11 Nov 2023

German government increases arms deliveries to Israel tenfold

Johannes Stern


Germany’s complicity with Israel in the genocide against the Palestinians is not limited to expressions of solidarity with the right-wing Netanyahu government. The German government is playing a central role in arming and equipping the Israeli war machine, which has destroyed large parts of the Gaza Strip in the past four weeks and killed more than 10,000 people—including thousands of women and children. Now it is expanding the bloodbath and receiving more and more German weapons in return.

Israeli warship of the Sa’ar 6 class, built by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems at the German Naval Yards Kiel [Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit]

According to a report by the German Press Agency (dpa) on Wednesday, which refers to information from the Ministry of Economics, the German government has massively expanded its licences for arms exports to Israel. By November 2, it had approved exports amounting to almost €303 million—almost 10 times the amount of the entire year 2022, with around €32 million.

The majority, 185 of the 218 individual licences issued so far this year, have been issued and finalised since the start of the Israeli massacre in Gaza. Dpa quotes a representative of the ministry led by Robert Habeck (Greens) as saying, “Due to the current situation,” the German government is “prioritising applications for the export of military equipment to Israel.”

The specific deliveries are secret, but what is known makes it clear that they involve lethal war equipment. On October 12, the Defence Ministry announced that the government had approved a corresponding Israeli “support request” for combat drones. The drones in question are Israeli-made Heron TP drones, which Germany had leased from Israel to develop its own combat drone programme. According to Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democratic Party—SPD), Israel also asked for ammunition for warships, protective waistcoats, components for air defence and communications equipment, among other things.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) also reports that Germany has supplied more than 1,000 tank engines to Israel in recent years. The basis for this is an export licence from the year 2000, and the engines were probably installed in the Israeli Merkava-4 main battle tank and Namer armoured personnel carriers. Diesel engines were also supplied for the Israeli Eitan wheeled armoured personnel carrier.

In addition, nuclear-capable Dolphin-class submarines and Sa’ar-class corvettes were delivered for the Israeli navy. According to SIPRI, there is close military-industrial cooperation between German defence giants such as Rheinmetall, MBDA Deutschland and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Israel—including in the development of missiles and other ammunition.

Israeli submarine Rahav conducting sea trials in the ports of Wilhelmshaven. [Photo by Ein Dahmer / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Speaking to the European television channel Euronews, SIPRI researcher Zain Hussain suggested that German war equipment is playing a central role in the current massacre in Gaza. “According to our estimates, some of these engines are probably ready for use in Gaza,” said Hussain. “Some of the German ships have also been put into operation” and are “probably being used to fire at targets in the Gaza Strip.”

There is no doubt that the German government is directly participating in genocide with the arms deliveries and is complicit in the most serious war crimes.

In his resignation letter of October 28, the head of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber, described the horrific events in the Gaza Strip as “textbook genocide.” As a human rights defender with more than three decades of experience, he is well aware that the term genocide has often been misused politically. He said:

But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate.

In the Gaza Strip, “civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred,” Mokhiber continued. And in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, houses are being “seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms (are being) accompanied by Israeli military units.” Apartheid reigns throughout the country, he wrote.

Mokhiber also did not mince words with regard to the complicity of the imperialist powers in the “expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine.” The governments of “the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe” are “wholly complicit in the horrific assault,” he added.

They refused to honour their treaty obligations, he wrote, such as compliance with the Geneva Convention. But it goes even further:

But they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities. In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.

This smear campaign is particularly aggressive in Germany. Eight decades after the Nazi reign of terror and the worst crimes in human history, establishment politicians and the media are once again fuelling a pogrom-like atmosphere in order to boost armaments, justify genocidal violence and suppress the growing resistance to it. The height of criminality is that this essentially fascist policy is being pursued in the name of the fight against antisemitism.

In fact, the ruling class—which is once again building a fascist party in the form of the Alternative for Germany (AfD)—is not concerned with protecting Jewish life. In the Middle East, Berlin is pursuing geostrategic and economic interests by supporting Israel as an imperialist bridgehead in the region. And in Germany itself, the accusation of antisemitism serves to establish an authoritarian regime. All those who oppose Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians are denounced as “antisemites” and “terrorists”—even if they are Jewish themselves.

Significantly, the far-right Netanyahu government, for its part, supports the return of German militarism, which waged a war of extermination during the Second World War and committed the Holocaust against 6 million Jews. Shortly before the Israeli massacre in Gaza, Pistorius and his Israeli colleague Gallant signed an agreement to sell the Israeli missile defence system “Arrow 3” to Germany. With a value of over 4 billion euros, this is the largest defence deal in Israeli history.

Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile. [Photo: United States Missile Defense Agency]

For German imperialism, “Arrow 3” is a central component in establishing Germany as the strongest military power in Europe, making it again “fit for war” (Pistorius) and preparing it for a full-scale NATO war against the nuclear power Russia. When the Israeli armed forces successfully deployed Arrow 3 for the first time in the course of the genocide in Gaza, the German media cynically celebrated this as “good news” and a successful “endurance test.”

Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the resurgence of imperalist barbarism

Andre Damon



A Palestinian man mourns over the body of his relative who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

In the face of mass protests involving millions of people throughout the world, the Israeli government is escalating its genocidal assault on Gaza.

Throughout the day Friday, Israel bombed and burned hospitals in Gaza City, which is being invaded by Israeli forces. Israel attacked six hospitals, including two children’s hospitals, in the span of 24 hours.

The head of Al-Shifa Hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al Jazeera, “This day was a day of war on hospitals.” This included the direct strike on the front gate of Al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of refugees are sheltering. Videos shared online show the use of white phosphorus against the hospital, a blatant violation of international law.

The actions of the Netanyahu regime have the active support and are being coordinated with the US-NATO powers, and in particular the Biden administration, which repeatedly and insistently rejects a ceasefire and any limits or conditions on Netanyahu’s actions.

This past week, US President Joe Biden declared that there is “no prospect” of a ceasefire. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reiterated that there were no “red lines” regarding the killing of civilians by Israel. “That is still the case,” Kirby said. “It’s also true that the airstrikes continue, and it’s also true that civilians are dying in those airstrikes.”

Calls for a ceasefire have been rejected by the entire political establishment, including and not surprisingly the despicable political fraudster, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

The events of the past month are radicalizing millions of people throughout the world, which has found expression in the mass demonstrations against Israel’s genocide. The development of this movement requires an understanding of the underlying causes of the imperialist atrocity.

The universal support by US and NATO for the homicidal actions of the Israeli regime is an extension and deepening of 30 years of unending war, spearheaded by the United States. US imperialism and the NATO alliance saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91 as an opportunity to utilize its unrivaled military force to reimpose shackles on the former colonial world.

In 1991, in response to the Gulf War, the International Committee of the Fourth International organized the Berlin Conference of Workers against Imperialist War and Colonialism. The statement calling for the conference, “Oppose Imperialist War and Colonialism!,” explained the imperialist gang-up against Iraq.

All the great historical and political tasks that confronted the working class and the oppressed masses at the beginning of the 20th century are now posed in their starkest form. The savage bombing of Iraq and the virtual destruction of its industrial infrastructure marks the beginning of a new eruption of imperialist barbarism. Capitalism cannot survive without enslaving and destroying millions….

This ongoing and de facto partition of Iraq signals the start of a new division of the world by the imperialists. The colonies of yesterday are again to be subjugated. The conquests and annexations which, according to the opportunist apologists of imperialism, belonged to a bygone era are once again on the order of the day.

Emphasizing this point, in a report to the Special National Congress of the Workers League in 1991, convened to discuss the Gulf War, David North, then national secretary of the Workers League (predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States), concluded:

[The Gulf War] marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the postcolonial era as well. As it proclaims the “failure of socialism,” the imperialist bourgeoisie is, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaiming the “failure of independence” as well.

The first war against Iraq was followed by an eruption of imperialist violence. Throughout the 1990s, the imperialist powers engineered the carve-up of Yugoslavia, culminating in the 1998 bombing campaign against Serbia. The United States then used the September 11, 2001 attacks as a pretext to launch the “war on terror,” including the invasion of Afghanistan and the second war against Iraq, which led to the deaths of more than one million people.

The United States launched an unremitting campaign of assassination, torture and kidnapping throughout the Middle East, the most horrible expression of which was the torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. This was followed, under the Obama administration, with the war against Libya and the CIA-backed civil war in Syria.

In justifying its own crimes against the population of Gaza, Israeli officials have pointed to the precedent set by the United States under the “war on terror.” The war crimes of the past are being used to justify the war crimes of the present.

At the same time, the open support for genocidal actions is intended to set the precedent for the future. In the context of the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine and the preparations for war against Iran and China, the imperialist powers are making clear that there are no “red lines” that they will not cross.

War abroad is at the same time a war against the working class at home.

In his 1916 work Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, Lenin defined imperialism as “reaction all down the line.” In both war and domestic policy, he explained, “finance capital strives for domination, not freedom. ... The difference between the democratic-republican and the reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated precisely because they are both rotting alive.”

