Samantha Erin, Tower Hamlets Socialist Party
Over 100 days since the start of the Israeli state’s brutal assault on Gaza, over 25,000 Palestinians are dead and 63,000 injured. Others have been left destitute, without a home, medical support or drinking water. Actions, despite occasional mealymouthed words to the contrary, supported materially by the likes of Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and tail ended by Keir Starmer.
On top of these horrors, the last few weeks have seen what looks like a drift into regional conflict and more devastation for ordinary people in the Middle East. In response to Houthi forces seizing a number of western-owned vessels in the Red Sea, the Tory government has sent battleships to the Red Sea and Air Force jets to hit targets in Yemen, as the ‘apprentice’ in US president Biden’s airstrikes against the Houthis.
These airstrikes show that the US and the UK can accept countless civilian deaths, but will act against a disruption to capitalist profits made from shipments going through the Red Sea.
Memories across the region and across the world of the bloody interventions of US-led capitalism will stoke fear and anger, including the brutal bombing of Baghdad during the Iraq War in 2003, backed up by Tony Blair’s New Labour.
The fight back
Since October, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of ordinary people line the streets of the UK to fight back against the decisions of Sunak, Netanyahu and Biden.
The power of this force has also led to the disgraced ex-Home Secretary, Suella Braverman being kicked out of Government after she was spinning lies about the protests and criticising the police for not being tough enough punishing pro-Palestinian protesters.
This victory, alongside the exposure that both Sunak and Starmer support this bloody war, shows we need a working-class political alternative now more than ever. Under capitalism, conditions for the overwhelming majority of people in the Middle East and worldwide are getting worse, as they are here with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
The Socialist Party demands an end to the Israeli state’s massacres in Gaza and fights for a socialist Palestine, alongside a socialist Israel as part of a confederation of the Middle East on a free and equal basis, with all resources under the democratic control of workers and the poor.
