beltov
18th July 2006, 01:21
Hi,
The ICC has just published a statement on the deepening crisis in the Middle East. Here are some selected quotes as the whole thing is rather long to post. The full text is available here:
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/july_06_middle_east
Originally posted by "ICC"
The stated reason for this major offensive by the Israeli state is the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hamas in the south and Hizbollah in the north. But this is just a pretext: Israel has used the crisis as an opportunity for trying to cripple or liquidate the Hamas regime in the occupied territories, and for demanding that the Lebanese state disarm Hizbollah (something which is completely beyond its means). It is also trying to draw Syria and Iran into the conflict...
Threat of regional war
The present conflict thus contains the threat of escalating into a regional war. And because the Middle East is such a vital strategic region, every war there involves conflict not just between Israel and the Palestinians or its Arab neighbours, but between the great world powers...
In short, the situation throughout the Middle East is demonstrating not America’s control of the situation, but the spread of uncontrollable chaos. This is shown graphically by Israel’s ultra-aggressive attitude. Although the Bush administration is obliged to declare its support for Israel, there is a sense in which it is being pulled along behind the adventures of the Zionist state rather than the other way round...
The rivals of the US prepare to take advantage
As for the other great powers, they are waving peace placards as they did prior to the invasion of Iraq... These powers, however, are not interested in peace but in maintaining their own spheres of influence in the region. They will certainly try to profit from America’s weakness, but none of them are in a position to take on its role as the world’s policeman, and their conflicting imperialist interests make it impossible for them to evolve any coherent common policies...
All the states and forces involved in this conflict are busy drawing up military and diplomatic plans which correspond to their own interests. They certainly use the most ‘rational’ methods of calculation to arrive at these plans, but all of them are caught up in a fundamentally irrational process: the inexorable slide of the capitalist system into imperialist war, which today is increasingly taking on the character of a war of each against all. Even the mighty US is being dragged into this abyss...
Class struggle is the only way out
...The only opposition to imperialism is the resistance of the working class against exploitation, because this alone can grow into an open struggle the capitalist system, a struggle to replace this dying system of profit and war with a society geared towards human need...
In the Middle East the spiral of nationalist conflicts has made class struggle very difficult, but it still exists – in demonstrations of unemployed Palestinian workers against the Palestinian authorities, in strikes by Israeli public sector workers against the government’s austerity budgets. But the most likely source of a breach in the wall of war and hatred in the Middle East lies outside the region – in the growing struggle of the workers in the central capitalist countries. The best example of class solidarity we can give to the populations suffering the direct horrors of imperialist war in the Middle East is to develop the struggle that has already been launched by the workers-to-be in the French schools and universities , by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, the postal workers of Belfast or the airport workers of London.
What do people think of this? Is there agreement that:
1) The chaos threatens to engulf the whole region?
2) Far from bringing peace and prosperity the conflict between rival imperialisms can only mean MORE war and barbarism?
3) There can't be a 'regional' solution to the problems in the Middle East within the global framework of capitalism, that only a world-wide revolution can put an end to war?
Beltov.
The ICC has just published a statement on the deepening crisis in the Middle East. Here are some selected quotes as the whole thing is rather long to post. The full text is available here:
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/july_06_middle_east
Originally posted by "ICC"
The stated reason for this major offensive by the Israeli state is the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hamas in the south and Hizbollah in the north. But this is just a pretext: Israel has used the crisis as an opportunity for trying to cripple or liquidate the Hamas regime in the occupied territories, and for demanding that the Lebanese state disarm Hizbollah (something which is completely beyond its means). It is also trying to draw Syria and Iran into the conflict...
Threat of regional war
The present conflict thus contains the threat of escalating into a regional war. And because the Middle East is such a vital strategic region, every war there involves conflict not just between Israel and the Palestinians or its Arab neighbours, but between the great world powers...
In short, the situation throughout the Middle East is demonstrating not America’s control of the situation, but the spread of uncontrollable chaos. This is shown graphically by Israel’s ultra-aggressive attitude. Although the Bush administration is obliged to declare its support for Israel, there is a sense in which it is being pulled along behind the adventures of the Zionist state rather than the other way round...
The rivals of the US prepare to take advantage
As for the other great powers, they are waving peace placards as they did prior to the invasion of Iraq... These powers, however, are not interested in peace but in maintaining their own spheres of influence in the region. They will certainly try to profit from America’s weakness, but none of them are in a position to take on its role as the world’s policeman, and their conflicting imperialist interests make it impossible for them to evolve any coherent common policies...
All the states and forces involved in this conflict are busy drawing up military and diplomatic plans which correspond to their own interests. They certainly use the most ‘rational’ methods of calculation to arrive at these plans, but all of them are caught up in a fundamentally irrational process: the inexorable slide of the capitalist system into imperialist war, which today is increasingly taking on the character of a war of each against all. Even the mighty US is being dragged into this abyss...
Class struggle is the only way out
...The only opposition to imperialism is the resistance of the working class against exploitation, because this alone can grow into an open struggle the capitalist system, a struggle to replace this dying system of profit and war with a society geared towards human need...
In the Middle East the spiral of nationalist conflicts has made class struggle very difficult, but it still exists – in demonstrations of unemployed Palestinian workers against the Palestinian authorities, in strikes by Israeli public sector workers against the government’s austerity budgets. But the most likely source of a breach in the wall of war and hatred in the Middle East lies outside the region – in the growing struggle of the workers in the central capitalist countries. The best example of class solidarity we can give to the populations suffering the direct horrors of imperialist war in the Middle East is to develop the struggle that has already been launched by the workers-to-be in the French schools and universities , by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, the postal workers of Belfast or the airport workers of London.
What do people think of this? Is there agreement that:
1) The chaos threatens to engulf the whole region?
2) Far from bringing peace and prosperity the conflict between rival imperialisms can only mean MORE war and barbarism?
3) There can't be a 'regional' solution to the problems in the Middle East within the global framework of capitalism, that only a world-wide revolution can put an end to war?
Beltov.