With the mutual agreement upon and implementation of the ceasefire agreement between resistance forces in Gaza and the Israeli government, the palestinian people are able to take a moment of respite from the brutal campaign of extermination waged by the zionist occupation. But we must recognize that until the palestinian people are liberated from the occupation of the Israeli state, this genocide will not end, only be tempered and slowed.
In addition the certainty of the ceasefire’s full implementation is in doubt as any breach of the terms laid out by Israel are likely to be treated with impunity by the Trump administration. Beyond the general work of pushing Britain into recognizing a single democratic palestinian state, we must ensure that it can use what international power and leverage it has to ensure the implementation of the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement. We cannot fall into complacency in these critical moments.
The end of the most acute phase of the genocide in Gaza must mean the beginning of a much larger movement in the UK and the western world to continue pressuring and leveraging our governments to withdraw support and recognition of Israel. Furthermore we must advocate for the recognition of a palestinian state and the removal of all diplomatic and economic impediments to the reconstruction and consolidation of a Palestinian state.
Only with the arms and legitimacy supplied by the west has Israel been able to carry out the extermination of the Palestinian people. This extermination has been brought to a halt only on account of the cost incurred by societies; the damage to Israel’s international prestige and economy and the domestic public backlash against its western allies.
The Scottish socialist left must work to make the business of imperialism all the most costly and the consequences therein harsher.
We must not allow the labour of the Scottish people to be used for the benefit of Britain’s imperial agenda. We must not allow our working classes to be subordinated to the dictates of Empire and its genocidal outcomes. As the palestinians resist the continued occupation and destruction in their homeland so too we must bolster them with our own resistance to our nation’s complicity in and facilitation of their genocide. The struggle for an independent, socialist Scotland which opposes the forces of imperialism, must be carried out in unity with the struggle against the British state’s support for Israel and for the unilateral recognition of a palestinian state.
We must now build a coalition, one which is principled, disciplined, and clear on the role of the anti-imperialist struggle in our fight for domestic liberation. The work for a free world has only just begun.
Free Palestine