Weapons of Mass Lies

Stanley L. Cohen

Gaza City under Israeli airstrikes, screengrab from Al Jazeera’s live feed.

How long ago was it that Colin Powell sat before the United Nations Security Council with his twisted trove of compelling evidence that Iraq was host to a veritable mountain of weapons of mass destruction just awaiting the right moment to unleash its Shia ravage upon the stainless West? 

Of course, it was a lie, a conscious pretext to justify what was to follow where tens of millions throughout the Middle East paid for this US “hard intelligence” with their liberty, their lives, and their yearning for little more than the universal right for them and their families to pursue the freedom of life. Some twenty years later the weapons of mass lie continue to propagate daily with an unbroken fabricated flood of deadly Western puffery about an innocent pastoral Israel under siege not at all by virtue of its own long and well-established regional hands of occupation filth, but of course by the voracious anti-Semitic appetite of Iran, Palestine, and Hamas. It’s a lie.

When expedient, for years we have been apprenticed by largely Western Christian and Jewish tutors along with purchased “Islamic scholars” about the branded unresolvable divide between Sunni and Shia denominations which, they preach, all but guarantees periodic eruptions within the Islamic world. After all, was it not this internecine scriptural split that explains away the horrors inflicted in Yemen upon the impoverished Iranian-supported Shias by the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia and UAE largely with weapons that were made in the USA? 

Although the Saudi/UAE inflicted casualties continue, when the world last cared reliable sources report that over 150,000 people were killed in Yemen, as well as more than 227,000 dead as a result of an ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities due to the war.

Not packaged, let alone understood, for the internal civil war it was, how much easier and politically convenient to simply blame Iranian support and “control” over Houthi Shias against a Sunni government as the trigger for what was clearly an indigenous political rebellion. How often were we told that Houthis were fighting as Iranian proxies rather than as combatants in a native uprising largely directed at the lingering legacy of European colonialism? Sound familiar?

So, tell me, if the marriage of an uprising in the Middle East is ultimately fueled not by aboriginal aspiration but strict theological obedience, how is it that the Shias of Iran are dictating to the Sunnis of Hamas what to do and when?  They ain’t. 

There is nothing I can say at this point in history that will move the lockstep sentiments of personally invested or reality-disconnected Israeli cheerleaders to understand, let alone accept, that Hamas is an indigenous national liberation movement, born not from abstract thought, religious fueled hate or the chase of personal fortune, but rather from the hardscrabble roads of Gaza itself. So, I will not try. 

Are there Palestinians who disagree, even at times despair, of Hamas… of course.  But after 75 plus years of ethnic cleansing, you will not find any wanting for wholehearted support for the resistance–be it from millions still occupied by a deadly colonial project, or those long ago exiled at gun-point from their age-old homeland by Europeans who tore across it with unrestrained bombast and endless thirst for blood.  For without defiance, whether from movements or “lone wolf” … be it by armed struggle or passive resistance … one comprised of Muslims, Christians and non-believers alike–of women and men, students and scholars, only fools or desperate wizards believe that if left to its own unchecked device, a kinder gentler Israel would emerge to ensure justice and human rights for those whose dwindling land they thirst and liberty they detest. 

Has Iran provided financial aid to Hamas, some of which was used for the purchase or production of weapons? Of course. Why not. It is not the only country that has chosen sides in this struggle against ethnic cleansing and for righteous justice. After all, the United States has funded Israel to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars these many years which has financed the use of phosphorous and cluster bombs against civilians in Gaza in violation of Protocol III to The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1983 and The Convention on Cluster Munitions of 2008. It has also armed snipers who have shot tens of thousands of peaceful protestors on the Gaza border in violation of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Not one to limit its backing of Israeli butchery to but the air and land of Palestine, the US has long subsidized an Israeli navy whose prime function is to attack and destroy Palestinian fishing and humanitarian aid vessels be they in the Port of Gaza or afloat in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Never one to suppress its own geo-political thirst or economic appetite, The Convention on Cluster Munitions was ignored earlier this year when the US elected to arm Ukraine with thousands of cluster bombs. So too, it disregarded the transfer of American-made weapons it provided to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners in Yemen later transferred to al Qaeda-linked fighters, and other so-called radical Salafi militias. Nothing new about this. Independent of its invasions and occupations of Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, in the last thirty-five years alone the United States has intervened or proxied up in numerous international hot spots through money or weapons including Syria, Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.  With an unbroken sordid record of meddling, there is abundant evidence that the US has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions of one sort or another between 1776 and 2023. But Iran is the problem. 

Over the years, billions in humanitarian aid have come to Gaza from Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey and Algeria to name but a few of the supportive sister states. Donated largely for reconstruction of essential infrastructure, schools and hospitals targeted and laid to waste by Israeli bombs, ribbon cutting in Gaza one of the world’s most densely populated and impoverished territories has proven time and time again to be but a momentary tease–with each restoration quickly lost to the next Israeli onslaught and the next and the next. 

Once upon a time, before the lure of US dollars and Israeli shekels purchased a new generation in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia armed Hamas with rockets and other weapons for the defense of Gaza. However, that solidarity was to change with the arrival of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman who the very year he had Jamal Khashoggi murdered, told Jewish leaders in New York City that Palestinians should “start accepting peace proposals or shut up.” Five years later at the urging of Biden and with the blessing of his personal hedge fund banker, Jared Kushner, in the run-up to the Hamas strike, bin Salman was expected to sign the Abraham Accords. With that signature, he would have joined UAE, Bahrain and Morocco in a treacherous pact with Israel which places their own economic and geo-political interests ahead of not just palpable Israeli violations of international law, but all standards of decency and humanity. Trading in his bisht and red & white keffiyeh for Armani pinstripes, how can anyone avoid the overpowering stench of a regional double standard?

And what of the “proof” that Iran provided the skill set and dictated the nature and timing of the most recent Hamas strikes against the occupation? Now streaming in from predictable Zionist echo chambers at AIPAC and ADL to the halls of a cheap ill-informed Congress to the amplified one-sided MSM breaking news cycle… there is none. To be sure, like it or not, as a seasoned national liberation movement with an armed wing that has successfully battled to a stand-still Israeli jets, tanks, and battleships for decades, Hamas needs not, nor does it accept direction from non-Palestinian actors on how or when to proceed in its struggle against the occupation. Any such claim oozes with pejorative ignorance and racist superiority. Bearing the reek of classic hasbara, these shouts are but another in a long line of played deceits that Israel is an enlightened democracy under perpetual siege in the midst of doctrinal fired anti-Semitism.

