Aucklanders march for Palestine and Lebanon

Is there anything planned to oppose the whole conflict in general rather than just one side of it?

When there is count me in.

Ilai a few of the speakers, such as Keith Locke, spoke out against both Israel's bombing and Hezbollah's rocket attacks. I think the main focus of the march was on Israel's actions though because it has killed many more people in the past week than Hezbollah's disgusting terror attacks on the North of Israel have. Israel is a supposedly democratic nation that adheres to the rule of law etc. Hezbollah is a terrorist group. Therefore I think most people would expect higher standards from Israel.

The Israeli Military is bankrolled by the US and is able to commit terror against civilians on a far greater scale than Hezbollah or Hamas.

Israel claims to be a 'democracy'.
But its foundation as a Zionist state by expelling Palestinians off their land did two things:

(1) It founded a Zionist/Fascist state. No state can claim to be a democracy at the same time that it takes away the most fundamental right of another nation - that of self-determination. Its own act of self-determination denies that of another.

(2) In making Palestinians stateless and forced to fight to reclaim their state, Israel assumed the role of victim, surrounded by 'Islamo-fascists'. But Islam no matter how radical, or fundamentalist, is not fascist when it is fighting for national liberation. That is the pre-condition for democracy. THe fight for democracy in an independent Islamic state cannot even begin before that state is founded.

Therefore, the struggle for a secular, non-racist, democratic Palestine cannot be won without first smashing the Zionist-fascist state of Israel and establishing the basis of a Palestinian state.

we are opposing the whole conflict. supporting palestinian and lebanese people means we are also supporting those israelis who stand up to their government and oppose the racist foundation of the state of israel.

like the 2500 people who protested the invasion of lebanon in tel aviv yesterday:https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4952/index.php
or these people, from israel, palestine and around the world, who hold weekly demonstarations against the apartheid wall in the west bank village of bil'in:https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4944/index.php

i feel for the families of the israeli soldiers who were kidnapped by hezbolla but i also feel for the families of the 10,000 palestinians being held in israeli prisons, many detained without trial. in both cases the israeli government should be held accountable, for the tens of thousands of palestinians whose loved ones are locked up in prisons, and for the israelis whose children were sent to perpetuate the oppression of the palestinian people.

Oosterman gave the media just the kind of bullshit they love.

Hey Oosterman, you don't represent the peace movement. I hope you get charged, sentanced and banned from all peaceful protests. Were you trying to impress a pretty girl (or boy)?
You're egotistical and emotionally disturbed. Get some counselling and fuck off while you're at it.

Pissed off - Simon jumped on the roof of the consulate and lowered the flag to half mast - it was an excellent symbolic display, and i think it was great that he did it. The crowd there - lots of Lebanese and Palestinian people - loved it too.
The problem was not with the action, but what happened afterwards. The crowd tried to de-arrest him, there was a bit of a scuffle, and the media got their pictures of what looked like a street brawl. We all know that street brawls sell more bullshit newspapers than symbolic flag-lowering, so that was the story that they ran with and the original message got lost.
A really similar action was done at the beginning of Iraq - someone jumped on the roof to replace the American flag with one that had missiles instead of stripes - he was pulled down, but managed to resist being de-arrested by the crowd, so there was no scuffle with the cops - he was given a bit of a talking to and wasn't charged, and everything was (as far as I know), fine.
So, the action in itself was great, but the way that we all dealt with it afterwards and that the message got lost, was a bit of a fuck-up.

The problem with Hezbollah is not that they use tactics of terrorism against Israel, but more that their tactics simply can't win against the Israeli state. I doubt that anyone armed only with WWII rockets would be able to take on an army with Lockheed-Martin on call 24/7. They would be much better to call for a strike amongst Arab workers. Just imagine what would happen if all the oil workers went on strike and stopped the flow of oil to those hungry capitalists. Capitalism needs petrol as much as your car does and without it it will stop dead in its tracks...

Sam, for a start I did not say that Israeli's were fascists. It is the Zionist state that is fascist.
This is the difference between being anti-semitic and anti-fascist. Those Israeli's who oppose the creation of Israel at the expense of Palestine can do their part to create a non-sectarian, democratic Palestine.

You need to look at the history of the complicity between Zionism and Nazism in the shipment of Jews to the concentration camps. Where the Zionists did not intervene, Jewish resistance to the Nazis resulted in far fewer Jews being killed.

