ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 16.05.2022

A wave of protest against the reactionary regime and the economic conditions of the masses has continued in Iran on Sunday night, while the brutal Iranian security forces violently attack the protesters. According to the Jerusalem Post, a video shared on social media reportedly from Shahrekord, a city of about 150,000 people 512 km. southwest of Tehran, showed Iranian security forces violently cracking down on protesters, beating them and firing at them. Another video from the city showed demonstrators tearing down a banner featuring Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. [i]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 12.05.2022

The journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, was shot in the head while covering an Israeli army operation in the West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday. The Palestinians blamed Israel for her death, while Israeli officials said Palestinian gunmen may have fired the fatal shot. Palestinian Minister Hussein al-Sheikh tweeted on Thursday morning that: “Israel has requested a joint investigation and to be handed over the bullet that assassinated the journalist Shireen, we refused that, and we affirmed that our investigation would be completed independently. All of the indicators, the evidence and the witnesses confirm her assassination by Israeli special units, al-Sheikh emphasized.

The troops from the Zionist elite Duvdvan unit have said that they did not see Abu Akleh or fire at her, the Walla news site reported, adding that troops responded with precise gunfire, which was determined by the number of rounds fired and their location.” [1]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 10.05.2022

After voting with the right-wing government, the general secretary of the Joint List’s Hadash faction says it will back the bill to dissolve the Knesset.

From the perspective of the international working class and the Palestinians citizens of Israel the difference between Bennett’s government and a government led by Netanyahu is the difference between syphilis and cholera. The only principled way to deal with a motion of non-confidence brought up by the opposition led by Netanyahu is to abstain. Not to support one or the other.

ISL statement, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 05.05.2022

Like other imperialists when Israel says that X or Y happened you can never trust that it is true.

“The Israeli government has repeatedly said it is committed to the status quo. But footage of police turning a blind eye to Jewish worshipers has repeatedly cropped up in recent years, angering Muslims. [i] “The Jewish groups say they plan to wave the Israeli flag and sing Israel’s national anthem at the holy site in celebration of Independence Day” [ii]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 02.05.2022

“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attacked Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday during an interview in Italy, claiming that “the fact that he is a Jew does not negate the Nazi elements in his country. I belive that Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood.” [i]

FM of Israel Yair Lapid said in response that “The Jews did not kill themselves in the Holocaust. The Nazis killed my grand- father. This makes me angry not only as Foreign Minister but as the son of my father. To say that Hitler was a Jew is like saying: “The Jews killed themselves” [ii]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 28.04.2022

In Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day began Wednesday evening with the official state ceremony at Yad Vashem’s Warsaw Ghetto Square in the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem. President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett both delivered their speeches.

Speaker of the Knesset MK Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) has invited the President of the German Bundestag, Bärbel Bas of the SPD, to take part in the various events the Knesset holds this week to mark Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2022. Bas has accepted the invitation.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 26.04.2022

In the presidential elections in France, both Macron and Le Pen counted on far-left votes. Jean-Luc Mélenchon had a strong support in the first round, winning 22% of the vote.

To win, Macron must secure the support of a large chunk of the 7.7 million who voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Most of those voters detest Macron’s policies and most of them abhor his persona. The latest figures on the eve of the second round showed that 42% may vote for him, but 25% may choose Le Pen and 33% may abstain. In the words of some Mélenchon voters, it is a case of “choosing between plague and cholera” [i]

Yossi Schwartz ISL the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 24.04.2022

There are not only Stalinists but centrists who call themselves Marxists and even Trotskyists who oppose the delivery of weapons to the Ukrainian army fighting the Russian imperialist’s invasion of the Ukraine. The argument for this position is the reactionary nature of Zelensky’s regime that for some is turning Ukraine into an appendix of the USA-NATO.

ISL Statement, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 20.04.2022

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that at least 50 Palestinian civilians were injured this Tuesday when Zionist soldiers fired tear gas canisters and rubber-coated metal bullets at them to secure a march of 20,000 super nationalist Zionists in a provocative activity in an area the settlers call Homesh, an illegal settlement by the standards of the Zionist government, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 17.04.2022

According to the Palestinian presidency on Friday very early in the morning a large force of the heavily-armed Zionist police entered Al-Aqua Mosque compound and broke into the Al-Qibli prayer hall, a 1,000-year-old domed building, beating Palestinian worshippers in the main prayer hall inside the mosque, forcing them to lie face down. Images of worshippers tied up and lying on al-Aqsa’s carpeted prayer hall during the second Friday of Ramadan quickly went viral. Some footage circulated online showed Israeli forces beating the detainees. The Police fired tear gas into the hall, smashed some of its windows and detained 400 people.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 13.04.2022

In response to several attacks made in Israel, most of them against civilians since the beginning of Ramadan, 8 Palestinians were killed, including 2 women and one child. The Bennett-Meretz government has increased the number of army units deployed in the West Bank and launched several attacks on the Jenin refugee camp, killing and wounding several Palestinians.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 12.04.2022

Jenin is a Palestinian city in the north of the West Bank. Its population is around 50,000 people, while the Jenin refugee camp has a population of about 15,000 people. It is an ancient city and was known in the Bronze Age as Ein-Ganim. The refugee camp is the result of the ethnic cleansing by the Zionists in 1947-1948. During the war of 1948 around 75% of the Palestinians became refugees. While the UN resolution No 194(III) calls for the right of the refugees to return, Israel ignores this resolution without any sanctions. The resolution says: “resolving that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” To prevent the possibility of the return of the refugees to their home Israel destroyed around 500 villages and settle Jews in the Palestinian home that were not destroyed. In 1967 in a pre- mediating plan Israel occupied among other places the West-Bank including Jenin.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section In Israel/Occupied Palestine, 08.04.2022

Bennett’s government that includes Meretz a “left” Zionist party is crumbling after Yamina MK and the coalition whip Idit Silman announced her resignation from the government. Her resignation means that Bennett’s government loses its majority in Knesset (the Zionist parliament), leaving him with 60 members the same number the opposition has. If an additional person were to leave the coalition, the government could be brought down by the Opposition that would disperse the Knesset.

A statement by ISL, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 31.03.2022

In the last few days, we witnessed a sharp increase in the instances of armed Palestinian resistance to the Zionist state and to hysterical nationalist-racist reaction on the part of the ultra- right PM of Israel.