Of course, Israelis tutor the West that they and they alone love and care for their families and young while the dominant regional Arab and Palestinian populations are more than willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters to a nihilist agenda in the name of Islam. Very much a living lie, for decades this marketing lure has enticed the neo-colonial West to ignore Israel’s marriage of hate and violence providing the money, weapons and Security Council vetoes it needs to keep it just beyond the reach of universal law and international accountability. Zionists would have us believe that Palestinians, per capita among the most highly educated people and culture in the world, know not what they want and or how to get there, but rather are mere dutiful vassals of Iran as it seeks to impose its brand of Shia fundamentalism upon the rest of the region. Nonsense. 

Hamas is a national liberation movement dating back some 40 years to a time and place where an earlier generation of explosive, deadly Kahanists sought to corrupt if not rid Palestine of any collective aspiration of self-determination, independence and justice. The notion that all these years later the movement, now among the most sophisticated and successful in the region, if not the world, needs guidance, training and edict from any other state or people to fight on is but seductive sophistry in search of a vulnerable and ill-informed audience to bite the poison political pill. At its core, the tired screed that the Islamic Resistance Movement’s self-determination is determined by others not born of Palestinian families and heritage is but a shoddy deflection from the horrors unleashed by Zionists these past 75 years upon an indigenous community dating back not decades or centuries but millennium. 

For days now deceitful politicians and traditional media across the globe have parroted the sculpted Zionist talisman that there is war between Hamas and Israel. Not true. It is a battle for survival between a “nation state” of occupiers and a people long beleaguered …  but not defeated.  To be sure, if Hamas were to disappear tomorrow, the global Palestinian struggle for self-determination, liberty and justice would and will continue till it be had. To hear the unbroken chant of “terrorists” by Israel and its funders beggars the undeniable history of nonstop Zionist terrorism beginning well before the Irgun, Haganah and Palmach hanged British soldiers, bombed the King David Hotel, sent mail bombs across Europe and assassinated Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations mediator for Palestine all in the name of a theft of a land they had not known, if at all, for thousands of years. 

With its leadership prominently displayed and well deserved on “wanted” posters throughout Palestine and in Europe for heinous offenses against civilians and repeated violations of settled international law, these Europeans went on to inspire generations to come with a dark deadly vision of a homeland not theirs to reclaim or to reconstruct and where, to them, no crime was too disturbing … no rationale too obtuse. 

No matter what the Zionists rewrite, Palestine is a land stolen from age-old indigenous communities with hundreds of thousands driven at gunpoint from their homes, but not their history. For the fortunate, they were exiled to refugee camps in and out of their homeland; for the less so, mass assassination, rape and a final rest rotting in wells were left as a message for others across Palestine.  In the years since, that nightmare has continued unabated with millions of Palestinians living under the often-deadly, always despotic yoke of Zionist expanse and excuse; with many more eking out existence as stateless refugees living long and far from their native land. 

In the years since the onset of the unchanged Nakba, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians including children and the elderly have been shot, crippled and murdered always in the name of a perverse ideal built fundamentally upon the suffering of others. Even more have seen the damp dark cellblocks of political prisons, uncharged or tried, stripped of their families and lives for little more than a voice, a prayer, a hope. For years, Gaza has been the world’s largest open-air prison, one bounded on all sides by the hatred and terror of Israel and the complicity of its partner in cruelty–Egypt. But a short recast reminds us it is no stranger to Israeli war crimes. 

With an opening salvo on December 27, 2008, Israel bombed the main police headquarters in Gaza City, killing 42 cadets standing in formation–none bearing weapons. Later it blew up 18 other police stations throughout the Gaza Strip. In total, 248 police officers were killed having not fired a single shot at Israeli forces. Over the twenty-one days that followed, Israel deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure and made widespread use of prohibited weapons, such as white phosphorous, in highly populated areas in clear violation of international law. During the onslaught, Israel targeted 23 U.N. buildings and/or compounds killing numerous civilians who had taken shelter there. In the deadliest case, 43 civilians were killed by an Israeli shelling of one such compound. Palestinian schools were also targeted. On January 5, an aerial strike killed three men who had sought shelter at the Asma Elementary Co-Ed A School. Twelve days later, a military ordinance struck the Beit Lahia Elementary School while it was being used as an emergency shelter… killing two young boys and injuring 13 others. Human Rights Watch documented at least seven instances where Israeli soldiers executed civilians… including five women and four children who were standing together waving white flags to convey they posed no threat. In another incident, Israeli soldiers shot and killed several members of the al-Najar family in Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis. Following orders from soldiers to leave their neighborhood, and while waving white flags, Rawiya al-Najjar and her family were gunned down. When the carnage ended, some 1440 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,000 injured… most of them civilians. According to the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem, 252 minors under the age of 16 (boys and girls) who did not take part in any fighting were killed along with 111 women and girls over 16. 

Five years later, in the summer of 2014, the world was reminded of what it is to be a Palestinian in the crosshairs of a colonial fiend hell-bent on relegating them en masse to the ranks of the disappeared. During Israel’s unhinged six-week rampage it dropped 40,000 tons of explosives on more than 5200 “targets” throughout Gaza. At its end, some 2200 Palestinians were slaughtered, including 550 children, with some 10,000 others injured. Almost all the victims were civilians. More than 1900 children were orphaned, and hundreds of thousands were internally displaced with 20,000 homes, 26 NGO service providers, a half-dozen UNRWA facilities, 23 hospitals and health-care facilities, 133 schools, 360 factories, and 50,000 acres of croplands destroyed or damaged by Israel. Half of Gaza’s poultry stock was slaughtered along with thousands of family pets. 

