Freedom Socialist Party
International Executive Committee - PO Box 266 West Brunswick Vic 3055
AUSTRALIA - Phone/fax 61-3-9386-5065 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The following statement was originally issued jointly by the U.S section
of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women
Protest Israeli Attacks on Palestinians!
For 50 years, Israeli military forces have had their boots on the necks of
Palestinians. Palestinians have resisted. Any "peace agreement" that
prolongs military occupation and avoids fundamental issues of territory and
autonomy is just a forced march to nowhere powered by Israeli helicopter
rockets against Palestinian rocks and rage.
There will be no end to fighting in Palestine as long as the U.S., which
underwrites Israel's oppressive might, oversees various "summits."
Washington is hardly impartial as it focuses on ensuring American profits
from Middle East oil. The U.N., itself a instrument of imperialism, as
shown by the bombing of Iraq, has been powerlessness to resolve Palestinian
grievances for over 5 decades. Nor will peace result if political power in
Israel or Palestine defaults to rightwing religious fundamentalists.
The solution must be found in deliberations of those who have the most to
gain from a just cessation of hostilities: Israeli and Palestinian workers,
feminists, intellectuals and the parties that represent them. Arabs and
Jews--including many survivors of the Holocaust--can and must find a way to
reside together in the region; they lived harmoniously for centuries and
can do so again.
The Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women are appalled at the
hypocritical condemnations of Arab violence by spokespeople for Israel and
the U.S., two countries which are steeped in violence. There is a
difference between the violence of the slave and that of the master. One
fights for freedom. The other to subjugate.
Israeli officials and U.S. media exhibit unmitigated racism in describing
the deaths of eight Israelis (most of them soldiers) as a barbaric tragedy,
while minimizing the murders of over one hundred Israeli-Arab and
Palestinian civilians.
In a war of independence, it often doesn't matter who fires the first
bullet in a particular battle. But this current rebellion was clearly
sparked by rightwing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to
Jerusalem accompanied by 1,000 troops. Sharon chose this incendiary action
to bury the ill-fated peace process in a bid for leadership of the
rightwing Likud Party.
The Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women support Palestinian statehood
as a step toward a bilateral socialist, secular state in Palestine, run by
Arabs and Jews as equals. For history has taught us that the liberation of
one oppressed group cannot be won at the expense of another oppressed group.
U.S. out of the Middle East!
Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank!
Issued by: Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women
5018 Rainier Ave S., Seattle, WA 98118 =80 Fax: 1-206-723-7691
FSP Phone: 206-722-2453, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.socialism.com
RW Phone: 1-206-722-6057, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
10/00
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