Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 27.10.2023
Yesterday I went to a meeting in a closed hall called for by the leaderships of the Palestinians citizens of Israel against the genocide of the people of Gaza, but it turned out that the meeting was canceled by the Zionist police. This cancellation is part of the attacks on the democratic rights of Arabs and the Jews who oppose the genocide of the Palestinians.
There is a witch hunt against those who do not support the Zionists war crimes. Those who dare and express their opposition are fired from the place of work, expel from schools and universities, attacked by the police if they try to demonstrate against the war crimes of Israel and support the right of self determination for the Palestinians, arrested and in the West-Bank attacked by the settlers protected by the Zionist army.
Israel is not the only imperialist state that uses the war to attack the democratic rights. A liberal democracy in the western imperialist state is a regime that belongs to the past.
In Germany the Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will seek to block individuals who have committed the crime in her eyes of opposing the genocide of the Palestinians. The social democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday that he was outraged by the antisemitic agitation spreading to Germany. He sees opposition to killing Palestinians in Gaza by the carpet bombing as Anti-Semitism. The police in Berlin attacked a demonstration against the war crimes of Israel. This goes hand in hand with New German legislation that aims to make it easier to deport asylum seekers.
“”It is outrageous, it is shocking, it is unacceptable not being able to express yourself when there is a live-streamed massacre,” said Walid Atallah, 61, president of a regional association of Palestinians that was barred from holding an Oct. 14 protest in Paris. Police cited the risk of violence and the group’s failure to condemn Hamas” [1]
“France’s top administrative court has since ruled against a blanket ban on demonstrations that support Palestinians, but it granted that local authorities could block protests on a case-by-case basis, and that “in the current context, marked by strong international tensions and the resurgence of anti-Semitic acts in France,” demonstrations in support of Hamas or attacks on Israel raised legitimate public order concerns” [2]
In the U.S last June, “Biden embraced the antisemitism definition that has upended free speech in Europe. The definition conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. it’s been used to justify punitive action against Palestine advocates” [3]
Biden loves to speak on the U.S concern with human rights in contrast to Russia and China, but in the real America “President Biden’s time in office has been concurrent to a devastating period of backsliding on reproductive rights and increases in vitriolic anti-LGBTQI+ attacks at the state level, all in a political climate informed by structural racism and socio-economic injustice,” said Amanda Klasing, national director of government relations and advocacy at Amnesty International USA” [4]
For him human rights mean the right of Israel to commit genocide in Gaza with American weapons. As these lines are written Israel murdered 3000 children in Gaza and now is bombing South Gaza where the Palestinians in the North of Gaza told by Israel to move to the south for their safety.
Clearly the imperialists are using the war on Gaza in the same way they used the Corona to attack the rights achieved in long and bloody struggles. In the epoch of decline of capitalism there is no place for democratic rights in the eyes of the ruling classes and their governments.
Fight for democratic rights!
Down with the Zionists war criminals!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/26/palestine-protest-ban-france-germany/
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/26/palestine-protest-ban-france-germany/
[3] https://theintercept.com/2023/06/06/antisemitism-definition-israel-palestine/
[4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/usa-biden-and-modi-must-address-grave-human-rights-concerns-during-summit/