Author: ourbulgarianlife

In view of the failure of the U.K. Parliament to call for a Cease Fire at a critical point of genocide in Gaza, with the Labour Party opposition being directed not to support it there is an urgent need for Trade Unions, Trade Councils within the Labour Movement to lead in taking action for peace and justice in Palestine. According to the Morning Star a significant number of members of the Shadow Cabinet in Westminster have received payment from Israeli support groups. How far this has reached across all parties in the U.K. Parliament is hard to say, including affecting the vote on an immediate Cease Fire held this week. Such corrupt practices must be dealt with. Clearly the longer a cease fire takes to be put in place the longer people will die and suffer. At the moment hospitals in Gaza can no longer help save life or tended to the thousands of wounded. This is totally against International Law and those who support it must be held to account. Chris Butler, Socialist Labour Party Yorkshire Area 17/11/2023 Boycott, Divest, Sanctions site https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott

It’s more than likely that the vote for a Cease Fire in Gaza would have been higher in the U.K. parliament – and the result for Leader Sir Keir Starmer significantly worse – had not 2/5ths of his Shadow Cabinet had not received funding from sources in supportof Israel. The Morning Star reports donations were received by Starmer, Deputy Rayner, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and Shadow International Secretary, Lias Nandy. Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves was given £17,000 for a visi to Israel. More than half of the Shadow Cabinet are Labour Friends of Israel. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/two-fifths-starmers-cabinet-have-been-funded-pro-israel-lobbyists-declassified-uk What goes on in Westminster is very poorly served by the so-called news services available to us which serve propaganda in place of accurate information i.e. what we all need to know. Votes on a cease fire are a matter of life and death to countless people without basic needs for existence. It is a matter that needs to be referred to the International Criminal Court when what is being supported are war crimes and crimes against humanity. John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 17/11/2023

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, (Bibi) has been left holding the babies thrown out of their incubators at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Amazingly they are not dead or buried under tons of rubble, and Israel is talking about sending ambulances to take them away. Where they don’t say because there is no where to go and shortages of supplies in power, water and all essentials for life. Maybe Bibi has a safer place to hide before being summoned to the International Criminal Court to answer accusations of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. There’s quite a queue, including those world leaders who not only supported him in unleashing an unprecedented genocide of civilians, largely children and women, but who donated amazing sums of money from taxpayers, none of whom consented to this. Hopefully they will soon be out of office and lining up in the Hague. John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 13/11/2003

RTE reports on an Irish parliamentary debate advocating that Ireland should refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for its action in bringing about Genocide on a massive scale against a civilian population, including an extremely high proportion of women and children. This was raised by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. http://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/1111/1415924-sf-ardfheis/ The most recent assaults have included children’s hospitals. Already starved of the essentials to allow work to continue: power for incubators, supplies of medicine, access to heat, light and water and so on. Israel claims that people were warned to evacuate the North of Gaza, but then reports emerged of unprotected people walking along the road south, supposedly a safe thoroughfare. Similarly bombing has continued in the south of Gaza, including at the Rafah crossing which Egypt has tried to keep open for essential supplies. Arthur Scargill, John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 12/11/2023

The Socialist Labour Party has asked why those calling for a cease fire in Gaza don’t take action. It has been reported on November 5th that Jordan did just that by dropping supplies to a hospital fast running out. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-says-air-force-dropped-urgent-medical-aid-gaza-2023-11-06/ Now Italy is sending a hospital ship into coastal waters and considering a field hospital. Humanitarian aid is clearly possible without waiting for the United Nations to get agreement on a cease fire or humanitarian pause. It has also been noted that a number of countries have recalled their Israeli ambassadors. However Ireland whose people have shown tremendous solidarity with Palestinians failed to do this when Sinn Fein abstained on the motion to do just that. We don’t understand the failure to lose the opportunity to take a united stand against this apartheid state at odds with the will of the people and Ireland’s record in standing up against oppression by occupying powers. We call upon all those other states who have stated their solidarity with those trapped in Gaza, expressing revolt against killings and suffering from relentless bombardment, to follow Jordan and Italy in their example. Furthermore they should be prepared to take action should their aid be threatened with destruction as has happened to some of that already delivered. In addition to announcements of numbers of dead it is rarely mentioned that thousands are still trapped in rubble, dead or alive. Reports today speak of operations carried out without power and equipment needed to carry out operations. Amputations have to take place without anaesthetic. Both Jordan and Italy must be saluted for their bold stand in giving some hope in this respect. Others still supporting this barbarity should hang their heads in shame. We hope those who elected them will take action to remove them from office and far out of positions of power. Their part in actively supplying Israel with the means to carry out these outrages gives firm ground for prosecution for war crimes. A number of commentators shown on Youtube, some of whom are close to the U.S. administration, have identified this as a possible outcome. Arthur Scargill and John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 8/11/2023