The CPGB ran a series on it that is well researched and backed up by evidence.
Here is the last instalment
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/633/zionism.htm

Stan Goff the US ex-army activist has also put a recent statement on his blog that also claims this complicity is well documented
http://stangoff.com/?p=328

If you still think that that the Zionist claim to a homeland in Palestine is justified by the Jewish persecution by Nazism I will be surprised.

Sam, thanks for the only sensible post on this otherwise horrible thread.

the socialist was Joe Carolan and he was saying that many westerners could support liberation struggles like those depicted in Ken Loach's film about Ireland's war of independence from Britain, the wind that shakes the barley, yet not give support to resistance groups like hamas or hezbollah who were muslim. it was a well made point i thought because he was talking about how imperialists use religious strife to set up a false reason for why these wars are happening, and as he is from ireland and was speaking outside the british embassy, he was speaking from his own experience. dont think he was presompteous enough to speak for Maori, and if tinorangatiratanga needed to be explicitly mentioned in every single angry speech on the day. Cheap shot, smush? Why dont you oppose british imperialism in every article you write?

PS Samuel F, do you remember what happened in southern Lebanon in 2000? I seem to recall the Israeli army being defeated and forced to withdraw from the south by the same tactics you say can never win victory.

And reports of recent days suggest that the new Israeli raids into the south have gone badly, creating the need for either a full-scale 1982-style invasion or else occupation of the south by a NATO/UN force of the sort the Keith Lockes of this world are so busy promoting.

Hezbollah only defeated Israel in 2000 because the Israeli working class had grown tired of supporting a neverending war. If the Lebanese defeat Israel again it'll only because of a similar failure of the Israeli ruling class to win mass support for its war. Hezbollah's anti-semitic claim that the Israeli population is completely reactionary and an automatic enemy of Arabs is therefore nonsense. But so is your claim that armed struggle can't defeat imperialism in places like Lebanon. What's needed is the coordination of
the sort of class struggle you describe and the armed struggle of the Arab resistance.

George says "Condemning Israel doesn't mean endorsing Hizbollah or Hamas!!!"

Victory to Hezbollah and Hamas means defeat for Israel. Lets get this clear.

Merely 'endorsing' and 'condemning' either side evades the basic issue which is: which nation has the right to Palestine?

If you think that Israel has that right, but must also respect Palestine's right to a divided sovereignty, then you can achieve this by exerting political pressure via the UN and 'world opinion' in 'condemning' Israel's excesses and similarly refusing to 'endorse' radical Islams excesses. In this way the wise West imposes its standard of civilisation onto this dispute and resolves it in a two state solution.

But why hasnt this worked for 50 or more years? Why, because for the Palestinian masses spread around in concentration camps and ghettos, their sovereignty is not divisible. And they are right. Israel usurped Palestine's national sovereignty and called it their own by force.

When the PLO recognised Israel Hamas replaced them. But when the leadership of Hamas was about to recognise Israel it immediately attacked Gaza over the pretext of the captured soldier. Why? Because Israeli intelligence told their leadership that the Hamas militias had broken from their sellout Hamas politicians. THey know that the Palestinian masses would never sell out, and that now was a good time to wipe out their military leaderships under the cover of Bush's 'war of terror'.

So yet again, the Palestinian masses in Gaza and in Lebanon said we do not except the existence of Israel in Palestine. We do not except yet another deal or road map that will mean a Palestinian bantustan where the Palestinian bourgeoisie will make peace with the Israeli bourgeoisie to act as our jailers and slave drivers.

What was driving them was their nationalist aspirations for a Palestine that is not a jail or bantustan. Religious beliefs may help motivate this struggle in extreme adversity, but it does not drive it.

It is necessary for workers all around the world to support the Palestinian national struggle for a Palestinian state without imposing conditions on what religion Palestinians should follow.

In fact it is the height of hypocrisy for Western leftists and liberals to pontificate on what political and cultural beliefs a colonised and oppressed people should hold before they give them permission to have their own state. This is exactly what Bush and Co want when they label the Palestinians terrorists or islamofascists.

Entering this struggle in solidarity with Palestinian national rights, at THE SAME TIME raising the political program for a Palestinian state that is non-sectarian (Muslims and Jews coexisting as they did before the Zionists drove out the Palestinians), democratic (equality of genders etc) opens up the possibility that such a state can also be a socialist state, in a federation of socialist states in the Middle East, creating the material conditions in which real equality can emerge.

