Yet another round of fighting that started back in 1948 when the state of Israel was first established, and it is another conflict where the Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. The return of the Jewish diaspora saw a new forced exile, that of the Palestinians. The World Socialist Movement is always spontaneously on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular among Palestinians.

 According to Israeli propaganda, the only way to stop rocket attacks on Israel from happening is to counter-attack with their far more lethal air attacks. The message drummed into Jewish-Israelis is that “we” have no choice but to defend ourselves against an enemy bent on driving “us” into the sea. Likewise, Palestinians are told that Israel is intent upon committing genocide upon them, if not physically, but by making them a non-people. 

The World Socialist Movement consider both Netanyahu’s government and Hamas as terrorist in the sense both indiscriminately target civilians. Israel uses terror on a much larger scale than Hamas, solely because it has a much greater ability.

 Either side could avoid war by reaching compromises upon the other side’s political demands and making concessions. But a solution of the emergence of conciliation is not easy to envisage in view of the prevalence of supremacist, sectarian and racist outlooks in both Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian society. The ethnic religious nationalism of Jewish zealots who advocate the expulsion of all non-Jews from “Greater Israel” has resulted in distrust of Jews by many Palestinians. 

This year has seen two well-informed reports from reliable sources, B’tselem and Human Rights Watch, that Israel has transformed itself into an apartheid state. It confirms what was said in 2003 when former Italian prime minister Massimo D’Alema that during a meeting with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon told him that apartheid South Africa’s “Bantustan” system was the best solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The Palestinian people can perhaps be forgiven for perceiving their struggle to be one against a Middle–Eastern form of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

It is easy to see why the poverty-stricken in the Palestinian refugee camps might view the promise of Palestinian self-government as an answer. Sadly, like the Zionists, Palestinians have fallen for  a dangerous myth about the past; in their case, the myth that Palestine belonged to them. It was no such thing: most Palestinians struggled along on tiny plots of land, under the weight of massive debts, exploited by a class of landlords. Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, any more than modern Israel belongs to working–class Israelis.  In 1930, the average rural family in Palestine was in debt to the tune of £P27, which was approximately such a family’s yearly income. On 1936 figures, one-fifth of one per cent of the population owned a quarter of the land! Clearly pre-Israeli Palestine did not belong to the Palestinian peasants: in 1948 they were driven off land which was not theirs.

 They have yet to realise it, but the workers of the region regardless of the  national boundaries where they now live — have an identity of interest.  Let’s hope that they come to recognise their common interests and reject the nationalism and religious bigotry that engender false divisions, violence and racial hatred. When it comes to the nationalist and religious fervour, there is nothing at all with which we as socialists can identify, for both are abstractions that have imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real class interests.  While the focus is understandably  on the genuine  grievances of the Palestinian against oppression, we need to add that the majority of Israel’s Jewish population  also live lives of relative poverty, and within a system that depends upon exploitation and division. The hopes of Jewish workers of a life free from persecution have not been answered by the setting up of the state of Israel.

We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life.  Socialists aspire to is a world without national frontiers in which free movement is possible and where all people live together as equals. Socialists are sickened by the violence of the Gaza conflict. The slaughter in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work not for  a “two-state” solution or “one-state”, but the “no-state” solution as the only one that can ever give permanent peace. 

We sympathise with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. No longer obsessed with ethnic conflict, “Jews” and “Palestinians” will be able to refocus on the social, economic and ecological problems spawned by the “normal” peacetime functioning of capitalism. A space for socialist ideas will open up in this small corner of the world. The real war – the class war between master and wage slave – is yet to begin.

We need to take the use of science and technology out of the hands of a handful of profiteers and make it accountable to and controlled by a harmonious socialist society and then it will be possible to really harness science as a mighty lever for benefiting mankind and the environment. We need  to radically transform the way we relate to one another and to nature. It is crucial to understand that the widespread damage to our environment originates from the normal functioning of the system and not from any malfunction or aberration.