It begun last week in shooting of Israelis in in Beersheba and Hadera, later in Bnei Brak on Tuesday night, an exchange of gun fire in Jenin in the West Bank where a Zionist soldier was wounded and the knifing of a settler after Palestinian attacked him with screwdriver on bus outside Nave Daniel south of Jerusalem making these events one of the most significant resistances since the Second Intifada.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 24.03.2022

The masses in Europe at this moment raise the demand: End the war of Russia in the Ukraine which is a pacifist position. When the masses raise pacifist demands it is a step in the right direction. It is a different story when organizations claiming to be revolutionary Marxists adopt pacifism. Different Stalinists and centrist organizations adopt their position to this pacifist mood rather than being interested in a revolutionary program of revolutionary defeatism for Russia and revolutionary defense of Ukraine – namely military victory of the Ukrainian people without giving Zelensky’s government any political support.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 20.03.2022

The Bennett government’s response to Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine and the suffering of the Ukrainian non-Jewish refugees not only brings to mind the US policy of closed gates to the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany but its inhuman approach to the Palestinian refugees it forced out of Palestine and its barbaric bombing of Gaza and Lebanon.

The ISL League, Israel/Occupied Palestine, 08.03.2022

Russia has announced the establishment of safe corridors to allow civilian refugees to leave, but the evacuation routes lead mostly to Russia and its ally Belarus, a route opposed by Zelensky, while Russia continues to pound some cities with rockets even after the announcement of corridors. From Putin’s perspective, Ukrainian refugees escaping to states that are members of NATO is to allow the refugees to join his enemies while for Zelensky escaping to Belarus is to be controlled by his enemy. Short of socialist revolution in both states it will be very difficult to find a solution.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL The RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 23.02.2022

According to the Israeli daily newspaper “Israel Today,” 16% of American Jews support the BDS. It relies on a survey conducted by the Mailman group.

“A significant portion (16%) support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, a poll conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation has found” [i]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 14.02.2022

“Amnesty International last week joined two other well-known human rights groups in saying that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians within its borders and in the West Bank and Gaza amount to apartheid. Israel rejects those allegations as anti-Semitic, saying that, among other things, they ignore the rights and freedoms enjoyed by its Arab citizens” [i]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 02.02.2022

The black actress Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from ABC’s “The View” talk show on Tuesday for asserting a day earlier that the Holocaust was “not about race. This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all going to fight amongst yourselves,” Goldberg said at one point” [i]

Goldberg and her “View” co-hosts were discussing the Holocaust after a local school board in Tennessee voted to remove the graphic novel Maus, by Art Spiegelman, from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum. [ii]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel /Occupied Palestine, 28.01.2022

The Zionist propaganda is based on the myth of the purity of the weapons. Namely, Israel uses its weapons only for self-defense and if some Palestinian civilians are killed is because the so-called terrorists use women and children as shields. For many years many people believed in this myth. In Israel itself, the propaganda is that the Nakba is a fabrication of the Palestinians who fled Palestine because their leaders like Haj Amin the Mufti of Jerusalem ordered them to flee and come back with the Arab armies.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 26.01.2021

In January the UN adopted a “draft resolution titled “Holocaust denial” (document A/76/L.30) without a vote, the 193-member organ also urged the Member States and social media companies to take active measures to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial or distortion in cyberspace. “L.30”, tabled jointly by Israel and Germany, was co-sponsored by more than 100 Member States” [i]

Adam Smith, the ISL/RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 19.01.2022

Boric, a left wing candidate has been elected to the presidency of Chile. He is more reformist than his rhetoric suggests.

According to Al Jazeera:

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 13.01.2021

When Ra’am the conservative Islamic party (Southern branch) in Israel entered the government of Bennet we denounced it as a betrayal of the Palestinian people. Ra’am claimed that participating in this right-wing government will improve the condition of its social base, the Bedouins living in the south of Israel. This was a pie in the sky.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL – the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 04.01.2022

The collaboration of the Palestinian Authority with the Zionist state

The Zionist war minister Benny Gantz met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha-Ayin on Tuesday night. It was the second meeting between the two. “Gantz emphasized the parties shared interest in deepening security coordination, maintaining regional stability, and preventing terror and violence” [i]

By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 27.12.2021

The Zionist state is an apartheid state

In 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 determined that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. Needless to say Israel and the USA opposed this resolution. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the United States ambassador to the United Nations said that the United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law. In Israel, they changed the name of a street from the UN (for its support of the 1948 resolution) to Zionism.

A statement by the ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 20.12.2021

The Zionist state is escalating its attacks on Syria. There have been many attacks in the form of missiles – as well as assassinations and air raids carried by Israel since the civil war in Syria began in 2011. Israel attacked the Syrian army when stray fire – whether by the Syrian army or by rebels – fell within the Israeli-occupied Syrian Heights in 1967, when arms convoys delivering to Hezbollah passed near the border, and also launched attacks on Iran-backed fighters when they launched rocket fire. Israel acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in Syria during the 10-year civil war between the revolutionary forces and the butchering regime, to end what it calls Iran’s “military entrenchment” and to stop shipments of Iranian weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and other Shia militias. Many attacks took place in the southwest of Syria, where Iranian forces and Shia militias have bases, but also in the central cities of Homs and Hama, the northern city of Aleppo, and the town of Albu Kamal on the eastern border with Iraq. On 24 November, Syrian state media reported that two civilians were killed in an Israeli strike in Homs province. The SOHR put the death toll at four, including two who it said lost their lives when a Syrian surface-to-air missile fell to the earth. [I]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 08.12.2021

Day after day we are bombarded with news about Iran’s developing nuclear weapons and how it is blackmailing the USA to first agree to the removal of its sanctions on Iran before Iran will sign an accord to stop the development of its atomic energy. Day after day we hear the Zionist’s state declarations that it will attack Iran if the negotiations fail. We are told that Iran should be prevented from developing nuclear weapons for the sake of peace on earth.

The ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 06.12.2021

How Fatah and the PA became servants of the Zionist apartheid

Fatah (Arabic: “Conquest” or “Opening”), inverted acronym of Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī al-Filasṭīnī (“Palestine National Liberation Movement”), was, founded in the late 1950s by Yassir Arafat and Khalīl al-Wazīr (Abū Jihād) aiming for the liberation of Palestine from Zionist control by waging guerrilla warfare. The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council July 1-17, 1968 stated among others:

By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 30.11.2021

The lie about the agreement of the Zionist to have a Palestinian state

Yesterday, the 29 of November, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called the decision to hold an event in the General Assembly aimed at strengthening the Palestinian “right of return” on this day “outrageous.” He also said: “The Palestinians and the Arab countries not only attacked Israel, the Jewish state, they also persecuted, massacred, and ultimately expelled the Jewish communities in their own countries,” he added, accusing the international community of ignoring those events and only focusing on the Palestinians” [i]

By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 25.11.2021

Australia, in support with the Zionist state, has declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Australia like Britain has first-hand knowledge of terrorism. It has a history of terrorism against the aboriginals. Moreover, Australia committed war crimes in the war against Iraq. The Australian military supported the use of cluster bombs against civilians during the 2003 invasion, and senior Australian military commanders are responsible for planning and carrying out multiple purported war crimes during the attack on Fallujah in late 2004. This declaration like the British conservative government’s declaration of Hamas a terrorist organization comes as Israel is declaring day after day that it is preparing a war against Iran and its allies.

By Adam Smith, ISL in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 22.11.2021

There is no doubt that is court victory is a boost for the right wing, it has nothing to do with self-defense. The latest alt-right star has already been offered internships, and in the next round of Black Lives Matter protests, there is no doubt that it will encourage more right-wing vigilance violence towards Black Lives Matter protesters. There is also no doubt that a black man would be treated very differently.

By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 22.11.2021

 “This decision will make it more difficult for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to form a Palestinian national unity government, Palestinian sources said on Saturday. In recent weeks, reports have surfaced in a number of Arab and Western media outlets claiming the US administration, Egypt and other parties were working toward persuading the Palestinians to end their differences and form a unity government” [i]

Adam Smith, the ISL(RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine),12.11.2021

The Histadrut (the official trade union in Israel) has signed a new deal with the state and the employers. Mainly, on the positive side (if it can be called that) is a rise in the minimum wage to 6000 (from 5300) NIS over 5 years (aka barely keeping up with inflation), an increase of a single day per year in the vacation allowance, and the (limited) ability for the self-employed to access unemployment funds. In return, the Histadrut signed up for an industrial peace for 1 year, freeze on wages in the public sector, and agreed for overtime to be computed on a monthly rather than daily basis.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 10.11.2021

Some figures from Arab folklore are well known to many people in the West. Amongst them is Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. A less known figure that is very popular in Arab society is Juha. An old figure that sometimes appears as a wise old man and at other times as a foolish old man. For example, Juha was resting in bed in the afternoon hoping to fall asleep. The sounds of the children playing outside prevented him from falling asleep. He called the children and told them a lie that at the far corner of the village there is a wonderful fig tree with ripe figs. The children ran to the far corner of the Village. Juha told himself if they ran it must be true that they would find ripe figs and he ran after them.

By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 1.11.2021

Gantz, the zionist minister of war that was responsible for the killing of more than 2000 Palestinians in 2014 has been relying on a right-wing Zionist organization calling itself “NGO Monitor” to ban six Palestinian NGOs. He claims they are fronts for the PFLP. In this article, we want to deal with the super reactionary political nature of the “NGO Monitor” and what is behind Gantz’s decision. For us the PFLP (The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) is a national liberation organization while Israel uses state terrorism. Oppressed nations have the right to use the armed struggle. Nevertheless, it is important to deal with the facts.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL – the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 28.10.2021

A government to the right of Netanyahu

It is a common mistaken belief that the massacres the Zionist state committed against the native Palestinians ended in 1948. On October 29 1956, the first day of war on Egypt by the British, French and Israel imperialists, members of the Border Police were directed by general Shadmi to shoot and to kill anyone violating a curfew that was placed on Kafr Qasim, while the peasants worked in the fields and were not aware of the curfew. The Border Police shot and killed 48 men, women and children. One of the female victims had been pregnant.

Yossi Schwartz, ISL-the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 20.10.2021

Zionist settlers protected by the army attack Palestinian villages and residents harvesting their olive trees on a daily basis. The attacks include beatings of farmers and the destruction of trees, in order to prevent the olive harvest. According to the Zionist law (inherited from the Ottoman law) if Palestinians are unable to work in their fields the land become a state land that can be allocated to the settlers. At the same time for the second day the Zionist armed forces violently have raided Damascus Gate and surrounding streets in occupied East Jerusalem during a Palestinian national holiday for the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. At least 49 Palestinians were injured and 22 were arrested according to Aljazeera’s report based on local media.

Adam Smith, ISL, RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 17.10.2021

After a long time, it appears that labor militancy is on the rise in the US. 

“Thursday morning, more than 10,000 John Deere & Co. workers went on strike, the first major walkout for the agricultural equipment maker in 30 years. Nationwide, unions representing as many as 100,000 workers have walked out or are threatening to do so this month, amid rising corporate profits, a severe labor shortage, and a widening income gap.” [1]

Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 15.10.2021

“At least six people have been killed and dozens of others wounded when gunfire erupted as Hezbollah supporters gathered to protest, and demand the removal of Tarek Bitar the Catholic judge from the north of Lebanon from the Beirut Port explosion probe, accusing him of bias. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan accused the judge of “politically targeting” officials in his investigation.” [1]

Adam Smith, ISL(RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 09.10.2021

The rich and powerful in virtually every country have been named in the Pandora Papers, a leak that showed how offshore companies can be used to evade taxes and transparency requirements. Let’s talk a look at some:

ISL(RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 24.9.21

Imagine that in 1980 a pro South Africa apartheid rally took place in France. The participants shouted; “Long live white South Africa”! “Long live the white race”! “Support our white heroes killing the black terrorists”! South Africa is the promise land that belongs to the white race”!

Unite in the struggle to fight and defeat the Zionist enemy!

By Yossi Schwartz, International Socialist League (Section of the RCIT in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 08.09.2021, http://the-isleague.com/

There is speculation that the six Palestinian political prisoners that escaped the Gilboa prison are in Jenin. This article tells the story of Jenin’s refugee camp in the framework of the new intifada.

By Yossi Schwartz the ISL- the RCIT section In Israel (Occupied Palestine), 16.9.2021

The Zionist state has not Broken the Will of the Palestinians to Fight the Oppression

The escape of the six political prisoners from the Gilboa jail, and even the catching of four of them, not only did not break the will of the Palestinian masses to struggle against their systematic repression but has shown the brutal nature of the Zionist army and police. After Zakaria Zubeidi was caught by the police, they abused him physically so badly that he was sent to a hospital. In a collective punishment, they arrested relatives of the escaped prisoners and in the Zionist prisons, and they have canceled rights like family visits.  

