Why our generation must support Palestine, by: Brian Latour, The Manitoban, Feb 22, 2010

Why our generation must support Palestine
Actually setting the record straight


Last week, the Manitoban printed an article by Spencer Fernando titled “Why our generation must support Israel." Amidst the various boilerplate Zionist arguments, Fernando calls for “set[ting] the record straight” and discussion to reach common ground. While discussion alone cannot end the conflict (only the dismantling of systems of Israeli oppression can), and anyone attempting to discuss or mediate the issue from a distance must be cognizant of our lack of agency to engage in dialogue with an oppressor on behalf of an oppressed people, I am writing this article as a response to actually try to set the record straight.

One of the first things I find curious about Fernando’s article is the central thesis, namely that one could claim to support an independent Palestine in accordance with a two-state solution, yet also that one must also support the state which has been denying the right to self-determination to Palestinians for decades.

One cannot sit on the fence like this and have any sort of moral consistency — it is moral ambiguity at best and an intentional cloaking of Zionist racism at worst. The two-state solution itself which Fernando proposes is also problematic. While I do not wish to tell the people of Palestine what form their national aspirations must take, given the realities of Israeli settlements and the apartheid wall, I am sceptical that a two-state solution will result in anything more than a system of Bantustans.

The first reason put forward to support Israel is the notion of Israel as a democracy. Admittedly, Israel does have most of the trappings associated with our limited concept of liberal democracy. However, it is at best a democracy for Jewish people only. The profound level of discrimination in Israeli society and its apartheid practices in occupied Palestine precludes any application of the label “democracy,” even before we get into a discussion on the banning of Arab political parties. Even then, nominally being a liberal democracy does not entitle a nation to support its imperialist or colonialist adventures — simply look at all the horror that American foreign policy has wrought on this earth for decades.

Fernando goes on to say that Israel deserves support because it shows restraint. The notion that the Israeli state shows restraint is patently absurd in the light of the Gaza massacre 14 months ago, which killed over 1,300 Palestinians. Furthermore, the idea of showing restraint is a poor defence — one should not be supported for doing something wrong simply because they have the capability to do something even worse. It is Israel which has driven this conflict through decades of oppression and apartheid policies.

The tired old “progressive Zionist” argument — that the Israeli state and its apartheid practices should be supported, because Israel has supposedly more liberal policies — is followed by the ridiculous and thought-terminating Bush-esque notion that “they hate us for our freedom.” This argument, aside from resting on a few Islamophobic and racist conceptions of Muslims, does not serve the interests of the women, LGBT* population or religious minorities in Palestine, who are being cynically used in this argument to make political points contrary to their interests.

Women are among the most affected by systems of Israeli apartheid and the poverty which the state of Israel inflicts on Palestine. Due to discrimination against Arab women in Israeli society, employment levels for Arab women in Israel are lower than in Saudi Arabia, the nation Fernando picks as a black spot for women’s rights. If the Israeli state truly cared about the rights of women in Palestine, it wouldn’t bomb them. The notion that Israel respects the rights of religious and national minorities is quite frankly illogical and is not even worth expending energy and ink to refute.

The story of Israel is not inspirational at all as it is a state built upon the oppressions of the Palestinian people. Israel’s alleged respect for human rights has been shown time and time again not to extend to Palestinians. As for technological advancement, such metrics are irrelevant to any discussion of morality and oppression, apartheid and imperialism.

The levels of irony in the article hit a high point when Fernando declares his support for a state denying another nation their right to exist by stating that Israel has the same right to exist as any other nation on Earth. Clearly, “any other nation on Earth” excludes the oppressed nation of occupied (one day to be free) Palestine. Furthermore, self-defence does not include massacring Palestinians, denying their right to exist and turning Gaza into an open-air prison.

Although I vehemently disagree with most of his article, Spencer Fernando is correct to note that the issue is not the people of Israel versus the Palestinians. The issue is the people of Palestine and all peace-loving people against the Israeli state and systems of Israeli apartheid. The conflict is driven not by irrational hatred, but by systems of oppression based primarily on nationality. In order to have any sort of lasting peace based on justice, not surrendering Palestinian rights, we all need to do our part to dismantle systems of Israeli apartheid.

Locally, we can do this by endorsing and promoting the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, including women’s groups, unions and professional associations. Not only is it what broad sections of Palestinian society are asking us to do, but BDS helped end apartheid in South Africa, and can help end Israeli apartheid.

Brian Latour is a fifth year civil engineering student at the University of Manitoba and is in solidarity with Palestine.

CPC CONVENTION ENDS WITH CALL FOR GROWING FIGHTBACK

Cheryl-Anne Carr of Winnipeg CPC led the Convention in aboriginal Song










(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Delegates at the 36th Central Convention of the Communist Party of Canada finished three days of spirited and constructive debates on Sunday, Feb. 7, at the Steelworkers Hall in Toronto. The Convention concluded with a rousing call for broad political mobilizations to defeat the Harper Tory government, and to build support for a People's Alternative to the capitalist crisis which continues to devastate working people in Canada and around the world.

Earlier on the final day of the Convention, delegates re-elected Miguel Figueroa as the leader of the Communist Party. They also chose a new 20-member Central Committee from across Canada, including Communists who are active in the trade union movement, anti-war campaigns, and a wide range of struggles for Aboriginal rights, civil liberties, increased minimum wages, social equality, municipal reform, defense of public education, and many other issues.

The CC elected a new Central Executive Committee of the CPC, including Figueroa, the leaders of the Party in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia - Liz Rowley, Sam Hammond, and Pierre Fontaine - and People's Voice editor Kimball Cariou. The new CC will hold its first full meeting in late March.