The central driving forces of the system as a whole is endless growth driven by commerce seeking maximum profitability. The ruling class has no good ideas about how to address the existential crises of the destruction of our ecosystems. Today’s giant predatory corporations have vandalised our world.  It is profits and accumulation of capital which motivates the operations of the economic system. If anyone believe that by just protesting and appealing to the good will and humanitarian instincts of the predatory financiers and industrialists will change the situation for the better, they are  building upon illusions. To appeal to the good will, common sense and even self-interest of the big financiers and industrialists is to expect them to be able to abandon the lucrative profits, exploitation and oppression which are linked to pollution. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humanity. It is capitalism that causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humankind.  

The only viable way forward is to achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment. To create world socialism it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism. We believe that people have the human right to sharing  all the resources available for the makings of a good life. This means clean water, air, and soil.

The ‘blame-the-people’ approach to the breakdown of our ecological balance diverts the justifiable anger of the people from the ruling class that is responsible for the deteriorating conditions. The root of the problem is not people nor their numbers but capitalism itself. The truth is that our ruling elite does not care what happens to the ecology so long as their investment portfolios are yielding high dividends. We have to stop fooling ourselves. There is a calculated gamble that is being pursued by the ruling class. If we are to survive, we are going to have to get out of the game, before  the stakes have gotten too high and we are risking civilisation’s existence.

Some people insist that it doesn’t have to be this bad. We can clean up the planet. But the trouble is structural. 

 Chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH,  linked to a range of serious health issues such as kidney disease, liver damage, cancer, neurological damage, developmental problems and autoimmune disorders,  are still being used in greaseproof pizza boxes, carryout containers, fast-food wrappers, and paperboard packaging. Chemical giants DuPont and Daikin knew the dangers of the PFAS compound  in food packaging since 2010, but hid them from the public and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The companies told the FDA that the compounds were safer and less likely to accumulate in humans than older types of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” and submitted internal studies to support that claim.

But Daikin withheld a 2009 study that indicated toxicity to lab rats’ livers and kidneys, while DuPont in 2012 did not alert the FDA or public to new internal data that indicated that the chemical stays in animals’ bodies for much longer than initially thought.  

Had the FDA seen the data, it is unlikely that it would have approved 6:2 FTOH, said Maricel Maffini, an independent researcher who studies PFAS in food packaging. 

Although Daikin may have broken the law, it and DuPont, which has previously been caught hiding studies that suggest toxicity in PFAS, are not facing any repercussions.

“…oversight is lax,” Maffini said.

Chemical giants hid dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ in food packaging | Pollution | The Guardian

As the United States prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, along with with all their political poodles, leaving behind units of special forces and hired mercenaries to continue to protect the Afghan government from the Taliban, the latest calculations of the cost of that war has been released 

Microsoft Word – Davidson_AlliesCostsofWar_Final.docx (brown.edu)

 The U.S. had the highest number of allied fatalities in Afghanistan between October 2001 and September 2017—2,316. During that period, 455 troops from the U.K. died, along with 158 Canadians, 86 French, 54 Germans, and 48 Italians.

Significant sums of military spending was used in Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2018, while the U.S. spent $730 billion, the U.K. spent $28.2 billion, Canada $12.7 billion, Germany $11.1 billion, Italy $8.9 billion, and France $3.9 billion.

 Each nation also provided from 2001 to 2018 billion of dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan which still remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The US donated $32.32 billion, Germany gave $5.88 billion, the UK’s contribution to aid was $4.79 billion, Canada, 2.42billion , Italy, almost one billion and France, just over half a billion in foreign aid.

Nationalism, By Jingo!

Between green fields of the Somme and Flanders

All those young officers and other ranks,

Most civilians in uniform, thanks

To a populist conceit that panders

To national myths and visceral sentiment,

Illusions of sovereignty wrapped in flags

The perfidious politician snags

The heart strings of all those who blindly vent

Their discontents without any vision

Of how matters might be. But, lines on maps

Too often become battle lines, with saps

Filled by the dead. Come moments of decision,

How lots are cast determine gains or losses,

Greener fields, or rank on rank of crosses.

D. A. 

 NHS England-funded  research  analysed the records of 3,347 children who died in England between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020, identified a clear association between the risk of death and level of deprivation, for all categories of death apart from cancer.

It concluded that more than a fifth (23%) of all child deaths might be avoided if children living in the most deprived areas had the same mortality risk as those living in the least deprived areas.