Israel’s genocide in Gaza is accompanied by an open turn to state repression and censorship. Last month, Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution accusing students opposing Israel’s actions of “antisemitism” and “solidarity with the terrorists.” In Florida, Palestinian student groups have been banned, and Columbia University announced Friday that both Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace would be disbanded as student groups and prevented from holding events on campus.

Germany, France and the UK have all attempted to ban demonstrations and carried out mass arrests. German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck threatened Muslim immigrants who make statements opposing Israel’s genocide with arrest and deportation.

These measures are directed not only at protests over Israel’s crimes but all opposition to the policies of the ruling elite. Confronted by a growing strike movement, the ruling classes of the imperialist powers are turning to war and domestic repression.

10 Nov 2023

The Roots of Catastrophe

M. Reza Behnam



Photograph Source: Hossam el-Hamalawy – CC BY 2.0

In my public presentations on the subject of Palestine-Israel, I am frequently asked to identify the force most responsible for the catastrophe we are witnessing today in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.  Audiences are surprised when I say that the source is easily identifiable—it is Zionism. 

Zionism is the political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe among a small minority of Jews determined to establish a Jewish homeland.  Twenty-two Zionist congresses were convened between 1897 and 1946.  Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), Viennese journalist and founder of the modern Zionist movement, began the process of implementing his vision of a Jewish utopia at the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in August 1897.   

Confident in his success, Herzl proudly announced, “I founded the Jewish state in Basel.”  He helped build a campaign that transformed a popular movement to create a homeland for Jews into a political movement that shattered the homeland of Palestinians.   

Fundamental to understanding Israel’s massacre of Palestinians and the wasteland they are creating in Gaza is to discern the blueprint that Israel’s founders drew up to create their Jewish homeland; what they called Eretz-Israel. 

Early Zionist leaders were explicit about what they deemed “transfer” plans to effect a “Jewish majority” in Palestine.  Yosef Weitz (1890-1972)—known as the “architect of transfer”—served as director of the powerful Jewish National Fund’s Land Settlement Department.  As head of what he deemed Transfer Committees, Weitz set in motion long-held Zionist plans to “transfer” (ethnically cleanse) and dispossess Palestinians from their homes, land and businesses.  His diary entry from 12 December 1940 is revelatory:   It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples….If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us…. The only solution is a Land of Israel…without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises…There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, and to transfer all of them, save perhaps [a few].”  

Weitz also spoke about expanding the “Jewish state’s” borders to include areas in Lebanon and Syria. In a meeting on 22 June 1941 with Jewish National Fund Chairman, Menachem Ussishkin (1863-1941), Weitz wrote:  “The land of Israel is not small at all, if only the Arabs will be removed, and if its frontiers would be enlarged a little; to the north all the way to Litani [River in Lebanon], and to the east including the Golan Heights . . . . while the [Palestinian] Arabs be transferred to northern Syria and Iraq. . . . From now on we must work out a secret plan based on the removal of the [Palestinian] Arabs from here . . . [and] . . . to include it into American political circles. . . . today we have no other alternative. . . . We will not live here with Arabs.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, 134-135) 

The history of Palestine is one of the most intentionally distorted histories of our time.  The European war of 1914-1918, the collapse and dissection of the Ottoman Empire (circa 1300-1923), the paucity of civil government in the Arab world, the hubris of European empires, Zionist intrigue, zeal and violence, all seeded the birth and growth of Israel.  Born in illegitimacy, Israel has been mired in violence and in mythical religious ideology ever since.

Palestinians, reeling from the collapse of the Ottomans, were unprepared to fight British encroachment and the waves of Jewish emigres who were progressively gaining influence as well as political control over Palestine.  The al-Buraq/ Western Wall uprising of August 1929 marks a turning point in the anti-Zionist, anti-colonial movement in Palestine.  It was the first large-scale uprising and clashes  among Arabs, Jews and the British mandate forces.

As Israel attempts to erase Palestinians from their homeland, it is important to reflect back on historical injustices and to also underscore the fact that Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together peacefully in Palestine before the forceful importation of European Zionism into the heart of the Middle East.   

Since 450 B.C., Arabs have lived in a geographical region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.  Palestinian roots are deeply embedded in the land they have lived on for centuries, long before the Ottoman period and the advent of Zionist colonialism following the First World War.  According to the records of the Government of Palestine, A Survey of Palestine, 1946, Volume I, page 144, by 1914, the population in Palestine numbered 689,000; of whom, 534,300 were Muslim Arabs; 70,000 Christian Arabs; and 84,700 Jews, who resided for the most part for religious reasons in four cities, Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron.  There were also some Zionists who had come to settle in agricultural colonies largely under the generous patronage of Baron Edmund James de Rothschild (1845-1934), French member of the Rothschild banking family and strong supporter of Zionism.  For centuries, religious tolerance and tranquility was the rule and animosity the exception in pre-Zionist Palestine.  