These are but a few of the more glaring examples of the recent yet unbroken mayhem long unleashed by Israel against a Palestinian community that never left its roots or lost the call of its collective claim. To keep track of this havoc is to bear witness to unspeakable crimes typically against the frail, the young, the passive who carry hope and horror-not weapons. According to Save the Children in the run-up to the most recent explosion, 2023 had already proved to be the deadliest year for Palestinian children since records began with at least 38 of them killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. That number has increased exponentially over the last several days with, it has been reported, some 500 additional children killed in Gaza. The Defense for Children International, a Palestinian human rights organization focused on child rights, reports that since 2005 major Israeli military offensives have killed more than 1,000 children in the 140 square mile prison of Gaza.

Meanwhile, there are some 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons including 33 women and 170 children held largely on what are described as “security grounds.” Detained essentially indefinitely, they never see the inside of an Israeli civilian courtroom with the benefit of meaningful counsel, and the rights to due process and a trial. For them, it is very much a military star chamber–one overseen by a military judge and a military prosecutor with endless six-month detention extensions absent any cap, or established evidence of criminal wrongdoing. 

In the most recent battle, the list of dead and injured civilians continues to grow on both sides and must stop. Yet the narrative of what has happened and why is no less destructive. No matter how many times politicians and theists of all callings seek to control and market the account by blaming Hamas and victimizing Israelis alone, even a cursory search establishes it is an obscene escape from reality. Long before Hamas arrived, Palestinians of all faiths, politics and aspirations fought against the expulsion, hatred and violence forced upon them by European terrorists in the name of a desperate historical rewrite. One which sought and continues to justify ongoing ethnic cleansing as so much an absolute historical rite of passage–a claim that defies the reality of time and long-settled decency and humanitarian law.   

Tragically, after all the millennium we still live in times not unlike the dark march of history where struggles are judged not by the equal application of international law or the will and wail of justice but by the color of one’s skin, the echo of one’s words, the pose of one’s prayer. All too often, the scale of righteousness is weighted not by the credence of the cause but the partisan of one’s cheer. A double standard at best, it is a jury of institutional inequality–one that passes judgment not by the virtuous but the powerful; not by equal application of law but the coercive command of presence. It is specious posturing at its finest; an opportune script sculpted by occupiers across the globe, and not the occupied. It must stop. 

Until the community of onlookers imposes the same standards upon colonizer as they do the colonized; upon Jews and Christians as they do Muslims; on skin tones of white as they do of color, the history of yesterday and that unfolding before us today remains locked in a dismissal falsified story-line. Ultimately, that description instills upon us all the bleak chronicle that the difference between “freedom fighter” and “terrorist” is not the justness of the cause … but who wins.

Financial problems still loom large as IMF downgrades global growth forecast

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slightly revised down its forecast for global growth, largely on the back of worsening conditions in the euro zone and China. It has stated that a “full recovery toward pre-pandemic trends appears increasingly out of reach, especially in emerging market and developing economies.”

Attendees walk inside an atrium at the 2022 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

The forecasts are contained in the latest World Economic Outlook report prepared for the October meeting of the IMF and the World Bank being held in Marrakech, Morocco.

In its latest projections, the IMF said global growth would slow from 3.5 percent in 2022 to 3 percent this year. It predicted a fall to 2.9 percent next year, a 0.1 percentage point decline for 2024 from its forecast in July. This is a trend it describes as “well below the historical average.”

In his foreword to the report, IMF economic counsellor Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said the global economy continued to recover slowly from the blows of the pandemic, the Ukraine war and the cost-of-living crisis and was displaying “remarkable” resilience.

But, he continued, growth remained slow and uneven and “the global economy is limping along.”

Gourinchas noted that while some “extreme risks”—a reference to the US banking crisis—had moderated since April, the balance remained “tilted to the downside.” He cited the real estate crisis in China, which has implications for the global economy.

As the executive summary of the report noted, “China’s property sector crisis could deepen, with global spillovers, particularly for commodity exporters.”

Gourinchas said IMF projections were increasingly consistent with a so-called “soft landing” scenario in which inflation comes down without a major economic downturn. But he noted important divergences were emerging. While the US had “surprised on the upside,” euro area activity was revised downward. China faced “growing headwinds from its real estate crisis and weakening confidence.”

On the policy front, he stated that central banks had to maintain a tight stance even as inflation was coming down. Fiscal policy had to support monetary strategy. By this is meant the necessity to cut government spending. Gourinchas pointed to the US as “most worrying” because the “fiscal stance has deteriorated substantially.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, said with current policies the US was on an “unsustainable fiscal path.”

“US deficits are elevated and they’re projected to be persistent,” he said. “Under unchanged policies, debt dynamics in the US are very unfavourable.”

And it is not just the US. The IMF said that overall fiscal policy should focus on “rebuilding financial buffers” that have been seriously eroded by the pandemic and the energy crisis.

Translating these prescriptions into the language of social reality, what this means is cutting government spending, not of course on the military, which is being increased everywhere, but on vital social spending affecting the lives of the broad mass of the population in areas such as health and education.

The Global Financial Stability Report was also somewhat downbeat.

In his foreword, IMF Financial Counsellor Tobias Adrian noted that sentiments in financial markets were different from the time of the last report in April. Then the US had just experienced three of its four largest bank failures in history. Now concerns about the banking sector had given way to “optimism about brisk disinflation and a soft landing for the global economy.”

“But such optimism,” he continued, “can unravel in the face of adverse shocks—like upside surprise inflation, financial stability concerns in China, and renewed concerns about debt sustainability—resulting in a sharp repricing of assets.”

As a result, financial risks remained elevated as was the case in April.

Furthermore, while “acute strains” in the banking sector had subsided, there were indications of “trouble elsewhere as higher interest rates are beginning to bite.”

The report pointed to some of those troubled areas, particularly commercial real estate. It has been hit both by the decline in demand for office space as a result of the pandemic with the increase in working from home, and higher interest rates.

It stated: “Given the size and concentration of commercial real estate (CRE) and its strong connection with the broader financial system and the real economy stress in that sector can have significant financial stability implications.”

CRE is of considerable significance, equating to 12 percent of GDP in Europe and 18 percent in the US.

“Concerns about the risk of a widening funding gap have emerged, as funding sources become less available for CRE borrowers, private equity fundraising activity has slowed sharply and the issuance of commercial mortgage-backed securities has gone tepid,” the report said.

