Statement by Tnuat Maavak Sozialisti / Harakat Nidal Eshtaraki (Socialist Struggle Movement, CWI Israel)
Below is a statement from the website of Tnuat Maavak Sozialisti / Harakat Nidal Eshtaraki (Socialist Struggle Movement, the Committee for a Workers International in Israel) on the killing of peace protesters by IDF paratroopers Monday, May 31. We call on everyone to participate in demonstrations and protests.
It seems that about 10 demonstrators were killed and others wounded last night during the violent raid that the far-right government initiated over the flotilla which sailed in protest against the siege of Gaza. Similarly to previous protest flotillas, the demonstrators did not risk in any way whatsoever the security of the residents of Israel. This time, helicopters, missile boats and commando forces were sent to approach them, and 200 officials of the immigration authority were waiting for them in the Ashdod port in an expectation to deport them from the country.
The government cynically shakes-off responsibility. But there’s no need for a “state commission of inquiry” to understand that the responsibility for the killing lays on the shoulders of the ministers and top officers. While there’s a media blackout on many details, we’re being presented in the enlisted press a simplistic picture, according to which the IDF soldiers were attacked on one of the boats via different objects. The IDF soldiers should not have been there to begin with, and in reality they were used to for the pronounced political goal of a thuggery liquidation of protest, and this is even outside the official territory of Israel. There should be a rejection emphatically of the use which is common in Israel of the military and other “arms of security” for the trampling of the right of protest.
The ministers, generals, and their kept journalists, attempt to divert the attention from the aggressive, destructive and oppressive policy that the Netanyahu-Barak-Liberman government executes in full gear, including the siege and occupation themselves, as well as the wild and racist incitement against the Arab-Palestinian public in Israel. The Israeli government, which is warmongering and oppresses the Palestinians, harms in that also the long term interests of the residents of Israel.
The only outlet of such disasters and the rest of the atrocities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the building of a wide and united social movement of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, against instigation-making and the “divide and rule”, against the siege and occupation, against all kinds of oppression and discrimination, for equal national democratic rights for all, and for the toppling down of the corrupt capitalist elites in Israel and the region.
The Socialist Struggle Movement supports the expansion of the protest and will participate in the demonstrations this evening at 19:00 in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, and more demonstrations that are expected in the weekend. We call upon all of you to come and protest along with us, Jews and Arabs, and say:
- No to the pyromaniac government which ignites the region
- Protest is not terrorism lift the siege
- Security is not built on demonstrators’ dead bodies
- The racist government security risk
- This is not security, this is disaster enough with the lies of the government
- Generals and ministers enough with the killing of protesters
- Even with missile boats you will not silence protesters
- Enough with the use of soldiers against civilians
- No whitewashing will help the siege is terrorism
- Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies
- Jews and Arabs fight against thugs and racists
- Invest in education not in siege and occupation
- Yes to reconstruction and to medicines No to more wars
- LIFT THE SIEGE / DISMANTLE SETTLEMENTS / BRING DOWN THE WALL / LIQUIDATE SEPARATION / SMASH RACISM / END THE OCCUPATION!