Largest general strike since 1989 hits 185 cities in Brazil

Miguel Andrade

Friday, April 28, saw Brazilian workers walk off their jobs in every major city against proposed historic attacks on the country’s pension system and labor laws. The changes being discussed in Congress will allow for widespread casualization, opening up every economic sector to “gig economy” conditions, while raising the retirement age to 65 and imposing private pension plans on workers.

The general strike call, made by major union federations covering activities employing some 40 million workers, saw a militant response from workers in industry, banking, transport, schools and universities, and public service. The retail sector did not participate, however, leaving other dozens of millions of workers out of the demonstrations.

The unions reported that an estimated 35 million workers went on strike, with walkouts spreading to the major industrial centers outside the largest state capitals. These included northeastern Salvador, home to a Ford auto plant, and Recife, a shipbuilding center and major port, as well the Amazonian capital of Manaus, where a special economic zone containing electronics factories lies deep in the jungle side by side with major military facilities.

In Curitiba—home to Renault and Bosch—and Porto Alegre in the far south, workers also struck, as did those in the industrial corridor connecting the country’s two main cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where industrial towns dot the banks of the Paraíba river with auto plants, steelworks, oil refining and chemical, pharmaceutical, arms and aerospace industries, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Chery, Johnson & Johnson, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Basf, Ericsson and the national aviation giant Embraer.

Oil refining and extraction was halted nationwide, even at the deep-sea extraction platforms, some of them located hundreds of kilometers from the continent. The port of Santos, the country’s largest, serving São Paulo’s industrial belt, was blocked in the early hours before being reopened by riot police.

Workers also tried to block the Guarulhos and Santos Dumont airports serving São Paulo and Rio before being chased away by riot police. Roads serving industrial regions were also blocked by burning barricades in the early morning, with small roadblocks also going up in working class neighborhoods and shantytowns in many cities. Even roads cutting through two indigenous reservations near São Paulo were blocked in continuing protests over the government’s rolling back of indigenous social rights.

At the end of the day, an estimated 2 million people took part in demonstrations nationwide, with more than 100,000 in both São Paulo and Rio alone. Brutal repression followed both demonstrations, with Rio’s pacific rally in downtown ending in a police riot. Videos show riot police deploying stun grenades and tear gas against people listening to a speech by state MP Flávio Serafini (Socialism and Liberty Party, PSOL) before tear gas canisters are thrown into the crowd and over the podium.

In São Paulo, the demonstration was addressed by Workers Party (PT) senators and supporters. It was held some 3 kilometers from the personal home of President Michel Temer, who was born in the city and served as state representative in Congress for five terms. Riot police then chased demonstrators for some 2 kilometers after demonstration leaders confirmed plans to march into the upscale neighborhood where Temer’s home is located. The area had previously been placed under a lockdown, under the pretext of property destruction by so-called black bloc anarchists and provocateurs.

The general strike was held against the backdrop of record unemployment, with official figures released on Thursday placing the official number out of work at 14 million. Joblessness was the main threat used, unsuccessfully, by bosses to try to dissuade workers from striking. Revenue losses due to the strike have been estimated at US$600 million in São Paulo alone, even without the direct stoppage of the retail sector.

Despite the widespread show of militancy, Brazilian workers face grave dangers as they enter into major struggles. Nationwide action was possible due to an agreement between the PT-aligned CUT trade union federation and the arch-reactionary Força Sindical federation, controlled by São Paulo congressman Paulinho da Força, who has been cited in an plea-bargain agreement in the context of the Lava-jato corruption scandal centered on massive bribes and kickbacks at the state-run oil giant, Petrobras. The union leader was accused of taking more than US$300,000 to break strikes in the northern region in 2012 alone. Lower CUT officials were also cited, specifically for taking bribes to stop workers’ riots in flagship Workers Party infrastructure projects in the Amazon.

Also, the demonstrations were open to PT officials, even though new Lava-jato plea-bargain revelations indicate the personal responsibility of ousted President Dilma Rousseff and former PT President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in corruption schemes connected to favoring national monopolies for infrastructure projects. Both politicians are now being investigated, together with eight current ministers, 39 representatives and a third of the Senate, after a Supreme Court justice accepted the plea-bargain agreements of 78 indicted executives at the Odebrecht construction conglomerate.

Moreover, the demonstrations were also promoted by organized sections of the Catholic Church, with the National Bishops Confederation (CNBB) stepping into the debate on April 19, saying in a press release that the proposed reforms were “rushed,” and supporting demonstrations against them. Later, on April 25, Olinda and Recife Archbishop Dom Fernando Saburido went to the extent of calling on the public to join the strike. He was later joined by several lower-ranking church officials.

This is exactly the alliance of anti-working class forces that was responsible for the promotion and later maintenance in power of the PT since it was first founded in 1980 as a “new,” original Brazilian parliamentary path to socialism. It went on to become the main party of Brazilian capitalist “national development.”

The party appears to be preparing a return to power on this same capitalist program with a 2018 presidential bid by Lula da Silva. Datafolha Institute released a poll on Sunday showing the former PT president as the least unpopular of Brazil’s politicians, with 30 percent saying they would vote for him in the first round—as compared to 2 percent for the current president, Temer. At the same time, the poll found that 71 percent reject the proposed reforms.

Nonetheless, the PT itself faces a deepening crisis and is sharply divided. The opening of formal investigations against both Rousseff and Lula had a major impact on the PT’s internal elections on April 9, with participation dropping to a record low of only 14 percent of the party’s more than 1.5 million members, and internal elections being cancelled in at least five cities due to fraud.

It is worth noting that the general strike was also supported by a collection of capitalist economists who released a nationalist economic manifesto the day before the walkouts. The group’s leader, former 1980s finance minister Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, declared in a public event side by side with former PT Foreign Minister Celso Amorim that “the strike will help build a new country.”