The Convention followed four months of extensive discussion at the local and provincial levels, based on the draft political resolution issued by the outgoing leadership. The amended resolution will guide the Communist Party's work over the three years, including plans to nominate 20-25 candidates in the next federal election.

As the main resolution stressed, "Unprecedented developments are shaking global capitalism to its very core, less than two decades after its so-called `final victory' over socialism. It is mired in the deepest world-wide economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Meanwhile, structural aspects of its systemic decline continue unabated - especially militarism and war, and an intensifying environment crisis, both of which threaten the very survival of humanity. The root cause of the crisis lies in the private ownership of the means of production and its contradiction with the increasingly social character of production... Anti-capitalist sentiments and advocacy of socialism as the systemic alternative to decadent capitalism are growing to varying degrees. These are dynamic times indeed, full of dangers and challenges and also with the potential of resurgent socialism."

The resolution outlines "a comprehensive action plan - an economic and political solution which serves the interests of people, not profits." This plan includes a wide range of immediate and longer-term policies to create jobs and advance the living standards of working people, to protect the environment, and to defend Canadian sovereignty and world peace. Unlike any other party in Canada, the CPC calls for expanded public ownership of key industries, withdrawal from NAFTA and other corporate "trade deals," a shorter work week with no loss in take-home pay, and immediate return of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.

As the resolution says, "Only united action on a mass scale, drawing millions of working people into struggle, can breathe real life into such a comprehensive anti-crisis plan. That is why we have urged the leadership of the labour movement - the Canadian Labour Congress, the labour centrals in Quebec, and all of their key affiliates - to come together along with its allies in the social movements in an emergency conference to articulate such a unified program of demands, a fightback strategy based on escalating mass action, and with committed resources to see it through.

"Such a perspective could help to bring together a broad People's Coalition which our Party has long advocated. Such a Coalition would of course emerge largely from the united grassroots struggles in communities across the country, fighting in the workplaces and on the streets to defend the people's vital interests. As it matures, a People's Coalition would become Canada-wide in character, moving the mass struggle onto the offensive, eventually taking on an electoral expression. This is the kind of Coalition required by our class and our country at this time of profound economic and political crisis, and our Party will work tirelessly to help forge such a new alternative."

In the next election, "the Communist Party will call for the defeat of the Harper Tories - the most deadly expression of the corporate domination of Canada - and to block the right, by also denying a majority to the pro-corporate, pro-war Liberals under Ignatieff, whose differences with the Tories are primarily over the pace and scale of imposing the continentalist and corporate agenda."

Delegates also endorsed special resolutions on a wide range of issues, from solidarity with victims of human rights abuses in Colombia and the Philippines, to support for protests against the painful social spending cuts being imposed on British Columbians during the Winter Olympics.

Several guest speakers addressed the 36th Convention, including the Vietnamese ambassador to Canada, Nguyen Duc Hung; prominent civil liberties lawyer Barbara Jackman; Canadian Arab Federation national president Khaled Mouammar; Cuban Consul-General Jorge Soberon Luis; Venezuelan Vice-Consul Scarlet Salazar Quiroz; and Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny, authors of the 2004 book Socialism Betrayed, which analyses the destruction of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s and early '90s. Greetings were received from some 42 Communist and Workers' parties from across the planet.

Delegates and guests at the convention took the Saturday evening to enjoy a special dinner and cultural program, featuring performances by jazz musician Wally Brooker, Quebec folksinger Norman Raymond, poets Harjit Daudharia and Salimeh Valiani, and a set by Toronto chamber punk band Red Monkey.

LINKS of interest ***: articles posted on Political Affairs as part of the Communist Party USA's pre-convention discussion

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/archive/383/

LINKS of interest ***: "The Old Bug of Right Opportunism Returns, by Mark Anderson

Source: Marxism-Leninism Today
http://mltoday.com/en/the-old-bug-of-right-opportunism-returns-788.html

Cuban News Agency : Fidel Castro Sends Message to Cuba's Medical Brigade in Haiti, Feb 10, 2009

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 8 (acn) The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, sent a message to the members of the island’s Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for emergency situations, and also to the graduates and fifth and sixth year students from the Cuba-based Latin American School of Medicine (LASM), who are currently providing health services in Haiti.


“Today, you are writing one of the most beautiful pages in the history of human medicine,” the letter reads.


Esteban Lazo, Vice President of Cuba’s Council of State and bearer of the message, read it on Monday at a Cuban-run field hospital in Croix des Bounquets, where he arrived accompanied by other Cuban officials.


“Helping to save lives, to heal the wounded and to rehabilitate people, and to work for the well-being of human beings, will always be an invaluable honor for any man or woman,” the text stresses.


Referring to the LASM graduates and students working alongside the Cuban doctors, Fidel wrote that it is an honor for the Cuban people “that you have voluntarily and enthusiastically joined this colossal effort.”


“The world will closely follow this feat that you are accomplishing and pride will fill the hearts of all the people of this hemisphere represented there by their fellow countrymen providing health services,” Fidel wrote.


“On behalf of all Cubans, your sincere and grateful Caribbean brothers, thank you. Thank you, on behalf of all of us who have fought for these dreams of equity and justice,” the leader of the Cuban Revolution concluded.

"Praise of Communism" By Bertold Brecht

It's sensible, anyone can understand it.

It's easy.

You're not an exploiter, so you can grasp it.

It's a good thing for you,

find out more about it.

The stupid call it stupid and the squalid call it squalid.

It's against squalor and against stupidity.

The exploiters call it a crime but we know:

It is the end of crime

It is not madness, but the end of madness.

It is not the riddle but the solution

It is the simplest thing so hard to achieve.

Bertolt Brecht.