IDF operation is set to neutralize this threat with precision and intensity.”

On October 17, the IDF bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, a Christian hospital in Gaza, killing nearly 500 people. The Israeli government and US President Joe Biden falsely claimed that the hospital was destroyed by a missile launched by Hamas or another resistance group Islamic Jihad, and attempted to substantiate this lie with statements and videos that completely contradicted each other.

But the statement over the weekend make unequivocally clear that targeting hospitals, schools and other places of refuge is the explicit policy of the Israeli government as part of its ethnic cleansing of Gaza. In its statement, the IDF claimed that moving the population of Gaza to the south is a “temporary measure” and that they would be allowed to return to their homes. “This is a temporary measure. Moving back to northern Gaza will be possible once the intense hostilities end.”

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the expulsion of the population of northern Gaza is part of an ethnic cleansing campaign by Israel and that the population will never be allowed to return. On Sunday, the Hebrew-language publication Mekomit published a leaked document produced by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommending the forcible and permanent displacement of the population of Gaza out of Palestine and into Egypt’s Sinai Desert.

Mekomit reported, “the document recommends the forced transfer of the population of the Gaza Strip to Sinai permanently, and calls for the international community to be harnessed for the move. The document also suggests promoting a dedicated campaign for the residents of Gaza that will ‘motivate them to agree to the plan.’”

Mekomit wrote that the document “recommends that Israel act ‘to evacuate the Gazan population to Sinai’ during the war: to establish tent cities and new cities in northern Sinai, which will accommodate the deported population, and then ‘to create a sterile zone of several kilometers inside Egypt and not allow the population to return to activity or residence near the Israeli border.’”

On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a prime-time television address in which he declared, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.”

Netanyahu was referencing the passage from 1 Samuel, which declares, “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

In his speech Saturday, Netanyahu called the current conflict Israel’s “second war of independence.” He declared the “second stage of the war,” asserting it would be “long and difficult.”

Netanyahu’s speech was accompanied by the announcement by the IDF that it would expand its ground incursions into Gaza, declaring that the Israeli military is “gradually increasing its ground activity in the Gaza Strip and the scale of its forces.”

On Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry said that the death toll among Palestinians had crossed 8,000. Israel’s bombardment over the weekend was described as the most intense of the entire war, and was accompanied by a systematic blackout of all communications inside of Gaza on Friday, which were only partially restored on Sunday.

In a statement on Twitter, the international charity Save the Children wrote that the “3,195 children killed in #Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” The organization called for “an immediate ceasefire.”

“Three weeks of violence have ripped children from families and torn through their lives at an unimaginable rate,” said Jason Lee, Save the Children country director in occupied Palestinian territory. The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk.”

On Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that it received “serious threats” from the Israeli military and were told to “immediately evacuate” the al-Quds Hospital in Gaza as it is “going to be bombed.” The hospital said in a statement that, “since this morning, there have been bombs dropping 50 meters from the hospital.”

Responding to the statement by the Red Crescent, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on Twitter, “The @PalestineRCS report of evacuation threats to Al-Quds hospital in Gaza is deeply concerning. We reiterate—it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives. Under International Humanitarian Law, healthcare must always be protected.”

US officials have made clear that they would support Israel’s actions no matter what atrocities it is carrying out. “We’re not drawing red lines for Israel,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Friday.

In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, US President Joe Biden declared that Israel has “every right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism.”