Shocking, isn't it, George? Those fuzzies actually had the temerity to launch a sophisticated attack on the colonial power. You should call up Keith and organise that 'bomb em back twenty years' demo now...

Dave: 'If you still think that that the Zionist claim to a homeland in Palestine is justified by the Jewish persecution by Nazism I will be surprised.'

Interesting choice of words, I think that the JEWISH claim to a homeland in Palestine is justified, though not necessarily just. A one sided picture that the Jewish refugee problem was a Zionist created one is not really dealing with the reality of the situation, its all very well with 50yr hindsight, but at the time the need for a Jewish haven/homeland was very real, as real as the persecution they faced.
The functioning of the Zionist state I admit is depressing, and should be opposed, however the majority of the original refugees should not be judged by the attitudes of the elite Zionists, especially not in that time of crisis.

http://www.geocities.com/sophiainnz/sounds/oneperson.wma

Sam: I think that the JEWISH claim to a homeland in Palestine is justified, though not necessarily just.

I would restate this as: the Jewish claim to a homeland is justified, but not in Palestine as that is someone else's homeland, and therefore not just.

However, there has never been a Jewish claim to a homeland, only a Zionist one. The vast majority of Jews have assimilated in other countries and do not want any homeland. Usually national rights are demanded by the majority of a people, not a self-appointed minority funded by big business. Jews have never formed a majority in favour of a homeland.

Zionists however, believe that they have the right to invoke Jewishness, the holocaust, inverting the racist label of the Nazis, as the racial essence of a people, to make their minority claim for a homeland. So a minority of Jews called Zionists believe that they have a god given right to exclusive occupation of Palestine.

Therefore we should not confuse the right to Jews to a homeland, if the majority wish it, and provided it is not at the expense of another nationality, with the assertion of Zionists that Palestine is their exclusive homeland and to hell with the occupants.

George Bush has given Israel the green light to tear Lebanon asunder and to destroy the resistance forces of Hizbollah. By Tuesday, Israeli forces had killed some 400 people, the vast majority civilians, and driven up to one million Lebanese from their homes.

Israel has used cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs, deliberately attacked ambulances and reduced large parts of the Lebanese capital Beirut to rubble.

Bush and Tony Blair have backed that assault all the way. Bush’s envoy to the region told the Lebanese government there could be no ceasefire until Hizbollah was disarmed and an international force took control of southern Lebanon, with a mandate from the United Nations to use military force against Hizbollah fighters entering this “buffer zone”.

As the US went through the facade of conducting peace negotiations in the Middle East, an Israeli commentator wrote on Monday in the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, “US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is not coming to pressure Israel to cease the fire. On the contrary, she’s coming to check for herself that we are not missing out on this war, that we are not missing a chance to be the long arm of the US.”

Rice blocked a ceasefire allowing Israel further time to carry out its operation. And beyond Lebanon looms a wider conflict.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, talks of “taking advantage of the action Israel has taken against Hizbollah”.

He adds that, “in the case of Lebanon, we’ve got a chance to set the Syrians and the Iranians back.”

If Israel and its allies succeed in destroying Hizbollah they will set their sights on Iran. A war in Lebanon would be followed by a far greater war, just as the 2001 attack on Afghanistan was followed two years later by the invasion of Iraq.

Resistance to such imperial assaults is essential.

John Bolton argues there is a distinction between civilians killed by Israel and those killed by Hizbollah, claiming, “It would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts.”

Ten times more Lebanese civilians, a third children, have died so far than Israelis.

Israel has one of the most powerful military forces on the planet. The US is rushing more missiles and jet fuel to Israel to ensure the bombing continues.

There is indeed no “equivalence” between Israel and the resistance in Lebanon. One is a terror state, in a permanent state of war, the other is the expression of those who have suffered its invasions and occupations.

The resistance Israel is meeting in Lebanon is a barrier to further wars and further destruction. It is being supported by a growing wave of solidarity across the Arab world.

Taipo,wats up.
Your post was like wathing the Maori channel.
The pictures look interesting, but at the end of the day if you don't speak the language you are none the wiser.

Sam - I know talking on the internet isn't quite the same as meeting, but you're now reading a post by a Jew who doesn't think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. There's plenty more where I come from too.