The coming together of the union bureaucracy, the Catholic Church and nationalist intellectuals tied to industry bosses and the upper middle class is designed to prepare new political means to contain the movement of the working class and keep it subordinated to capitalist interests under conditions of the deepening crisis of Brazilian and international capitalism.

The betrayals by what passes for the official “left” will only pave the way in Brazil, as elsewhere, to the rise of far-right movements. Significantly, polling second, just behind Lula, in the recent opinion poll was the fascistic Rio de Janeiro congressman and reserve army captain Jair Bolsonaro, who has demagogically opposed privatizations in Rio state.

The massive outpouring of the Brazilian working class on April 28 points to the urgent necessity of building a new revolutionary leadership in an intransigent struggle against the PT and all of the pseudo-left organizations that helped to found and promote it.

Democrats agree to increase military and border spending while cutting food stamps

Barry Grey

Republican and Democratic congressional leaders announced an agreement late Sunday on a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends September 30. The measure is expected to be passed later this week by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, averting the threat of a government shutdown at midnight Friday.

Despite Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump and the Republicans are dependent on the Democrats to supply the margin needed to pass the measure, particularly in the narrowly divided Senate, where it would take eight Democratic votes to end debate and bring the measure to the floor for a final ballot.

This underscores the reactionary role of the Democrats in backing a bill that grants Trump’s demands for a significant increase in military spending as well as funds to further militarize the US-Mexico border, while slashing the food stamp program and the Department of Education.

Last week the Democrats made a show of opposition to Trump by refusing to include in the bill $1 billion to go toward the construction of his border wall, while making it clear they supported additional funds to strengthen existing border barriers and increase surveillance, including by means of drones. The administration withdrew its demand for funds earmarked for the border wall in return for an agreement from the Democrats to support $1.52 billion in additional border funding as well as $15 billion more in military spending.

A bipartisan stop-gap measure was passed on Friday to extend funding of the government for one week so as to provide sufficient time to work out the details of the final 2017 budget agreement. Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees negotiated throughout the weekend and announced a deal late Sunday.

To secure passage, Trump dropped his demand for money earmarked for the border wall as well as $18 billion in non-defense domestic cuts. These include a wish list of reactionary measures such as cuts to so-called “sanctuary cities” (cities that refuse to allow their police to function as de facto immigration police), massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and defunding of Planned Parenthood. Trump also dropped his demand for funds to establish a new deportation force.

He agreed to include $295 million to prevent the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico from going bankrupt. Republican as well as Democratic leaders agreed to allocate $4.6 billion to permanently extend health benefits to 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families, who faced the immediate termination of their benefits. The deal also includes an additional $2 billion in disaster money for states.

However, the Democrats accepted a 1 percent cut to the EPA, reducing the agency’s budget by $80 million. They also agreed to cut the Education Department by $1.2 billion.

Most cruel of all is a cut of $2.4 billion to the food stamp program, which was already heavily cut during the Obama administration. The justification given for slashing the program, relied upon by more than 45 million Americans, one in seven, was “declining enrollment.”

Other reactionary provisions include an extension through 2019 of a private school voucher program in Washington, D.C.’s school system and a continued ban on federal funding for abortions as part of the federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

Republicans hailed the agreement as a down payment on Trump’s demands, incorporated into his proposal for fiscal year 2018, which begins October 1, for a massive $54 billion increase in the Pentagon budget to be paid for with brutal cuts in domestic social programs.

Vice President Mike Pence praised the deal in an interview Monday on “CBS This Morning,” saying, “It will avert a government shutdown, but more important than that, it’s going to be a significant increase in military spending.”

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill “acts on President Trump’s commitment to rebuild our military for the 21st century and bolster our nation’s border security to protect our homeland.”

Democratic leaders presented the deal as a victory over the Trump administration. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi congratulated the Democrats for eliminating “more than 160 Republican poison pill riders” and temporarily blocking funding for Trump’s “immoral and unwise border wall.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer issued a statement Sunday night declaring the budget deal to be “a good agreement for the American people” and touting the fact that it excludes funding for an “ineffective” border wall.

“Early on in this debate,” he added, “Democrats clearly laid out our principles. At the end of the day, this is an agreement that reflects those principles.”

And so it does. These principles support a $137 million increase for Customs and Border Enforcement, bringing funding for the Gestapo-like border police to $11.4 billion. It includes money for 100 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 5,000 more detention beds. It also pays for 10 more federal immigration judges to speed up the deportation of undocumented workers.

The Democrats’ principles also sanction eight-figure funding increases for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

For the US war machine, the Democrats have sanctioned an immediate increase of $12.5 billion, to be followed by an additional $2.5 billion once the administration presents to Congress its plan to fight ISIS.

Included in the bill’s allocations for military hardware are:

* $21.2 billion to procure 13 Navy ships

* $8.2 billion for 74 F-35 aircraft

* $1.1 billion for 14 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft

* $1.2 billion doe 62 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters

* $702 million for 145 Patriot MSE missiles

* $1.8 billion for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft

* $2.6 billion for 15 KC-46 air tankers

* $1.3 billion for 17 C/HC/KC/MC-130J aircraft

German army officer arrested for planning terror attack

Peter Schwarz 

The arrest of a 28-year-old German army officer suspected of planning a right-wing terrorist attack raises troubling questions. What initially looked like a bizarre isolated case has quickly demonstrated that the Bundeswehr, the German army, provides fertile ground for extreme right-wing elements.

Franco A. was arrested last Wednesday after trying to retrieve a weapon hidden in Vienna Airport. Up until then he had not come to the notice of Germany’s security agencies.

It soon became clear that Franco A. lived a double life. For eight years he has been a full-time soldier in the Bundeswehr, where he rose to the rank of first lieutenant. He was stationed in the French town of Illkirch.

Simultaneously, he registered as a Syrian refugee under the name of David Benjamin at the end of 2015. Although he came from Offenbach near Frankfurt, spoke no Arabic and communicated with the authorities in French, he was recognised as a refugee and assigned to a refugee camp. In addition to his earnings as a soldier he also received benefits as a refugee.