By Yossi Schwartz, International Socialist League (Section of the RCIT in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 06.09.2021, http://the-isleague.com/

Freedom Road was a 1979 American TV historical drama mini-series starring boxer Muhammad Ali and Kris Kristofferson, based on the 1944 novel by Howard Fast.

By Yossi Schwartz, International Socialist League (Section of the RCIT in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 27.08.2021

This is the time to examine the ramification of the defeat of Western imperialism in the Middle East. One of the most important historical laws is that the defeat of the imperialists in a war leads to the encouragement of the struggles of the working class and the popular classes of oppressed nations to fight the imperialists and their local servants.

By Yossi Schwartz, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 19 August 2021, www.thecommunists.net

In a war between oppressed nations and the imperialists, revolutionary Marxists support the military defeat of the imperialists and the military victory of the oppressed nations regardless of the political nature of the movement and parties that lead the fight against the imperialists. That does not mean we give political support to bourgeois or petit-bourgeois leadership of these movements whether they are secular or religious.

The fall of Kabul is a historic defeat for Western imperialism and a victory for the oppressed peoples!

Statement by the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 17 August 2021, www.thecommunists.net

1.            The chaotic scenes at the airport of Kabul are symbolic for the defeat, or let us better say, the comprehensive humiliation of Western imperialism and its treacherous collaborators. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and all socialists join the oppressed masses in Gaza, Idlib and many other places who are rejoicing this historic defeat of the Western Great Powers. This is a defeat for the oppressors and a victory for the oppressed of no less significance as the desperate flight of the rats last time in Saigon in 1975!

By Yossi Schwartz, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 14 August 2021, www.thecommunists.net

During the military intervention of Stalinist Russia in Afghanistan that began on December 24, 1979, under the pretext of upholding the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978, Moscow stood behind Babrak Karmal, the exiled leader of the Parcham faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) – the Stalinists of Afghanistan.

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 05.08.2021, http://www.the-isleague.com

The Internationalist Socialist League, the section of the RCIT in Israel (Occupied Palestine), supports the uprising of the Ahvaz people in Khuzestan against the repressive regime of Tehran, a capitalist state in religious clothes. We call for a workers’ and poor peasants’ government as a transitional demand in the Arab revolution leading to a socialist federation of the Middle East. In this context, we condemn the Iranian regime’s support for the regime of the butcher Assad in Syria against the Arab revolution. We want to bring down the reactionary regime by a socialist revolution, not by imperialist economic and military means aiming at restoring the Shah’s regime.

When the “Left-Wing” is to the Right of the “Right Wing”

By Adam Smith, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 06.07.2021, http://www.the-isleague.com

The government is facing its first real test in the parliament. The law on the prohibition of family unification of (Palestinian) citizens of Israel with PA residents, was passed for the first time in 2003, and has ever since been renewed every few years. It has been scheduled for renewal in July 2021, otherwise its status will lapse.

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 1.7.2021, http://the-isleague.com

As we of the RCIT have said time and time again the Arab revolution is not dead but instead it will return. Anyone who follows the news must have been aware of it. A new powerful wave of the Arab masses’ uprising is engulfing the region.

A statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 21.06.2021, http://the-isleague.com

Last Tuesday, two days after the new right-wing government led by Bennett was formed, the new government permitted the yearly racist flags march in the 1967 occupied East Jerusalem. 5000 extreme right Zionist nationalists protected by the Zionist police marched through parts of Jerusalem’s Old City, with the Zionist flag-waving march chanting racist slogans: “Death to the Arabs“.

A statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 3 June 2021, http://the-isleague.com

A new government headed by the far-right politician Naftali Bennett has been formed. It is composed of 8 parties of the Anti- Benjamin Netanyahu block. The first question to ask is who is Naftali Bennett? Who are his partners?

On the Coalitions Negotiations in Israel

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 30 May 2021, http://the-isleague.com

In Israel there is a political storm in a glass of water. It is now more than possible that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be replaced by Yair Lapid, from the Yesh Atid party, who will form a new government headed by the far-right politician Naftali Bennett whose Yamina party has six key seats in parliament. Yamina leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked spoke in favor of forming a unity government with Lapid on Sunday. The other far-right party led by Gideon Moshe Sa’ar of New Hope demands six ministries for its six MK. “New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar turned down offers from Likud on Sunday morning to rotate as prime minister with Benjamin Netanyahu and then Bennett in a three-man rotation.” (1)

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 24 May 2021, http://the-isleague.com

In a new provocation, aimed at showing the Zionist public that Israel won the war, Netanyahu’s government decided to open ‘al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf’, “the Noble Sanctuary”, (الحرم القدسي الشريف)(Al Aqsa) or as the Zionists call it “Temple Mount” complex to Jews beginning on Sunday amid simmering tensions at the holy site that led to clashes across Israel and the war with Gaza. “Some 50 Jewish settlers, flanked by heavily armed Israeli special forces, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem in the early morning, hours after Palestinian worshippers were beaten and assaulted by Israeli police, according to the Islamic authority overseeing the site.” (1)

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 19 May 2021, http://the-isleague.com

The Zionist state takes pride in the number of the Palestinians in Gaza it has killed including more than 60 children. It is very proud of the number of buildings it destroyed and if it will be able to, it would like to double and triple these figures. Like in all of its wars it wants to roll back the Palestinians and Arabs living conditions back to the stone age. We have seen it time and again in Lebanon and in Gaza. There is a name for such behavior and it is barbarism.

Strike actions in West Bank and in Israel to take place on 18 May in an unprecedented show of unity

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 17 May 2021, www.thecommunists.net

The Third Intifada – fighting against the new wave of Zionist aggression against Al-Aqsa, against Sheikh Jarrah and against Gaza – has mobilized all sectors of the Palestinian popular masses. This great event has resulted in an unprecedented show of unity – uniting the Palestinian masses in joint actions in all parts of Historic Palestine.

Another expression of the global tendency of the ruling class towards chauvinist state bonapartism

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 14 May 2021, www.thecommunists.net

The dramatic upswing of the glorious Palestinian liberation struggle – expressed in the heroic defence of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Al-Quds/Jerusalem, the beginning of the Third Intifada and the Fourth Gaza War – is one of the most important global events in recent times. [1]

Forward to the Third Intifada! Down with the Zionist State! Long live the Struggle for a Free Palestine!

