We, members of the Internationalist Socialist League, denounce all forms of oppression against the Palestinian people, whether in the territories Israel occupied in 1948, or the ones in 1967. We recognize the right of the Palestinian people to struggle against occupation and oppression in all territories controlled by Israel – a Zionist-imperialist Apartheid state.
According to the information we managed to gather online, Samer alIsawi was arrested in 2000 for firearm possession, without any proof he had had any intention to use it, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released during the prisoner exchange deal for Gilad Shalit. However, shortly later he was arrested again for trying to reach the city of Ramallah and allegedly breaking his terms of parole. The military court, which is nothing but a pathetic excuse for any type of institution of justice, sentenced him for 20 more years in prison.
Samer went on a hunger strike protesting his arrest which has recently reached its 180th day. Needless to say that he is now facing a serious threat to his life. This draconian sentence is particularly shameless when in the background the Palestinian people as a whole is being systematically oppressed by Israel. It is amazingly legal under the “Emergency Regulations (1945)” that Israel inherited from the British imperialists. Dov Joseph, Israel’s 1st Minister of Justice, labeled them as worse than Nazi law. On top of these regulations the military decrees of the occupying army were installed in 1967.
The struggle to release Samer alIsawi and all the other political prisoners, is being waged in a time of one of the deepest crises in capitalist history, which serves as evidence for its rapid decay. Imperialism responds by attempting to impose upon the working masses and even the petit-bourgeoisie (called “the middle class” by the media) the full price of the crisis, and at the same time launching attacks agains various oppressed nations to forcefully obtain control over their natural resources such as oil, gold and Uranium. The struggle among the imperialists over resources and super-exploited labor, could even lead to a 3rd world war.
That is why we witness war after war waged by the imperialist against African nations (Mali being a current example), as well as Middle Eastern (Libya) and Asian (Afghanistan) nations, under the guise of “War Against Terror.” However, these onslaughts are not left unanswered. The working class and oppressed peoples respond to the deepening exploitation and mass murder by raising their level of struggle in many countries around the world.
Serious historians could point to the similarity between current events and the period between World War I and World War 2. If the working class today had had a revolutionary leadership, like Lenin and Trotsky, we would have been living in a socialist society by now. A good example for the lack of such leadership is Stalinism itself, which became increasingly corrupt until becoming yet another imperialist force on the eve of World War 2. Among its notable betrayals is the military and political support it granted to the establishment of the Zionist state.
The crisis coupled with the severe attack on the, already low, living standards of the working masses, fuels the revolutionary struggle in the Arab world – in Egypt against the new dictator Mursi, and in Syria against the murderous Assad regime. The partials and democratic demands the working class and the peasants are raising cannot be attained without the working class leading the masses replacing the bourgeoisie and smashing its state apparati – military and police. These state are serving imperialism and should be replaced by workers’ states – the transitional phase between capitalism and socialism.
The fact that Mubarak’s dictatorship was replaced by Mursi’s proves what we have been claiming all along. That is also why we do not trust the National Salvation Front in Egypt which is headed by a bourgeois leadership, as well as remnants of Mubarak’s regime such as Muhammad alBaradei and Amr Musa. Without a revolutionary leadership of the working class, a dictatorship will be replaced by a dictatorship and nothing will change.
To us, those who live under the rule of Zionist Apartheid, have a special interest in the victory of the regional revolutions. These revolutions may not only liberate the region from imperialist control, but also ignite the spark of a revolutionary fire which could spread to the working class all around the world. When proven beyond any reasonable doubt that dictatorships could be overthrown, especially the ones that for decades had been considered as “islands of stability”, as in Syria and Egypt, the working masses all around the world would come the conclusion that their own oppressors are not invincible, even if overthrowing them will not prove to be a particularly easy task.
Victorious revolutions, based on the working class and the poor masses, will also ensure the downfall of the Zionist Apartheid regime. This regime is not only dangerous to the Palestinians and Arabs of the region, but also serves as a death-trap to the Israeli Jews themselves. Israel is backed by the rest of the imperialists and is therefore able to defeat weak pro-imperialist regimes who fear the possibility of arming the masses. However, under revolutionary leadership, these countries would mobilize and arm the working and poor masses to defend the revolution and to liberate the region.
While we are demonstration for the release of Samer alIsawi and all the other Palestinian political prisoners, Netanyahu is actively supporting an apartheid state and seeks coalition with the religious pro-apartheid right wing party “The Jewish Home”, and also include, as a fig-leaf, Yair Lapid who is most popular among the Zionist middle class.
At the same time, and not surprisingly, the PA, Israel’s servant in the west-bank, declares its willingness to enter negotiations with this government. This is yet another proof of the treacherous nature of the bourgeoisie, even of oppressed nations, which always ends up collaborating with the oppressors. If Israel had let it, Hamas would have also agreed to the same type of collaboration, as it did during the popular Intifada, and gladly so, much like Mursi. The only working class in the region which consistently possesses revolutionary interests is the Arab one. The fires of class struggle will forge the revolutionary consciousness and with it revolutionary parties, without which imperialism and its collaborators will remain victorious, history will keep repeating itself.
So what are you suggesting?! We are often asked, and answer without flinching: we support the establishment of a Palestinian workers state from the river to the sea, in a socialist federation of the Middle East. This solution will also liberate the Israeli Jewish workers from their role as thugs for imperialism, which they perform only because of the privileges awarded to them in return on the expense of the Palestinian masses.
Only victorious revolutions would weaken the Zionist grip over the Israeli working class. How do we know?! We are often asked, and our answer is: we know this because only after the October revolution in 1917 did history recall the transformation of Zionist colonialist Jewish workers in Palestine into anti-Zionist communist revolutionaries who established the Communist Party of Palestine. As many of its counterparts around the world, this party also decayed under the influence of Stalinism. Today it supports the PA and continues to babble about the “peace process” and “two states for two peoples”, and usually deep theoretical and political problems which lead to counter-revolutionary positions, have symptoms in the form of organizational corruption and degeneration.
Release Samer alIsawi!
Release All Palestinian Political Prisoners!
For the return of the refugees!
For the Establishment of a Constituent Assembly of All Residents of Palestine and the Refugees!
For a Palestinian Workers State from the River to the Sea in a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!