Posted on 13. June 2017 by RCIT Britain

cropped-dokument-1-seite0015.jpgDefeat the US-Israeli Imperialist Warmongering!

By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 12.6.2017, http://www.the-isleague.com

 

 

 

During his election campaign, Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, which he said would protect Americans from Jihadist attacks. His racist message was cheered by many of his supporters who opposed former President Barack Obama’s decision to increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the US.

 

While trying to block the entry of Arabs from Syria (refugees from Assad), Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen on grounds of public security, Trump went to Saudi Arabia, an Islamic theocracy of the extremist Wahhabi school. In Saudi Arabia religious minorities do not have the right to practice their religion. Non-Muslim religious texts are banned, and conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death.

 

So what is his business in Saudi Arabia? The Internationalist Socialist League (ISL) views US President Donald Trump visit to the Middle East as using the Sunni-Shiite conflict for a further militarization of the region and the creation of an arch-reactionary political and military block composed of Saudi Arabia, Egypt of Sisi, Jordan, Israel and possibly the Palestinian Authority.

 

The formation of such a bloc should help those reactionary powers to advance several goals:

 

  1. a) The complete liquidation of the Arab Revolution (pacification of Syria and destroying the revolutionary forces, helping the Egypt dictatorship to smash al-Ikhwan and all forces of the resistance, etc.).

 

  1. b) Allowing Israel to wage another war against the Palestinian people in Gaza with the goal to smash Hamas and all resistance organizations.

 

  1. c) To create the condition for waging a war against Iran and Hezbollah.

 

It is unlikely that the US itself will go to war against Iran, as most Americans do not want to see the US engaged in new wars, but his policy will most likely escalate the conflict between Saudi Arabia and its partners against Iran and of Israel against Gaza or Hezbollah.

 

During his visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, before he came to Israel, Trump signed a joint “strategic vision” that includes $110 billion in American arms. The deal includes naval ships, tanks and sophisticated THAAD missile defense systems. (1) Of course he stated that it is all about peace and jobs.

 

There is a possibility that in a case of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the US will provide military aid from the air rather than sending large ground forces. The mass media observes that Trump’s policy for the Middle East may lead to new wars in the Middle East.

 

Thus, the British newspaper The Telegraph wrote in February: “There are now too many indicators that President Trump is preparing for a military confrontation with Iran to just write off as coincidental. Much media bandwidth has been taken up by the so-called “Muslim ban”, but was it really about countering terrorism? It seems that Trump’s main flaw is not that he doesn’t hide his foibles, but more that he can’t help telling pundits in advance exactly what his intentions are. This is particularly the case in the Middle East, where in recent days he, along with his defence chief James Mattis and his national security adviser Michael Flynn, are moving at breakneck speed to curtail Tehran’s power. They want to counteract President Obama’s Iran deal, which, according to Trump at least, effectively gave the country $150 billion and made it a regional superpower overnight.” (2)

 

In Yemen where Saudi Arabia is bombing the Houthi rebels (who are supported by Iran) the US is already involved: “Media reports on Yemen have largely focused on the disastrous raid – apparently ordered by Trump over dinner – in which a U.S. Navy Seal and a number of Yemeni civilians were killed. But U.S. involvement is expanding in other areas too: the president recently loosened the military’s rules of engagement in Yemen, and has dramatically increased airstrikes against al-Qaida. The new administration has also effectively doubled U.S. deployments to the campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria, adding 400 additional troops to the forces already deployed there. Like their counterparts in Iraq, these soldiers are tasked with providing support to local forces in northern Syria, but the mission has nonetheless resulted in the death of one marine, and the injuries of several others.” (3)

 

In Palestine after 40 days of fasting, approximately 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners announced the end of their hunger strike for basic rights in Israeli jails on Saturday without gaining any major concession from the Zionist state. Is it possible that the end of this strike that could lead to a new Intifada is connected to the Trump visit to the Middle East and his meeting with Abu Mazen?

