Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the June 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been unmasked as the mystery buyer of one of Washington, D.C.‘s most expensive properties: a $23 million mansion that he quietly paid for in an all-cash deal that was so secretive, the home vanished from view on Google Maps soon after it closed.

                                                                                                                               [Yahoo]

Lenin brought his Bolshevik Party to power on the cresting wave of the democratic workers’ councils, or soviets, in 1917. Then, with a few changes, he essentially restored tsarist autocracy. Freedom of speech, the press, and assembly were again suppressed, and the absolute power of a non-elected monarch, a dictator, reappeared along with a centralized bureaucracy. Under Lenin, the chinovnik-bureaucrat apparatus once more became the master of the land and of thousands of industrial enterprises. It included many tsarist bureaucrats, who, together with a few Bolsheviks, were the bosses in the ministries. Lenin’s bureaucracy blended with the tsarist bureaucracy and quickly adopted the same rules. Everything that upset or challenged the interests of centralized economic and socio-political life was eliminated.

[Canadian Dimension]

A city divided by a 12-year gap in life expectancy… Sally Cartwright, the county’s director of public health at Cambridgeshire County Council, agrees that a lack of access to cheap, nutritious food, expensive gym memberships and insufficient exercise and community facilities in the area have all contributed to the gap in life expectancy…. Differences in wealth affect people’s health, she adds, as well as other triggers such as smoking, heavy drinking and poor diet. 

[BBC]

A veteran financial consultant and insurance executive is warning his fellow capitalists that their commitment to profits and market supremacy is endangering the economic system to which they adhere and that if corrective actions are not taken capitalism itself will soon be consumed by the financial and social costs of a planet being cooked by the burning of fossil fuels. 

[Common Dreams]

Some argue that ecological change has historically posed great challenges to existing systems, and therefore, climate change must do the same to capitalism. This view overlooks a key fact: unlike previous modes of production, capitalism is fundamentally based on change. Then there is the assumption that climate change will create such severe problems — food shortages, infrastructure collapse, mass death — that capitalism simply can’t cope. But capitalism has always been adept at placing death in some corners of the world, so that life – and profits – can continue elsewhere. Mass death has never been a fundamental problem for capitalism; the system itself was built on colonialism, wars, and genocides. 

[Rebel]

A legal team representing Hamas pro bono — since it would be illegal to receive money from the group — claims in its own filing that while Hamas’s actions fit the definition of ‘terrorism’ in British law, so do those of the IDF, the Ukrainian army and even the British military. 

[The Times of Israel]

[These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view].

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘I cried deep inside of my heart’, said Nisa, now 32, recounting her first contract wedding. ‘Who wants to sleep with an old man? I did this purely for the money, so my parents can eat and my siblings can go to school.’ With her encouragement, her sister also became a contract bride, bringing in a dowry of $3,000 for her first marriage because she was a virgin. Nisa estimated that she herself has been in 20 contract marriages (‘Sex tourism in Indonesia sells itself as Islamic temporary marriage’.) 

(Los Angeles Times).

‘Interestingly, some of these people were supporters of the communist regime only a few years ago. There are of course others who are still convinced by CCP propaganda, who believe that China is the safest place in the world and that everywhere else is in chaos’, Cui adds. He attributes China’s economic development to “the hard work of the people” who are exploited by Party leaders. As an example of the lack of political rights, he cites the fact that the regime has taken away the freedom and wealth of nouveau riche figures like Xu Jiayin and Jack Ma. He cites the words of late Premier Li Keqiang, who made public in 2020 that some 600 million Chinese live on less than US$140 a month. 

(Equal Times)

As for national liberation, all one can say is that with friends like Hamas, Palestinians do not need enemies. Rather than freedom, the so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ has nothing to offer them but poverty and bloodshed. Hamas’s position is crystal clear. ‘These are necessary sacrifices’, military commander Yahya Sinwar said of the mass. destruction in Gaza in a communication with fellow Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. 

(Daniel Lazere)

‘While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front – a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power. “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade’. 

(Libcom)

Ahn Chang-ho, who opposes anti-discrimination laws, also rejects the theory of evolution and wants creationism lessons in schools. A former judge nominated to lead South Korea’s human rights body has sparked outrage with his comments against the LGBTQ community and the theory of evolution, with observers citing him as proof of the country’s flawed system for official appointments. Ahn Chang-ho, 67, is under scrutiny for his statements in parliament suggesting that homosexuality is a tool used by communists to incite revolution. 

(MSN)

In a healthy ecosystem, the various sets of animal … get along with each other without the need of any system of authority or dominance—indeed, without overriding structure or organization of any kind soever. 

(Counterpunch)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion in the twenty-first century is alive and well across the world, despite its apparent decline in North America and parts of Europe. Vigorous competition between and within religious movements has led to their accumulating great power and wealth. Religions in many traditions have honed their competitive strategies over thousands of years. Today, they are big business; like businesses, they must recruit, raise funds, disburse budgets, manage facilities, organize transportation, motivate employees, and get their message out. 

