Israel is now turning its attentions to the southern part of Gaza. Of course, this is the part of Gaza that the Israeli government urged Palestinians to flee to as a “safe zone”. Now the “safe zone” itself is under heavy attack. This fact alone decisively dashes any illusion that Israel has any concern whatsoever for “civilian casualties”.
The truth is that the current aggression against Gaza constitutes, in the clearest possible form, a genocidal war that includes mass murder and “ethnic cleansing”, two crimes against humanity in the classification of international law. These crimes exceed qualitatively everything committed by the Zionist armed forces since 1949 until today and are comparable to what happened during the Nakba.
As U.S officials laud an “elder statesman” and “erudite strategist,” the rest of us, and surely millions of brown-skinned people, celebrate the end of an “iconic napalm rights advocate” whose lies, hubris, towering inhumanity and many blood-soaked foreign policy follies left a legacy – in Vietnam, Chile, Cambodia, Argentina – of an “enormous pile of corpses” that may number four million.
That the right-wing won the recent Dutch elections was no surprise. What was surprising was how decisive the share of the far-right was in the overall right-wing victory. For Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party (PVV), years of patience paid off while the incumbent right-wing party gambled and lost.
The Israeli state wishes to use the current military campaign to make real progress in its long term project to remove all Palestinians from Gaza. It may well not succeed in immediately expelling every single current resident from Gaza; however, Tel Aviv could certainly make important strides towards that end.
Corporate leaders have undoubtedly been keeping a close watch on the rise in working-class combativity in recent months, and they will be devising their own strategies to contest any shift in the balance of class forces that has suited them so well in the previous decades.
The organizers of the current wave of Palestine demonstrations have put together a movement that is drawing in thousands of new young people; a movement that is effectively organized; a movement that is clearly focused on solidarity with Palestine; a movement that uses tactics and slogans that reach outward to new layers of potential support; and a movement that totally rejects antisemitism.
There’s no point in trying to prettify the picture. The situation in Gaza is dire. There is, however, one thing we can do. We can show the Palestinians that they are not alone, that there are hundreds of thousands across the world in solidarity with them. Taking to the streets in defense of the people of Gaza is the task of the hour.
Fain expressed his hope that the union’s victory will be, “a turning point in the class war that’s been raging in this country for the past 40 years.” The contracts are consciously timed to expire on April 30, 2028. This means that the next strike could be on May Day, the international day of workers solidarity. All this is new ground in the American labor movement.
The ISP has collated a list of sources that readers seeking to understand what is happening in Palestine—and why—can consult.
The union leadership has called for the Ford workers to return to work as quickly as possible. The picket lines are down. It will take a little time for the skilled trades to get the line and machinery up and running again. But the union has called for a prompt return to work.
Changes in business investment have always been an indicator of future growth in output and employment – not vice versa, as Keynesians argue. And in Q3, business investment came to a standstill. In previous quarters it was investment in new structures (offices, manufacturing plants etc) that kept business investment contributing about 1% pt to quarterly growth. But in Q3 that has evaporated.
The massive destruction inflicted on Gaza is not limited to military considerations this time. It serves an additional goal, which is the displacement of the Strip’s population.
On October 17, the United Auto Workers’ strike passed its thirty-third day. There are three new points that should be focused on. They are the decision to strike Kentucky Truck, Bill Ford’s attempt to do an end-run around the union leadership, and the mounting repercussions of the strike.
In the party elections for the succession of Alexis Tsipras as party leader, Stefanos Kaselakis prevailed, winning 56 percent. He is a new “star” who hasn’t even been a party member and who neither has nor claims any connection to the organized political Left whatsoever, either with its history or with its prospects.