Financial authorities let out a collective sigh of relief when the US bank failures of last March–April did not develop into something even more serious—not because of the operation of safety mechanisms within the financial system, but because US financial authorities bailed out all uninsured depositors. There is, however, a recognition that the underlying problems have not been solved.

As the executive summary of the report put it, under the heading Soft Landing or Abrupt Awakening: “While acute stress in the global banking system has subsided, a weak tail of banks remains in some countries. In addition, cracks in other sectors may also become apparent and could turn into worrisome fault lines. In the event of an abrupt tightening of financial conditions, adverse feedback loops could be triggered and again test the resilience of the financial system.”

In his forward, Adrian referred to the growing importance of nonbank financial intermediation (NBFI)—carried out by hedge funds and other financial organisations—over the past decade. This made “comprehensive systemic risk assessments of NBFI a financial stability policy priority.”

Such remarks are aimed at conveying the impression of a financial cop on the beat. But as the IMF and Adrian himself have acknowledged, financial regulators have only very patchy knowledge of the NBFI world and its intimate and often complex relations with the broader financial system.

The overall message from the latest IMF finance report is that the supposed guardians of the global system know that another crisis will strike but have no clear idea of how and when it will occur. But one thing is certain: it will have a major impact on the real economy which, as the economic outlook report made clear, is only “limping” along.

German parliament in a war frenzy

Peter Schwarz

October 12, 2023 will go down in history as the date on which all the parties represented in the Bundestag (federal parliament), from the Left Party to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), closed ranks and unanimously declared their support for a policy of unrestrained militarism and political repression.

The Bundestag gave the Israeli government carte blanche to take cruel revenge on the Palestinian population for the uprising in Gaza and promised to support it by all available means. It threatened with military retaliation all regional organisations and powers that dared to help the Palestinians and pledged to prosecute, punish, and suppress any expression of sympathy with the Palestinians in Germany.

By the time the Bundestag met on Thursday, the Israeli government had long made it clear that it was planning war crimes on a massive scale. It had already begun to turn the Gaza Strip, where more than two million people live crammed into a tiny space with no means of escape, into a hell.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had announced, “No electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is sealed off. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed to kill all members of Hamas, which rules Gaza. “We will crush and destroy them like the world destroyed the ‘Islamic State’,” he threatened. Every Hamas member was “a dead man.” Since Hamas is deeply entrenched in Gaza, this means killing hundreds of thousands.

For days, the Gaza Strip has been bombed nonstop by the Israeli military, entire residential areas are already in ruins, and the population is cut off from electricity, water, and food. More than 1,400 people, including many children and women, had died by noon on Thursday, according to the official count. Thousands more are injured, with hospitals unable to provide further care.

The Israeli army is massing more than 300,000 troops on the Gaza border, almost twice the total strength of the present German army, and preparing for a ground invasion that is widely expected to be long and bloody. “The scope of this is going to be bigger than before and more severe. It’s not going to be clean,” the British Economist magazine quotes Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht as saying. And Israeli UN envoy Gilad Erdan adds: “The era of reasoning with these savages is over. Now is the time to obliterate Hamas terror infrastructure, to completely erase it.”

Nevertheless, not a word of criticism of Israeli actions was uttered in the entire Bundestag debate, let alone a syllable of empathy with the Palestinians. Parliamentarians from all parties outdid each other in assuring the Israeli government of their support. Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, seated in the gallery, received a standing ovation.

The minutes of the session note dozens of times: “Applause throughout the House” and “Applause from the SPD, the CDU/CSU, the BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN and the FDP, as well as from members of the AfD and the LEFT PARTY.” In the end, the Bundestag passed a resolution that had been jointly presented by the three government parties and the CDU/CSU. It was adopted without any dissenting votes or abstentions. Members of the AfD and the Left Party also voted unanimously in favour.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) opened the debate with a government statement. He denounced the rebellious Palestinians as “terrorists” and gave the Israeli military a blank cheque. “Israel has the right under international law to defend itself and its citizens against this barbaric attack,” he said. “At this moment there is only one place for Germany: at Israel’s side.”

Scholz denied any connection between the decades-long oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli regime, which has repeatedly organised massacres, annexed large parts of the West Bank with the support of fascist settlers and turned Gaza into an open-air prison which it bombs at regular intervals. “Nothing, but nothing, justifies the terror of Hamas!” he claimed.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a news conference on the second day of the Europe Summit in Granada, Spain, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. [AP Photo/Manu Fernandez]

For Scholz, brutal violence is only permitted when it originates from oppressors, not from the oppressed. The Nazis had once used similar arguments to denounce as “terrorism” and brutally destroy any resistance that came from partisans, Jews, or other victims of their murderous politics. All the other speakers in the debate followed Scholz unreservedly and descended into a veritable war frenzy.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz justified in advance every war crime committed by the Israeli government, “But one thing is already clear: There must be no cracks in our solidarity, even if Israel does what is necessary to restore its security.”

Omid Nouripour (Greens) said: “This is not about two parties in dispute. It is about a democratic state defending itself against sheer terror. That is why there is no equidistance, to anyone. We only stand by Israel’s side.”

Dietmar Bartsch (Left Party) spoke of “a new dimension of terror” that “simply wants to slaughter Jews” and reaffirmed “our solidarity with Israel.”

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil said that Hamas’ terrorist acts had made “sustained peace a distant prospect.” Now it was necessary to “fight terror consistently.”

First to speak on behalf of the AfD was Alexander Gauland, who has called the Holocaust just so much “bird shit” in a thousand years of glorious German history. “This barbaric attack with almost exclusively civilian victims must be answered radically,” he said, calling for a campaign against Islam: “When we stand with Israel, we also defend our way of living and thinking against a politicised Islam.”

His caucus colleague Jürgen Braun accused the “old parties” of having “allowed precisely such people as the Gaza assassins to enter our country undisturbed for years.” Only the AfD had “clearly opposed the immigration of Jew-haters and mass murderers.”

CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann most clearly summed up the parliamentarians’ enthusiasm for war when he spoke to broadcaster ZDF about a visit by Israeli Ambassador Prosor to the CDU parliamentary group. He said, “That was historic for me, I will never forget that meeting.” He reported that the ambassador had said: “Of course we try not to hit innocent people, but of course it will happen. And we have to hit back so hard that nobody even thinks of attacking Israel again. And that will be tough.” The caucus had applauded, he said. “We paid respect and I really got goosebumps.”

Goosebumps in the face of a “tough” action that hits many innocent people—such feelings were previously reserved for radical neo-Nazis!

In his government statement, Scholz did not stop at attacking the Palestinians. He also accused Iran of complicity, without any proof, and blatantly threatened Tehran with war.

“It is true that we do not yet have any tangible evidence that Iran has given concrete and operational support to this cowardly attack by Hamas,” the chancellor said. “But it is clear to all of us: Without Iranian support over the past years, Hamas would not have been capable of these unprecedented attacks on Israeli territory.”

Turning to Tehran and Lebanese Hezbollah, he threatened, “Our message is clear: it would be an unforgivable mistake to attack Israel.”

On this issue, too, all the other speakers followed him. Above all, CDU leader Merz made it clear that military action in the Middle East was already being discussed in ruling circles. “Since last Saturday, we know that besides the war in Ukraine, freedom and peace have to be defended in a next place in our wider neighbourhood,” he said.

All parties also agreed to suppress any sign of solidarity with the Palestinians in Germany. In his statement, Scholz announced the banning of Samidoun, a network for the defence of Palestinian prisoners, and a ban on the activities of Hamas, which is already classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU.

French President Macron endorses Israeli war on Gaza

Alex Lantier

In a prime-time television address yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron unreservedly endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on the Palestinian uprising in Gaza. He demanded that the French people demonstrate “national unity” and rally behind his own unpopular government as it supports the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) relentless bombing of the impoverished Palestinian enclave. 

Before Macron’s speech, his political advisers admitted to the media that his position faces deep opposition in the French people and that they are terrified that this opposition will explode. This is particularly the case if the IDF launches a widely anticipated ground invasion of Gaza and tries to act on its threats to murder every member of Hamas. Such a policy would entail massacring a substantial proportion of the blockaded Palestinian population of Gaza.

Laurent Marcangeli of the Horizons Party of Macron’s former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe warned: “We must watch what we say, have some humility given the complexity of this issue. We do not know how the situation will develop. Public opinion can start asking itself questions depending on how strong Israel’s reaction is. After stupor, horror and disgust (at pictures of Israeli victims), other images of innocent victims, this time on the Palestinian side, can move people.” 

Denis Sieffert, the former editor of Politis magazine, echoed Marcangeli’s remarks, telling Le Monde: “The risk facing the government is that spontaneous, disordered demonstrations could erupt.”

Macron reacted by telling his far-right Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to ban all pro-Gaza protests and inviting the leaders of all France’s parliamentary parties to closed-door talks on the political crisis. From neo-fascist National Rally’s (RN) Marine Le Pen to Manuel Bompard of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s pseudo-left Unsubmissive France (LFI) party, all these parties’ top officials met Macron. In the current context, this amounts to an endorsement by the entire French political establishment of the blank cheque Macron gave Netanyahu in his televised address.

Ignoring the Israeli state’s oppression of the Palestinian people and its illegal 16-year blockade of Gaza, Macron instead gave a travesty of the war, presenting it as a one-sided, absolutely evil act of Palestinian terrorism against Israel. He denounced the uprising against the Israeli government that began a week ago as “the most tragic terrorist attack in its history” and an “unleashing of absolute cruelty.”

Branding the Hamas party in Gaza as a “terrorist movement,” Macron denounced it for “exposing the population of Gaza in a cynical and criminal fashion.” The cynicism and criminality is, in reality, on the side of Macron. Indeed, Macron did not state that what the Palestinians of Gaza are exposed to is the threat of a genocidal IDF onslaught against an uprising driven by the intolerable conditions of the 16-year blockade of Gaza—an onslaught which Macron himself is endorsing.

Macron briefly mourned the death of 14 French people in the Hamas offensive against Israel and pledged to work to free the 17 French people thought to be held as hostages by Hamas, which is trying to use them to negotiate a prisoner swap with Israel. He also demanded that the fighting not spread to Lebanon, a former French colony, where the Shiite Hezbollah militia has traded fire with IDF forces across the border in northern Israel.

While Macron briefly referred to his support for a “two-state solution” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his principal concern was with justifying internal, police-state repression. He let it be known that the French capitalist state will treat sympathy with Gaza as a crime. “Those who mix up the Palestinian cause with terrorism are committing a moral error,” he said, pledging that the French police and army would suppress “all excesses, all moral drifts, all hatreds” that might find expression over the Israeli-Palestinian issue in France.

Macron concluded by hypocritically praising the “singular and universal voice which is that of France,” demanding that the French people line up behind him to remain “united to bear a message of peace and hope” and “be up to the standards set by our history.”

It is impossible to reconcile Macron’s empty rhetoric, intended to be taken as references to traditions of the 1789 French Revolution, with the IDF attacks on Gaza. The 18th century democratic revolution granted religious minorities, such as Jews, Protestants and Muslims, full legal rights, based on a proclamation of the principle of human equality. Macron, on the other hand, is endorsing the IDF onslaught against the Palestinians which is unmistakably taking on a fascistic and genocidal character.

Intensifying its 16-year blockade of Gaza, which the United Nations has ruled illegal, the Israeli state is cutting off all food, fuel, energy and humanitarian aid to Gaza and bombing the enclave—a densely populated zone of over 2 million people, half of whom are aged under 18. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has denounced the Palestinians in Gaza as “animals,” as he plans an IDF ground invasion of Gaza.

Macron’s endorsement of the IDF offensive is inseparably bound up with the legitimization by the ruling class of the bloodiest, most reactionary traditions of French and European politics. This emerged in remarks by Marine Le Pen, the daughter and political heir of the Holocaust denier and promoter of the Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Marine Le Pen, who has never condemned her father’s support for Vichy and the Holocaust, advocated murdering a large portion of Gaza’s population and ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians. 

“Terrorism is the worst form of cowardice and of brutality,” Le Pen told the far-right C-News channel on Sunday, adding that “we must allow Israel to eradicate Hamas.”