(Princeton University Press)

Around one quarter of all Canadians are living in poverty, according to a new report authored by several non-governmental organizations. The report comes in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis for working class Canadians and bumper profits for big business… banks and war profiteers.

(wsws.org)

What about your country’s relations with the German government?

. . . It was hostile to us, the Greens and the SPD wanted to prevent the sale of weapons to us [Saudi Arabia] before the election. But now, the Greens are in government and are authorizing these arms sales. The foreign minister herself announced it. 

(Der Spiegel)

… India’s richest 1% own around 40% of the country’s wealth, according to Credit Suisse data cited by a 2023 Oxfam report, while more than 200 million people continue to live in poverty. One study by the World Inequality Lab in March found that the gap between India’s rich and poor is now so wide that by some measures, there was more equality in India under British colonial rule than today. 

(Time)

A Palestinian activist known for organising anti-Hamas protests in Gaza has been taken to hospital after an attack by a group of masked men. Amin Abed, 35, was admitted in critical condition after being kidnapped near his home by five assailants on Monday afternoon. A well-known activist, Mr Abed told the BBC: “I will not stop using my right to express my rejection of the 7 October attack.” Public dissent against Hamas has grown in recent months as residents of Gaza grow angry at the huge toll inflicted on the enclave since the start of the war.

(BBC)

The $320 million project—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—was touted as eventually being able to accommodate up to 150 aid trucks per day. Instead, it facilitated the shipment of the equivalent of about a single day’s worth of prewar food deliveries while operating for a total of less than three weeks.

 (Common Dreams)

In Rwanda’s case, Kagame paid an astonishing $50,000 per month to public relations firms to present himself as a transformative leader while doing very little for his people. Did you know that the President travels in a convoy of two luxurious Gulfstream jets, each costing $66.5 million? 

(BAR)

Every worker should be able to feel joy on Monday morning instead of anxiety on Sunday night.

(Libcom)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view. )

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The richest 1% of Norwegians held 22% of net wealth in 2022, according to Statistics Norway. That compares with 34% in the US, 30% in Germany and 21% in the UK. 

(MSN)

Senior Chinese leaders… are engaged in corruption and hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth by using relatives to disguise their activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. By 2012, Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth. 

(The Washington Times)

Among the 2,300 sewer cleaners under the employment of the KWSC, to do manual scavenging to unclog the drains, he claims to have taught Adil the dos and don’ts of diving into the slush. ‘You have to be smart to outdo death, which is our companion as we go down,’ he says. It is not the army of cockroaches and the stink that greets you when you open the manhole lid to get in, or the rats swimming in filthy water, but the blades and used syringes floating that are a cause for concern for many as they go down to bring up the rocks and the buckets of filthy silt.

(Inter Press Service)

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to ‘end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza’. ‘What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?’ she asked. ‘Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?’. 

(France24)

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen. ‘We have the Israelis right where we want them,’ Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages… In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as ‘necessary sacrifices’ while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria. 

(CNN)

Graham stressed that helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia could also have strategic economic benefits for the U.S. and Western countries. ‘They’re sitting on $10-12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. We don’t want to give that money and assets to Putin to share with China,’ he told Brennan on Sunday. ‘If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. They’re sitting on a goal mine. To give Putin $10-12 trillion that he will share with China is ridiculous’. 

(MSN)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Playing by the rules of war (2024)

From the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Millions of people are horrified by the Israeli war on Gaza. Protests have hit the streets in countries around the world, to the point where armed police battled students on university campuses across the US for occupying in protest against the war and America’s role in backing it.

Many protestors shout that the war is ‘illegal’ and that Israel is committing genocide, pinning hopes on international authority putting an end to malefaction. It should be noted that genocide is a crime of intent, and is not synonymous with mass homicide. That narrow legal definition, though, does trigger international and domestic legal requirements to act against it: hence why America and allied governments are determined to deny that it is genocide, and will continue to do so until the International Court of Justice makes a determinative ruling, which could be years away.

People should not put their faith in the split hairs of legality, but instead on sound analysis of the causes of conflict and action built on that analysis. The faith in the power of legality is misplaced against the tremendous value of the interests at stake in being able to secure and control the supply of oil. It is worth noting, as Tony Blair pointed out in his speech at the George Bush library in 2002, that it is not about monopolising oil, but ensuring that no one state can monopolise and thus threaten the supply of oil:

‘The western world is import dependent. We base our policy on diversity of supply. You in the US import from 50 different countries, no one of which supplies more than 15 per cent of total imports. The EU pursues roughly the same policy.’

Beyond that, it is important to note that international law is not set up to prevent war, but in fact to structure and enable wars to take place. It seeks to limit war and codify its conduct, but the powers that drafted those wars would simply not allow themselves to put aside the tool of war. As Michael Walzer, the theorist of just war writes, alongside Jo-Ann Mort: ‘It is a maxim of just war theory that the rules of war cannot make it impossible to fight a just war. There has to be a way to fight’. Walzer has also said in a recent interview ‘I think the IDF has been trying to adhere to the rules in an environment that probably requires some loosening of the rules.’