It means about 700 child deaths could be avoided each year in England by reducing rates of social deprivation.

Child deaths are linked to social deprivation in England – NHS report | Inequality | The Guardian

 Officers from Home Office Border Force tried to undertake the detention of two men in Glasgow but was met by an overwhelming display of opposition and expressions of solidarity as the street filled with hundreds of local people determined to foil the authorities attempts, successfully ensuring the release of the two Indian men.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57100259

 Too many people. Too few people. Capitalism is always in crisis.

China’s gross domestic product has increased at an average annual rate of about 8 per cent since 2000. The equivalent figure for the US has been a bit less than 2 per cent. As things stand, 

China will contribute more than one-fifth of the total increase in global GDP in the five years through 2026, according to Bloomberg calculations based on International Monetary Fund forecasts published April. 

The US will account for 14.8 per cent, with India and Japan chipping in 8.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively. Anemic population growth, or an outright drop, is likely to mean slower overall expansion, even if GDP per capita may continue to climb.

The working-age population in China dropped to 63.4 per cent from more than 70 per cent a decade ago, while the share of residents aged 60 and above has risen. 

 Japan’s population peaked in 2010 and South Korea logged its first dip in 2020. Singapore reported its first decline since 2003 last year. 

 These nations has long contended with an aging society and a diminished fertility rate, with its citizens consistently resisting policies to produce more children. Living standards rise, people spend more time in school, get married later, face more expensive living costs and want to spend more on the one child they do have. 

What effect might China’s shrinking population have on the world? | The Independent

 “A small number of corporate CEOs and wealthy investors have profited in the midst of this pandemic…” says a new report from Oxfam America. Like other corporate giants, Amazon has reduced its tax bill by “taking advantage of loopholes in the U.S. tax code that allow the company to treat rewarding rich executives with stock options as a tax write-off; carrying forward operating losses from years earlier; and parking profits in tax havens,” Oxfam explained.

Despite raking in a record $20 billion in domestic profits amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon’s federal tax rate was just 9% in 2020, which is significantly lower than the 22% tax rate paid by the average U.S. worker. 

According to Oxfam’s calculations, taxing Amazon at the current U.S. corporate rate of 21% would raise an additional $2.5 billion per year, which is enough to provide Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to 1.7 million Americans facing hunger.

In addition, a 3% wealth tax on Bezos’ $198 billion fortune would yield $6 billion in revenue—enough to provide child care to the 440,000 kids under the age of four in Amazon’s home state of Washington.

Finally, a pandemic profits tax on Amazon would generate an additional $11 billion. That’s enough to pay for 580 million coronavirus vaccines at the current average cost of $19 per dose, although “prices can and should be far lower than this to make vaccinating the world possible,” Oxfam noted.

Tax on Amazon’s Pandemic Profits Could Pay to Vaccinate 580 Million People Worldwide: Oxfam | Common Dreams News

It is a pity that Oxfam cannot go any further in its remedies than to recommend higher taxation on the capitalist class.

 Compiled by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), a 13-member committee formed last year as the coronavirus spread across the world, a new report—titled Covid-19: Make it the Last Pandemic (pdf)—warns fundamental changes must be made to defeat future pandemics.

“Preparation was inconsistent and underfunded,” the official report summary (pdf) reads. “The alert system was too slow—and too meek. The World Health Organization was under-powered. The response has exacerbated inequalities. Global political leadership was absent. The combination of poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities, and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis.”

The IPPPR said the world must not miss a crucial opportunity for a course correction. The global community “must learn from this crisis, and plan for the next one,” the experts said. “Otherwise, precious time and momentum will be lost…Covid-19 has been a terrible wake-up call. So now the world needs to wake up, and commit to clear targets, additional resources, new measures, and strong leadership to prepare for the future.”

The panel also noted that the pandemic, laid bare inequalities around the globe and within individual countries as middle- and upper-class people were far more able to protect themselves from the virus as the working poor were often left to their own devices on the front lines of the crisis, was able to spread as far as it has because world leaders have been unwilling to tackle inequalities.

 “…The extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities is an emphatic demonstration of the interconnectedness of social, economic, environmental, and political factors in society,” the report states.