 

According to The Guardian Trump’s so called peace plan is based on an old idea: “That plan was the Arab Peace Initiative (API), unveiled by the then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at a summit in Beirut in March 2002. Now the Saudis and their allies are reportedly offering incentives – dangling the prospect of access for Israeli companies, direct communications and over-flight rights in exchange for freezing West Bank settlements and easing the blockade on the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas. The ideas were outlined in a paper shared among Gulf countries, according to the Wall Street Journal. These ideas build on significant below-the-radar trade and cooperation between Israel and those states, including discreet intelligence and security links. Diplomats describe a winning combination of Israel’s technical capabilities with Arab human intelligence assets.” (4)

 

If The Guardian is right then what Trump is trying to do is to promise the PA some gains if it will support this plan that does not promise the Palestinians even a mini state and certainly not the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.

 

While we oppose imperialist Russia, Iran and Hezbollah policies in support of Assad regime against the Syrian revolution, in a war of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel backed by the US against Iran and Hezbollah, we see the defeat of the new American–Israeli imperialist war as the interest of the working and oppressed masses of the world.

 

 

 

Footnotes

 

(1) Washington Post May 20, 2017

 

(2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/donald-trump-preparing-go-war-iran-likely-think/

 

(3) https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-03-22/president-donald-trump-is-doubling-down-on-wars-in-the-middle-east

 

(4) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/24/israel-palestine-trump-arab-peace-initiative

 

 

 

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For the RCIT analysis of the Arab Revolution and the Palestinian liberation struggle, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents accessed from the Africa and Middle East section of our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/. In particular we refer readers to the following documents:

 

ISL: Support the Demands of the Palestinian Freedom Fighters in Israeli Prisons! Free All Palestinian Political Prisoners! 21.4.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/palestinian-hunger-strike/

 

Michael Pröbsting: Qatar-Gulf Crisis: Another Offensive of the Arab Counter-Revolution, 10 June 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/qatar-gulf-crisis/

 

RCIT: Syria: Condemn the Reactionary Astana Deal! The so-called “De-Escalation Zones” are a First Step towards the Partition of Syria and a Conspiracy by the Great Powers to Defeat the Revolution, 7 May 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/astana-deal/

 

Michael Pröbsting: Is the Syrian Revolution at its End? Is Third Camp Abstentionism Justified? An essay on the organs of popular power in the liberated area of Syria, on the character of the different sectors of the Syrian rebels, and on the failure of those leftists who deserted the Syrian Revolution, 5 April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/syrian-revolution-not-dead/

 

Yossi Schwartz: Raqqa: Defeat the US Imperialist Offensive! An assessment of the US/SDF/YPG war against Daesh, April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/us-offensive-in-raqqa/

 

RCIT: Defeat the Imperialist Invasion in Syria – Victory to the Revolution! Down with the American and Russian interventions! No to the imperialist plan to divide Syria! Down with the butcher Assad and his imperialist allies! 13.03.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/imperialist-invasion-in-syria/

 

RCIT: For the Iranian Revolution! Down with the capitalist Mullah dictatorship! Down with Imperialism! For a working class revolution in Iran! February 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/iran-platform/

 

RCIT: World Perspectives 2017: The Struggle against the Reactionary Offensive in the Era of Trumpism, Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries, 18 December 2016, Chapter IV. The Middle East and the State of the Arab Revolution, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/part-4/

 

RCIT: Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Arab World: An Acid Test for Revolutionaries, 31 May 2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/theses-arab-revolution/

 

RCIT: Israel Starts Ground Offensive: Defend Gaza! Defeat Israel’s War! Support the Palestinian Resistance! For a Workers’ and Popular International Campaign to Boycott Israel! Down with the Regimes which Collaborate with Israel! For a Free, Red Palestine! 22.7.2014, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/joint-statement-defend-gaza/

 

RCIT: General Sisi – The Butcher of the Egyptian People – Sentences another 683 People to Death, 1.5.2014, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/egypt-mass-death-sentences/

 

Michael Pröbsting: The Coup d’État in Egypt and the Bankruptcy of the Left’s “Army Socialism”. A Balance Sheet of the coup and another Reply to our Critics (LCC, WIVP, SF/LCFI), 8.8.2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/egypt-and-left-army-socialism/

 

Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s War of 1948 and the Degeneration of the Fourth International, May 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/israel-s-war-of-1948/