Le Pen then laid out a proposal for the mass murder of all Palestinians active in armed opposition to the IDF and for the expulsion of all other Palestinians from Gaza. She said, “A part of the Palestinian population probably supports Hamas. But as for the others, they are hostages. So maybe the international community should ask Egypt to open an asylum to let the Palestinian population evacuate Gaza.”

The decision of Macron and of other French parliamentary party leaders to meet Le Pen after this fascistic outburst, which Le Pen’s political ancestors in the French collaboration with Nazism would have understood very well, is no political accident. Firstly, Le Pen was outlining the type of policy that Israeli ruling circles plan to carry out, with European and US support. Moreover, the French political establishment, in the years since the 1991 Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, has agreed to legitimize neo-fascism.

Warnings of domino effect if Chinese property giant Evergrande is liquidated

Nick Beams

In little more than two weeks a court case is set to begin in Hong Kong seeking the liquidation of the Chinese property giant Evergrande. This could have major flow on effects for the rest of the property market, the Chinese financial system and even globally.

A woman passes by a display showing Evergrande’s China commercial projects in Beijing, China. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The case, which is set to begin on October 30, looks almost certain to go ahead unless a last-minute agreement can be reached to restructure Evergrande’s debts to offshore bondholders.

Evergrande ran into major problems two years ago when it failed to meet payments on its bonds. A series of negotiations got underway, lasting more than a year, aimed at trying to prevent the liquidation of the company because of fears of what it could trigger.

It appeared that a restructure operation would be undertaken until late last month when Evergrande announced that one of its subsidiaries had failed to make a debt repayment and Chinese authorities said they were undertaking an investigation into the company’s chairman Hui Ka Yan.

Few details have been released but it is said that he is subject to “mandatory measures” due to “suspicion of illegal crimes,” thought to be related to the transfer of money abroad. As a result of the investigation, his movements have been restricted.

The central component of the restructuring agreement, which has involved protracted and complex negotiations with creditors, was the issuing of new securities by Evergrande to investors that they could convert into equity or debt.

But it now appears that as a result of the investigation that the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has refused Evergrande’s application to issue the securities.

This has far-reaching implications because, as investors in the company have warned, if the proposed restructuring does not go ahead “it would render any offshore restructuring of Chinese real estate companies a mission impossible.”

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, economic columnist Stepehen Bartholomeusz noted that with the restructuring deal in jeopardy, the “threat to topple the world’s most indebted property developer… could trigger a domino-like wave of crashes across the highly-geared property sector.”

According to Bartholomeusz, the core group of bond holders involved in the negotiations “warned on Monday that if Evergrande couldn’t convince the regulator to allow it to issue new bonds, the abandonment of the restructuring would likely lead to the ‘uncontrolled collapse’ of the group and have a catastrophic effect on other distressed companies in the sector.”

Creditors say they have been left in the dark and there is “zero clarity” as to why the CSRC will not allow the issuing of new securities.

The article provided some important facts and figures on the magnitude of the Evergrande crisis and the worsening situation in the Chinese property sector more broadly.

“Evergrande,” Bartholomeusz wrote, “is the big tip of a very large iceberg. It has total liabilities at its last balance sheet date—monies owed, not just to its bondholders and banks but to suppliers and those who have paid deposits for its apartments—of about $335 billion, but total assets of $252 billion, leaving a deficiency in its shareholders funds of $83 billion.”

If Evergrande were a stand-alone case, its problems could be dealt with. But dozens of Chinese property developers have defaulted with an estimated $30 billion of missed interest payments last year. Companies that have defaulted, either on their principal or interest payments, account for 40 percent of China’s home sales.

The problems of the developers are reaching into the financial sector. An analysis by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post of China’s 18 systemically important banks concluded they had $40 billion in non-performing loans to developers as of the end of June, a 37 percent increase over the previous year.

However, as Evergrande heads for liquidation, with all that entails, there is a another, potentially bigger, disaster looming.

This week Country Garden, China’s largest property developer and until recent times regarded as secure, issued a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange that it expects it “will not be able to meet all of its offshore payment obligations” when they become due.

“Such non-payment may lead to relevant creditors of the Group demanding acceleration of payment of the relevant indebtedness owed to them or pursuing enforcement action,” it said.

In other words, court action could be launched including possible liquidation.

Country Garden has around $200 billion in liabilities and $10 billion in dollar-denominated debt. Its problems first surfaced in August when it missed an international bond payment. It was able to meet its obligations during a 30-day grace period and avoided a default.

However, in its latest statement, it said it expects it will not be able to make payments “within relevant grace periods,” one of which expires next week.

Reporting on the Country Garden crisis, the Financial Times (FT) said it had confirmed what investors had been dreading, that it was heading for a default and had hired lawyers to deal with the consequences.

“Shock waves from the Chinese real estate crisis will ripple through Asian markets,” the FT warned, adding that any restructuring of the company “would be of a historic size.”

Even if there was a restructure operation it would make little difference for investors because the company’s bonds trade at around 5 cents on the dollar and its shares have become a “penny stock.”

Country Garden is even bigger than Evergrande with about four times the number of housing projects. Last month it disclosed a loss of $7 billion for the first half of the year and its sales volumes for September fell by 81 percent.

The overall situation appears to be worsening. It had been hoped that the first week of October, a holiday time known as “golden week” because of higher property sales, would provide a lift. But sales were down 22 percent on last year.

The problems of the highly indebted developers were triggered by the government’s decision in August 2020 to tighten the availability of credit, fearing that the escalation of debt would eventually create systemic financial problems if it continued.

So far it has showed no signs of providing a boost to the property sector. Some minor relaxations on credit have been introduced as well as lower mortgage rates and deposit levels to make home buying more attractive. However, they have had little or no effect.

The Xi Jinping regime no doubt calculates that with the massive state involvement in the banking system it will be able ride out the consequences of the deepening property crisis even as major firms go to the wall. That assumption may prove to be correct, but it will be sorely tested in the coming period and there are certain to be shock waves which will hit both Asia and the rest of the world.