As we reported in our May issue part of this ‘loosening’ has been to deploy the Lavender AI targeting system to co-ordinate targeting of Hamas operatives and officials based on mass intelligence gathering. The military doctrine that civilian casualties are permissible in pursuit of a legitimate military objective has been broadly applied (more broadly than in the past). Israel undoubtedly has enough military lawyers to build a broad permissive case for its actions (or to construct one retrospectively where necessary).

It is abundantly clear that Israel is not acting out of absolute necessity: Hamas will never have the capacity to destroy Israel. If the intelligence failures that meant that Israel knew that Hamas was drilling for a 7 October-style operation were fixed Hamas could be securely locked back up. For a fraction of the cost spent on the war, Israel could have bought a bucket load of informants to finger high-level Hamas commanders for reprisal.

Everyone agrees with the concept of the right to self-defence to protect your own and your loved ones’ lives, but most would agree that going after the friends and family of someone who attacked you would be taking it too far; and every human society has mechanisms to stop violent disputes escalating in a spiral of tit for tat. And, of course, it is possible to engineer a situation where a claim of self-defence allows an actor to pursue the use of violence to achieve other ends.

As Arthur Ransome once wrote:

‘It has been said that when two armies face each other across a battle front and engage in mutual slaughter, they may be considered as a single army engaged in suicide. Now it seems to me that when countries, each one severally doing its best to arrest its private economic ruin, do their utmost to accelerate the economic ruin of each other, we are witnessing something very like the suicide of civilization itself.’

Israel is not unique in this. Indeed, their propagandists have been pointing out that there are mass refugee and humanitarian crises being created by savage wars in Sudan, Congo and Ukraine, but that Israel and its actions are being singled out. Possibly this is so, at least in part because of the focus of the western media (spurred on in part by the interest of their states and their capitalists in the Middle East region).

Indeed, in terms of Israel’s tactics, they seem to be following exactly the same military doctrines as were used by the Sri Lankan government when they crushed the Tamil Tigers in 2009:

‘The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) advanced its military campaign in the Vanni, using large-scale and widespread shelling, at times with heavy weapons, such as Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRLs) and other large artillery, causing large numbers of civilian casualties. It shelled in three consecutive No Fire Zones, where it had encouraged the civilian population to concentrate, and after it had indicated that it would stop using heavy weapons.’

Likewise, the Tamil Tigers violated human rights by using human shields and forced labour. Sri Lanka was protected from human rights allegations at the UN by allied states.

War is not some inherent feature of humanity. Billions of us live lives without waging war upon one another. War emerges from a social and technological architecture that enables it, and if the marchers who rightly hate war want to put a stop to it, they need to look to action that will make war impossible, not illegal.

Pik Smeet

Voice From The Back: Coal, steel and blood (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Coal, steel and blood

For generations apologists for capitalism have churned out the lie that modern war is caused by different ideologies. We have been told that the First World War was a war against militarism and the Second was a war for democracy against fascism. The socialist view is that war is the logical outcome of economic rivalry and now one of the pillars of capitalism confirms our view, inadvertently while he discourses on another subject. As Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, the Italian economist who is now a major influence at the European Central Bank, has written: “It can hardly be denied that establishing joint supra-national management of coal and steel – the two fundamental natural resources of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over which France, Germany and the rest of Europe fought cruel wars was a highly political project.” Observer (9 December).

The cause of poverty

For almost a hundred years the Labour Party have argued that poverty can be abolished inside capitalism. Socialists have always argued that capitalism with its class divisions and production for profit is the cause of poverty. The latest figures on Labour’s failure to deal with poverty inside capitalism illustrate our point. “More families are classified as very poor now than under the last full year of Conservative government, according to new research. The number of people living in households with less than 40 per cent of the average income in 1999-2000 was 8.3 million, 100,000 more than in 1996-97, a study published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says.” Times (10 December).

Terror thugs and terrorist teachers

Under the heading “Terror thugs groom future suicide killers” The New York Post (11 December) reported that kids between 4 and 8 years of age were being taught how to be suicidal terrorists by the Palestine terrorist group Hamas. What they didn’t report is that the US government are also guilty of “robbing kids of their childhood”. “On another front, the Pentagon has succeeded in establishing its first Military Institute, as a public middle school in Oakland, CA. The school’s 1,200 cadets, whose average age is twelve, wear uniforms, perform military drills, and are instructed by military approved teachers.” (WWW.CITIZEN-SOLDIER.ORG).

Who needs the brain scan?

One of Labour’s election boasts was that it would improve the NHS, but what is the reality? “A medical scanner costing millions of pounds is being used to treat pets at an NHS hospital which does not have enough nurses to treat its patients . . . News of the animal treatment scheme comes as the Bedford Hospital Trust has warned it will have to close an operating theatre to avoid a £3 million deficit by the end of the financial year.” Observer (23 December). It is good news for well-heeled pet owners though. A London divorce lawyer was delighted that her 13-year-old poodle had a brain scan and prompt medical treatment at the hospital. This must be a great consolation to workers waiting for treatment on Labour’s new, “improved” NHS.

