An orgy of murder, kidnap, theft and hostage taking in state terror campaign
Boycott Israel, the Apartheid state!
Roland Rance
With the murder of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Abu Ali Mustafa, and the creeping reoccupation of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has intensified its onslaught against the Palestinian people to a state of near-open warfare.
In other acts of aggression over the past week, Israel has attempted to murder the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), threatened to shoot a bishop and a key UN official, and held civilians hostage as human shields when it occupied family homes and an orphanage as command posts during its invasion of Beit Jala, next door to Bethlehem.
Israel’s latest escalation has embarrassed its western backers. Foreign secretary Jack Straw has said that the actions are "excessive, disproportionate and threaten to stoke the cycle of violence", and the US State Department has also been critical.
But this has not stopped Israel’s ongoing confiscation of Palestinian land, destruction of homes and olive groves, expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, and siege of the Palestinian communities, which continue in full force.
At the same time, Israel, with the unwavering support of the USA, is disrupting the UN conference against racism in Durban, in order to prevent delegates criticising Israeli policies and practices as racist.
Abu Ali Mustafa was elected head of the PFLP last year, following the resignation of its ailing leader Dr George Habash. Together with Habash, he had established the PFLP after the 1967 war, when Israel seized those parts of Palestine it had not occupied in 1948.
For the next twenty years, the PFLP was second in importance among Palestinian organisations only to Yassir Arafat’s Fatah. It was famed for its militancy, its hijackings, and its rejection of any compromise over the Palestinian right of return or the establishment of a unitary, secular and democratic Palestine.
It played a significant role during the earlier Intifada, when it was centrally involved in establishing and leading the Unified National Leadership which directed the struggle – in effect, a soviet-type body, similar to those set up during many revolutionary struggles.
The PFLP declined in significance with the growth of Hamas and other Islamist organisations, when Arafat turned to open dialogue and compromise.
According to recent polls, it commands the support of about 8% of the Palestinian population, though this support is believed to be growing.
The assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa marks the first time in this uprising that Israel has targeted a clearly political, rather than allegedly military, leader.
Since his election, Abu Ali had reinvigorated the PFLP, and was regarded as second in importance only to Arafat within the PLO leadership. Despite the restrictions on movement in the occupied territories, some 50,000 mourners are reported to have attended his funeral.
Over the summer, Israel has also continued its policy of reoccupation of areas from which it had earlier withdrawn as part of the Oslo agreement.
Areas of Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Gaza and Jenin have all been reoccupied; some only briefly, while Israeli troops remain in others.
In Beit Jala, Israeli troops occupied the home of Muhammad Hassan al Masheikheh, refusing to allow the 20 family members to leave, while they used the home as a sniper and military command post.
They also occupied a Lutheran orphanage, similarly holding the 45 children there as human shields; they were only able to gain access to the building after threatening to shoot the Lutheran Bishop to the Holy Land, who held the keys.
In Gaza, Israeli troops refused to allow the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to enter the Rafah refugee camp, threatening to shoot him if his convoy did not turn back.
Under this relentless attack, increasing numbers of Palestinians are calling for an international peacekeeping force to replace the Israeli presence in the occupied territories.
While this call is understandable, it is not one that we can support. Indeed, we would warn that, while such a presence might provide a short-term easing of the situation, in the long term it would prove disastrous to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Troops from third countries would clearly not have the emotional commitment to the biblical borders of Israel and to the settlers, and might initially be more even-handed than Israeli forces.
But calling on imperialism to provide a military solution to a situation which it has created, and to bring to an end an occupation which it has always supported, is a dangerous illusion.
The powers which imposed "order" in Iraq and Serbia can be no allies of people fighting for their freedom.
While we oppose such a call, it is significant that many Israeli activists have endorsed it. This reflects a deep and growing alienation from the national consensus.
However, this call is still a retreat from the unequivocal call for a complete, immediate and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in 1967 – the only interim demand which we can support.
Opposition to this call, however, does not mean opposition to any demand for international action. In particular, we support the call for a boycott of Israeli goods and of tourism to Israel.
Activists across the world are increasingly coming to recognise the similarities between Zionist Israel and apartheid South Africa.
To mark the UN anti-racism conference in Durban, the South Africa Palestine Solidarity Comm-ittee recently issued a statement which noted:
"We, South Africans who have lived through apartheid cannot be silent as another entire people are treated as non-human beings; people without rights or human dignity and facing daily humiliation.
"We cannot permit a ruthless state to use military jets, helicopter gunships and tanks on civilians. We cannot accept state assassinations of activists, the torture of political prisoners, the murder of children and collective punishment…
"Israel is, simply, an Apartheid state… We support the demand to isolate Apartheid Israel, the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees and the dismantling of racist settlements.
"We pledge ourselves to be part of a new International Anti-Apartheid movement against Israel".
A further development in the international campaign against Israel was the attempt by Danish MP Soren Sondergaard, a member of the Danish section of the Fourth International, to arrest Israel’s new ambassador to Copenhagen, Carmi Gilon.
Gilon, a former head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s security service), was responsible for the torture of countless Palestinian prisoners, and has justified using torture.
In a move almost as embarrassing for Denmark as for Israel, the Danish foreign minister has decided that Gilon cannot be arrested because he enjoys diplomatic immunity.
This campaign, and the civil action in a Belgian court against Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon for his role in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in 1987, have caused great difficulties for Israel’s foreign office, which is apparently also concerned at the possibility of similar action in London.
The anniversary of the 1987 massacres will be marked by a rally in London on 13 October, organised jointly by Al-Awda (the Palestine Right to Return Coalition), and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Further details are available at www.al-awda.org.uk/ or www.palestinecampaign.org