Republicans nominate Scalise for Speaker but lack clear majority

Patrick Martin

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, left, and Rep. Jim Jordan. [AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana , J. Scott Applewhite]

The House Republican Conference voted Wednesday to nominate Representative Steve Scalise as its candidate for Speaker, but a planned session of the House of Representatives was shut down within minutes without a vote, since it was clear that Scalise would not obtain a majority.

Scalise, the current House Majority Leader, the number two position under ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, received 113 votes, compared to 99 votes for House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, an ultra-right standard-bearer who co-founded the fascist Freedom Caucus and was endorsed by Donald Trump. Scalise barely cleared the threshold of 111 votes required for nomination (nine Republicans did not vote).

Since the Republicans hold only a narrow 221-212 majority in the House, they can afford only four defections in order to obtain the 217 votes needed to elect Scalise. Far more than that number of Republicans have said publicly that they will not vote for Scalise, choosing to vote either Jordan or McCarthy to express a protest against the party leadership. All 212 Democrats are expected to vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Jordan did far better than expected by the corporate media, in part because he reportedly benefited from a sizeable group of “moderate” Republicans who objected to the ouster of McCarthy and viewed Scalise as having undermined the former Speaker. 

The actual political differences between Jordan and Scalise are insignificant. Both are advocates of massive spending cuts in social programs and other attacks on the working class. Both voted on January 7, 2021 not to certify the election of Joe Biden as president, lending support to the mob, which had stormed the Capitol the previous day. Both are firm supporters of American militarism and of the state of Israel, although they differ in their willingness to send billions in additional aid to Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the conference vote, at least a dozen Republican House members said publicly they would not vote for Scalise in the election of a Speaker. These included Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Chip Roy and Michael Cloud of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Max Miller of Ohio, all of whom voted for Kevin McCarthy last week.

Of the eight ultra-right members who joined with the Democrats to oust McCarthy, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Matt Rosendale of Montana and Eli Crane of Arizona said they would vote for Scalise, while Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia and Ken Buck of Colorado said they would not. Andy Biggs of Arizona was non-committal but seemed opposed, according to press reports.

The opposition to Scalise was intensified by a vote in the Republican Conference earlier Wednesday against a proposed change in party rules for nominating a candidate for Speaker, including a public roll call and a requirement that the candidate win 217 votes from the conference before his or her name was submitted to the full House. Scalise’s supporters opposed the measure, and it was tabled by a vote of 135-88.

After a significant delay following the Conference vote on the nomination of Scalise, Jordan announced that he would support Scalise’s election by the full House and offered to make one of the nominating speeches.

Meanwhile, the prospect that Scalise might move up to the position of Speaker opened up a chain reaction of candidacies to replace him as Majority Leader and for lesser positions in the Republican leadership. Kevin Hern (Republican-Oklahoma) and Tom Emmer (Republican-Minnesota) announced plans to run for Majority Leader, and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York was expected to join that race as well.

Other candidates were lining up to replace Emmer as House Minority Whip, Hern as chair the powerful Republican Study Group, and Stefanik. The infighting over positions of influence in the Republican leadership could well have an impact on the efforts by Scalise and other top Republicans to round up the 217 votes needed to elect a new Speaker.

House Republicans are under enormous pressure to conclude this process because constitutionally the House can take no action without an elected Speaker to lead it, decide on which bills will come to a vote and assign members to the various committees. The Speaker is, moreover, second in line of succession to the presidency after Vice President Kamala Harris.

The outbreak of full-scale war in the Middle East has intensified this pressure from the national security establishment, the Democratic Party, senators of both parties and the corporate media. 

Already, a bipartisan resolution declaring absolute US support for Israel has been delayed by the leadership crisis. It was submitted by Republican Michael McCaul of Texas and Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York, the chair and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and co-sponsored by 390 of the 433 members of the House.

The White House expressed concern that any protracted delay in choosing a new Speaker—let alone the record 15 ballots required to elect Kevin McCarthy in January—would also delay passage of legislation to authorize billions in additional US military aid to Israel and Ukraine.

The dysfunction in the political system is not limited to the House. In the US Senate, “holds” imposed by various Republican senators have blocked hundreds of nominations to top positions in the national security apparatus. There are currently no confirmed US ambassadors to Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Kuwait, among the countries in the Middle East. More than 300 nominations to fill top military positions have been held up by Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama in a protest against a Pentagon policy of paying for the travel costs of military women, who must travel from a state where abortion is banned to another state to obtain abortion services.

Gaza and the Israeli War

Robert Fantina

The world awoke on October 7 to the news that so-called ‘militants’ in the Gaza Strip had entered Israel, killed 40 people and injured hundreds of others. (The figures now stand at more than 900 Israelis killed and 2806 wounded.) In retaliation, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel is at war with Gaza. The death toll on both sides has skyrocketed since the news initially broke.

It must be remembered that Palestinians in Gaza, along with those in the West Bank and Jerusalem, have suffered for decades at the hands of the brutal, internationally-illegal and internationally-condemned Israeli occupation of Palestine. Israel has the most advanced weaponry on the planet, much of it provided by the United States. Israel also receives billions of dollars in aid annually from the U.S., compared to the trivial amount of aid it provides to Palestine.

Palestine, on the other hand, with no army, navy or air force, must rely on what it can cobble together in the way of weapons, to resist the occupation. Norman Finklestein, son of Holocaust survivors and an ardent advocate of Palestinian rights, refers to Hamas ‘rockets’ as ‘enhanced fireworks’. And under international law, an occupied people can resist the occupation in any way possible, including armed struggle. In this situation, as is nearly always the case in the Palestine-Israel ‘conflict’, it is Israel, not Palestine, that is in violation of international law.

A ‘conflict’ cannot be considered a war when it is between a rich nation with one of the most powerful militaries on the planet, and a poor, occupied country lacking any but the most rudimentary military facilities. The Palestinians in Gaza, ruled by the democratically-elected government of Hamas, are resisting the brutal, demoralizing occupation, and Israel, ruled by the most extreme right-wing government in its history of brutal right-wing governments, is continuing its policy of slow but ongoing genocide.