Inappropriate tears

After the horrendous events at the Twin Towers the outgoing Mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani talked about the site being devoted to a memorial to those killed. The new mayor Mike Bloomberg would now like to distance himself from such foolish, unelectable sentiments. “Mr Bloomberg all but ruled out using the whole site for a memorial. He said that the value of the 16 acre property and the demands of the area for jobs and businesses meant that it would be inappropriate to devote the whole of the space to a single monument.” Times (5 January). Sympathy, condolences and sentiment are all very well, but inside capitalism profit is the driving force, so let us not have inappropriate tears. Although as human beings, they are the only ones we’ve got. Nearly 3,000 human beings died that morning. We still cry, inappropriately, of course, at the madness of capitalism.

Scandal? What scandal?

Under the headline “Scandal of NHS beds auction” (Observer, 6 January) reported that more than 10,000 private patients were treated last year in the UK’s NHS hospitals. That these patients jumped the queue for treatment and cited the case of NHS patients having to wait six months to a year for a heart by-pass operation while for a fee of £15,000 “they can be operated on almost immediately by a surgeon of their choice”. So where is the scandal? Inside capitalism if you are poor you can be homeless, if you are rich you can live in a beautiful house. If poor you will probably get a sub-standard education, if rich you can get the best that money can buy. That is the way capitalism operates – if you can afford it you can buy the best medical treatment, if not get to the back of the queue.

This is progress?

All the slaughter, maiming and terror of the recent Afghanistan conflict was justified according to the Western press by the wonderful improvements in human rights in that country. A report in the Brussels newspaper (Le Soir, 19 December) would seem to indicate that this is far from the truth. “Public executions, stonings and amputations are going to continue in Afghanistan in accordance with the Sharia law, a top Afghan magistrate has stated, while promising more fairness and clemency than during the time of the Taliban. “For example, the Taliban used to hang the bodies of victims in public for four days”, the judge Ullah Zarif explained, “we will only expose them for a short time, say 15 minutes”. As for those guilty of adultery, they will certainly be stoned ‘but we will use smaller stones’, judge Zarif said.”

Letters: Gaza and Ukraine (2023)

Letters to the Editors from the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letters on the two ongoing wars

Gaza

Lindsey German, the leader and spokesperson for the Stop the War Coalition, was a member for 37 years of a Trotskyist sect, the misnamed Socialist Workers Party, which believed in dishonestly forming ‘coalitions’ (like the Stop the War Coalition) through which to lead the working class into socialism, rather than engaging honestly and explicitly to win people over.

She was on the pompously titled ‘Central Committee’ of that arrogant and dishonest organisation and only left in 2010 due to factional disputes which she lost, and not because of any change of heart.

She continues to uphold the Russian Revolution as socialist even though it was in fact a minority-led coup to establish modern state capitalism throughout the Russian Empire and a brutal dictatorship by… another ‘Central Committee’. She founded and still leads the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ which has resurfaced on the outbreak of various wars yet kept its misleading title of ‘stop THE war’ as if it was a spontaneous response to this specific war. It’s actually an ‘astroturfing’ body and is run by German as a means of recruiting people to her specific, confused and twisted notion of socialism rooted bizarrely in an obsession with one Russian man who died 83 years ago and who did more to harm the working class and the prospects of genuine socialism than almost anyone in history, Leon Trotsky.

With her decades as a leading member of the SWP and her ongoing commitment to using wars, distress and death as a manipulative means to recruit people into her latter-day, nonsensical, Bolshevism, she is hardly a sincere or straight-acting figure in the current terrifying and cataclysmic crisis in the Middle East. Please bear this in mind as she is now doing the rounds of various big media outlets on behalf of the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ and speaking as if she is an expert on Middle Eastern politics. She’s not, nor is she a pacifist, nor is she a genuine socialist. For her, and her Trotskyist colleagues, the war is a chance for them to recruit people to their very odd brand of ‘socialism’. This is a deeply unpleasant lack of sincerity or honesty. It is unfortunate that none of those who have been interviewing her are aware of any of this. She will certainly not reveal her manipulative motives.

Clifford Slapper

Ukraine

This is a letter I sent to my local newspaper, which they refused to publish. It is in response to an article they published celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day.

Re: ‘Frome honours Ukrainian Independence Day’, and in particular this quote from Iryna Ladyzhenska (Frome Town Council’s social facilitator for Ukrainian refugees): ‘Now Ukraine is fighting for its freedom and values, such as human rights, democracy, and rule of law. It is an existential war.’

Firstly, I am totally against the Russian invasion and bombing of Ukraine. However, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, and has a well-documented neo-Nazi problem. Sadly, world history has been unfortunate to the Ukrainian people, in that Ukraine is a flag in a tug-of-war contest between East and West.