@asher: What other *realistic* options do you see other than Israel existing as a Jewish state? I am sitting in the north of Germany. I am surrounded by old concentration camps. I live in the old Jewish Quarter of my town (not that you would know this now), thousands were deported from my local train station.

The current Nazis are organising demos with slogans like 'Israel, the murderer of the Volk'. These people hold seats in state government.

Sure, things are not as bad as they were in the 19th and 20th Century (only a few grave desecrations and bombings!), but if you're looking at a 2000 year perspective then much worse happens all the time. And I can't see things getting easier.

States are violent anti-democratic and oppressive entities. I am opposed to all states, but here I just don't see any other options. If you have an amazing plan then let me know :-)

(I am sure you know all of the above, but some people here are disturbingly ignorant)

@Dave: Please, get your head out whatever the fuck it is you are reading by Lenin, and actually check out some history.

Well first of all, you are using *exactly* the same anti-israel arguments as the nazis are over here. I hope that this alone gives you something to think about.

Do you seriously believe that the Holocaust was about exploiting labour? How do you explain then the Death Camps? What a waste of money!! Surely those people could have worked a little before they were murdered! What about the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe? Do you think the massacres encouraged people to work harder? Did you just read a Socialist Worker pamphlet on the Holocaust, or what??

And then you actually compare the Occupied areas to concentration camps?? I really tried to write a well considered and calm response to your posts, but I find your writing disturbing and dangerously ignorant.

dave, you use words loaded with associations of national socialism, direct them against jews, and then complain when someone challenges this usage. how strange.

of course, forced labour happened in concentration camps. much of it totally pointless, ie. moving bricks from one pile to another, then back again. work to break a person, to destroy all hope and sanity.

but forced labour was not the purpose of concentration camps. this purpose was extermination. to the point where nazis where spending more effort in killing jews than in winning the war.

national socialists were very good at depicting jews as evil capitalists, (at the same time as they prevented them from joining trades btw). such an old stereotype, how lovely to see it re-hashed here. but judenhass (hatred of jews, the word used before anti-semimitism was introduced so the idea sounded more scientific)was not about class struggle.

nor is the current conflict in israel-palestine about the peasants vs. upper class. do you think there is a lack of poor people in israel?

is the gaza strip etc much poorer? of course. decades of conflict create poverty. it is a warzone.
but the ghettos and walls being built are designed to seperate palestinian from israeli, not the social classes. however deplorable this is, the aim is to keep people out, not to create a force of slave labour, not to 'oppress the masses' but to protect borders. refugee camps are not forced labour camps, even with military checkpoints everywhere and soldiers running around. they are not designed to torture, to exterminate, to humilitate.

anyway, i'm glad you know whose side you are on and that you can reduce the world to good and evil and everything is simple and can be exlained by class struggle. good for you.

ps. to back track to other comments where someone said the enemy of your enemy is your friend: if that is the case, come make friends with the neo-nazis here in germany, who are doing marches against israel and in support of hezbollah also. they really hate communists and anarchists so i'm sure you'll get along great.

"Hence the common feature to fascism is its smashing of the working class to render it docile and exploitable."

Then you could say that many governments across the world today are fascist - hey shit, I grew up in one! There is a lot more to fascism than smashing the working class. Totalitarianism for a start - please don't try and say that Israel is a totalitarian state. They have elections for a start.. (and yes, so do the Occupied areas)

If you throw around such historically loaded words then you will just serve to alienate the Israeli working class, whom you are trying to convince.

cryptanarchist: Unsurprisingly, I don't have any magic solution for the situation ;)

As an anarchist, clearly my preference is for a no-state solution, but that isn't going to happen any time soon unfortunately.

The next best thing would be, in my opinion, a binational state which, with the aid of some sort of truth and reconcilliation methods (possibly like was done in South Africa, with adjustments) in order to turn the current existing animosity into a real desire for coexistance. Motion towards a solution is increasing rapidly amongst Palestinians and (albeit much slower) Jews as the occupation continues. Indeed, many people are now saying publically that Israel's continued occupation is making a binational state the ONLY viable solution.

The other option that is frequently talked about, a two-state solution, would inevitably leave Palestine entirely economically reliant on Israel, which would essentially have the effect of continuing the status quo in most areas while removing the limited amount of responsibility Israel currently has. Clearly, this solution would not result in genuine independence for Palestinians, although at least they would have some semblance of political autonomy.

