Israel/Palestine

On Saturday 13 April, Iranian forces seized a ship in the Strait of Hormuz owned by Israeli-linked companies. Then, overnight, Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles towards Israel. The attack was retaliation for a strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria, which killed several military officials. Israeli defences intercepted the attack, which appears to have injured only one person (though the notional aim was surely to kill many civilians). Iranian attacks on Israel are acts of regional-imperialist aggression against a rival power, conducted by a deeply reactionary political...

How can Israel’s war on Gaza be stopped? There is no easy answer, and the sense of helpless despair many feel in the face of mounting slaughter is understandable. But we do no service to the victims of those horrors if we allow our despair to numb us into inaction. On 13 April, thousands marched in central London to demand a ceasefire and that Britain “stop arming Israel”. Such demonstrations have undoubtedly contributed to an atmosphere of international pressure on Israel. The demand that international governments suspend military aid to Israel, or withdraw licenses under which firms based in...

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, conducted in Qatar, are formally ongoing, but apparently deadlocked. The latest proposal for a temporary ceasefire and hostage-release agreement would reportedly see 40 Israeli hostages, either women, children, or the elderly, released in exchange for some hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. International press reports say Hamas has claimed it is not holding 40 hostages in those categories; moreover, it remains intransigent over any deal that does not involve a permanent ceasefire. From the point of view of Hamas’s leaders...

Two national communities, one Israeli Jewish, one Palestinian Arab, inhabit the territory of Israel/Palestine. Those who believe in equality must support a settlement that guarantees equal rights to both peoples. The immediate blockage is that the state based on one of those peoples suppresses the national rights of the other people — in other words, the 57-year-long occupation of the West Bank, the blockade and sieges of Gaza, and discrimination against the 20% Palestinian minority inside Israel. The implied next step for ending that suppression is the establishment of an independent...

After Israeli air strikes killed seven food aid workers on Monday 1st April, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior military officials lamented a “tragic mistake” in which “innocent people” had been killed. Two senior officers have been dismissed. The tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in the war so far, including thousands of children, are no less “innocent”, nor are the thousands more who may yet die from starvation and disease. However, the 1 April deaths, which included three British, an Australian, and a Pole, have jolted governments more. US president Biden...

Book review of Über Israel Reden: Eine Deutsche Debatte (Talking about Israel: A German Debate) by Meron Mendel

Despite Ben Tausz (Solidarity 700), I still don't think the word "genocide" accurate for the slaughter inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli military.

As ceasefire talks continue with neither outcome nor breakdown, war continues to devastate life in Gaza. A large majority of the 33,000 people killed are civilians. Many more could die through starvation and disease, with widespread damage to sanitation and healthcare infrastructure, and severely restricted aid supplies. There is mass internal displacement and homelessness due to the destruction of housing. And over 100 Israeli hostages remain in captivity in Gaza. On Tuesday 26 March, the United Nations Security Council voted for the first time for a resolution calling for an “immediate...

An important new development [on 30 March], in the struggle of the families of the hostages, who demand another hostage deal. In a mass demonstration held tonight in Tel Aviv, they’ve openly called, for the first time, for the removal of Netanyahu from power, stating that he is an obstacle on the way to sign another hostages deal, like the one in November. Standing Together activists have been marching [30 March] in cities across Israel — Jerusalem, Haifa, Beer Sheva, Kfar Sava, Tel Aviv — joining the nationally organized anti-government protests that call for early elections and for a...

Something strange is happening in American and British politics this year. According to a report in this week’s Sunday Times , the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer seems on course not just to win the next general election, but to win with a historic landslide. That poll is showing the Tories falling to below 100 seats, winning none at all outside of England. Many Tory cabinet ministers will lose their seats. Even Rishi Sunak is at risk of losing his. It will be the worst Tory defeat in more than a century. Labour is on course to win nearly 500 seats. No party that has won a...