06-05-2024: Pro-Palestine protests on US (United States of America) college campuses have attracted worldwide attention, and have spread to Universities in Australia[1], Canada, France, Italy, the UK (United Kingdom) and elsewhere.[2] Make no mistake, the Israeli state bombardment of Gaza is a genocidal act, on top of 76 years of injustice meted out to Palestine, which requires protest action. Yet this massacre is not taking place in isolation from the world geo-political situation, which stands on the brink of World War III. Instead, it is a small cog in the large machine of a global war which is being prepared by the Western imperialist powers (principally the US, the UK, other European nations and their allies) against what they view as their mortal enemies – the non-imperialist nations (principally Russia, China, Iran and their Eurasian, African and Latin American allies). Therefore, those who aim to defend Palestine must also at some level defend the “East” (the global majority) against the West.

Self-defeating BDS

Unfortunately, this is not the perspective of the campus occupations taking place across the US and internationally. These actions are narrowly focused on Palestine (or Gaza) only, at the expense and even in favour of other theatres of war world capitalism is desperately waging. The express demands of the pro-Palestine students at Columbia University in the US are restricted to 1. Divestment from companies supporting Israel’s government 2. Greater transparency in university finances and 3. Amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests.[3] That is, the protest demands are a part of the liberal BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement which can only be self-defeating and disempowering. BDS not only does not inspire the working class to act (except as a consumer in a shopping mall!), but instead appeals directly to capitalist corporations (or University administrations to “divest”) and to imperialist governments themselves (to apply sanctions on Israel). The direct implication is that corporations are “good” if they divest from Israel, and “bad” if they do not, and imperialism itself can be turned into an ally of working people against the “evil” Israeli state [!!].

Such arrant nonsense is the logical end game for the misleadership of the pro-Palestine occupations and the other demonstrations which have taken place since the criminal Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, which took place with the collaboration of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). That is, the fraudulent left parties which lead the pro-Palestine protests in the West have found themselves pleading with imperialism rather than combatting it politically. On April 20, the US House even spelled it out for them, with the passage of a 95 billion dollar “aid” (weapons and money) package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The majority of this obscene amount is going to Ukraine (61 billion)[4] as part of their international war against the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa et al). Iran is now a member of BRICS, which was arguably one reason for the West deliberately setting off an Israel/Palestine conflict in order to draw Iran into a calamitous regime change war. Irrespective of the Western so-called left, imperialism itself views Palestine as a side-show.

For genuine anti-imperialism

Moreover, many of the college campus protests brandish facemasks out of an irrational fear of the dubious “Covid” virus, which itself was an imperialist construct forced on working people in the West from 2020 to 2022. Revolutionary action together with facemasks are a non-sequitur, and demonstrate fealty to the system, not rebellion. In addition, these “Stand with Palestine” activists are not as anti-Israel as they say they are. The Israeli government more assiduously enforced Covid vaccine mandates than any other, which was a central demand of most Palestinian flag waving activists today. While they jump up and down when Israel bombs Palestine, they are as silent as mice when Israel bombs Syria, Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon. In fact, many of them are hell bent on regime change in Syria and Iran, which is also a central demand of the Israeli state. The majority of the woke pro-Palestine crowd are also silent, or actually applaud, the sending of weapons to Nazis in Ukraine as part of NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) war on Russia. To top it off, many of the pro-Palestine charlatans grotesquely view the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as some form of capitalist or even imperialist behemoth that must be overthrown. This dovetails with the fruitless attempts of the West to prevent the PRC surpassing them, even if it means fuelling terrorism and separatist wars.

Even their demands for a ceasefire are disingenuous. While millions of people certainly demand a ceasefire from the side of the Israeli state to end the current war, the faux left do not at all demand a ceasefire from the Hamas terrorists – even while they quietly acknowledge that Hamas was created and funded by Israel!  The falsity runs deeper, as the phoney left cheer on Hamas while recognising that Hamas is anti-Union and is utterly intolerant of non-heterosexual relationships. While the accusations against the pro-Palestine activists for being anti-Semitic are exaggerated, their effective calls for the destruction of the entire nation of Israel could be interpreted in this way. They claim that they are only anti-Zionist, while remaining oblivious to the certainty that Zionism would basically evaporate without the full backing of imperialism. In fact, the Israeli state has arguably been set up to deflect hatred and anger away from the very system of Western capitalism which is its creator.

Even if their intention is to defend Palestine only, the sham left is going about it in completely the wrong way. Whipping up hatred against Israel while fuelling Palestinian nationalism will ultimately provoke counter-demonstrations as has now occurred at the University of Los Angeles and the University of Melbourne. The best way to defend Palestine is to militarily defend the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah etc.) along with Russia, China, the DPRK, Venezuela etc., while offering conditional and tactical political defence of the BRICS bloc against Anglo/US led Western imperialism. In Israel and Palestine, we must urge the combination of Arab, Israeli, Palestinian and Jewish workers to rise against capitalism with the aim of forging a bi-national workers’ state. This necessitates the total repudiation of any Palestinian faction which engages in homicidal terrorism.

In sum, the current pro-Palestine only actions must be transformed into a genuine anti-imperialist anti-war movement. Therefore, it must also demand the abolition of NATO (no war on Russia) and the abolition of AUKUS (no war on China). It must also link anti-war actions to the horrendous cost of living crisis affecting workers in the West, from housing to food to utilities. This must be combined with the urgent formation of Marxist vanguard parties, to illuminate the path towards the victory of socialism.

Workers League

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@protonmail.com

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[1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/our-university-is-scared-sydney-uni-students-join-wave-of-us-college-encampments-20240424-p5fm8r.html (01-05-2024)

[2] www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/29/mapping-pro-palestine-campus-protests-around-the-world (01-05-2024)

[3] www.sbs.com.au/news/article/dozens-of-pro-palestinian-protesters-arrested-in-columbia-university-raid/qzdn28cfs (01-05-2024)

[4] www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-passes-new-61-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine-after-long-congressional-stalemate (01-05-2024)

Image: Pro-Palestine student action at Harvard University. http://www.thenation.com