It's a hard one really...thinking about it easily turns extraordinarily depressing, but any of these solutions would at least be better than the status quo.

A large percentage of my ancestors were murdered by the Nazis. We are unlikely to ever find out where or how. Had Israel existed then, however, it is unlikely in my opinion that they would have been alive today.

There is a compelling argument that states that Israel's claim to be representative of all Jews has INCREASED antisemitism around the globe, rather than reducing it. When Israel enacts oppressive measures (as can be expected from ANY state), the resulting fight back frequently targets Jews rather than Israelis or Zionists. This is even true amongst those who claim to lie on the left side of the political spectrum. Israel's actions provide an "in" for genuine antisemites to co-opt many who would in no way describe themselves as antisemitic.

Despite being an explicitly anti-Zionist Jew, I have nonetheless been attacked by many (some Nazis , but the majority not) for what they assume is my support of Israel. While undoubtably those who make those assumptions are largely to blame for using stereotypes, Israel must also take part of that blame for encouraging and spreading the stereotype of "all Jews are Zionists".

Occupied Palestine (Israel) is not a Jewish state. It is a Zionist state.
As a Fascist outpost directly controlled from the USA, its subsidised phony democracy is a cynical charade manipulated to rubber stamp all US dictates.
Without this support, the Zionist entity would collapse. TOTALLY!
Israel is the only state on the planet that is not self sustaining free of the US.
As a parasite, its only purpose is to serve as a huge military garrison of Fort America.
Its conduct in regards to its treatment of its inhabitants and neighbors is a taste of how US capitlism plans to control the rest of the world.

Whats up 'd the k'? Too many Redbulls?
Anti-semetic media censorship has ignored the fact that some of the most significant anti-Zionists are hardcore ultra- orthodox Jews themselves.
In the Meah Shearim neighborhoods of the old Jewish quarter of Jerusalem staunch protectors of Judaism express their despising of Zionism which they consider to be an abomination.

They reject the Israeli state, serving in its military and refuse to carry Israeli passports.

Extreme anti-Zionist ultra-orthodox groups such as Neturei Karta have taken their anti-Israeli protests overseas and supported the struggle to liberate Palestine.
As 'Jews', the Israeli state has had to censor their activities because this would reveal a significant division that would work against the Jew verses Arab dynamic that has been totally Zionist-Imperialist created.
Personally, religion has no place in the greater scheme of things, but it is important to convey the fact that there are issues that the media chooses not to dwell on.
Your unbalanced 'reaction' is a classic example of an attitude created from media ignorance.

no one gives a fuck about you dfriggink!
have a lion red on me.

Sam,
Run out of arguments?
Tell me which politics 101 you did so I can avoid it.

when someone thinks they are gods and you are beasts and they have the right to kill you just because you dont worship the same God as they do,WHO THE REAL BEAST HERE ? when you kill women men and children , occupy their land take their homes , and it is not even your land tobegin with ,most jews in israel are ashkanazis of uropean origin and not middle eastern as they lie and claim to beso they can have a reason to kill you rape your women and kill your children , the ashkanazis represent about 90% OF ALL JEWS LIVING IN ISRAEL THE REST ARE THE CEFERIC JEWS WHO ARE OF MIDEAST ORIGIN AND BROTHERS OF THE ARABS , the whole state of israel is a BIG LIE SURE THER MUST BE GOOD PEOPLE THERE , THEY ARE MOSTELY THE ORTHODOX JEWS WHO LIVED W ARABS IN PEACE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS UNTILL THE SLIME SHOWED UP FROM UROPE NOT MIDEAST JEWS BUT UROPEANS CONVERTS , WHO HAVE NO CLAIM T OCCUPIED PALESTINE AT ALL , AND NOW THEY ARE A DISGRACE TO THE JWISH PEOPLE , WAKE UP PEOPLE DONT GET SUCCRED INTO THAT RELIGION BULLSHIT ABOUT ISRAEL COMING BACK IT IS A LIE , GOD WOULD NEVER APPROVE OF THESE EVIL ACTIONS AND WHAT EVERTHEY TRY TO DO THEY WILL FAIL A COUNTRY WITH NO GASE AND NO FOUNDATION WILL NOT STAND IN THE FACE OF GOD AND HIS MIGHTY POWER

Stop the occupation! Return the occupied land to Maori!!!

Video of Saturday 5 August 2006