6 January 2009 – One of the most important protests against the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza took place on January 5 in Kandahar, the Afghan province under occupation by the Canadian army. About 800 Afghan protesters converged in Kandahar city, carrying banners reading “Death to Israel” and chanting anti-Israeli slogans.
According to the Ottawa Citizen, the protesters also demanded the immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO troops, including the 2,700 Canadians stationed in their region. Bismalla Afghanmal, a member of Kandahar’s provincial council, reportedly denounced bombing, whether it takes place in Afghanistan or Palestine.
The courageous Afghan protest underlines the aggressive role played by Canada’s government in promoting both NATO occupation of Afghanistan and Zionist occupation of Palestine.
The Harper government’s complicity in the Gaza massacre was condemned in Canada on January 3 by about 20,000 protesters across the country, including more than 10,000 in Toronto and 5,000 in Montreal. Demonstrators called on the Canadian government to condemn Israel’s latest aggression and to cut all political, economic, and military ties with Israel until it complies with international law.
“We are overwhelmed by the support we have received from Canadian civil society,” commented Kahled Mouammar, President of the Canadian Arab Federation. “The large number of people on the streets today shows that the Harper government is out of touch with the Canadian public.”
International Upsurge
In recent days, Israel’s crime against Gaza has spurred demonstrations across the world. It is the largest wave of coordinated anti-imperialist actions since the launching of the Iraq war in 2003.
In Toronto and elsewhere, large numbers of Muslim marchers were joined by participants from the population at large, including groups of anti-Zionist Jews.
According to press reports, up to 700,000 marched in Istanbul, Turkey. Forty thousand in Rabat, Morocco condemned the silence of the Arab regimes, and over 10,000 marched through Jakarta, Indonesia carrying Palestinian flags. Angry dissent was heard in Kashmir, Lebanon, and the Palestinian West Bank.
In Egypt, where the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship has been silent, hundreds of thousands took part in nationwide marches called by the Muslim Brotherhood. Many called on Arab governments to take action to protect Palestinians.
In London, England, more than 60,000 marched at the call of the Stop the War Coalition. Chanting “Shame on you, have my shoe,” protesters left hundreds of shoes in front of the residence of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Twenty thousand marched in Paris, and many thousands more made their opposition to Israel heard in the U.S., France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Australia, Holland, Austria, and other countries of the world.
Protests in Israel
Addressing a demonstration of 150,000 mostly Palestinian protesters in the northern Israeli town of Sakhnin, Knesset member Mohammed Barakeh said, “We are determined to stand with our brothers in Gaza to stop the bloodshed and massacre.” There were cries that that Egypt’s Mubarak is a “coward” who is “collaborating with the Americans.”
In Tel Aviv, Israel, 10,000 Palestinians and Israeli Jews marched side by side in a demonstration featuring many Palestinian flags. A prominent banner read, “You want to stop Hamas? Give Gaza hope, not war.” Another giant banner read, “Stop killing! Stop the siege! Stop the occupation!” As the rally drew to the end, police disappeared from the scene, exposing participants to a violent assault by rightist settler thugs.
The revolutionary government of Cuba responded promptly to the Israeli air raids on Gaza. Cuba “strongly condemns this genocidal action by the Israeli government” and calls for mobilization to demand an immediate end to Israeli attacks. The statement reiterated Cuba’s “unwavering support and solidarity with the suffering and heroic people” of Gaza. Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela also expressed “solidarity with the Palestinians against Israeli violence.”
Deadly toll
Ignoring international appeals for a cease-fire, Israel is continuing its ground advance in Gaza, killing an additional 30 civilians on January 5. It is bombarding Gaza City with shells of deadly white phosphorous, supposedly to create a smokescreen for advancing troops.
According to media reports, the death toll from the Israeli invasion, now more than 550, includes women, children, and men from all walks of life. Medical supplies in Gaza are running out; food is almost unavailable; many who venture out of doors are shot.
Adding insult to injury, Israel cynically condemns Hamas for exposing Gaza’s civilians to Israeli artillery and bombing. Canada’s mass media echoes this absurd claim.
The immediate goal of Israel’s invasion of Gaza is to punish Palestinians for resisting Israeli apartheid. More broadly, its long-term subjugation of the Palestinian people aims to occupy the Palestinians’ land, expel Palestinians en masse, and deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.
Background to slaughter
The run-up to the war in Gaza began in January 2006, when Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) won a decisive victory in elections in the Palestinian territory. The Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, then proposed a long-term cease-fire based on establishment of a Palestinian state, leaving Israel with its 1967 borders. The offer still stands.
Instead of responding, the Israeli government, working with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected Hamas government in the West Bank. But Hamas retained power in Gaza.
Israel then set out to strangle Gaza for the crime of voting for Hamas, against the desires of Tel Aviv and Washington.
Some militants in Gaza responded to the prolonged and devastating siege of their territory by firing rockets into Israeli territory. This ended in mid-2008, when Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire.
However, “during this alleged ceasefire, Israel continued to imposed its brutal siege on Gaza, restricting the flow of aid, medical supplied, fuel and other necessities of life into the territory. For the past two years, Gaza has been undergoing the daily violence of a wide-ranging humanitarian catastrophe triggered by severely reduced access to energy, food and medicines.” (Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid)
When the ceasefire ran out in December 2008, Israel tightened its blockade and set in motion its present assault, using renewed rocket attacks as a pretext. As unionist Ali Mallah told Toronto protesters on December 28, “If there was no occupation, there would be no rockets. Occupation is the worst form of terrorism. People have the right to resist their occupier by any means necessary.”
‘A bigger holocaust’
The present assault, planned over a six-month period, makes real the sinister threat made in February 2008 by Israel’s deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai. The people of Gaza, he said, would “bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust” if they continued to resist the intensification of the occupation.
This is a clear reference to Hitler’s genocidal actions against the Jewish people 60 years ago. For many years, the Gaza population of 1.5 million Palestinians has been besieged, blockaded, bombarded, and systematically denied the necessities of life. The Israeli government does not intend to kill every Palestinian, but they do aim to wipe Gaza off the map.
In fact, Zionism’s aggression against the Palestinians, over almost a century, can only be understood as an attempt to remove Palestine from the world’s family of nations. That is the Zionist “final solution.”
The Gaza Strip today is strikingly similar to the ghetto built by Hitler for the Jews of Warsaw: an open-air concentration camp, surrounded by high walls and checkpoints, and subject to systematic terror tactics, deprivation, and violence.
Israel’s attack on Gaza echoes Hitler’s assault on the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. But while Hitler’s actions were hidden at the time from the world’s peoples, today Israel acts openly, with the approval of Canada, the U.S., and Britain, while the whole world watches in horror.
Like the Warsaw Ghetto, Gaza is a story of an epic of suffering, destruction, and courageous resistance. The people of Gaza fight, like the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, with whatever they can get their hands on. But their weapons are puny and symbolic compared to the Israeli warplanes, artillery, tanks, and bombs that are razing the city to the ground.
Gaza, the Mideast, and the World
On November 24, 2008, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, pointed out to the world’s governments how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
“More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations.
“Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”
Even more, progressive forces worldwide are challenged to resist Israeli aggression and oppose the imperialist alliance that sustains Israel and wages war across the Mideast.
If Israel extinguishes the flame of resistance in Gaza, it will tighten its grip of imperialist occupation and oppression across the entire region. An Israeli victory would also encourage forces in Canada and other pro-Zionist countries that seek to stifle and repress pro-Palestinian voices and other solidarity movements in this country.
Powerful forces have tried to erase the crime against the Palestinians from the world’s memory, but Palestinian resistance continues, with increased sympathy from peoples around the world. The Palestinian resistance today forms part of the vanguard of freedom struggles internationally, and Palestinian solidarity must be central to antiwar efforts in Canada and abroad.
The truth about the crime against the Palestinians must not be silenced.
As the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) stated on December 27, we must pledge to “continue mobilizing to respond to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions” against Israel.
Information on continuing solidarity actions is available from the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (www.caiaweb.org) and Palestine House (www.palestinehouse.com).
Suzanne Weiss is a member of Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism and of CAIA.
First published Socialist Voice