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slaughter in the Middle East |
Once again in the Middle East innocent workers are being killed and
useful
structures destroyed. The immediate cause was the capture in a raid from
Lebanon of two Israeli soldiers but the ultimate isssue is, once again,
who controls this oil-rich region: the US and its allies or various
local
elites?
Israel was set up by colonists from Europe on the basis of fables
recounted in a book supposedly emanating from a god, and has been armed
and financed by the United States as its only reliable ally in the
region.
Over the years it has acted as America’s gendarme there to deal with
sections of the local Arab ruling classes who have sought to challenge
US
domination. These sections, in their turn, have identified Israel for
what
it is and have sought to destroy it and have been able to win
considerable
popular support.
This is not to say that Israel is under direct US control. The rulers of
Israel have their own agenda and can, and do, act independently of their
protector. But that’s a price the US has to pay to avoid sending its own
troops to fight and die there. The US would like some compromise
solution
between Israel and local Arab elites but in the meantime gives Israel a
virtual free hand, only issuing ritual appeals to it to exercise
restraint.
Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon, is armed and financed by two
states whose regime the US has vowed to change: Iran and Syria. It is
entirely possible that the present crisis was deliberately provoked by
Iran, which has ambitions to be the dominant regional power, as a means
of
bringing counter-pressure on the US in the diplomatic trial of strength
going on over its nuclear programme, a means of showing that it too is
not
without bargaining counters. Israel, incidentally, is without doubt
already a nuclear power, which shows up the US hypocrisy over the spread
of nuclear weapons.
So, as a conflict over which states and ruling classes should dominate
the
region, no working class interest is involved except in so far as it is
they who are its innocent victims and need the killing, maiming and
destruction to stop immediately. Socialists spontaneously sympathise
with
oppressed workers anywhere but this does not mean that we favour the
solutions popular amongst them.
The destruction of Israel would achieve nothing. A Palestinian state
would
be a capitalist state. "Anti-imperialism" is the slogan of local elites
who wish to dominate the region in place of the US, a situation which
would still leave the mass of the population there exploited and
oppressed
with the eternal problem of finding enough money to buy the things they
need to live.
Capitalism is a war-prone society with a built-in clash of interests
between states over markets, sources of raw materials, trade routes and
strategic points to protect these. In the Middle East the conflict is
over
oil, and strategic points to protect its supply and transport, which has
already led to many wars there.
The only lasting way out is to get rid of capitalism and replace it by a
world society of common ownership and democratic control. On that basis,
the resources of the world, including oil, could be extracted and used
for
the benefit of all the people of the world. Poverty and misery in the
Middle East, as elsewhere, could be ended once and for all. The waste of
arms and the horrors of war would disappear.
Socialism is, quite literally and without exaggeration, the hope of
humanity.
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Introducing The Socialist Party
The Socialist Party is like no other political party in Britain.
It is made up of people who have joined together because we want to get
rid of the profit system and establish real socialism.
Our aim is to persuade others to become socialist and act for
themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring
about the kind of society that we are advocating in this journal.
We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists
for socialism.
We are not a reformist party with a programme of policies to patch up
capitalism.
We use every possible opportunity to make new socialists. We publish
pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, DVDs and various other informative
material.
We also give talks and take part in debates; attend rallies, meetings
and demos; run educational conferences; host internet discussion
forums, make films presenting our ideas, and contest elections when
practical.
Socialist literature is available in Arabic,Bengali, Dutch, Esperanto,
French, German, Italian, Polish,Spanish, Swedish and Turkish as well as
English.
The more of you who join the Socialist Party the more we will be able
to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw
on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement which
you will be able to bring us.
The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader
and there are no followers. So, if you are going to join we want you to
be sure that you agree fully with what we stand for and that we are
satisfied that you understand the case for socialism.
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Socialist
Standard August
2006
Page 3
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