Emergency Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and Convergencia Socialista (Argentina), 10 May 2021 (UTC 10.00)

Comrades, brothers and sisters!

In these hours, Israeli forces are invading the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – one of the most important symbols of the Palestinian people, the Arab world as well as the Muslim umma. They fire tear gas and sound bombs against thousands of brothers and sisters who are heroically defending the compound.

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 8 May 2021, http://the-isleague.com

The struggle of the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah district near Jerusalem’s Old City, the home to 3,000 Palestinians, against the eviction of four Palestinian families continues. On Monday, at least 20 Palestinians were injured in a brawl after Israeli police stormed a solidarity demonstration with the residents of Sheikh Jarrah. While the police are using extreme violence against the protesters, armed Jewish settlers protected by the police walk around to provoke more police oppression. Israeli border police have attacked the sit-ins using skunk water, tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and shock grenades over the past few days.

By Adam Smith, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 30.03.2021, http://the-isleague.com

For many years this question has come back to haunt the Zionist state. The many rulings, often contradictory, have shown that this is first and foremost a political question.

Middle East: Is a New Regional War in Preparation?

Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 19.08.2020, www.the-isleague.com and www.thecommunists.net

Last week Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations. Yesterday the chief of the Mossad Yossi Cohen has visited the UAE for so called security talks. Cohen’s trip to Abu Dhabi marked the first visit to the UAE by an Israeli official. According to the UAE, “The two sides discussed prospects for cooperation in the fields of security as well as exchanged points of view on regional developments.” (1)

Read more »

THE ONLY WAY IS SELF DEFENSE

By Yossi Schwartz

The violence committed by organized, as well as street crime, in the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel communites, is a very seroius problem. According to a police report published on October 3rd, 2019, there have been more than 70 killings this year, nearly as many as in the past two years combined and more than half of all murder victims nationwide. 

There are a few questions to ask: why is there organized crime in the Arab communities? Why have these gangs been allowed to accumulate so many weapons and kill so many? Does the police have an interest in ending organized crime in the Arab communities? And assuming for a moment that the police wants to eliminate organized crime, is it even capable of disarming gangs? How to protect communities against such criminals? 

Read more »

For Revolutionary Unity in a World Full of Explosive Tensions!

Call for an internationalist perspective in the struggle for a socialist future

Joint Statement by Revolutionary Organizations, August 2019 

Capitalism is experiencing unprecedented crisis and decline. It is unavoidable that the tensions and clashes between classes and states are accelerating. Revolutionaries around the world must intervene in their class struggles on the basis of an internationalist and anti-imperialist program for socialist revolution and working class power. We fight for the following:

Read more »

Defend Gaza! Defeat Israel!

For an international solidarity campaign to support the Palestinian people!

Emergency Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 05.05.2019 (23:00 UTC Time), www.thecommunists.net

1. Once more, the Israeli government has escalated its terror campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza. In the last 48 hours the Israeli air force and navy have killed 24 Palestinians, among them Falastine Abu Arar, a 37-year-old pregnant mother, and her 14-month old niece Siba. About 70 Palestinians were wounded in the attacks. In addition, the Israeli army destroyed the building which had housed the Gaza bureau of the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency. Three Israeli have died as a result of Palestinian rocket fire in retaliation. Read more »

Sudan: Rally in Solidarity with the Popular Uprising against the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir

Report (with Photos and Videos) from a Rally in Vienna on 13 January 2019, Austrian Section of the RCIT, www.rkob.net andwww.thecommunists.net

Nearly 100 people, most of them from the Sudanese migrant community, assembled in the centre of Vienna to protestagainst the brutal dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. The rally was also attended by a number of activists from the Syrian as well as the Egypt migrant community which have organized numerous protests against the dictatorships of the butcher Assad as well as Killer-General Sisi.

Read more »

Open Letter: Great Tasks demand Great Initiative!

A Call to All Revolutionary Organizations and Activists to Fulfill Our Responsibility in this Historic Time!

Open Letter from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 7 January 2019,www.thecommunists.net

Comrades, Brothers and Sisters!

We are living in historic times. Everyone with open eyes can see that the imperialist world order is in severe turmoil. We are heading towards a political volcano eruption.

The stock markets are in panic, reflecting the capitalists’ fear of another, imminent Great Recession which will be even worse this time than in 2008/09.

Read more »

The Zionist’s Attack on the Progressive Movement

A Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 03.01.2019, http://www.the-isleague.com

This coming year will be a year of sharp contradictions among the imperialists themselves, and between the ruling class on one side and the growing resistance of the workers, the oppressed, women, youth and the lower middle class on the other side.

As we wrote in the RCIT’s Greetings for the New Year of 2019: Prepare for a Political Volcano Eruption:

Read more »

Israel: Hands Off the BDS!

A Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 27.12.2018,http://www.the-isleague.com

The Internationalist Socialist League (section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency in Occupied Palestine) denounces the decision of DonorBox to freeze the accounts of the BDS.

Read more »

The Barbaric Slaughter of Jamal Khashoggi

A Commentary by Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 13.10.2018, www.thecommunists.net

Unfortunately, there is almost certainty about the tragic fate of Jamal Khashoggi. He entered the Saudi embassy in Turkey on 2 October in order to get the necessary papers to marry his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. He has not been seen since then. According to numerous accounts (including audio and video recordings), he was awaited by a 15-men assassination team which arrived from Riyadh on the same day in order to kill him. They detained, interrogated, tortured and finally brutally slaughtered him. Among the assassination team was a forensic expert who brought a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s body after killing him. “It is like Pulp Fiction,” a senior US official familiar with the investigation has been quoted as saying.

Read more »

Gaza: The Day after the Cease Fire

Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 14.11.2018, http://www.the-isleague.com

Following Hamas’ statement that it will fire rockets at Israeli towns of Beersheba and Ashdod if raids on civilian buildings in Gaza don’t stop, Israel’s security cabinet agreed on a ceasefire in Gaza.

Read more »

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 13.11.2018, http://www.the-isleague.com

On Sunday Israeli undercover forces entered the Gaza Strip in a civilian car for reasons Israel refuses to explain and were discovered. Hamas forces exchanged fire with the Israeli soldiers near the city of Khan Younis. A pursuit ensued and Israeli aircraft fired dozens of missiles into the area to provide cover for the commandos to escape.

Read more »

Neither Imperialist Globalization nor Imperialist Protectionism! For International Solidarity and Joint Struggle of the Working Class and Oppressed People!

