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Barbarians at the gate
The cutting down of a peaceful demonstration by the Israeli army, the slaughter of a wedding party in Iraq by the American military, together with the torture of illegally held captives in that country, are desperate and barbaric atrocities. They amount to state terror against innocent people, organised by governments that have lost legitimacy in the eyes of millions of people around the world.
At the heart of the US-financed and equipped Israeli killing machine is a racist attitude towards Palestinians. The rabid, right-wing Zionists who rule the country have a nationalist hatred of the people whose land they illegally occupy. This is transmitted to their army, who with impunity destroy houses, shoot demonstrators and has now even wrecked the only zoo in the Gaza strip.
These horrific acts of collective punishment are war crimes
by any standard and a terrible echo of the methods used by the Nazis against
the Jews of Europe in World War II. They too saw their opponents as untermenschen
- sub-humans. In using similar methods against the Palestinians, the Sharon
government engages in a grotesque misrepresentation and misuse of the
historic suffering of the Jews for its own political ends.
As for the United States government, the Bush regime has so poisoned soldiers'
minds that they cannot distinguish a wedding party from a hostile gathering.
Their soldiers believe they are on a mission from God to "civilise"
a Muslim country in revenge for September 11. There is no other explanation
for the torture at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners are forced to renounce
their religion and eat pork to avoid further beatings.
These are not aberrant acts but are fast becoming the norm. They represent a descent into militarism and an abandonment of politics by regimes that can only impose their will by force. In Britain, too, we see the same trend in the growth of an authoritarian state and the indifference of New Labour to US-Israeli actions. Gaza and Iraq are a warning to us all. We have entered a sinister and brutal period of capitalist crisis and rule to which only mass action for regime change in London, Washington and Tel Aviv is an answer.
Movement for a Socialist Future
21 May 2004
