The tragedy of what is happening in Gaza, and indeed the West Bank, has served to highlight how the extreme right-wing nature of modern capitalism can quickly descend into authoritarianism. It has thus exposed the lie that we in the West live in a democracy. It is abundantly clear that the people of the world are overwhelmingly opposed to their governments’ continuing support for Israel as it prosecutes its genocidal war against Palestinians – and yet the world’s citizens are being ignored.
The Social Justice Party offers its wholehearted support for university students and youth across the world who are courageously protesting against commercial arrangements with Israel. In the United States, law enforcement agencies are on the one hand ignoring the violence being visited on the protesters by far-right thugs and then moving in themselves to brutalize and arrest these young protesters.
Exactly how the United States government can think their obvious hypocrisy goes unnoticed is amazing. When we see the violent suppression of peaceful protests in countries deemed to be ‘enemies’ of the West, we are reminded on a daily basis by the media about how lucky we are to live in a democracy! Yet we see this very same suppression by the US against its own citizens. What this clearly reveals is that in reality, we in the West have no greater freedom to protest than working class people in Russia, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
What of the politicians who are supposedly offering ‘choice’? The statements about unfolding events around these protests from Biden and Trump are virtually indistinguishable in the manner in which they condemn the protests. And here in the UK? Starmer and Sunak are in lock-step with not only their political support for Israel but their willingness to continue selling arms to them.