The world is awakening to the deadly consequences of past decisions, and of the judgments being made today through the same imperial, arrogant lens.      

For 17 years, the people of Gaza have had to wake up every morning—if they survived the Israeli aerial bombardments of 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022— subjected to the whims of a foreign power determining if they will have the basics of life—food, medicine, electricity and clean water.  They have had to face the daily humiliation of being dependent upon outside aid because Israel restricts   goods entering the Gaza Strip.  Unable to plan for and seeing no hope for a future, some determined Gazans have spent their days not in school or gainful employment, but digging tunnels to resist and escape their unending imprisonment.  

The myths of noble Israelis simply defending themselves, of the circumspect warrior and civilized aggressor do not correspond with the horrific images of destruction coming from Gaza. 

It is apparent that the goal of the Israeli regime is to make Gaza uninhabitable.  According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the impact of the Israeli bombing campaign has had the equivalent effect of two nuclear bombs.  They have also documented Israel’s use of cluster and phosphorus bombs, internationally banned weapons.   Additionally, Israel is engaged in a genocidal effort to kill or forcibly remove the more than two million Palestinians living in Gaza.  Senior Israeli officials have openly expressed their genocidal intent.  Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for example, referred to the residents of Gaza as “human animals,” as he ordered a complete siege of the enclave.   

Gallant’s statement is an expression of what Israel thinks of Palestinian Arabs and by implication all Arabs. Israel’s genocidal war has put them on notice. If they do not demand an immediate end to the massacre of fellow Arabs, they will forever be servile to American and Israeli interests.  For far too long the Arab world has been obsequious and docile to foreign interests.  They have the opportunity now to shed that image.

Israel has survived on the bottomless pit of U.S. dollars.  It would be unable to conduct its genocidal warfare in Gaza without U.S. military hardware, intelligence, diplomatic assistance and, most consequentially, the oil that fuels its war machine.  It is time for the Arab world to use its formidable oil weapon to end the carnage. And much the same way that Israel employs its powerful lobby in the United States to corral American politicians, the Arab world needs to wield an oil lobby to do the same.

What the world is currently bearing witness to in Gaza is a progression of the systematic plan mapped out a century ago by Zionist theoreticians like Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Weitz, Ussishkin to create an Israel “without Arabs.”  Like Israel’s founders, who refused to recognize Palestinians, referring to them instead as Arabs, Israel’s current extremists continue the strategy of “transfer” (ethnic cleansing).  The regime’s intent can be heard in the statements of Israel’s extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who in March 2023 denied the existence of a Palestinian people, while days before calling for the erasure of Huwara, a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank. 

Until 7 October, Israel’s brutality and expansionist schemes had been largely hidden from the American public.  Hamas’s military campaign has laid bare the unbridled imperial and historical designs of Tel Aviv and Washington.  The conscience of the world has been stirred and the Middle East has been forever altered.

UK government prepares crackdown on political opposition with new “extremism” definition

Robert Stevens


The British government is broadening its definition of “extremism”. On Sunday, the Observer revealed that Communities Secretary Michael Gove is close to finalising a review of “non-violent extremism” which began in spring this year.

According to the newspaperwhich has not released the full document, extremism will be defined as “the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values” or to “threaten the rights of individuals or create a permissive environment for radicalisation, hate crime and terrorism”.

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Downing Street, January 16, 2023 [Photo by Rory Arnold/No 10 Downing Street / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

It will also include, “Sustained support for, or continued uncritical association with organisations or individuals who are exhibiting extremist behaviours.”

The existing definition of extremism is “active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. This was published in 2011 as part of the antidemocratic “Prevent” strategy, enforced in schools and throughout the public sector under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, and used to demonise Muslims in particular.

Every year, thousands of people are referred to Prevent, a total of 6,406 in the 12 months to March 2022, a 30 percent increase on the previous year.

In the document’s own words, the new definition broadens the focus from “active opposition” to so-called “British values” to “behaviours that enable the spread of extremist ideology.”

This is a deeply authoritarian definition, providing a pretext for the suppression of virtually any form of political opposition and eviscerating the rights to free speech and political association.

The Observer reports that one document “lists a number of organisations which it considers would be ‘captured’ by the new definition.” Among them are “The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Palestine Action and Mend (Muslim Engagement and Development).” Palestine Action has helped to organise numerous protests in recent years against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, including during the ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza.

Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK’s racial justice director, explained that the existing definition of extremism “is already being applied so broadly it seeks to effectively hinder people from organising and mobilising. The proposed definition takes this even further and could criminalise any dissent.”