President Joe Biden and other Western leaders proclaim, once again, that Israel has a right to defend itself. Yet there is never any discussion about Palestine’s right to defend itself from the ongoing, deadly oppression it suffers daily at the hands of Israel. The aggressor cannot be seen as defending itself from its victim. That Israel is an apartheid regime can no longer be doubted, despite the denials of Biden and other government leaders. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem and other international human-rights organizations have documented this fact in painful detail.

United States government officials frequently proclaim their desire for peace in the Middle East. Yet the U.S. continues to not only finance Israeli brutality, but also protect it from consequences on the world stage by exercising U.S. veto power nearly every time the United Nations Security Council seeks to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and crimes against humanity.

Current efforts by the U.S. to broker an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel will not lead to peace in the Middle East. Millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East are displeased by their governments’ establishing diplomatic relations with Israel during the Trump administration. Monarchies and dictatorships creating alliances may benefit their government leaders, but do nothing for the people who have limited, if any, say in the governments that rule them. Biden and other government leaders, in the U.S. and around the world, ignore the simmering and growing hostility of millions of people who oppose Israel’s racist policies and the governments that support them.

True peace in the Middle East is not difficult to achieve. The steps to doing so are clear: the U.S. must tie any aid to Israel to that country’s adherence to international law. That includes removing all illegal settlers; the concept that Israel is creating ‘facts on the ground’ is worthless. Stolen property does not eventually become owned by the thief; when the theft is discovered, the property must be returned. According to international law, the settlements are illegal.

Additionally, when the U.N. Security Council proposes resolutions that condemn Israeli violations of international law, the U.S. must vote in support of those resolutions. Israel, by its own behaviors, increases its reputation as an international outlaw, and the U.S. does nothing to enhance its own reputation by supporting it.

The people throughout Palestine, and especially in Gaza today, experience horrific living conditions due to the Israeli occupation. The U.N. predicted in 2012 that Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020, yet over 2,000,000 people still live there, despite the sporadic availability of electricity, limited drinking water, unemployment at record highs and poverty rampant.

Major news outlets are treating this as a ‘terrorist’ act, Israel’s ‘9-11’, and not the response of a people who have suffered greatly under the brutal hand of an occupying nation for decades. They decry Palestinian violence, as they ignore that of Israel. Few, if any, journalists question Israeli bombing of hospitals and schools, or even the bombing of United Nations refugee shelters. They don’t question the brutality of killing rock-throwing teenagers, or the nightly raids of homes in the West Bank, where the houses are ransacked by IDF soldiers, and all the males over the age of 11 taken into custody. No, perhaps because those victims are always Arab and usually Muslim, crimes against them don’t matter.

The latest onslaught by Israel will only worsen these horrific conditions.

British government seeks to outlaw pro-Palestinian protests

Thomas Scripps

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman are using Israel’s war on Gaza and the Palestinians to launch the largest attack on free speech and the right to protest in post-war British history.

With several thousand people protesting across the country in solidarity with the Palestinians, Sunak threatened on Monday, “I’d just remind everyone that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. People should not be supporting Hamas and we will make sure that we hold people to account if they are.”

Police watching the protest outside the Israeli Embassy in London

He added that the police had been told to “clamp down on any behaviour that falls foul of the law”.

Earlier that day, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had told protestors to stay at home: “There is no need, there’s no necessity for people to come out. It causes distress. This is a difficult, delicate situation.”

This followed Braverman’s statement Sunday warning, “I expect the police to use the full force of the law against displays of support for Hamas, other proscribed terrorist groups or attempts to intimidate British Jews.”

On Tuesday, she made clear how widely the net is being cast in a public letter to the police, telling officers, “It is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern. I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.”

Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits “abusive or insulting words, or disorderly behaviour” and the display of “threatening, abusive or insulting” writing or imagery in hearing or sight of a person “likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress.”

Braverman’s letter continues, “Behaviours that are considered legitimate in some circumstances, for example, the waving of a Palestinian flag, may not be legitimate such as when intended to glorify acts of terrorism.”

She “encourage[s] all chief officers to ensure that any protests which could exacerbate community tensions by way of offensive placards, chants or behaviours that could be construed as incitement or harassment, have a strong police presence to ensure perpetrators are appropriately dealt with.”

This is a mandate, from the highest levels of the state, for mass arrests—facilitated by the raft of dictatorial anti-protest legislation passed in the last two years. A national demonstration in defence of Gaza is planned for this Saturday outside Downing Street in London.

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]

The British government’s extraordinary edict of political suppression builds on a years-long campaign to criminalise political opposition to the Israeli state and to brand socialist views as “extremist”.

Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters were driven out of the Labour Party by a witch-hunt over manufactured, politically motivated claims of widespread “left” anti-Semitism—equating opposition to Zionism and Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians with hostility to Jews, even when those accused were themselves Jewish. Corbyn’s political cowardice allowed this campaign to succeed, with the Labour leader implementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s reactionary definition of antisemitism within the party.

The IHRA definition equating criticism of Israel and its policies with anti-Semitism has since been rolled out across society, most prominently on university campuses but also to slander artists such as Roger Waters—as a weapon of political intimidation and censorship intended to silence left-wing organisations for whom the defence of the Palestinians against Israeli and imperialist oppression is a fundamental principle.

The latest threats go far beyond anything seen before. Opposition to Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian territories and people motivates millions of workers and young people—not least the 3.9 Muslims in the UK from the Indian subcontinent and throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia—and is the overarching concern for tens of thousands of activists. All of them are now threatened with arrest for expressing these views publicly, at a time when the Netanyahu government is threatening the Gaza concentration camp with annihilation.

This situation is unprecedented. Throughout the 35 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, protests were held in Britain not only in support of the broad cause of Irish independence but for the military campaign waged by the Irish Republican Army. The demand for “Victory to the IRA” was never proscribed even under conditions of bombing campaigns and brutal repression of the Republican movement because this would have discredited any claim to Britain being a democracy.

Mass protests were mounted against South African apartheid at a time when the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher and the right-wing media were denouncing Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress as a terrorist organisation.

In 2003, over a million people marched against the Iraq War while Tony Blair’s government was claiming Sadaam Hussein’s government posed an immediate threat to British citizens.

By the standards of today’s ruling class, all of this is beyond the pale. Social tensions and the threat of war are now so acute that democratic rights must be totally eviscerated.