 

 

 

About RCIT Britain

What the RCIT stands for Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)is a revolutionary combat organisation fighting for the liberation of the working class and all oppressed. It has national sections in a number of countries. The working class is composed of all those (and their families) who are forced to sell their labor power as wage earners to the capitalists. The RCIT stands on the theory and practice of the revolutionary workers’ movement associated with the names of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Capitalism endangers our lives and the future of humanity. Unemployment, war, environmental disasters, hunger, and exploitation are all part of everyday life under capitalism as are the imperialistic oppression of nations, the national oppression of migrants, and the oppression of women, young people, and homosexuals. Therefore, we want to eliminate capitalism. The liberation of the working class and all oppressed is possible only in a classless society without exploitation and oppression. Such a society can only be established internationally. Therefore, the RCIT is fighting for a socialist revolution at home and around the world. This revolution must be carried out and lead by the working class, for only this class has the collective power to bring down the ruling class and build a socialist society. The revolution cannot proceed peacefully because a ruling class never has nor ever will voluntarily surrender its power. By necessity, therefore, the road to liberation includes armed rebellion and civil war against the capitalists. The RCIT is fighting for the establishment of workers’ and peasants’ republics, where the oppressed organize themselves in councils democratically elected in rank-and-file meetings in factories, neighbourhoods, and schools. These councils, in turn, elect and control the government and all other statue authorities, and always retain the right to recall them. Authentic socialism and communism have nothing to do with the so-called “socialism” that ruled in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and which continues to do so in China and Cuba, for example. In these countries, the proletariat was and is dominated and oppressed by a privileged party bureaucracy. Under capitalism, the RCIT supports all efforts to improve the living conditions of the workers and oppressed, while simultaneously striving to overthrow this system based on economic exploitation of the masses. Towards these ends, we work from within the trade unions where we advocate class struggle, socialism, and workers’ democracy. But trade unions and social democracy are controlled by a bureaucracy perniciously connected with the state and capital via status, high-paying jobs, and other privileges. Thus, the trade union bureaucracy is far from the interests and living conditions of its members, based as it is on the top, privileged layers of the working class – a labor aristocracy which has no real interest in replacing capitalism. Therefore, the true struggle for the liberation of the working class, the toppling of capitalism and the establishment of socialism, must be based on the broad mass of the proletariat rather than their “representative” from the upper trade union strata. We also fight for the expropriation of the big land owners as well as for the nationalisation of the land and its distribution to the poor and landless peasants. Towards this goal we struggle for the independent organisation of the rural workers. We support national liberation movements against oppression. We also support the anti-imperialist struggles of oppressed peoples against the great powers. Within these movements we advocate a revolutionary leadership as an alternative to nationalist or reformist forces. While the RCIT strives for unity of action with other organizations, we are acutely aware that the policies of social democrats and pseudo-revolutionary groups are dangerous, and ultimately represent an obstacle to the emancipation of the working class, peasants, and the otherwise oppressed. In wars between imperialist states we take a revolutionary defeatist position: we do not support either side, but rather advocate the transformation of the war into a civil war against the ruling class in each of the warring states. In wars between imperialist powers (or their stooges) and a semi-colonial countries we stand for the defeat of the former and the victory of the oppressed countries. As communists, we maintain that the struggle against national oppression and all types of social oppression (women, youth, sexual minorities etc.) must be lead by the working class, because only the latter is capable of fomenting a revolutionarily change in society . Therefore, we consistently support working class-based revolutionary movements of the socially oppressed, while opposing the leadership of petty-bourgeois forces (feminism, nationalism, Islamism, etc.), who ultimately dance to the tune of the capitalists, and strive to replace them with revolutionary communist leadership. Only with a revolutionary party fighting as its leadership can the working class be victorious in its struggle for liberation. The establishment of such a party and the execution of a successful revolution, as it was demonstrated by the Bolsheviks in Russia under Lenin and Trotsky remain the models for revolutionary parties and revolutions in the 21st century. For new, revolutionary workers' parties in all countries! For a 5th Workers International to be founded on a revolutionary program! Join the RCIT! No future without socialism! No socialism without revolution! No revolution without a revolutionary party!
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