Joint Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), Marxist Group ‘Class Politics’ (Russia), Alkebulan School of Black Studies (Kenya), Pan-Afrikan Consciousness Renaissance (Nigeria), Courant des Jeunes Penseurs Congolais (Democratic Republic of Congo), and Sınıf Savaşı (Turkey), 4 July 2018

1. A global trade war is looming between all Great Powers in West and East – the U.S., China, the European Union, Japan, Russia and other imperialist powers. Economic sanctions between Great Powers started already in 2014 when the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions against Russia and vice versa. Currently, the Trump Administration is about to impose much more far-reaching sanctions against its rivals with the latter implementing retaliatory action. Obviously, an escalation of the global trade war would have devastating consequences for the world economy and the living conditions of the working people. Read more »

Austria: Rally against Iranian President Rouhani

Report (with Pictures and Video) from the Austrian Section of theRevolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 04.07.2018,www.rkob.net

Today, about more than hundred Syrian and Ahwazi migrants and refugees hold a protest rally in the centre of Vienna. The protest was caused by the visit of Iranian President Rouhani who met the Austrian right-wing government. According to news agencies Russia’s and China’s foreign ministers are also supposed to join the negotiations.

The demonstrators expressed their protest about the reactionary dictatorship in Iran. They condemned the regime’s oppressive policy against the Arab minority inside Iran. They also condemned the regime’s foreign policy of support for the genocidal regime of Assad in Syria.

The Austrian section of the RCIT was invited to participate in the rally. Comrade Michael Pröbsting, the International Secretary of the RCIT, was asked to address the rally (see the video of his speech below). He stated our solidarity with the liberation struggle of the Syrian people as well as of the Ahwazi people. He said that we are protesting against the Iranian regime but not against the Iranian people who rightly protested repeatedly against the regime in the past few months. Furthermore he made clear that we absolutely oppose any interference of US or Israeli imperialism.

The RCIT has published numerous articles and documents on Iran as well as the Syrian Revolution which can be read on the RCIT’s website at https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/.

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 26.06.2018, http://www.the-isleague.com

By June 18, 132 unarmed Palestinians have been murdered in cold blood and 13,000 injured by the Israeli army in Gaza, since March 30, according to AFP. This type of pathological murderous behavior isn’t out of character for regimes which represent a colonialist social strata. Examples are too numerous to count, however, two especially vicious ones come to mind – the Sharpeville Massacre committed by the South African Apartheid regime resulting in 69 Africans dead and 186 wounded, most of whom shot in the back, and the 1919 Amritsar Massacre carried out by the British army in India killing 379 Indians. Read more »

Austria: Islamophobic Racism on the Rise!

Solidarity with the Muslim Brothers and Sisters! No to the Closure of 7 Mosques and the Expulsion of 40 Imams and their Families!

Statement of the RKO BEFREIUNG (Austrian Section of the RCIT), 8. June 2018, www.thcommunists.net

Read more »

Syria and Great Power Rivalry: The Failure of the „Left“ (Part 1)

Note of the Editorial Board: This chapter contains figures and one map which can only be viewed in the pdf version (download here).

Introduction

Karl Marx, whose 200th birthday we have just commemorated, emphasized in the second thesis of his famous Theses on Feuerbach that the truth of theory must be sought in practice, i.e. in the objective reality.

“The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.” [1]

Read more »

Warmongering in the Middle East: Down with all Imperialist Great Powers and Capitalist Dictatorships!

Joint Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), Alkebulan School of Black Studies (Kenya),Pacesetters Movement (Nigeria), Pan-Afrikan Consciousness Renaissance (Nigeria), Marxist Group ‘Class Politics’ (Russia), and Sınıf Savaşı (Turkey), 13 May 2018

1. We take note of:
2. The vicious oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Apartheid state which already led to three wars against Gaza in the last ten years;
3. The never-ending warmongering of Israel against Iran;

Read more »

By Max Bonham, The Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine), 30 April 2018, www.the-isleague.com

“Once I’ve seen so many dreadful things— my sons butchered, my daughters hauled away, their houses ransacked, their little children tossed down on the ground in this murderous war.” (Iliad, Book 22)

“Rome creates a desert and calls it peace” Tacitus

“Shameless—armored in shamelessness—always shrewd with greed! How could any Argive soldier obey your orders, freely and gladly do your sailing for you or fight your enemies, full force? Not I. no.

It wasn’t Trojan spearmen who brought me here to fight. The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least, they never stole my cattle or my horses, never in Phthia where the rich soil breeds strong men did they lay waste my crops. How could they? Look at the endless miles that lie between us …”

(Iliad, Book 1, 174-184) Read more »

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (Section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 15.04.2018, www.the-isleague.com

Following Israel’s new round of killing and injuring unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and its attack on base T4 in Syria, killing at least 8 Iranians, US President Donald Trump, together with the UK and France, striked the Syrian capital on Friday evening, allegedly in response to a suspected chemical attack on rebel-held Douma last Saturday. Read more »

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine), 01/04/2018, the-isleague.com

On March 30, 30,000 -50,000 Palestinians from Gaza, demonstrated for their right to return to their country and lands, stolen by the Zionist state. During the ethnic cleansing during 1948-1947 Zionist forces removed 750,000 Palestinians and made them refugees. Survivors, their descendants and their supporters demonstrated in Gaza behind the fence that makes Gaza a Palestinian ghetto under siege. Read more »

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 12.6.2017, http://www.the-isleague.com

During his election campaign, Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, which he said would protect Americans from Jihadist attacks. His racist message was cheered by many of his supporters who opposed former President Barack Obama’s decision to increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the US. Read more »

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 22.02.2018, http://www.the-isleague.com

The shooting down of the Israeli F16 over the skies of Syria was a blow to the Israeli air force that has gotten used to control the skies of Lebanon and Syria and attack positions of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran at a whim. Read more »

Stop the Israeli aggression! In any conflict between imperialist Israel and Syria, Iran or Hezbollah: Defeat Israel! Continue to support the Syrian Revolution! Victory for the Palestinian Liberation Struggle!