The Tory government has sought to broaden the definition of extremism for years, specifically to outlaw “left-wing extremism”. This has been an over-riding pre-occupation of successive prime ministers and home secretaries.

In May 2017, the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) was announced by then Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May. Three years prior, as home secretary, May promised that a Counter Extremism Strategy would tackle “the whole spectrum of extremism, violent and non-violent, ideological and non-ideological.” 

In 2019, the World Socialist Web Site explained how a report on “left-wing extremism” submitted to the Commission “set out to brand as suspect views held by millions of people”, among them that “The greatest threat to democracy has always come from the far right” and that “Zionism is a form of racism”.

In February 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government announced a review into “left-wing extremism” to be led by former Labour MP John Woodcock, now Baron Walney, in his post as UK Special Envoy for Countering Violent Extremism.

Last month, as anti-Gazan war protests escalated in Britain, with successive national demonstrations in London attracting 150,000, then 350,000, then 500,000 people, head of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley declared, “I think there is scope to be much sharper in how we deal with extremism in this country. The law was never designed to deal with extremism. There’s a lot to do with terrorism and hate crime but we don’t have a body of law that deals with extremism and that is creating a gap.”

What it would mean to close the gap is indicated by the dictatorial statements of government officials in regard to the protests.

Fascistic Home Secretary Suella Braverman has repeatedly denounced the national demonstrations as “hate marches”, and described participants in a Times piece on Wednesday as “pro-Palestinian mobs.” She declared, “The issue is how do we as a society police groups that insist that their agenda trumps any notion of the broader public good—as defined by the public, not by activists.”

Braverman’s ravings follow those of Commissioner for Countering Extremism Robin Simcox, who wrote in the Times, “Hate marches in Britain are a wake-up call to all decent people.” Anti-war protesters, he said, had “been careful to construe their public displays of support just below the legal threshold for hate crime, glorification of terror, or public order offences… exploiting one of our proudest British values, freedom of expression, to pursue a shameful extremist agenda, the normalisation and promotion of antisemitism.”

Simcox and the home secretary were joined in their slanderous denunciations by former prime minister Boris Johnson. During a trip to Israel to offer the Netanyahu regime his support, he advocated for the banning of the planned November 11 march, accusing protestors of demonstrating “in favour of an anti-Semitic pogrom”.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a right-wing Zionist organisation, said the Met should ban the upcoming march under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986, but that if it was allowed then Braverman should invoke special powers to direct London’s mayor to call in the military to reinforce the police.

Unable to dismiss the overwhelming opposition within the population to Israel’s war of annihilation, the police announced Wednesday evening that Saturday’s march would go ahead. The home secretary can only intervene to ban the march if recommended to do so by the Met.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak responded by reiterating his personal opposition to the “disrespectful” march and stressing that Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley had “committed to keep the Met police’s posture under constant review based on the latest intelligence about the nature of the protests.”

While currently unable to prevent this Saturday’s march from proceeding, the hysterical attack on anti-war protestors and plans to massively broaden what can be defined as “extremism” are an urgent warning of the direction of travel in the ruling class—hellbent on crushing all forms of dissent to impose its agenda of war and austerity. In this, they can rely totally on a pro-war, pro-“law and order” Labour Party, expected to win a general election next year.

It is no coincidence that rolling out a new dragnet definition of extremism takes place at this juncture, with Britain deeply involved in NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine and Israel’s attack on Gaza. With millions on the streets around the world to protest Israel’s genocide, the ruling class fears the development of a mass, international anti-war movement. Above all, it is terrified that such a movement will take up a socialist perspective, animating a working class which has engaged in major battles over wages, working conditions and job losses in the last two years.

A raft of legislation is already on the statute book to deny this emerging movement its democratic rights to organise and promote its perspective—the Public Order Act (2023), the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), the Online Safety Bill (2023) and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act (2023).

Australian critical minerals vital for US war plans against China

Mike Head


A report issued in June by the government-sponsored Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has provided a revealing insight into the intensifying US preparations for war against China and the centrality of Australia to those plans.

Aukus and Critical Minerals report [Photo: ASPI]

Co-authored by former Australian Labor Party leader and defence minister Kim Beazley, who has life-long links with the US political and military-intelligence apparatus, the report demands a much faster ramping up of weapons making and other military-related production in the US and Australia.

The think tank report also calls for accelerated measures to deprive China of supplies of the critical minerals that are essential for modern warfare, including the manufacture of nuclear warheads, and to divert Australia’s substantial volumes of such resources away from processing in China.

