Middle East

The cold-blooded killing of a Palestinian family as it was enjoying a day on the beach highlights the brutal methods used by the Israeli military. They are clearly trying to crush the spirit of the Palestinian people. They will achieve the opposite. With these methods the Israeli ruling class are preparing an unimaginable nightmare for all the people in the region.

Calls for boycotting Israeli academics and universities that do not disassociate themselves from the oppression of the Palestinian people have been growing in several unions internationally. How does this connect with the class struggle in Israel? Yossi Schwartz in Israel comments.

On the morning of November 19, 2005 US Marines killed 24 civilians, including women, children and even infants in Haditha, Iraq. The massacre was covered up until January, when evidence of the massacre could no longer be denied. The US government has announced that the Marines involved will stand trial for murder. The full impact of Haditha is yet to be revealed, but similar to the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War, it could represent the beginning of the end for the US occupation of Iraq

On his recent visit to the USA the newly elected Israeli premier, Ehud Olmert, made some very belligerent speeches which raise the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. It is in the interests of all workers in the region, Jewish, Arab, Kurdish, Iranian... to come together in an international struggle to overthrow the oppressors of all these peoples.

Recent armed clashes between Fatah forces and newly formed Hamas security forces reflect behind-the-scenes manoeuvres of imperialism to divide the Palestinian people with the hope of overthrowing the newly elected Hamas government. They are playing with fire.

With slogans such as "Employment, employment, is our obvious right; job security is our main demand" and "Unity, unity, workers, unity" Iranian workers came on the streets of Tehran on May Day. The workers from Qom were walking at the front of the rally and carried a large placard with "Temporary contracts must be revoked" and "End slavery" written on it.

After being labelled a “butcher” by the British press following last week's bad election results for the Labour Party and the subsequent Cabinet reshuffle, Tony Blair suffered another blow, this time not at home but abroad. In Basra the British army lost five soldiers, including the first female casualty, as their helicopter crashed and British soldiers came under attack.

This year’s May Day rally in Istanbul was somewhat smaller than last year’s. However, there are growing tensions in Turkish society over such issues as cuts in welfare and pensions and rising unemployment.

In line with their class collaborationist position, the leaders of the Israeli Labour Party were not even prepared to organise the traditional May Day rallies, leaving it to other forces.

Very often among people who consider themselves Marxists there is a mechanical, non-dialectical approach to how capitalism comes into existence in any given country. They take Britain or France as their historical touchstones and judge everything from this angle. But the bourgeoisie in many different countries did not come into existence according to these classical models. Israel is one example.

The world was shocked at the recent terrorist act in Tel Aviv. What has to be highlighted however is the systematic pounding of Palestinian territory by the Israeli armed forces in the recent period. This finally produced the response of Jihad, which now plays into the hands of the Israeli government. Only a united working class can break this vicious cycle.

Kadima, the new party founded by Sharon, has emerged as the first party in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, but it will have to govern in a coalition. No party has an outright majority. Now the new Labour leadership has indicated it would serve in such a coalition. This means accepting anti-working class policies. In these conditions the Labour Party will come under immense pressure from the bosses and the workers, pulling in opposite directions.

On the eve of the Iranian New Year [21 March] the job classification system, one of the workers' demands in this company, was officially implemented. Its coming into effect raises the company's workers' wages by about 10 percent. We congratulate the workers of Iran Khodro on this victory.

Last week’s attack by the Israeli army on the prison in Jericho highlights the growing impasse in Israeli/Palestinian politics. Olmert, the interim leader of Sharon’s Kadima party is using the attack to boost his fortunes in the upcoming Israeli elections. At the same time Abu Mazen, the “friend” of the West is being exposed.

We received this brief report by the Workers' Action Committee (Iran) on a recent strike at the Iran Khodro car plant in Tehran. The production line in most halls came to a halt and, with the slogan "Going on strike is the only way to act", the strike took over the whole plant.

Sectarian violence has plagued Iraq since the February 22 destruction of the sacred Shia al-Askariya shrine in As Samarra, pushing the country dangerously close to civil war. As the US army in Iraq faces the prospect of being dragged into such a war, opinion polls in the United States show that support for the Bush administration is at an all time low. The conditions are being laid for an all out explosion both in Iraq and in the United States.

The constant stream of news, combined with photographic and video evidence, about maltreatment of Iraqis at the hands of occupying troops is having a traumatic impact on the Iraqi people. It is also affecting the outlook of soldiers, both British and American, and on the population in Britain and in the US. This will serve to strengthen resistance to the occupation inside Iraq and to increase pressure in Britain and America for withdrawal of the troops.

David Irving’s holocaust denial highlights one side of bourgeois reactionary propaganda; the recent anti-Islamic cartoons highlight another. It is all used to divide the workers and poor of the world. This is particularly clear in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Last week, the growing turbulence in the Middle East came to a head as protests erupted over the publication of cartoons picturing a caricature of the prophet Mohammed. The fact alone that all this happened more than five months after their actual publication in a Danish newspaper clearly shows that the publication was only the spark that lit the fuse. You cannot explain the present conflagration without looking at the underlying frustrations of the millions of Muslims all around the world.