The Butchers Olmert and Barak and International ResponsibilityFriday 7 March 2008 by Michael Warschawski
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Knesset. More than 100 Gazans were massacred by Israeli shelling and bombardments in the last few of days and the list grows every hour. In comparison to the murderous Olmert-Barak team, Ariel Sharon looks like a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi: the massacre of Jenin that provoked a huge international outrage in 2002, had far less victims measured next to the present Israeli aggression against Gaza. Nevertheless, the reaction of the international community is significantly milder than it was six years ago.
Why?
This question should be at the heart of the reflection of the international solidarity movement and, more generally, of the global resistance.
For, the Israeli war crimes are possible only because, in the last six to seven years, the international community has stopped putting any kind of pressure on the Israeli government; in fact, it is supporting it. This has not always been the case, at least with most of the European states, which used to oppose the "global-non-ending-preemptive-war" strategy of the US neoconservative administration, and to defend a strategy of global stability instead of the politics of global-chaos of Bush and his gang.
The rise of European neo-conservatism (French President Nicolas Sarkozy is an example of this phenomenon) is a new challenge for the solidarity movement, and more generally, for the anti-globalization movement throughout the world: the global-war strategy is no longer the monopoly of the US administration (supported by a few other countries, like Great Britain), but of the "international community" as such.
This is definitely a change that the Global Resistance should take into consideration very seriously: there is a world war and everyone is now part of it. Over and against an "international community" aligned with Washington's global war, a united international anti-war movement is becoming a burning priority.
What does this have to do with Gaza? Because today, Gaza is the frontline of the resistance to that offensive. If Gaza surrenders, Washington and Tel Aviv will feel free to launch a second round in Lebanon and to attack Iran. They know well that Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are different battles in one and the same war, and they are concentrating their forces in order to bring the surrender of Gaza, its people and its elected leadership. That understanding should penetrate the Global movement too, and bring it to one conclusion: the Palestinians of Gaza are fighting not only for their own rights and dignity, but for the freedom of all the peoples of the world; they are resisting the united leaders of Empire leaders and their attempt to transform the peoples of our planet into their slaves, including the working people in the industrialized metropoles.
No one in our camp, the camp of worldwide resistance to Empire, has the right to run away from the duty of total solidarity with the Resistance of Gaza, under the pretext of disliking the leadership that the Palestinian people of Gaza have chosen. The same should be said about the people of Iran.
At the core of the solidarity campaign with Gaza, one must call for a blockade on Israel as long as the blockade on Gaza is not lifted. An economic, political and cultural boycott of a state which has put itself, by its war crimes, outside the civilized world: until the bloody attacks on Gaza are not stopped and the siege lifted, the duty of decent people is to say, loud and clear: No relations whatsoever with the criminal State of Israel!
Feroz MehdiGeneral Secretary/secrétaire généralAlternatives InternationalPhone: +1 (514) 982-6635feroz@alternatives-international.nethttp://alternatives-international.net
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