This is part of a broader US drive to cut off Chinese access to hi-tech industrial development and cripple its economy. That includes ending, as soon as possible, its current alleged global monopoly over the processing of many rare earths and other critical minerals that are essential for war, as well as for super-computers, AI, batteries and industrial and vehicle electrification.

The ASPI report sheds light on the US drive for war against China, which Washington has designated as an existential threat to American global hegemony. It warns that US industrial and military capacity must be massively increased to develop and sustain the huge military production needed to win what would be a catastrophic war, almost certainly involving nuclear weapons.

The report by Beazley and former prime ministerial advisor Ben Halton is explicit on the urgent necessity for the US to establish control over critical minerals and their processing. “Mass military production wins wars,” it declares.

“This is where Australia comes in. Australia has the essential minerals, which are more readily exploitable because they’re located in less densely populated or ecologically sensitive areas.” Moreover, “Australia is yet to explore 80 percent of the continent for critical minerals.”

This is a vision of Australia as a giant quarry for war purposes, as well as a base for US forces and warships.

The report emphasises that the critical mineral supply issue is of paramount importance to the AUKUS military pact between the US, UK and Australia to provide long-range, nuclear-powered attack submarines, hypersonic missiles and other cutting-edge weaponry to be based in Australia.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Kim Beazley, the then Australian Ambassador to the United States, in Sydney, Monday, Aug. 11, 2014. [AP Photo/Peter Parks, Pool]

“Australia is ground zero for AUKUS because the alliance is based on supply-chain security that enables war-winning capabilities,” it says.

Titled “AUKUS and critical minerals: Hedging Beijing’s pervasive, clever and coordinated statecraft,” the report urges a much quicker pace of industrial war preparation, because “establishing a viable non-Chinese supply chain will take years.”

This was one of the crucial lessons of the increasingly disastrous US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the report insists, indicating the linkage between the US war operations against Russia and China.

“Suggestions that mass military production is less pertinent in the nuclear age are debatable: the capacity for mass production is as relevant as ever, as highlighted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The emerging risk of global war aside, the war in Ukraine has at times resembled an emerging war of attrition based not on casualties, but on the ability to resupply the war fighter. Nations such as Russia, Ukraine and even the US are depleting their arsenals to various degrees—remedies include mass industrial production.”

A footnote adds: “For instance, the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggests that some 7,000 US Javelin advanced anti-tank weapon systems have been sent to Ukraine as at April 2022, or about one-third of the US arsenal, which will take years to replenish.”

Because of its large deposits of critical minerals, as well as its geographic location and bullying pro-US role in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia is pivotal to US war plans.

The report defines critical minerals as “metals, non-metals and minerals essential to economic and national security, the supply chain for which is vulnerable to disruption and serves an essential function in the manufacturing of products, the absence of which would have significant consequences for our economy or our national security.”

For example, “some 3,300 items of US military equipment depend on rare earths, which have few known or potential substitutes. They include almost every weapon being used by combatants in Ukraine as well as every fighter jet, navy vessel and nuclear weapon on Earth.”

But “China has control over about 94 percent of the world’s (usable) rare-earth production.”

Also, among the developments at stake is “nanotechnology, which requires extraordinarily compact components with extraordinary performance.” It is “dependent upon critical-mineral-based materials. The absence of some minerals may also reduce the option of mass military production to boutique quantities.”

Currently, mines in Australia produce a significant proportion of the world’s critical minerals, but nearly all are shipped to China for processing. For example, Australia supplies more than half of the world’s lithium, yet 96 percent of it goes to China.

Lithium has surpassed liquefied natural gas as Australian capitalism’s second biggest export to China behind iron ore, with sales soaring to $7.4 billion between January and June this year, from only $300 million in the same period of 2021.

“Lithium isn’t just for batteries,” the report points out, “even though batteries account for 74 percent of its global end-use market. It’s also essential for armour, airframes, jet engines and nuclear reactors, too.”

The report declares that “all AUKUS capabilities and the rules-based order that they uphold, depend heavily on critical minerals.” The “rules-based order” is a euphemism for the US-dominated framework imposed internationally to uphold the interests of Wall Street after the American victories over Germany and Japan in World War II.

The report sounds an alarm: “China eclipses not only AUKUS for processing those minerals into usable forms, but the rest of the world combined. Without critical minerals, states are open to economic coercion in various technological industries, and defence manufacturing is particularly exposed to unnecessary supply-chain challenges…

“Currently, China dominates critical-mineral supply chains and has production lines that are secure from ‘mine to battlefield.’ Its enormous economic reserves of minerals such as rare earths and magnesium also support China’s dominant position. Australia is the only nation able to challenge it, and often vastly exceed it, based on proven mineral reserves (and with considerable specialist mineral expertise).”