Joint Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel / Occupied Palestine), 11.02.2018, www.thecommunists.net and http://the-isleague.com/

1. Yesterday an Israeli warplane was shot down during an Israeli attack on Syria. The Israeli army claims that it launched “large-scale” attacks inside Syria after intercepting what it said was an Iranian drone and the subsequent downing of an Israeli fighter jet, which crashed after it came under fire from Syrian air defense forces. The Iranian government denies that it had launched a drone. Unsurprisingly U.S. imperialism declares its full support for Israel. At the same time Russia’s foreign ministry “urges all parties involved to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could lead to an even greater complication of the situation”. Read more »

Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (Section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 17.01.2018, http://the-isleague.com/

The 16-year old Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi is threatened with up to 10 years in Prison for standing up to Israeli soldiers! She was arrested on 19 December 2017 along with her mother, Nariman Tamimi, and cousin Nour Tamimi for “slapping” an Israeli soldier. Read more »

Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital “Will Open the Floodgates of Hell to the West”! Mobilize for a Popular Intifada – in Palestine, in the Arab and Muslim World, Globally!

Joint Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel / Occupied Palestine), 06.12.2017, www.thecommunists.net and http://the-isleague.com/

1. Today US President Donald Trump has officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He set in motion the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to this city. This is a break with Washington’s decades-long foreign policy which: while the U.S. has always supported the Zionist Apartheid state politically, economically and militarily, it at least formally tried to preserve the facade that it would respect international law which does not recognize Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem. The decision of the US Administration officially supports Israel’s policy of occupation. Read more »

By Boris Hammerschlag, Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League, 4.11.2017, http://the-isleague.com/

It seems that the decade-long split in the Palestinian leadership, between the secular Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority and the Islamist Hamas, has come to an end. Most Palestinians, suffering under an immeasurable number of layers of external as well as internal oppression, heaved a sigh of relief. Read more »

Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League

By Boris Hammerschlag

27/09/2017

The necessity of the formation of a united anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist front of the Palestinian citizens of Israel has been crystal clear for a long time, not only to socialist revolutionaries well-educated in Marxism and well-trained in class struggle, but also to most major ‘48 Palestinians. The ideological differences between the 4 parties – Hadash – socialist (albeit reformist), Balad – left-nationalist, Ra’am – Islamist, and Ta’al – center-nationalist, were significant but had no practical implications as far as participation in the Zionist parliament is concerned, since none of the parties ever stood a chance of being accepted as part of a coalition with any major Zionist party, and for obvious reasons, nor dramatically influence any major decision. Read more »

By Adam Smith & Boris Hammerschlag

The Internationalist Socialist League

13.8.2017

Last week, it has been announced by Israel’s Minister of Communications, Ayoub Kara, that a legal process has begun to shut down the Qatari-based media outlet’s offices in Jerusalem, following similar measures taken by other reactionary regimes in the region, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Read more »

By: Boris Hammerschlag

Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine)

www.the-isleague.com

22.07.2017

Yet another wave of violence is sweeping AlQuds (Jerusalem) and the holy al-Aqsa compound. A guerilla shooting attack by three Muslim Palestinian citizens of Israel, which happened last week (14.7) and led to the death of two Israeli Policemen, has been expectedly used by the Israeli government as an excuse to enact collective punishment, political arrests and murderous repression. The clashes that soon followed have claimed so far the lives of 3 Palestinians and 3 Israeli West Bank settlers with ~140 Palestinians injured. Read more »

In a World of Crisis, Wars and Revolutions, the creation of a new World Party of Socialist Revolution is more urgent than ever!

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), www.thecommunists.net

Comrades, Brothers and Sisters on all continents!

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends its May Day greetings to all fighters for the liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples throughout the world. There can be no doubt that we are living in historical times. The course of human history is changing at an accelerating pace. We are living in the midst of this vortex so that, in a very few years, the world will be very different from what it is today. Therefore, our most urgent task and responsibility as revolutionaries are to intervene in these events with a correct program and orientation. Only then will it be possible to create an organization that will unite all the fighting vanguards; one which will make a revolutionary imprint on the struggles of the coming epic. Read more »

Stop Prosecution for Solidarity with Palestine and for Opposition against the Military Dictatorship in Egypt!

We, the undersigned, are aware that a group of deputies of the Freiheitliche Partei, an extreme right-wing racist party led by HC Strache, has initiated a parliamentary inquiry against the Austrian section of the RCIT as well as against the leading organization of the Egyptian migrants in Austria. Referring to solidarity slogans chanted at an anti-racist demonstration in Vienna on the 26 November 2016, in support of Palestine as well as slogans which supported the resistance of the Egyptian people against the military dictatorship the parliamentary deputies of the Freiheitliche Partei have called for the Federal Ministry of the Interior to officially investigate these two organizations with the view of taking legal steps against them. Irrespective of our perspectives about the future of the Palestinian as well as the Egyptian people’s struggle for liberation, we protest against holding a parliamentary inquiry and we also oppose any state investigation and prosecution against these organizations.

Please send this short letter by email to the Austrian Parliament (medienservice@parlament.gv.at) as well as to the Austrian ministry of interior (pressestelle@bmi.gv.at). Please forward this email also to us: rcit@thecommunists.net

A Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine)

1. We, members of the Internationalist Socialist League, candidates for membership in the Balad party, wish to condemn sharply the arrest of MP Basel Ghattas, one of our party leaders. Firstly, we must note that Dr. Basel Ghattas was the only MP who signed, at the time, our petition calling the Austrian authorities not to prosecute the leader of our international organization, the “Revolutionary Communist International Tendency” (RCIT), Michael Probsting, for “sedition”. Now, that he himself is becoming a victim of political persecution at the hands of the Zionist establishment, it is an opportunity to publically thank him for that. Of course, even if he had refused to sign, it wouldn’t have changed a thing about our principled support for his immediate release. Read more »

Statement by the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine), Section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, 28.09.2016, www.the-isleague.com, www.thecommunists.net

On 18 September tens of activists of the National Democratic Assembly Party – Balad were detained by the police over unclear suspicions. The Israeli police and court have kept the allegations secret and were withholding them from both the public and those that have been arrested. Read more »

Important notice: This article was submitted as a response piece to the editorial board of “Local Call” (the Hebrew version of “+972 Magazine”) on July 24th, after it published a pro-Zionist guest article opposing the BDS aiming at sawing demoralization among its supporters. After it already underwent a series of amendments and proof-reading, we were notified, on the 27th, that the editorial board chose to reject our article stating “style and content” as the reason. While hoping that in the near future we might be able to produce an article which meets the standards set by “Local Call” as far as “style and content” goes, we wish to wholeheartedly thank our fellow Balad member, Orly Noy, for her proof-reading, constructive criticism and genuine attempt to have the article published in “Local Call”!