Since his arrest, the suspicion has been substantiated that Franco A., under his false refugee identity, was planning a terror attack against leftist politicians or activists, which was then to be blamed on refugees.

While the security authorities and Defence Ministry are stonewalling and only confirming in part what is already known, research by journalists has revealed that Franco A. espoused extreme right-wing positions, which were known to his military superiors. In house searches, lists with leftist and anti-fascist targets were found.

On Friday, Spiegel Online reported that Franco A. attracted attention with his extreme right-wing views as far back as 2014, when he studied at the French military university in Saint-Cyr. His master’s thesis was rejected because he recapitulated “staunch racial and right-wing extremist opinions and did not distance himself from the relevant thinkers or philosophers.” Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed this.

At that time, a professor at the university drew the conclusion that the master’s thesis “was not compatible with liberal democratic principles,” Spiegel Online reports. A scholar from the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr, who read the thesis, concluded that the text clearly contained “racial thinking.”

However, the suspicions raised against Franco A. were dropped after he had assured his German superior at the university that the right-wing passages in his work were the product of time pressure. The superior arrived at the conclusion that Franco A. did not hold extreme right-wing positions and gave him a “second chance.” Franco A. then wrote a new thesis that was accepted.

Allegedly, the incident was neither recorded in Franco A.’s personnel files nor forwarded to the responsible military security service (MAD). According to Spiegel Online, it only came to light because a soldier who could remember the incident reported it to his superiors.

On Sunday, Spiegel Online then reported that a “list of possible targets for attacks or assaults against leftist and anti-fascist organisations and individuals” was found in house searches. Security circles have confirmed the existence of the list, but have refused to comment on its likely purpose.

At least two people—the Berlin Left Party deputy Anne Helm, who campaigns against far-right tendencies, and the head of the organisation “Centre for Political Beauty,” which has organised artistic activities against right-wing extremism and arms exports—have been informed by the police they were on the list.

The case of Franco A. confirms that far-right elements are drawn to the Bundeswehr where their neo-fascist opinions are either tolerated or encouraged. In the course of the past few months there have been a series of scandals involving the abuse and sexual assault of cadets during training, including incidents at barracks in Pfullendorf and Sonderhausen.

This trend has assumed a new dimension with the latest report that a far-right terrorist attack was apparently being planned from within the ranks of the Bundeswehr. It is difficult to imagine that Franco A. had no confidantes or accomplices.

Even advocates of the Bundeswehr, such as the defence spokesman of the SPD parliamentary faction, Rainer Arnold, had to admit: “Filtering out extreme right-wing radicals has not always worked well in the Bundeswehr. Evidently not enough has been done.”

According to Hans-Peter Bartels (Social Democratic Party, SPD), the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, the Bundeswehr is “structurally more susceptible” than other sectors of society. “Hierarchies, weapons, uniforms—that appeals to some applicants whom the Bundeswehr should not want,” he told Welt am Sonntag.

Von der Leyen had to concede that the military leadership of the Bundeswehr had a “problem of demeanour” and a “misconceived esprit de corps,” which repeatedly leads to a situation where misconduct is not properly pursued. “Instead they look away, until a scandal erupts. And that’s not okay,” she told the ZDF television channel. “The Bundeswehr has problem of demeanour and evidently has leadership weaknesses at different levels.”

In fact, what is at issue here is neither a “problem of demeanour” nor a “weakness.” The appeal of the Bundeswehr for right-wing and far-right forces is the inevitable result of the return of German militarism. Its transformation into a professional army, which wages war and kills all over the world, inevitably attracts elements who espouse right-wing and militaristic conceptions with regard to other political and social issues.

The demand by von der Leyen and other members of the government, that Germany once again “take responsibility” and play a political and military role appropriate to its economic clout, also serves to attract such elements.

In the Weimar Republic, the General Staff of the Reichswehr, the Freikorps and the paramilitary groups, which emerged from the army after Germany’s defeat in the First World War, formed a state within the state. They provided a breeding ground for far-right organizations and acts of violence. Many socialists, including Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, were murdered by them, and they formed the basis for Hitler’s notorious storm troopers.

For a long time all this seemed to be relegated to history. But now it is clear that all the talk about “citizens in uniform” and “inner leadership” has changed nothing about the character of militarism. The case of Franco A. is a warning. With the growth of militarism, the danger from the extreme right-wing is also growing.

South Korean election candidates back US war preparations

Ben McGrath

As South Korea’s May 9 presidential election approaches, Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Moon Jae-in appears on the verge of victory. His support has largely come about as a result of the anger and frustration felt towards the conservatives, following former president Park Geun-hye’s removal from office for corruption.

According to the most recent polls, Moon leads his closest challenger, Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party, with 42.6 percent support compared to 20.9 percent. Hong Jun-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party is in third with 16.7 percent, followed by Sim Sang-jeong of the Justice Party and Yu Seung-min of the Bareun Party with 7.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.

Much of the campaign has been dominated by North Korea, as the Trump administration ramps up tensions on the Korean Peninsula on a daily basis. The current US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile battery to South Korea has only exacerbated the fears and hostility to war.

All of the five major candidates have backed Washington’s agenda, though Moon has postured as an opponent of the highly unpopular THAAD system. Without coming out against it, he has called for the decision on its deployment to be postponed until the next government takes power. At the same time, he has defended Washington’s war plans in the region against China, stating that THAAD is for “defensive purposes” and that if North Korea continued its bellicose acts, the THAAD placement would be “unavoidable.”

Last Wednesday, at night and with no announcement, the US began installing the THAAD system in Seongju, a city in North Gyeongsang Province. Trailers arrived carrying the missile launchers and the X-band radar, which China believes will be used to spy on its territory. THAAD is designed to knock out an incoming ballistic missile and has a range of 200 kilometres. Despite claims that its purpose is to defend South Koreans from a North Korean attack, Seoul, a city of 10 million people, sits just outside of THAAD’s range at its current location. Instead, the battery would be used to protect US bases in any confrontation with North Korea or China.