Australia, the report states, is pivotal not only because of its essential minerals, but because it has supportive universities and other facilities—a revealing comment on the accelerating integration of universities and other services into the development of a war economy—and the capacity to exploit resources in Asia and Africa.

“Australia also has the right expertise, including universities offering the appropriate advanced geoscience degrees, as well as advanced infrastructure, world-class resources technology and deep industry connections with Asia and Africa, which are also vital global sources of critical minerals.”

The primary problem confronting the US and its Australian ally, according to the report, is the need to shift to huge government spending and corporate subsidies because of the hefty amounts involved in building critical minerals processing plants, estimated at $1 billion each.

“This issue can only be dealt with strategically, not commercially. We haven’t done this since World War II. We didn’t need to in the Cold War because the AUKUS nations had negligible dependence on the Soviet Union.”

The report adds: “Furthermore, modern weapons systems (as well as vital green technologies) are more dependent on critical minerals than those in service during the Cold War, and current supply chains are beholden to processing in China.”

China accused of creating a stranglehold over war-related industries

Bluntly, the report states: “The challenge lies in the need to diversify from China. The many attributes of China’s dominance in critical minerals include complex and carefully guarded processing capabilities that make critical minerals usable. That extends to the manufacturing of essential inputs to technologies such as rare-earth permanent magnets, which enable technologies such as leading-edge missile guidance, satellites and aircraft.”

These problems “are compounded by the unprofitability of much of the critical-mineral markets.” The report complains of the failure of most critical minerals start-ups, while accusing China of being responsible for these corporate bankruptcies.

“China’s enormous economies of scale, including through the state amalgamation of companies, is remarkable. Beijing has merged 150 private companies into six state-owned enterprises in the rare-earths sector alone. While Beijing’s subsidies keep prices low, they also maintain its vast influence over market prices, which disrupts the viability of new entrants, upholding China’s monopsony [a market situation in which there is only one buyer]…

“For instance, only one major rare-earth producer independent of China’s supply chain survives to this day: Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, a public company registered in Western Australia (WA). It took 11 years for Lynas to turn a profit and enormous strategic foresight and financial support from the Japanese Government totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The solution “is for AUKUS and its partners to engage Australia as the spearhead of mineral diversification.” No price tag is suggested for this war effort, but it must involve hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, both American and Australian. That money could only come from slashing the social services and conditions of the working class.

The report cites Jeffrey Wilson, a former Director of Research at the US and Australian government-funded Perth USAsia Centre in Western Australia:

Establishing a viable non-Chinese supply chain will take years and require major government support, international co-operation and collaboration from industrial giants… The Chinese state-owned producers can do the Saudi oil trick: they turn on the taps, flood the market, the price of dysprosium crashes, the new entrant is washed out, and then they’ve re-established their monopoly.

Also cited is James Kennedy, writing for National Defense Magazine, who suggested in 2019 that:

Out of more than 400 rare earth start-ups publicly listed in 2012, less than five reached production. Of those, only two reached significant volumes. Of those two, one became bankrupt [allegedly because of Chinese market-price manipulation] and resurrected with Chinese financing, and the other lost its operating permit for a short period.

This is a recipe for accusing China of coercively seeking a stranglehold over war-related industries, while going into overdrive to build the expensive plants needed in the US and Australia for amassing vast military stockpiles.

The report concludes: “It’s time for AUKUS to act. It’s time to allay immediate strategic risk. It’s time to secure the liberal-democratic order for the next 75 years. Failure to do so would be unforgivable.”

Despite its claims of “stabilising” relations with China, the Albanese Labor government in Australia has already moved aggressively in this direction. This year, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has blocked two investment proposals from Chinese-linked companies dealing with rare earths and lithium. “We’ll need to be more assertive about encouraging investment that clearly aligns with our national interest in the longer term,” he said in a speech last November.

But much more is being demanded, and much faster, to prepare for what would be a cataclysmic war against China.

Massive protests in Indonesia against Gaza genocide

Owen Howell & Aditya Syed


On November 5, an enormous rally was held at National Monument Square in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta opposing Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians in Gaza. The square, located near the United States embassy, was filled with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Rally organisers placed the attendance at over two million people.

Protesters shout slogans and wave Palestinian flags during a rally in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, at the National Monument in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. [AP Photo/Dita Alangkara]

As is the case worldwide, the fascistic policies of the Netanyahu government and its imperialist backers that led to the ongoing slaughter in Gaza are provoking widespread outrage in Indonesia, encompassing people of all ethnicities, religions and ages, but particularly among workers and youth.