Rob J. Hawkins, Socialist Labour Party, South West Region 7/11/2023

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterras has repeated his urgent call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza immediately. He says Gaza is becoming “a grave yard for children.” Latest information from the BBC gives the following summary: Source BBC News. It adds that this was started by the Hamas attack on 7th October when Israeli citizens were killed or taken hostage. Eyewitness accounts emerging testify to some deaths of Israelis was from the IDF itself which reacted in haste and panic when this occured. News sources have blamed Hamas entirely for thie “massacre” until now. Egyptian President Sisi emphasised that Egypt had not closed the border to prevent aid being delivered into Gaza, but renewed bombing by Israel was the cause of the disruption. He called for immediate international intervention as an urgent necessity. John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 6/11/2023

Take action to stop Israel’s barbarity It’s time to stop simply issuing calls for a ceasefire. It’s time for the United Nations and its member countries to send armed forces into Gaza and all of Palestine to drive out the fascist occupiers who are wreaking such destruction and devastation. The Israeli Government and the IDF are replicating the actions of Germany’s Nazis in the Second World War; their slaughter of innocent Palestinians inevitably recalls the horror of Germany’s “final solution”. Every civilised nation should embark on a sanctions policy and call for a total boycott of all goods coming out of Israel. Every civilised nation should expel Israeli ambassadors; they represent an evil government. Where does the United States really stand in the face of Israel’s barbarity in Gaza and in the West Bank? Where does the UK really stand? We must make clear that the mass murder committed by Israel is “Not in my name”. Nowhere is safe: Hospitals bombed; UN School bombed; fleeing civilians bombed; families in their own homes bombed; ambulance bombed; Rafah crossing bombed; essentials for life denied – food, water, fuel, medicines. Arthur Scargill, Socialist Labour Party 4 November 2023

The Morning Star reports on five transport unions in Belgium refusing to handle arms shipments destined for Israel. They say that loading and unloading them would mean contributing to the killing of innocent civilians. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/belgian-transport-workers-boycott-israeli-military-shipments While others continue to wring their hands in despair at the failure to call a cease fire and a group of world leaders condoning the continuing devastation of Gaza leading to mounting deaths and misery for a long suffering population, a group of Belgian trades unions have declared enough is enough and demonstrate to the unions world wide that action can be taken. Furthermore such action has been shown to be extremely effective in earlier conflicts. Pinochet’s Chile is given an example of how boycotting the supply of aircraft had serious consequences for that abhorrent regime although this was not revealed until much later. Arms manufacture has been a very lucrative activity for the industry, but at some point a call has to be made to choose between going for profit or protecting life. It is encouraging to see action being taken to stop the killing in Gaza, shown to be the wishes of more and more people following the United Nations call for a cease fire. The mass media industry has been silent in admitting this until the scale of the genocide has become apparent to so many with massive and repeating demonstrations world wide. Meanwhile the Israeli Government continues to step up death and destruction boosted by a few unrepresentative voices of our leaders complicit in a long list of war crimes defined and agreed by members of the U.N. John Tyrrell, President. Socialist Labour Party 2/11/2023

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/oct/15/israel-hamas-war-live-us-sends-second-aircraft-carrier-to-deter-hostile-actions-against-israel-ground-assault-on-gaza-looms?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-652c78608f08b15971781d18 The United Nations resolution calling for the fascist state of Israel to implement a humanitarian truce is useless – countries which supported this resolution should act now by flying transport planes over Gaza and parachuting in food, water, medical supplies and whatever can be distributed in this way to the innocent people whose Palestine – the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem – has been unlawfully occupied by Israel since 1967. The fascist leadership of the state of Israel continues to carry out the seizure of land and conduct constant attacks on occupied Palestine, and has driven out the Palestinian people for over half a century in defiance of the Geneva Convention and a myriad of United Nations resolutions. The United States, NATO, the European Union and the United Kingdom have all carried out numerous distributions of supplies by air. For example in 1952 in Korea, for 20 years in both Vietnam and Afghanistan and since February 2022 in Ukraine It is the fascist leadership of the state of Israel which today reminds the world of Nazi Germany’s assault on Jewish people in countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Ukraine before and during the Second World War. All the nations which supported the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a truce and humanitarian aid should make it clear that the leadership of Israel will be judged as war criminals for the horrors they have inflicted on the Palestinian people by the destruction of hospitals, schools, places of worship and homes. As a young Communist, I was educated politically by the most inspirational Jewish comrades such as James Klugman, Bert Ramelson and “Shorty” Brookstone (one of the leaders of the Battle of Cable Street), and I have fought verbally and physically against anti-semitism as a member of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1953 to 2011. The long struggles against anti-semitism and the unlawful occupation of Palestine are struggles which go hand-in-hand. . Arthur Scargill President National Union of Mineworkers 1982-2002 Deputy Leader, Socialist Labour Party