N early two weeks after the invasion started on April 3, the media finally managed to break through the Israeli cordon surrounding Jenin refugee camp. But it is almost impossible for even the best journalists or the most talented photographers to convey the real horror of what has happened inside The Times describes as the "camp of the dead" and The Independent calls " a human tomb", with "grisly evidence of a war crime" Janine di Giovanni comments in The Times: "Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seef such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life". Jenin camp was home to 15,000 refugees, driven off their land by the Zionists in 1948. The much-feted Oslo accord and the establishment of the Bantustan Palestinian authority did not create the them. Not content with slaughtering hundreds men. women and children -the Israeli army has blocked ambulances removing the bodies. Corpses have either been left to rot - or have themselves been bulldozed into mass graves.
Many people oose injuries from Israeli ammunition were not in themselves life-threatening have bled to death because medical teams have been barred from access to the camp.
Jenin is a particularly vile example of what the Israeli back from Kamalan by Sussey University students and entertainer Jeremy Hardy got a glimpse both of the horror of what the Palestinian people face day after day -and of their courage in the face of this indescribable nightmare.
This Intifada has a huge echo across the world - and those who are going to the Occupied Terrorities to act as human shields are playing a vital role as part of building solidarity with the struggle.
Yet again Tony Blair has MARCH for Palestine Assemble 12 noon Central London Rally Trafalgar Square Called by Palestine Solidarity Campaign campaign against New support for the needs of the Labour's drive to privatisation, working class. has taken the novel step of In many areas the Alliance will writing to all 8,000 Labour be the only party committed to council candidates demanding oppose privatisation, fighting that they sign a 6-point pro- for an expansion of council gramme opposing any further housing, and challenging central privatisation as a condition of government refusal to give GMB support. councils the cash they need to Other public sector unions sustain vital services. The could usefully follow this lead Alliance also brings in a nationand pile on the pressure against wide policy of fighting racism, Blairite candidates in every supporting asylum seekers, and area. opposing the Blair-Bush war New Labour's track record drive. suggests that few Party candi- Given the relatively low turndates will be able to pass the out in council elections, there GMB test. But that raises the are hopes that local campaignquestion of which party work- ing by the Alliance can secure a ing class voters should support. respectable share of the vote, Once again the Lib Dems are and force a genuine debate on presenting an apparently pro- the key issues. gressive and comparatively Other socialist and "left" face at national working class candidates level, while their coun- will also be running, such cillors in practice work as veteran anti-cuts cam, whether in paigner June Hautot, who their own right, or with I has won the backing of the Labour, or (as in 'Battersea and Wandsworth Oxford) with the Greens Trades Council in her challenge - to put forward their to one of the last remaining own variety of cuts, clo- flagship Tory councils.
sures and privatisation. Once more working people However there will be a in many areas now have a real developing challenge this year chance to vote socialist and from the left, with the Socialist take a stand in defence of pubAlliance standing over 200 can- lic services. Every blow struck didates in selected wards in a against the Blairites, every sucnumber of towns and cities cess and every inch of progress across England, taking up local notched up by the left will help issues, but also putting forward strengthen the fight for a gena common 7-point programme lilne nollica atornarivo tor fna and a platform of consistent labour movement as a whole.