The Jakarta rally, organised by the Indonesian Peoples Alliance to Defend Palestine, is the largest yet in the country, where demonstrations have taken place since Israel seized on the October 7 Palestinian mass uprising to launch its assault on the population of Gaza. The same day, demonstrations were also held in other cities throughout the archipelago, including Surabaya, where thousands rallied outside the US consulate.

Many of the protesters at the Jakarta rally came to the capital from various cities across Java by bus or motorcycle, some travelling great distances to participate. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and called for a ceasefire. People carried placards with such slogans as “Bombing kids is not self-defence!”

Conscious of the broad opposition that exists around the world to the genocide in Gaza, Sunday’s massive protest has been met with a deafening silence in all the major Western media outlets. The ruling class fears that workers and youth will draw inspiration from the mass demonstrations in Indonesia, as well as from the tens of thousands who have protested in neighbouring Malaysia.

Mainstream media platforms in Southeast Asia that did cover the event gave a vast undercounting of the rally’s attendance. The Jakarta Post reported “thousands” while the Strait Times claimed “tens of thousands.” Images and aerial video of the protest, widely circulated on social media, clearly showed otherwise.

Social media activity is playing a major role in the organisation of protests and sharing of video coverage, with the hashtag #IndonesiaBelaPalestina (“Indonesia defends Palestine”) being used widely on Twitter.

In addition, where the protest has been reported, attention has been focused on Indonesia’s status as the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, with a population of 279 million people. However, as interviews with participants indicate, the protests in Indonesia are not being fueled by religion but by disgust toward Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians.

At the Sunday rally, teachers Endro Sasongko and Maelani Kusuma told reporters from the Straits Times: “It’s not about religion, it’s about humanity.” Another protester, Nunung Normawati, aged 61, made similar remarks: “You don’t have to be a Muslim to support Palestine, but just be a human, a human with a heart.”

Berlian Idriansyah Idris, 46, a cardiologist, spoke to Arab News about the images he had seen online of wounded Palestinian children and the devastating impact of Israel’s relentless bombing. “We are still humans with conscience,” he said. “We condemn Israel’s atrocities, we support Palestine, and we demand an immediate ceasefire.”

The rally was largely composed of young people, according to local media. Sumayah, 26, a social media content creator attending the rally with her parents, said: “I want to come in person, and not just post on social media, to show I stand with the Palestinians. I have so many emotions right now—sad and angry at the senseless cruelty.”

Protests have been held repeatedly over the past weeks in Jakarta outside the US embassy, gathering thousands of people and growing in size. Demonstrators have denounced Israel, with which Jakarta has no formal diplomatic relations, as the “real terrorist” in the current war.

Another significant factor no doubt animates protest participants. Indonesia suffered as a Dutch colony from the 17th century until the mid-20th century, while also facing the predatory interests of other imperialist powers in the region.

Indonesia also became the site of one of the most brutal imperialist crimes of the 20th century: the mass murder of up to one million workers, peasants and members of the Indonesian Communist Party that took place as a result of the 1965‒1966 CIA-backed military coup headed by General Suharto. Workers and young people now participating in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations are drawing connections between the horrific crimes of the past and those taking place today.

The Indonesian ruling class is clearly concerned that the mass support demonstrated for the Palestinians will end up cutting across its political interests domestically. Expressing this, in the lead-up to last Sunday’s demonstration, Indonesia’s anti-terror police issued a public warning against taking part in the rally, the Straits Times reported.

Unable to stop it, government figures then took part in the demonstration, attempting to channel the broad anti-war sentiment into harmless channels.

Speakers included leading members of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), one of the event’s coordinators, an organisation comprised of Muslim groups such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. The organisation is attempting to put forward religion as the basis of support for Palestinians, obfuscating the role of capitalism and imperialism in the barbarism. Former MUI leader Ma’ruf Amin is currently Indonesia’s vice president.

Several government ministers attended, including Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and House of Representatives Chair Puan Maharani. Also present was former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, a candidate in the upcoming 2024 presidential elections. Anies was the only candidate to accept an invitation to participate.

Labour groups connected with bourgeois politics have organised some demonstrations, gathering in front of the US embassy. They have called on the Biden administration in the US to not send troops to Israel and denounced US imperialism’s support for Israel’s genocide. The Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KPSI) and the Labour Party organised additional actions, including marching to the United Nations offices. Heavy police presences were reported at these rallies.

The KSPI, however, is intent on diverting workers away from the anti-war struggle. It is planning to stage indefinite workers’ protests in cities across Indonesia, starting this week. They are centred on demanding a 15 percent minimum wage increase, not on Israel’s genocide. Union leaders have announced upcoming demonstrations in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Pasuruan, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar.