Israel’s attack on occupied Gaza: a case of cold-blooded murder – ILPS-Canada
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle – Canada (ILPS-Canada) and our member organizations across the country express our solidarity with the Palestinian people resisting the brutal and criminal Israeli assault.
We salute the steadfastness of the people of Gaza who have been on the front lines of resistance to Zionist colonization for more that forty years, from the legendary Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Guevara Gaza who led urban guerrilla forces in the refugee camps against the Israeli occupation, to the resistance that forced the Zionist occupiers out of the strip in 2005, to the countless martyrs of “Operation Cast Lead” and the survivors who continue to struggle daily against the siege.
This sickening Israeli attack, this cold blooded murder of Palestinian children, is a punishment because the Palestinian people of Gaza continue to demand their rights: to exist, to resist, to return, and to continue the struggle to liberate Palestine.
It is no surprise that the Harper government and their big business backers march in lock step with Israel. The Zionist project mirrors the Canadian colonial project of continuing theft of Indigenous lands, extinguishing of the treaty rights of Indigenous people and the plunder of their territories for the benefit of Canadian big business.
Moreover, Canada along with its imperialist allies, rely on Israel as a bulwark against any assertion of independence or progressive nationalism that threatens their hegemony in the region. We need to expose and oppose the complicity of the Canadian ruling class and their government in the war crimes committed in Palestine, without having any illusions that policies shaped by the fundamental material and ideological interests of the Canadian ruling class can easily be changed by “public opinion”.
If we want to change Canada’s policies on Palestine we will need to take a lesson from the Egyptian and Greek masses and build a movement in the streets and people power that cannot be ignored. This is what we are trying to do as the International League of Peoples’ Struggle and we invite you to join with us in building this united front against Canadian imperialism, capitalism and colonialism.
We also have to challenge those supposedly progressive forces in Canada who call for an ‘end to the violence on both sides’. The reality is that Palestinians in Gaza face grinding violence from the occupation and the siege every single day. Refugees face the violence of living in poverty in refugee camps, prevented from returning to the lands and homes from which they were violently expelled by the Zionist colonial forces. Farmers and fishers are fired on, killed and abducted by Israeli occupation forces when they try to work their lands and fish their seas.
Palestinian women suffer all kinds of humiliation at the hands of the occupation: extreme levels of unemployment and poverty; the loss of family members and loved ones to murder and abduction at the hands of the occupation; of knowing that their children will be born into occupation or as refugees; and of imprisonment and torture for their part in the resistance. The violence of missiles and bombs and F16s is only a more brutal and honest face of the daily violence of the occupation and the siege.
The false equation of Palestinian resistance with Israeli colonial aggression plays completely into the hands of Israel and its imperialist backers, including Canada, who want to make the status quo of Zionist occupation and control of more than 80% of Palestine the basis for negotiation. A just and lasting peace in Palestine begins with ending the siege, dismantling the settlements, releasing the prisoners and recognizing the Palestinian right of return.
Therefore we salute the resistance fighters and all other Palestinians contributing to the resistance in countless ways in Gaza, in Occupied Palestine and in the Shatat. Despite the deep pockets and military force of the Zionist occupiers and their imperialist backers we know that throughout the world and especially in the ghettos, in the barrios, on the reserves and in the oppressed nations waging their own struggles against imperialism, it is the Palestinian flag that is being raised as a symbol of solidarity in our shared struggle for justice and liberation.
In the words of the International Chairperson of the ILPS, Prof. Jose Maria Sison: “The Palestinian people are fighting for the just cause of national liberation. Thus, they enjoy abundant support from the peoples of the world.”
Free Palestine!
Victory to Palestinian resistance!
— ILPS-Canada Coordinating Committee, November 18, 2012