The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 19th January 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 19th January 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Hundreds of thousands thronged the streets of Yemen last week to condemn the Anglo-American airraids on their missile bases and support their Houthi government’s blockade on Zionist shipping in the Red Sea while millions of others took to the streets all over the world to stand by the Palestinians and condemn Zionist aggression. Israel continues its carpet bombing of the beleaguered Gaza Strip where the Palestinian resistance is battling to fend off the Israeli invaders. And Iran has carried out its most substantial missile attacks to-date, targeting ISIS bases in Syria and an Israeli espionage facility in Iraqi Kurdistan.
South Africa accuses Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The South Africans point out that no armed attack on the territory of a country, however serious, such as that perpetrated by Hamas on 7th October, justifies violating the Convention for the Prevention of Genocide and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Meanwhile Marc Botenga, a Belgian Member of the European Parliament, said the Belgium government continues to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and other nations must follow. Botenga, a member of the Belgian Workers’ Party (PTB), said the ongoing street protests against Israel’s attack will pressure many governments to follow suit. “The European governments guarantee impunity to Israel, and people out there in the streets are outraged about this,” but at some point, they will be forced to say the word “ceasefire”.
Last weekend a huge crowd marched through the north Yemeni capital, Sana’a, chanting “Death to America! Death to Israel!” to show their support for their government’s support of the Palestinian cause. “If America and its allies decide to declare open war on us, we’re ready for it and we won’t have any choice but to bring victory or fall as martyrs,” one protester told the French media. “We’re not scared of the American or British air force. We’ve been bombed for nine years and another attack is nothing new for us,” said another.
The Houthis say their blockade, which has shut down the Israeli port of Eilat and forced many other Western vessels to take the long route via South Africa to Europe, will now be extended to British and American ships and it will continue, come what may, until the fighting ends in Gaza.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres repeated his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip. “The world is standing by as civilians, mostly women and children, are killed, maimed, bombarded, forced from their homes and denied access to humanitarian aid,” Guterres said. “An immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza” he said was the sole means of preventing “a spillover that could send the entire region up in flames”.
UN human rights experts say that every single person in the Gaza Strip is facing hunger amid Israel’s ongoing war and blockade against the besieged enclave. The UN chief emphasised the importance of addressing the humanitarian situation in Gaza, establishing a ceasefire and releasing the hostages. According to the UN, 85 per cent of the people of the Strip are already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
None of this is good news for Benjamin Netanyahu, whose dreams of an easy victory are rapidly fading. The Palestinian resistance fights on. They still hold most of the Israeli prisoners taken during their 7th October border raid and the continuing conflict is taking a terrible toll on the Israeli economy.
Nearly half a million Israelis have fled the country since the fighting began. Tourism is virtually dead. Unemployment has jumped from four to 10 per cent and the economy shrunk by 15 per cent in the last quarter of 2023. At least 1,408 Israelis have been killed in the fighting and a further 8,787 wounded.