Most importantly, we must answer the question: what is a country? The answer: countries only exist in class-divided societies, where there is a master class and a servant class. The apparatus of the state exists for the benefit of the former. In the modern world, these two respective classes are the capitalist class and the working class.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine, two cities negotiated to allow the Russian army to take over without armed resistance – Kherson (on the Black Sea coast), and Kupyansk (near Kharkov and the border with Russia). This saved these places from destruction, and their populations from being killed in any crossfire, and was obviously the sensible thing for the local authorities to have done. But it wasn’t to last; last year the Ukrainian military recaptured Kupyansk, and later the Russian army withdrew from Kherson. They were ‘liberated’, but were now in the front line, and both have since been bombarded with large parts of them reduced to ruins.

In a world socialist society, wars will no longer exist, because countries will no longer exist, because social classes will no longer exist. The Earth’s natural and industrial resources will be owned and democratically controlled by the whole of society for the sole purpose of meeting people’s needs (that’s what socialism truly means).

Matthew Shearn

Tiny Tips (2023)

The Tiny Tips column from the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Cost of living crisis, what cost of living crisis? A new breed of uber-luxury hotels in London is breaking records with rooms costing more than £1,000 a night as wealthy visitors flock to the capital for ‘experiences’ only (a lot of) money can buy. In the Peninsula on Hyde Park Corner, a short walk from Buckingham Palace, rooms start at a kingly £1,300. Despite the startling price tag, the hotel is said to be running at full capacity (Link).

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Pfizer recently announced it would increase the U.S. list price of its patented Covid treatment nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) to $1,390 for a five-day treatment course. Experts at Harvard University have estimated that the cost of producing a five-day course of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir is $1 (Link).

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‘[Scientists] created weapons under the protection of St. Seraphim of Sarov because, by the ineffable providence of God, these weapons were created in the monastery of St. Seraphim… Thanks to this power, Russia has remained independent and free, and, of course, we must all cherish this remarkable feat of our scientists, who practically saved the country, in our hearts and memories,’, Russian Orthodox Church Head Patriarch Kirill saying that Russia’s nuclear weapons saved the nation (Link).

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@CraigMurrayOrg. To be entirely plain. I have always viscerally opposed war. I have dedicated my life to conflict resolution and reconciliation. But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support. If that is a crime, send me back to jail (Link).

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Hamas — being a reactionary, exclusivist outfit — has a ‘post-Israel’ vision that will produce an ethnically cleansed theocratic dictatorship, in other words ‘building up yet another system of exploitation’. More, their pogromist violence against Jewish civilians is not “cathartic”, or restoring Palestinian self-respect, but instead full-on racist sadism (Link).

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More than one million children experienced the ‘most extreme form of poverty’ last year, said Sky News, according to a new report that slams such ‘horrifying levels of destitution’ as a political choice. The report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the number of people experiencing these levels of poverty in the UK has ‘increased by 61%’ between 2019 and 2022, with 3.8 million people experiencing destitution. More than half of destitute households have a ‘weekly income of less than £85’ (Link).

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Coca-Cola has quietly scrubbed references to Hamas-supporting BLM from its website (Link).

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The founder of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization is voicing his support of Jan. 6 prisoners and not shying away from endorsing former President Donald Trump as ‘the best candidate we have’ (Link).

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When Shevek asks the socialists of Nio Esseia what Anarres, which they see as their ‘moon,’, means to them, they respond that every time they look up at the night sky, they are reminded that a society with no government, no police, and no economic exploitation exists and cannot be dismissed as merely a utopian fantasy (Link).

Pro-Palestine or Anti-War? (2023)

From the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every weekend there have been protests and demonstrations about what is happening to the population of Gaza. Water, electricity and fuel are cut off. Hospitals, schools and residential buildings are bombed. Hundreds are killed every day and many more injured. Over a million have been displaced.

Naturally people are horrified by what they see on their television screens is happening and, equally naturally, want it to stop. So do we. Despite this, most politicians will only go as far as asking for a ‘humanitarian pause’ — after which the siege, the bombings, the killings, and the destruction can continue as before.

Some of the demonstrators are openly pro-Hamas chanting ‘from the river to the sea.’ Maybe some are doing it as an act of defiance as the government and the media have called for the police to ban it. But do they realise the implications of what, literally, they calling for — an Islamic state in the whole of Palestine including what is now Israel? How could that be achieved without further massacres and misery, if only because as much 40 percent of those living there are not Muslims but Jews and Christians who are likely to resist it? In any event, it doesn’t reflect the just-stop-the- killings sentiment of most people and even most demonstrators.

Others are calling for a ‘free Palestine’, by which they mean an independent state either alongside or incorporating Israel. That might reduce the added oppression which the population of the West Bank and Gaza now suffer but it would not solve the basic problem facing workers there of being excluded from the means of living and forced by economic necessity to work for those who own them on condition of producing profits for them. Nationalism is no solution; in fact, whether it is Jewish or Palestinian, it’s part of the problem.

The protests are unobjectionable as a simple protest against the horrors of war and a simple cry that the suffering caused by an ongoing war should just stop, naive as this may be. Given capitalism and the clash of interests between the profit-taking few that is built into it, no side in a war is going to stop just because innocent people are being killed, injured, displaced or otherwise ‘collateral damage’. States fight wars to win and will always do what it takes to achieve this, despite Geneva Conventions and so-called international humanitarian law.

As socialists we object not just to particular wars but to all wars and not just to all wars but to the system that breeds them — the worldwide capitalist system of competition for profits between rival capitalist groupings and the states that protect them which brings them into conflict over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets. In the present war the greater issue is who controls the oilfields in the Persian Gulf and the trade route out of it, with Israel being supported by the West to counter the threat there from Iran and Iran promoting militant Islamism to undermine Israel.

The solution in Palestine is not to establish a Palestine state nor to demolish the state of Israel. It’s not a one-state solution or a two-state solution or any sort of re-arrangement of frontiers and areas of political control. That would still leave the underlying economic system the same. It’s a worldwide system, without borders, where the Earth’s resources will have become the common heritage of all humanity and used to produce what people need rather than to make profits for the few who currently own and control them. That’s the only way to lasting peace not just in Palestine but throughout the world.

Adam Buick

Israel-Gaza war: What we say (2023)

From the November 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some say that the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East would not have happened if the State of Israel had never been founded. But it was and it exists. And the same kind of thing could be said about countless conflict situations in the world today. So we must look at the situation as it is and, if we do, we find that, as in other such conflicts, the underlying cause is not undying enmity between two groups – Jews and Arabs – but a fight between different capitalist factions, via their respective governments, over land, resources and strategic routes.

In Gaza, the Hamas organisation, who are both anti-Israeli and anti-semitic, came to power via elections in 2007 with the stated aim ‘to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’. But that was the end of any form of democracy there and, in their time in office, they have crushed multiple protests against them by rivals, expelling their officials to make sure there would never be another round of elections and killing dozens of their own people, many of them civilians. During that time the people of Gaza have been plunged increasingly into poverty with, for example, 40 percent unemployment, with their leaders enriching themselves assisted by backers from other Arab countries and enjoying multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt.

The continuing oppression by Israel (a country by the way where 22 percent of its own households live in poverty) has also of course been a significant factor, as its government has sought to facilitate the enrichment of its own capitalist class by grabbing land and keeping a tight lid on protest. Now the lid has come off – and in the most horrific way.

There is no excuse for the horrors unleashed on innocent people by Hamas nor for Israel’s savage retaliation, killing thousands, depriving a land of food, water and power and threatening to flatten its infrastructure regardless of what may happen to the inhabitants in the short and long term. Of course Israel’s government will support its own capitalist class to the hilt – after all that is its role.

And it is all part of a play book, which we see played out time and time again as governments representing their capitalist classes fail to resolve conflicts by diplomacy and resort to horrifying violence. We can only repeat the same thing we have always said when this has happened – that workers (in this case Arab and Israeli ones) have no interest in fighting one another but have a common interest in uniting with other workers to abolish capitalism and establish socialism.

Blogger's Note:

An earlier version of this text was posted on the blog on the 18th of October.

Editorial: ‘God is Great!’ (2023)

Editorial from the November 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

This was the vitriolic slogan enthusiastically chanted around a truck loaded with bodies. Those killed for being on the wrong side of the fence when it was unexpectedly breached. All too easy to view the unfolding horror of strike and counter strike as an escalating falling out of the faithful: Muslims versus Jews.

Actually it’s people killing people, state or quasi-state promoted murder. What divides them is nationalism. Palestinian nationality emerged from the collapsed Ottoman Empire, while Zionism was formed from long-standing hostility to Jews in Europe. Both products of world wars.

The immediate upsurge of violence is but the most recent manifestation of resentments and hatreds ignited by the formation of Israel on land formally occupied by Palestinians. Strip away the religious camouflage to reveal the fundamental cause of this and most, if not all, armed conflicts.

There is no significant difference with the ongoing mutual slaughter in the Ukraine, with soldiers/victims of both sides infused with nationalism. The flags of both sides flying over land that is the source, actual or potential, of wealth.

Land is the most basic element of wealth creation: for the production of food, the source of raw materials required by every manufacturing process. The labour involved in farming, raw material extraction, and turning those materials into usable commodities, creates the value from which profit is generated.

Therefore, who owns/controls a particular piece of real estate is a matter of financial importance. While it continues to be private concerns, or states on their behalf, workers will be employed to defend one particular plot, or even try to seize the plot of another group.

Such plots are dressed up as nations with defined borders which in reality are no more than lines on maps. Lines that are readily moved or erased and redrawn. So it was that on 14 May 1948 the state of Israel could be declared where, on the 13 May, there was no such state.

Cue 75 years of armed conflict, of full-scale battles and terrorist outrages, with constantly simmering violence just beneath the surface of seemingly quieter periods. There is occasional political talk of one-state or two-state solutions alongside militant groups on either side of the fence whose rhetoric comes close to genocidal.

Atrocity is stacked upon atrocity. Strategic gambles in which the chips are men, women and children wrapped in body bags. Both sides raise the stakes trying to force each other to throw in their hand and withdraw. Meanwhile everyone around them loses.

Except, of course, arms manufacturers. There’s never a famine of weapons, it seems.

There are self-proclaimed leftists who celebrate the latest killing spree on behalf of Palestinians. Just as those who cheered on the young men as they marched to their deaths in 1914. Nationalism then, nationalism now is the business, and it is big business, of sacrificing young lives en masse on bloody altars of profit.

God may not be great, but financial returns are, at least for a few.

Statement from The Socialist Party on Israel-Gaza War (2023)

Israel-Gaza War

Some say that the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East would not have happened if the State of Israel had never been founded. But it was and it exists. And the same kind of thing could be said about countless conflict situations in the world today. So we must look at the situation as it is and, if we do, we find that, as in other such conflicts, the underlying cause is not undying enmity between two groups – Jews and Arabs – but a fight between different capitalist factions, via their respective governments, over land, resources and strategic routes. In Gaza, the Hamas organisation, who are both anti-Israeli and anti-semitic, came to power via elections in 2007 with the stated aim ‘to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’. But that was the end of any form of democracy there and, in their time in office, they have crushed multiple protests against them by rivals, expelling their officials to make sure there would never be another round of elections and killing dozens of their own people, many of them civilians. During that time the people of Gaza have been plunged increasingly into poverty with, for example, 40 per cent unemployment, with their leaders enriching themselves assisted by backers from other Arab countries and enjoying multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt.

The continuing oppression by Israel (a country by the way where 22% of its own households live in poverty) has also of course been a significant factor, as its government has sought to facilitate the enrichment of its own capitalist class by grabbing land and keeping a tight lid on protest. Now the lid has come off – and in the most horrific way.

There is no excuse for the horrors unleashed on innocent people by Hamas nor for Israel’s savage retaliation, killing hundreds, depriving a land of food, water and power and threatening to flatten its infrastructure regardless of what may happen to the inhabitants in the short and long term. Of course Israel’s government will support its own capitalist class to the hilt – after all that is its role. And it is all part of a playbook, which we see played out time and time again as governments representing their capitalist classes fail to resolve conflicts by diplomacy and resort to horrifying violence. We can only repeat the same thing we have always said when this has happened – that workers (in this case Arab and Israeli ones) have no interest in fighting one another but have a common interest in uniting with other workers to abolish capitalism and establish socialism.

Blogger's Note:

Just posted on the SPGB website, an audio upload of the October 13th SPGB Zoom Meeting, 'Breaking news – the war in Gaza'. (Speaker Paddy Shannon):

Link: Part 1 (Opening remarks.)

Link: Part 2 (Discussion.)

Material World: Hamas High Dramas (2021)

The Material World Column from the July 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a result of the recent conflict, many supporters of the Palestinian cause portray Hamas as gallant freedom-fighters up against Israel’s military might. While, in turn, the pro-Israel Zionist lobby depict Hamas as the super-villains. Many readers will be surprised that Hamas exists through the acquiescence and collusion of the Israeli state which appears to adhere to policies of better the foe you know, keep your friends close but your enemies closer and divide to conquer.

The origins of Hamas have their roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin. Not only was he allowed to openly spread his Islamist message while Israel was conducting assassinations of members of the PLO, but Yassin was also permitted to form Mujama al-Islamiya as an official charity that would eventually evolve into Hamas (on.wsj.com/3wDFzfV).

Yitzhak Segev, the then governor of Gaza, has said he was in regular contact with Yassin, ‘We had no problems with him.’ Segev actually arranged for the Muslim cleric to have hospital treatment in Israel. Segev told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a counterbalance to a shared enemy, the secular leftists, hoping Hamas would become an alternative to the PLO, a need that grew greater when the PLO started negotiating the two-state solution. The Islamic militants accused it of treachery and this suited Israel at the time who wished to keep building Jewish-Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Like Baron Frankenstein, Israel spawned a monster over which it lost control. Sheikh Yassin was assassinated in 2004 by missiles from a helicopter.

Old history? Not so. Israel still indirectly facilitates the funding of Hamas to this day.

‘In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News, former Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman revealed details about a secret visit to Qatar by Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen and the Israeli military’s chief of Southern Command Herzl Halevi to allegedly ‘beg the Qataris to keep pouring money into Hamas’ (bit.ly/2TfCww2).

A process confirmed by the Reuters report:

 ‘Qatar, with Israeli acquiescence, has provided substantial funding to Hamas in recent years, by some tallies, millions of dollars a month, chiefly to pay administrative salaries, some of which can then be siphoned off… A guy from Qatar comes every month with his suitcases of money accompanied by Israeli soldiers to pay Hamas administrative staff…’ said the senior European official (reut.rs/3wFhZiU).

Moshé Machover, a close observer of events in the region, wrote in the Weekly Worker how Netanyahu explained why Israel permits the financial support of Hamas:

  “…whoever wishes to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state must support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy – to separate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria…” (bit.ly/3i2KsLw).

A common refrain is that it is for the Palestinians themselves to determine the methods of resistance, not ourselves, and they have chosen Hamas as their representatives.

Has Hamas ended the 14-year long siege? Has it provoked Israel to invade with ground forces for Hamas fighters to inflict heavy casualties upon the IDF? Has it overcome Israel’s defences when several hundred rockets fizzle out before even reaching Israeli territory and of those that do, 90 per cent are shot being down by Iron Dome? Has Israel’s ‘self-defence’ been a financial cost to it considering that the USA pays Israel’s bills?

What Hamas rockets did do was to distract from East Jerusalem and the Palestinian-Israeli protests across Israel. Some critics suggest it was a power-play by Hamas, not an act of solidarity. They want to present themselves as the leadership of the Israeli-Palestinians and protectors of the holy places.

Hamas could have revived the March of Return to the fences as a non-violent alternative to the very clear suicidal strategy of armed struggle, although even that tactic was not without a likely cost in lives from past experience of Israel army snipers. Regardless, Hamas wanted a media event of Israeli bombings and mass misery and Israel, for its domestic politics, obliged them.

Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has said, referring to the Israeli bombing, ‘Air strikes in such densely populated areas resulted in a high level of civilian fatalities and injuries, as well as the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure’. If deemed to be indiscriminate and disproportionate in their impact on civilians ‘Such attacks may constitute war crimes’.

Equally pertinent, Bachelet went on in her statement to say the Hamas tactic of locating rocket launchers in densely populated civilian areas, and firing rockets which were indiscriminate and failed to distinguish between military and civilian objects, ‘…constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law…’

Both sides in this war caused innocent civilians to die and the only difference being that Israel killed far more than Hamas.

People have taken to the streets for the cessation of violence and ‘Boycott, Divest and Sanction’ has become a popular policy for campaigners, but in many situations, there are problems in this capitalist world that have no solution. The Israel-Palestine deadlock may well be one of those where we have to await the creation of a cooperative commonwealth. In the meantime, for the sake of stopping the killings and destruction, there is an opportunity for the Palestinians and Israeli government to agree to the Hamas offer of the hudna, an Islamic form of a long-term and renewable armistice where both parties mutually accept the pre-1967 borders.

But even that is also a very distant hope according to many informed commentators.

ALJO

Editorial: The Middle East – A Capitalist Flashpoint (2021)

Editorial from the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

To live in a region like the Middle East that is abundant in natural resources and with its easy access to the world’s main waterways would, in a rational society, be a blessing for its inhabitants, but under capitalism, with its ruthless and competitive quest for profit, it is an unmitigated curse. Greedy and hungry capitalist vultures are continually circling ready to pounce on their prey. From Iraq to Syria to Yemen, hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed in wars dedicated to the god of profit, more powerful and blood-thirsty than any Sumerian deity.

Palestine was a focus of rivalry between imperial powers long before Israel was established. The Ottomans ruled there until their defeat in the First World War, whereupon the British received a mandate to rule Palestine as part of the spoils of war. In 1948, after facing a guerrilla campaign by Jewish settler groups, the British rulers relinquished their rule over Palestine and the Israeli state was born. Once in power the new regime set about expelling the Arab population (the Palestinians), from their homes and villages. They were exiled to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and many found themselves in refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries.

Given its strategic location, Israel was always going to be courted by the major capitalist powers. The USSR was one of its earliest supporters until about the mid-fifties when it became an ally of the United States. During the Cold War, the US backed Israel and the Arab states were supported by the USSR. The workers in the region, including the dispossessed Palestinians, were the pawns in this geopolitical power struggle.

Conflict between the Palestinian population and the state has dogged Israel since its inception. A resolution appeared possible when the Oslo accords were agreed in 1993 which proposed a two-state solution. However, in the last 20 years, more stridently nationalistic Israeli governments have encouraged illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The tensions arising from this led to military conflicts between the Israeli state and Hamas in 2009 and again in 2014. The United States government has continually backed Israel, including supplying arms. Donald Trump, when he was the US President, ramped up the tensions by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The triggers for the current violence have been the attempt to evict Palestinian families in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers and the firing of stun grenades by Israeli police at worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Reacting to this provocation, Hamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. The Israeli military retaliated with airstrikes against buildings in Gaza. As in previous military confrontations, casualties fell more heavily on the Palestinian side, including the deaths of many children. However, an ominous new development has been an outbreak of sectarian violence between Jewish and Arab Israeli workers.

Hamas, would-be capitalist rulers of the Palestinians with links to Iran, are vying to wrest control of the Palestinian areas from their Fatah rivals in the Palestinian National Authority. The odious Mr Erdogan of Turkey is weighing in pretending to be a champion of the Palestinians.

Despite the media narrative, this is not a conflict between Jews and Arabs, but between different capitalist factions fighting over the oil resources and strategic routes. Jewish and Arab workers have no interest in fighting each other, but they have a common interest in uniting with other workers in abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism.