Against their bigoted anti-working class laws, and their malign wars

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
17 April 2024

A watershed moment, apparently, on 13 April: the first time Iran has launched a direct attack on Israel. So yes, this was was also significant in the fact that US, British, French, but also Jordanian jets helped the Israel Defence Force and its "Iron Dome" repel the 300 Iranian missiles and drones.

    It looked like a video-game-show, and that was exactly its purpose: both sides knew very well what the outcome would be. It was meant to be a demonstration of possibilies - and for the Iranians themselves, no doubt also a test. It proved why their side, even with all its allies in the region, could never win a war against imperialist might and its ever more reactionary proxies like the armed-to-the-teeth Ultra-nationlist, Israeli regime.

    The hysteria which followed, however, and the "will he, won't he?" speculation over Netanyahu's next move was also deliberately over-the-top. Nobody should be surprised by this either. Official propaganda has been in overdrive, trying to convince the public of the legitimacy of the government's support for the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza/the West Bank. Not to mention the multiple Israeli strikes against targets in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the latest of which blew up the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing 16 people - and provoked the response in question.

    Given his "ironclad defence of Israel", in imitation of US Presidont Biden, Foreign Secretary "Lord" Cameron went so far as to say that "the truly malign actor in the region is Iran"! So, forget about the over 34,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, under instruction of the (non-malign?) Netanyahu war cabinet, fully backed by Cameron's own (non-malign?) lordly self and his US/EU counterparts! This verges on conspiratorial thinking!

    Of course, the political stakes for Netanyahu, but also for Biden, who sits on his one shoulder and for Sunak, sitting on the other, are high.

They don't restrain themselves

As the melodrama over possible escalation to fullscale regional war continues, world politcal leaders talk about "restraint", citing international law, the rules of engagement, the right to defence, the right to attack, etc... And now Cameron himself is talking "restraint" directly into Netanyahu's ear.

    The politicians think the public has lost its memory. Did the US/Britsh imperialist leaders exercise "restraint" during their invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? And wasn't the 2003 Iraq war "illegal" under international law? It's illegal to torture prisoners too, but they did it. As for the kiling of civilians in Gaza, to underline this "legality", BBC Radio 4 presenter was officially reprimanded for referring to Palestinian deaths as "murder"!

    It's not only on a world scale where the system of law exposes itself as a convenient and one-sided smokescreen for profit-protection and the interests of the international - imperialist - establishment and its institutions (and a lethal one, let's not forget!). It happens close to home, too.

    What else can be said about the daily revelations from the Post Office Horizon Inquiry? The Post Office may have initiated, but the state and successive governments presided over the conviction of 900+ sub-postmastars for theft, condoning the destruction of their lives and driving at least 4 to suicide, over a period of 23 years - and not one institutional eyebrow was raised.

    Belatedly, it's called a "miscarriage of justice"! But this is the "normal" justice of a system which routinely deals out penalties, unfair dismissals, failings and physical and mental violence against ordinary working people who try to stand up against it.

They're rotten ..and fragile

Conveniently pushed into the background by Iran's attack on Israel, is the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in Rafah, who have nowhere to hide from an impending ground invasion. And so is the famine in the northern part of the Strip where children are suffering from malnutrition due to the obstruction of food aid by Israeli forces.

    Also being largely ignored, is the increasing repression against Palestinians who try to live their lives on the West Bank under Israeli apartheid, while religious Zionist settlers, protected by the Israeli army, invade what remains of their land.

    It may be difficult to understand how politicians like Cameron, Sunak and Starmer have had no qualms whatsoever in supporting the Netanyahu regime's brutality. But what can be expected from the personnel of a capitalist system whose foundation is the exploitation of the majority in favour of a tiny minority?

    Today, however, they and their innately fragile system are in a state of increasing degeneracy. And that's good news for the working class: because the weaker thay are, the easier it will be to topple them.