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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:33 am Post subject: Ending the injustice. George Galloway |
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| Quote: | GEORGE GALLOWAY on how our ministers are shedding crocodile tears over Gaza.
THE images of the assault on the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon have left my cheeks burning with tears of rage, grief and almost despair. I say almost, because it would be the purest self-indulgence to allow yourself to slip into deadening despair. And the scenes unfolding in Gaza must leave anyone who has even a scintilla of sympathy for the Palestinians' plight with the same emotion. What is happening from Nahr al-Bared to Gaza is testimony to the fact that, as imperialist forces have suffered defeats in Iraq and Lebanon, they are fomenting wider instability and inflicting suffering on the whipping boys of the region - the Palestinians.
Let's deal first with the specious argument that a shockingly large slice of Lebanese political opinion bought into to justify the murderous assault on the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. It is true that the Lebanese army came under considerable provocation from the small and hitherto largely unknown Fatah al-Islam grouping. In the motion which I tabled in the House of Commons, I acknowledged the sacrifice that the Lebanese army had made. But in no way can that vindicate the shelling of the camp, followed by the denial of aid to those left trapped there.
The Islamist Fatah al-Islam organisation has nothing to do with the Palestinians. In fact, it used the Nahr al-Bared camp as cover. As a Lebanese friend of mine put it, the shelling of the camp was the equivalent of responding to a plane hijacking by blowing up the aircraft, killing all the passengers. The scale and duration of the fighting is ominous. It points to the involvement of those forces who are happy to see Lebanon used to further undermine Arab unity. Already, there are the usual bellicose voices in the West calling for the attack on Nahr al-Bared to be followed by moves to forcibly disarm "more substantial armed groups."
They have in mind the mass patriotic resistance forces, including Hezbollah, which inflicted such a defeat on Israel last summer that the reverberations are still being felt in the government in Tel Aviv and in the high command of the IDF. Talk of disbanding Hezbollah by force is foolish daydreaming. But it ought to remind everyone who the ultimate targets are in this sickening episode in the north of the country.
The latest mysterious car bombing in Beirut is being used as a further pretext for agitation by those unhappy with the Lebanon that is emerging following Israel's defeat last summer. The imperialist forces and their allies in Israel have suffered a string of setbacks, from the failure of the invasion of Lebanon through the disaster of the occupation of Iraq to the unintended consequence of strengthening the Islamic Republic of Iran throughout the region. They are responding with a series of cynical ploys aimed at recovering lost ground. The destabilisation of Lebanon is one. It comes with the refrain of ritual denunciation of the Syrians.
The fomenting of sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia in Iraq and elsewhere is another. Washington's satraps in the region are busy spreading the poison that it is necessary for the Sunni Arabs to stand with the Pentagon in the face of the Shia Persians. Does anyone imagine that the US is acting in the interests of Arabs in its confrontation with Iran?
The third panel of this unholy triptych is the attempt to tear the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank asunder. The renewed stoking of conflict between legitimate sections of Palestinian society who came to the historic Mecca agreement cannot be separated from the wider divisions being prised open in the region.
Before assessing a course of action, it is vital to thoroughly analyse the circumstances which you are in. The hero Marwan Barghouti has done that and has issued a call on behalf of all the Palestinian political prisoners for unity of the patriotic forces in Palestine against Israeli aggression and the blockade inflicted by the US, Britain and the EU.
The very last people in a position to say anything to bring a resolution between Hamas and Fatah are Israel and its allies, which have so transparently set out to destroy the government elected by the Palestinians in the occupied territories. They have fomented the divisions that erupted in Gaza this week, propping up the discredited presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, while, at the same time, refusing for so long to recognise the elected Hamas administration. It was a policy designed to tear apart Palestinian society and it has been ruthlessly conducted over the last three months following the Mecca agreement and formation of a government of national unity.
Friends of the Palestinians here have a duty to expose the crocodile tears shed by British government ministers over what is happening in Gaza. If they truly wanted to do something dramatic to end the bloodshed in Gaza, they would demand that Israel free Marwan Barghouti, a figure with the stature to appeal successfully for unity. They would certainly stop hiding behind the discredited rump of Abbas, whom they have encouraged to be perceived as their cat's paw.
While supporting all moves towards unity by the legitimate forces of Palestinian society, friends of Palestine here should do something else. We should recognise the intimate connections between the struggle in Palestine and the struggle against imperialism and exploitation across the Middle East. It means that every advance for the national resistance in Iraq or for the mass movement in Egypt against the US-backed dictator Mubarak is also an advance for the Palestinians.
We need to do what we can here to assist those struggles. As part of that, everyone who cares about Palestine should be in Manchester next Sunday June 24 to join the Stop the War protest outside Gordon Brown's coronation as Labour leader. The fall of Blair creates a window for forcing a change in foreign policy. Only a fool would imagine that's easily achieved - only one who had succumbed to despair would imagine that it's impossible.
George Galloway is Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| cheers for that Luke |
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