By RICHARD MELLOR
Well Israel’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh should make the world feel a lot safer shouldn’t it? Of course not. The Zionists have murdered some 90 members of this Palestinian leader’s family including many grandchildren. But he’s the terrorist. But it confirms one thing most of us in the world already know, Israel’s genocidal Apartheid regime has no intention of achieving any serious peace and certainly no Palestinian state or self determination for the Palestinian people.
I think murdering a leading figure who you are apparently at the negotiating table with in order to end a conflict is a tell tale sign you’re not serious. But the Israeli Apartheid regime can do this because Washington is OK with it. Kamala Harris continues her language accusing Hamas, a Palestinian resistance (to occupation) movement of being terrorists in no uncertain terms and refuses to condemn the murder. The reality is that even if the Quakers were leading the Palestinian people in their struggle against Zionist violence and occupation, the US rogue regime would be calling them terrorists. Remember, they called our efforts to build unions terrorism. And to murder him in the capital city of another country! It makes the Salisbury affair small potatoes I think, at least there is doubt it was Putin; no doubt here.
US/Israel US capitalism, Biden, Trump, Harris, the entire US Congress, could have stopped this genocide a long time ago. The decades of endless talks were always a sham, the US was never going to undermine its colonial settler regime in Palestine, it’s the only friend it has. That is a social fact now. Imagine the fear and insecurity millions of people in the Middle East are subjected to due to US and western capitalism’s role in the region; never knowing when the US ally in the region will let the missiles fly. Working class people like most of us. As the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe said recently, he believes all Palestinians want is their homes back, security, and end to the decades long war on them and their culture and to live in peace.
Capitalism unfortunately is not a system of production that is peaceful, it is inherently exploitive. It is a constant state of war, a class war at all times, by those who do no productive work against those who do. Against humanity and the natural world which is necessary for the survival and continuation of the human race. It is a system that can only lead to mass suicide.
The US is the one with the big stick. It is driving the violence, ever more violent in the late stages of capitalism as its pole position in the race drops. It is a dangerous beast indeed.
There have been powerful protests against the wars in the US. Against Zionism also, led to a great degree by young US Jews. But we have no party through which this anger can be expressed. The Democratic Party is a party of war like it’s twin. Workers, no matter where we are, in the US or outside it, will find no ally among the Democrats as capitalism races headlong to the abyss.
I am an optimist mind you. I am convinced the workers of the world will move to resolve this historical political and economic crisis; will seek to build an alternative system of production to the so-called free market. A system that produces not for the profit of a few but the needs of the many in harmony with the natural world not antagonistic to it. A global federation of democratic socialist states.
(Richard Mellor, Afscme Local 444, HEO/GED, retired, USA 7-31-24)
From ‘Facts for Working People’ HERE