Despite the attempt to avoid protestors, hundreds gathered, carrying signs that read, “No THAAD, No War,” and denouncing the US military. Clashes broke out with authorities. “Police let THAAD equipment pass through [protesters] by repressing them,” said Gang Hyeon-uk, a religious figure involved in organizing the demonstrations. “The THAAD deployment is illegal and should be nullified.”

Other demonstrations have taken place against THAAD, including in Seoul, but have been led by groups and labor unions, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), with ties to the DPK and the other political parties. They appeal to the presidential candidates, either explicitly or tacitly giving support to the Democrats, while whipping-up Korean nationalism, including by criticizing recent demands from Trump that South Korea foot the $1 billion bill for THAAD.

At a protest on Saturday in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, approximately 50,000 people gathered to denounce THAAD and demand better social conditions. The first speaker was KCTU acting-chairman Choi Jong-jin who, referencing the candles protestors carried in rallies against Park Geun-hye, stated: “Our lives must be changed to have a real candlelight revolution and there must be a presidential election that changes our lives.” In other words, the removal of Park for another capitalist politician, a Democrat who represents “change,” amounts to a revolution for the KCTU.

Demonstrators expressed lukewarm support for Moon, however. “It is only workers who suffer,” said Lee Do-gyeong, a student studying to be a nurse. “The candidates in this election must create a country that genuinely protects workers’ basic rights. I did not want to support Moon Jae-in, but I think I must. I am nervous about the other candidates.”

More broadly, the election campaign has alienated voters. “I couldn’t learn how the candidates wanted to lead the nation if they were elected. All I learned was that all of them were substandard,” Cho Jin-hee, a housewife, said in the Korea Times after watching one of the televised debates. Park Seong-su, an office worker, similarly commented: “In future debates, I hope they will discuss policies and details, and how they might carry them out.”

The refusal of the candidates to discuss their policies is because they intend to keep their genuine agenda secret: the preparation for war and austerity. Following Pyongyang’s failed ballistic missile test on Saturday, all five denounced North Korea, including Sim Sang-jeong of the pseudo-left Justice Party, who stated: “North Korea should abandon its shallow scheme of promoting regime stability through a show of force and hurry to come forward to the dialogue table.” The implication is that the North Korean regime, not Washington, has been sabotaging talks, thereby justifying the Trump administration’s actions.

At the same time, there is no opposition to current US military exercises, aimed at intimidating North Korea and China, involving the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its strike group, with the South Korean navy. The two forces, along with the Japanese navy, have held missile warning informational link exercises (LINKEX) for the third time this year. The drills allow the three militaries to communicate and share intelligence on incoming ballistic missiles.

The election is by no means decided. There is still talk of an anti-Moon coalition between Ahn, Hong, and Yu, whose Bareun Party released a statement Friday calling for such an alliance. “We should not make the error of passing the future of South Korea to the liberal hegemony blinded by self-righteousness,” it stated.

The following day, in the hope of winning conservative support, Ahn announced he would form a coalition government if elected. He has also brought Kim Jong-in, former interim chief of the DPK, onto this election team. Kim, a conservative who clashed with Moon’s faction, denounced the “hegemonic forces” in the DPK, language similar to that used by the Bareun Party.

Whatever backroom deals are made, and whatever the outcome of the election, workers, farmers, and young people must not place faith in any of the candidates. The war with North Korea and China that is being prepared behind the backs of the population can only be opposed by uniting with workers across Asia and internationally on a socialist perspective.

International May Day 2017: Mass marches and police repression

Patrick Martin 

May Day, the day of the international working class, saw mass marches and protests on every continent, as well as scattered strikes, as workers sought to demonstrate their opposition to the policies of right-wing governments and their solidarity with their class brothers and sisters around the world.

In country after country, workers raised the same issues—low wages, the growth of “contingent” labor, the slashing of benefits and pensions—underscoring the common struggles confronting the working class internationally. Governments around the world are imposing ever more vicious austerity measures in response to the global crisis of the capitalist system, while diverting greater and greater resources into military spending and war preparations.

The day’s events demonstrated that the objective conditions produced by the development of global production have created the basis for the unification of the working class as an international class. But workers are held in enforced disunity by the nationally-based trade unions and “labor” parties that serve as the direct instruments of big business in every country.

In several countries, protests on the traditional holiday of the world working class were met with violent provocations on the part of the authorities. In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators in Istanbul, the country’s largest city, and arrested at least 200 people. Most were arrested during the protests, but some were detained in raids later that night. Political tensions have been rising in the wake of the April 16 referendum, narrowly won by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which gives Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan virtually dictatorial powers.

A portion of the protest in Washington, D.C.

In Germany, some 10,000 people assembled for a May Day street festival in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. They were met by what even bourgeois press reports described as an “astonishing 5,400 police officers,” deployed on the pretext of preventing violence.

In France, police used tear gas and truncheons, pushing demonstrators against a wall and clubbing them. Socialist Party Interior Minister Matthias Fekl denounced “intolerable violence,” condemning the victims of the police brutality, not the cops who inflicted it.

There were large demonstrations in a number of European cities: 10,000 in Athens, half that number in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, as well as a 24-hour strike called by several unions. Other marches took place in Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and elsewhere across the continent.

In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma was forced to cancel his May Day speech after workers began jeering him and calling for his resignation.

Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh gathered to demand wage increases as well as better housing and health benefits and provision for the education of their children. Workers in that country are paid wages far lower than in China or Southeast Asia, and many of the leading European and American clothing retailers now source their production through Bangladesh, whose garment workforce has swelled to four million.

In Cambodia, a thousand garment workers defied a government order and delivered a petition demanding a higher minimum wage and broader democratic rights. In Indonesia, some 10,000 workers marched on the presidential palace in Jakarta to demand a rise in the minimum wage, limits on outsourcing and improved health care and working conditions.

Thousands of Taiwanese workers marched in the capital, Taipei, against low wages, poor working conditions and the elimination of basic pension provisions. Korean workers marched in Seoul, focusing their demands on a reduction in the use of temporary workers and “independent contractors” to evade paying legally required wages and benefits.

In the Western Hemisphere, there were rival pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela, where right-wing US-backed parties are seeking to take control of popular opposition to the bourgeois government of President Nicholas Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez.

Puerto Rico was virtually shut down by a May Day strike against austerity measures imposed by the government of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Demonstrators blocked roads to enforce a general strike while denouncing the US financial control board overseeing the Rosselló administration. Police fired tear gas and smoke bombs and used pepper spray.

In the United States, May Day is not observed as a workers’ holiday. Instead, the first Monday in September was designated as “Labor Day” more than a century ago in order to separate American workers from socialistic movements overseas.

But there were widespread protests nonetheless, with thousands turning out in every major city in demonstrations to defend immigrant workers and oppose the Trump administration’s attacks on Hispanics, Muslims and other immigrants.

By far the largest demonstration took place in Los Angeles, where tens of thousands assembled outside of City Hall. In keeping with the completely conservative character of the official labor movement, the platform at the rally was handed over to capitalist politicians, headed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who denounced the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration while saying nothing about the reactionary policies of the Obama administration, which deported more undocumented workers than any previous US government.

May Day demonstration in Los Angeles

A handful of right-wing pro-Trump demonstrators faced off across a street corner, chanting “USA! USA!” while Los Angeles police established a line between them and the much larger crowd of pro-immigrant marchers.

Thousands took part in protests in other California cities, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, where the docks were shut down by a longshoremen’s walkout in solidarity with the pro-immigrant demonstrations. There was a very large demonstration in Houston, and marches involving thousands in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington DC and Atlanta. Other cities reporting significant protests included Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.

One thousand Philadelphia public school teachers did not report for work, many of them taking personal time to join the immigrant rights march and protest going without a raise or a new contract for nearly five years. Temple University students and professors walked out of many classes at 10 a.m. to demand that the college declare itself a sanctuary campus, barring collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Most of the US rallies were addressed by Democratic Party politicians and union officials who sought to focus popular anger exclusively on President Donald Trump, while concealing the anti-immigrant record of Obama. One rally in Chicago was typical, with Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the US Senate, hailing as a victory the bipartisan agreement on a bill to fund the federal government through September 30 that does not authorize spending sought by Trump to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

“Today we are passing a budget bill which says there will be no wall, not one penny for a wall,” Durbin declared. “No expansion for an enforcement force for ICE and others, and no penalties for sanctuary cities. We were able to achieve that in the minority.”

The truth is that the budget bill authorizes $1.52 billion in beefed-up measures against immigrants, including more Border Patrol officers and the use of drone surveillance against refugees seeking to cross the border.

Trump’s North Korea Policy: Regional Implications

Sandip Kumar Mishra

US President Donald Trump has displayed an inconsistent and dangerous approach towards North Korean provocations, prompting even Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to advise restraint. This is because the consequences of a major conflict on the Korean peninsula, which would definitely have nuclear dimensions, are going to be disastrous for the whole region.

The present episode of crisis was caused by the Trump administration’s attempt to move the redline over the North Korean nuclear and missile programmes. Earlier, after North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the US used to bring more stringent economic and diplomatic sanctions on Pyongyang through UNSC resolutions. However, the new US administration is threatening to use ‘preemptive strikes’ on North Korean installations if any tests are conducted. Also, the US has been considering provisions of ‘secondary sanctions' on countries, bodies and individuals that deal with North Korea. If North Korea acknowledges and accepts this new redline, they will be unable to have more nuclear and missile tests. In all probability therefore the Kim Jong-un regime will not accept this proposition, at least not before some diplomatic gains are achieved through dialogue and negotiation. However, the US is not ready to accept any form of dialogue with North Korea, until the latter “refrains from these provocative tests.”

In dealing with the ‘unpredictable’ North Korea, Donald Trump has been trying to convey that he is also equally unpredictable. He also wants to show that his threats are not empty by firing missiles on Syria and detonating the ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan. The US has also brought back the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula, along with the nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan. Bilateral and multilateral military exercises between the US, South Korea, Japan, France and Britain are underway around the Korean peninsula. The US has also hastened to install the Terminal High Altitude Arial Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea. All these measures are meant to pressurise North Korea into accepting the new US redline.

Although the US has threatened to ‘go alone’ on the North Korean issue, Washington knows that the role of Beijing is going to be very critical. For the same reason, Donald Trump likely tried to reach some understanding with Chinese President Xi Jinping in dealing with North Korea during their recent summit meet in Florida, and over the phone conversations that followed. The US has been attempting to appease Beijing by promising trade concessions and taking Chinese security interests in the region into consideration.

However, the game that the Trump administration appears to be playing is devoid of any understanding of the complex regional context. Donald Trump needs to understand that ‘blinking first’ is not an option for North Korea’s belligerent regime. The North Korean strategy so far has been to defy any pressure and sanctions, and assert its independent security posture. Any moderation in this strategy in response to pressure would lead to the regime’s total strangulation and is thus not an acceptable proposition. Trump must also understand that North Korea is not Syria, for at least three reasons. First, North Korea possesses nuclear weapons along with their delivery systems. Second, North Korea’s survival is ensured by China. While China is not in favour of North Korean nuclear development or its provocative behaviour, it is definitely committed to the country’s survival. Third, any preemptive strike on North Korea would invite North Korean assured retaliation on Seoul, where one-fourth of the South Korean population resides, in addition to fifteen thousand US soldiers.

The US has also been unable to understand that China is not going to change its approach towards North Korea because of Donald Trump’s cheap inducements. Instead, it seeks bilateral trust based on a long-term common vision for the region. China has consistently been imposing economic sanctions on North Korea aimed at its nuclear and missile programmes, in tandem with the international community’s efforts. However, it also continues to have significant trade linkages with North Korea that help the regime survive. China’s recent ban on North Korean coal imports has more to do with its compliance with UNSC resolution 2321 and less with a bilateral understanding with the US. China’s approach was made clear by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in his speech at the UNSC on 28 April, when he called for dialogue and diplomacy on the North Korean crisis rather than military threats and arms build-ups. Trump’s redlines thus carry with them huge consequences.

The US administration’s approach has also irked South Korea, one of its allies in the region. South Korea feels that although Trump has unilaterally determined his North Korea policy, it will have far-reaching regional consequences. In addition, Trump has asked South Korea for US$1 billion for the deployment of THAAD, and has hastened the process of deployment when there is no elected leader in the country. The South Korean media has in fact emphasised that through his behaviour, Trump has threatened not only North but also South Korea. When the new South Korean leadership takes over in less than two weeks, it is likely that the very alliance with the US will be reviewed.

In this scenario, Trump’s unfolding game in the Korean Peninsula is, at best, not going to work, and at worst, may have devastating consequences for the region. Many in the region are of the opinion that the real danger is not from Kim Jong-un doing something catastrophic but Trump making a foolish move. It is only hoped that good sense prevails and a modus vivendi is evolved to deal with the crisis.

Rumour of Triumph

Bibhu Prasad Routray

It took 25 corpses of security force personnel for the government to accept, albeit reluctantly, that its counter-Maoist strategy needs a review. It took this attack - the worst in seven years - for the government to fill up the top position in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), over 90 battalions of which are deployed against the left-wing extremists, after three months. Only after the dead were declared as martyrs have top officials accepted the pitiable conditions in which the CRPF and other forces have been operating in the extremist affected areas, which impact their performance and morale. 

In view of all these, it is imperative to wonder if the strategy to get rid of 'the biggest internal security challenge', notwithstanding the premature official declarations of victory, has been anything but sincere.  

On 24 April, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) carried out its third big strike of 2017 in Sukma district, ambushing a team of the CRPF that was providing protection to a road construction project. Several accounts of how a Maoist group in waiting attacked the CRPF team have emerged. Pending a proposed investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), it appears that there was no violation of the standard operating procedure (SOP) by the forces who walked in two separate lines, were off the road and maintained the required distance from one another. And yet, taking advantage of the terrain and using a team of women cadres who had arrived at the scene in the guise of villagers, the extremists managed to inflict serious losses on the forces and loot a large number of weapons from the dead personnel.

Instrumentalities of war are never in short supply in Bastar. According to official data, over 65 battalions of security force personnel comprising 45,000 central armed police forces and 20,000 state police personnel are posted in Bastar region alone. This is a huge amassment of forces in terms of area and adversaries, albeit still inadequate in terms of counter-insurgency (COIN) necessities. As many as 58 mine-protected vehicles and 42 bullet-proof vehicles are available in Chhattisgarh to the paramilitary forces. 

Where then is the force-centric policy going wrong? Why is such a huge amassment of trained forces with weapons being unable to overcome the insurgency? Is it lack of intelligence? Or is it the lack of popular support? In COIN parlance, both amount to the same. Alternatively, is it a fatigued and disinterested force with which the country is attempting to win the war? These are valid questions. While there could be other reasons, in this commentary, let us briefly examine how two of the important factors - lack of popular support, and commitment of forces - could have affected the goal of making Chhattisgarh in particular free of left-wing extremism.

 

Mission 2016 and its follow up Mission 2017 are unique contraptions of the Chhattisgarh police for making the state Maoist free. Apart from the customary emphasis on development projects such as road construction, the objective relies on a Winning Hearts and Minds (WHAM) strategy of extending state support among the tribal population. While the raising of a Bastariya battalion enlisting tribal youth into the CRPF is one of the easier ways of the state's inroads into the tribal areas, gaining trust of the people has turned out to be a much more difficult exercise. The CPI-Maoist in a statement said that the attack was a revenge for the CRPF's sexual harassment of tribal women. Many would dismiss such claim of the extremist outfit. However, the deep distrust between the police forces and the tribal population, which has been exacerbated by poorly led and often irresponsible personnel indulging in excesses on the tribal population remains a fact of life that translates into poor intelligence gathering. 

 

Post-attack, a former CRPF chief narrated the perils of exposing his personnel by deploying them in routine infrastructure project duties. He expressed his frustrations about how a file containing the CRPF's recommendations regarding laying roads faster is awaiting the Chhattisgarh government's decision for years. A series of allegations regarding lack of cooperation from the police and lack of poor camp conditions have been made by CRPF personnel and officers who also have talked about their frustration regarding implementing unproductive policies made by security advisors in Delhi. It appears that in spite of over a decade-and-a-half of operations against the extremists, strategy, synergy, and commitment continue to be the missing elements among the forces.  

There is, however, little prospect that the reliance on a force-centric policy would be given up. Using the military arm of the state, even with all the persisting weaknesses, is a far easier option for the government to exercise than to evolve a more nuanced approach of reenergising the bureaucracy and involving the tribals in the decision making processes. Unsurprisingly, the new CRPF chief has spoken of a new strategy to dominate the area. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs apparently has provided the forces with a hit list of senior Maoist leaders. The Chhattisgarh police have offered a reward for punishing the perpetrators of the attack. It is not easy to surmise that such objectives would be achieved without repercussions on the civilian population. Would not that then add to the potency of the CPI-Maoist is a relevant question.

The “New World” is Ancient

Paul C. Bermanzohn

“Western civilization’ is neither.”

– Cedric Robinson

Recent evidence suggests that people have lived on North America for over 130,000 years. This should give us perspective on some of the problems we face and on the absurd claims that things can’t change, even as they have. We need to reconsider what we mean by human nature.

Any effort to change the world, confronts the same argument: Things can’t change because human nature won’t allow it. People, we are told, are innately acquisitive and hierarchical, unable to go beyond these limits. Hope for a decent society is doomed by these limitations. This line of unreason has its roots on these shores.

When Columbus landed in what is now the Caribbean, probably on Haiti, this unimagined place was called the “New World.” Perhaps it’s not surprising. Knowing nothing about the area, Europeans assumed there was nothing to know.

It’s called the “New World,” even today. This latest research shows how wrongheaded a conception this is.

It was not and is not a “new” world. It has ancient roots, which we should learn from and respect.

People here developed ways of living together and of living on Mother Earth that Europeans and their descendants have never achieved. If anything, “Western civilization” has gotten worse since Columbus’s fateful landing.

The Original People of Turtle Island (Turtle Island is the earliest name for what is now called North America) might help save the planet’s “civilizations” from annihilation, if the rest of humanity can learn them in time.

Ancient societies here developed ways of living that European newcomers have only strived for – with little success, so far.

Indigenous people lived in basically classless societies. Property was communally owned. Women had real power. And people were able to make up their own minds. They lived this way for thousands of years – until Columbus.

If people lived this way for thousands of years, the argument that human nature won’t permit it is fatally undermined. The “New World’s” ancient roots attest to the vast possibilities we humans have.

Why There Will be no Russophobia Reset

Pepe Escobar

In the end, there was hardly a reset; rather a sort of tentative pause on Cold War 2.0. Interminable days of sound and fury were trudging along when President Trump finally decided NATO is “no longer obsolete”; still, he wants to “get along” with Russia.

Just ahead of meeting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin had stressed on Russian TV that trust (between Russia and the US) is “at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn’t improved. On the contrary, it has degraded.” Emphasis on a pedestrian “workable,” but most of all “degraded” – as in the National Security Council releasing a report essentially accusing Moscow of spreading fake news.

At the apex of the Russia-gate hysteria, even before the extremely the controversial chemical incident in Syria and the subsequent Tomahawk show – arguably a cinematographic show-off — a Trump-conducted reset on Russia was already D.O.A., tomahawked by the Pentagon, Capitol Hill and media-misguided public opinion.

Yet only armchair Dr. Strangeloves would argue it’s in the US national interest to risk a direct hot war against Russia — and Iran — in Syria. Russia has all but won the war in Syria on its own terms; preventing the emergence of an Emirate of Takfiristan.

The notion that Tillerson would be able to issue an ultimatum to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – you’re either with us or with Damascus and Tehran – is laughable. Moscow simply is not going to yield its hard-earned sphere of influence in Southwest Asia to the Trump administration or the US deep state. What Moscow really wanted to know is who’s making Russia policy in Washington. Now they’ve got their answer.

And then, there’s the Big Picture. The Iran-Russia strategic partnership is one of the three key nodes, along with China, in the big story of the young 21st century; Eurasia integration, with Russia and Iran closing the energy equation and China as the investment locomotive.

That leads us to the real heart of the matter: the War Party’s fear of Eurasia integration, which inevitably manifests itself as acute Russophobia.

Russophobia is not monolithic or monochord though. There’s room for some informed dissidence – and even civilized inflections.

Enter Dr. K

Exhibit A is Henry Kissinger, who as a Lifetime Trustee recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington.

The Trilateral Commission, created by the late David Rockefeller in 1974, had its members meticulously selected by Dr. Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski – whose whole career has been a slight variation on the overarching theme that the US should always prevent the emergence of a “peer competitor” in Eurasia – or, worse still, as today, a Eurasian alliance.

Kissinger is the only geopolitical practitioner that manages to get President Trump’s undivided attention. He had been, so far, the top facilitator of a dialogue — and possible reset — between Washington and Moscow. I have argued this is part of his remixed balance of power, Divide and Rule strategy – which consists in prying away Russia from China with the ultimate aim of derailing Eurasia integration.

Exhibit A is Henry Kissinger, who as a Lifetime Trustee recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington.

The Trilateral Commission, created by the late David Rockefeller in 1974, had its members meticulously selected by Dr. Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski – whose whole career has been a slight variation on the overarching theme that the US should always prevent the emergence of a “peer competitor” in Eurasia – or, worse still, as today, a Eurasian alliance.

Kissinger is the only geopolitical practitioner that manages to get President Trump’s undivided attention. He had been, so far, the top facilitator of a dialogue — and possible reset — between Washington and Moscow. I have argued this is part of his remixed balance of power, Divide and Rule strategy – which consists in prying away Russia from China with the ultimate aim of derailing Eurasia integration.

Kissinger felt compelled to tell his supposedly well-informed audience that Putin is not a Hitler replica, does not harbor imperial desires, and to describe him as a global super-evil is an “error of perspective and substance.”

So Kissinger favors dialogue – even as he insists Moscow cannot defeat Washington militarily. His conditions: Ukraine must remain independent, without entering NATO; Crimea is negotiable. The key problem is Syria: Kissinger is adamant Russia cannot be allowed to become a major player in the Middle East (yet with Moscow backing up Damascus militarily and conducting the Astana peace negotiations, it already is). Implicit in all that is the difficulty of negotiating an overall “package” for Russia.

Now compare Kissinger with Lavrov who, while quoting Dr. K, recently issued a diagnostic that would make him cringe: “The formation of a polycentric international order is an objective process. It is in our common interest to make it more stable and predictable.” Once again, it’s all about Eurasia integration.

Putin was already outlining it, in detail, five years ago, even before the Chinese fully fleshed out the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) concept in 2013. OBOR can certainly be interpreted as an even more ambitious variation of Putin’s idea: “Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization… That’s why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as ‘the Union of Europe’ which will strengthen Russia’s potential in its economic pivot toward the ‘new Asia.'”

The West – or, to be more precise, NATO – vetoed Russia. And that, in a flash, precipitated the Russia-China strategic partnership and its myriad subsequent declinations. It’s this symbiosis that led the recent report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to admit China and Russia are experiencing what is arguably their “highest period of bilateral [military] co-operation.”

The War Party never sleeps

Exhibit B, on a par with Kissinger stressing that Putin is no Hitler, reveals the theoretically preeminent professional journal of American diplomacy compelled to publish a quite remarkable essay by Robert English from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in politics at Princeton.

Under careful examination, the inevitable conclusion is that Prof. English did something very simple, but unheard of: with “careful scholarship,” he challenged “the prevailing groupthink” and “thrashed the positions” of virtually the whole US foreign policy establishment addicted to Russophobia.

The Russia-China strategic partnership – uniting the Pentagon’s avowed top two threats to America — does not come with a formal treaty signed with pomp and circumstance. There’s no way to know the deeper terms Beijing and Moscow have agreed upon behind those innumerable Xi-Putin meetings.

It’s quite possible, as diplomats have let it slip, off the record, there may have been a secret message delivered to NATO to the effect that if one of the strategic members is seriously harassed — be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea – NATO will have to deal with both. As for the Tomahawk show, it may have been a one-off; the Pentagon did give Moscow a heads up and Tillerson, in Moscow, guaranteed the Trump administration wants to keep all communication channels open.

The War Party though never sleeps. Notoriously disgraced neocons, re-energized by Trump’s Tomahawk-with-chocolates show, are salivating over the “opportunity” of an Iraq Shock and Awe remix on Syria.

The War Party’s cause célèbre is still a war on Iran, and that now conflates with the neoliberalcon’s Russophobia – deployed via the currently “disappeared” but certainly not extinct Russia-gate. Yet Russia-gate’s real dark story, for all the hysterics, is actually about the Orwellian surveillance powers of the US deep state, as stressed by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and whistleblower Bill Binney.

Whatever the practical outcome, in the long run, of the turbulent, two-hour, trilateral Putin-Lavrov-Tillerson meeting, ultimately Russophobia – and its sidekick, Iranophobia – won’t vanish from the US-NATO geopolitical spectrum. Especially now that Trump may have finally shown his real face, a “housebroken dog to neocon dogma.”

The masks, at least, have fallen — and these relentless intimations of Cold War 2.0 should be seen for what they are: the War Party’s primal fear of Eurasia integration.

Abbas Fears the Prisoners’ Hunger Strike

Jonathan Cook

The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.

Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.

Last Thursday, Palestinians shuttered their businesses in a show of solidarity, and the next day youths clashed with the Israeli army in a “day of rage”.

About a quarter of the 6,500 political prisoners held by Israel – almost all of them in Israeli territory, in violation of international law – are refusing food in protest at their degrading treatment. They want reforms to Israel’s industrial system of incarceration. Some 800,000 Palestinians – 40 per cent of males – have passed through Israel’s cells since 1967.

Israel hopes to break the prisoners’ spirits. It has locked up the leaders in solitary confinement, denied striking inmates access to a lawyer, taken away radios, and last week began confiscating salt rations – the only sustenance along with water the prisoners are taking.

The strike is led by Marwan Barghouti, the most senior Palestinian leader in jail – and the most popular, according to polls.

Abbas is publicly supportive of the strikers, but in private he is said to want the protest over as quickly as possible. Reports at the weekend revealed that he had urged Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to intercede with America and Israel to help.

In part, Abbas fears the influence of Barghouti, a man often described as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela and seen as Abbas’s likely successor. Notably, the Palestinian president has repeatedly sidelined him within Fatah.

But Abbas is also concerned that the hunger strike will provoke violent clashes in the West Bank with Israeli security forces, damaging his efforts to persuade Trump to back his diplomatic campaign for Palestinian statehood.

Instead, he wants to prove he can snuff out any signs of what Trump might see as “terrorism”. That requires tight security cooperation with Israel.

The visit to Washington and the hunger strike have brought into sharp relief the biggest fault line in the Palestinian national movement.

Abbas’s strategy is strictly top-down. Its starting point is that western states – those that have consistently betrayed the Palestinian people over many decades – can now be trusted to help them attain a state.

From this dubious assumption, Abbas has sought to suppress anything that plays badly in western capitals. Pressure has only intensified under Trump.

By contrast, the “battle of empty stomachs” is evidence of a burgeoning bottom-up strategy, one of mass non-violent resistance. On this occasion, the demands are limited to prison reform, but the strike’s impact could spread.

Not least, the model of protest, should it succeed, might suggest its relevance to a Palestinian public disillusioned with Abbas’s approach. They too are living in cells of Israel’s devising, even if larger, open-air ones.

The starkly different logic of these two strategies is harder than ever to ignore.

To stand a hope of winning over the Trump administration, Abbas must persuade it that he is the sole voice of the Palestinians.

That means he must keep a lid on the hunger strike, encouraging it to fizzle out before prisoners start dying and Palestinian fury erupts across the occupied territories. His approach is reported to be creating severe tensions within Fatah.

Wishing only to add to those difficulties, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded last week that Abbas halt financial aid to the prisoners’ families, calling it compensation for terrorism.

Abbas also feels compelled to assert himself against his Hamas rivals in Gaza. That is why last week he stopped funding the fuel needed to generate electricity there, having recently cut medical services and salaries to Gaza’s civil servants.

His hope is that, as he turns the screws, Hamas will be toppled or forced to submit to his rule.

But more probably, the fissure with Hamas will deepen, forcing the cornered Islamist movement into another bloody confrontation to break free of Israel’s decade-old blockade. These divisions, most Palestinians increasingly understand, weaken rather than strengthen their cause. Mass non-violent resistance such as the hunger strike, by contrast, has the potential to reunite Fatah and Hamas in struggle, and re-empower a weary Palestinian populace.

Reports have suggested that Barghouti has reached a deal with jailed Hamas leaders committing to just such a struggle in the occupied territories once Abbas has departed.

A popular struggle of non-violence – blocking settlement roads, marching to Jerusalem, tearing down walls – would be hard to characterise as terrorism, even for Trump. It is the Israeli army’s nightmare scenario, because it is the only confrontation for which it has no suitable response.

Such a campaign of civil disobedience, however, stands no chance of success so long as Abbas is there to undermine it – and insists on obediently chasing after illusions in Washington.