By: Yossi Schwartz (member of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency – RCIT and Central-Israel Branch of Balad)

Translated from Hebrew by: Boris Hammerschlag

Yonathan Mizrachi article (Why an economic boycott of Israel cannot succeed) is interesting but wrong. Its core premise is that given the shifts in the focus of capital and industrial production in the capitalist world, boycotting Israel cannot possibly be effective. Additionally, it claims that Israel’s propaganda accusing the BDS as a movement rooted in anti-Semitism is effective and therefore supporting it does more harm than good. Read more »

The Palestinian Liberation Struggle and the CWI’s Centrist Adaptation to Zionism

By Yossi Schwarz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 12.11.2015, http://www.the-isleague.com/

Prior to Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu visit to the US, many reporters around the world had expectations that the visit will be a failure as the US is distancing itself from Israel and, as a result, US military support for Israel will be reduced. Today the right wing in Israel is celebrating this visit as a great victory for Netanyahu’s policies. Read more »

By Yossi Schwarz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 2.9.2015

On August 30 we learned that a major industrial union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers in the US has voted to endorse the (BDS) movement against Israel. “The endorsed resolution points to Israel’s long history of violating the human rights of the Palestinians, starting with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48 that turned most of Palestine into the State of Israel. It calls for cutting off US aid to Israel, US support for a peace settlement on the basis of self-determination for Palestinians, and the right to return. ….” The resolution also endorses the worldwide BDS– Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – movement to pressure Israel into ending its apartheid over the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end the South African apartheid in the 1980s. UE is now the first U.S. national union to endorse BDS”. (1) Read more »

No Security, No Peace, No Social Justice – No Future in Zionism

– An open letter from anti-Zionist Jews to the workers, the poor, and the oppressed by Zionism –

Part A

By Adam Sharonsky

Friends, when the Israeli government repeatedly goes to war and the economic crisis continues to deepen, it is a good time to reconsider support for the Zionist idea.

The Zionist Idea and Its Implications

The basis of the Zionist idea is the notion that Jews are not able to live in peace, equality, and security in the same country as gentiles, and therefore they must establish their own state in the territory of the “Land of Israel.” Such a notion echoes the anit-Semitic idea that the Jew is a foreign element in the countries in which he lives. But as we all know, this very “Land of Israel” was inhabited along its length and breadth by another people, Arabs, who saw it as their homeland and called it Palestine. Read more »

No to Sectarian Divisions and Civil War! For a Workers’ and Popular Government!

Joint Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the RCIT Yemen, 3.4.2015, www.thecommunists.net

(1) Since the night of 25 March, a military alliance of reactionary foreign powers has been attacking Yemen. This gang of aggressors is led by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and includes all other monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula (except Oman) plus the reactionary regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Morocco, and Pakistan. In addition, it is also supported by Western imperialist powers like the US, Britain, and France as well as Israel. In an assault which Riyadh has dubbed “Asifat al-Hazm“ (Operation Decisive Storm), about one hundred Saudi warplanes plus allied forces are attacking the advancing Houthi rebels in seven different Yemeni cities. During the first nine days of this aggression, they have killed at least 519 people, including many children, and injured more than 1,700. Egypt has also sent warships to the coast of Yemen. In addition, Saudi Arabia has assembled as many as 150,000 troops along its border with Yemen, and Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan have expressed their readiness to take part in a ground offensive as well. Read more »

On the role of female socialist revolutionaries in the struggle against gender discrimination in the education system (in Israel)

By: Rotem Elisha

Forward

Hello everyone, my name is Rotem Elisha, I am a high school student from Ramla – Israel. At the beginning of 2014 I initiated a struggle by opening a Facebook page titled “No More Silence – Fight for Freedom and Equality”. The idea for this came up as I was confronted with the discriminatory rule in my school which prohibits female but not male students from wearing short pants and skirts. The excuse that was given to me by the school management was that school girls should dress in a “decent” manner. If girls should be allowed to show off their legs at school, they further explained, it might prevent boys from concentrating fully on studying and cause sexual harassment. Read more »

The Renewal of the Imperialist War and the Tasks of the Workers Movement

by Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 2.10.2014, www.thecommunists.net and www.the-isleague.com

In mid-September the US ruling class decided to bombard the Islamic State (IS, often called Daash in Arabic) in Syria. Already on the first day, American war planes killed or wounded dozens of Islamic State fighters in air strikes on the Syrian city of Raqqa and surrounding areas. It already started to attack IS fighters in Iraq in early August. Thus, we see that the imperialist war on Iraq did not end in December 2011. The official declaration, then, of US President Obama that the imperialist war had ended was an empty promise. The US is once again involved in a war against Iraq and Syria. Imperialism cannot survive without wars; but, as Lenin wrote, for humanity to survive we must destroy the imperialist system. Read more »

by Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 23.7.2014,
www.thecommunists.net and www.the-isleague.com

Israel’s barbaric war in Gaza is not merely against Hamas, but rather is the latest round of violence used by the Zionist project to create, fortify, and defend a colonialist settlement state for “the Jewish people” at the expense of the displaced indigenous population of Palestine. In this war, as in all colonial wars, it is the interest of the international working class to call for the victory of the oppressed over the oppressor, specifically, the Palestinians over Israel. Until now, more than 600 Palestinians, including many women and children, have been killed during the fighting in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, in Shuja’iya alone, located in the eastern part of the city of Gaza, more than sixty people were killed by heavy artillery and tank fire during the twenty-four hours between last Saturday and Sunday. Read more »

Report by Boris Hammerschlag, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 21.7.2014,  www.thecommunists.net  and www.the-isleague.com

On Saturday night, July 19, we attended a pacifist, anti-war demonstration organized by the Communist Party of Israel and its Hadash front, held in Haifa starting from 21:30. Read more »

by Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League
(RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine),
25.6.2014,
www.thecommunists.net and www.the-isleague.com

During the past week and a half, the attention of Israeli society has been focused on the reported abdication of three young settlers and the barbaric actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinians, actions which most Israelis support under the pretext of searching for the missing three. Read more »

by Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), November 2013, www.thecommunists.net and www.the-isleague.com

Western imperialists and some Arab states — the so-called “Friends of Syria,” which include the US, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates — would like to impose a transitional government composed of the pro-Western groups in the opposition as well as participation of the Baathist regime (with or without Assad himself); the Islamists oppose the entire idea of the Geneva conference aimed at achieving such a transitional government. Read more »