NDPers petition to remove Ontario Leader Horwath

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More and more New Democratic Party activists are signing a petition initiated by the NDP Socialist Caucus to demand that Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath resign.

Horwath waged the worst NDP campaign since Bob Rae attempted to defend his infamous Social Contract in 1995. She had no mandate to veer to the right of the Liberal Party in a vain attempt to appeal to Conservative supporters and the business class. She had no mandate to abandon the fight for social justice in favour of a crass appeal to consumerism.

The NDP platform emphasized “making life more af­ fordable” by removing the HST from electricity bills, reducing car insurance rates by 15%, opening up a few 10 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2014 more child-care spaces, shortening hospital wait times, and offering a mere $1 increase in the hourly minimum wage. At the same time, Horwath pledged to continue the practice of bribing big private corporations to cre­ ate jobs—without demanding any public ownership or democratic control of state investment.

Horwath projected a small increase in corporate taxa­ tion, but no plan to conscript the hidden, un-taxed bil­ lions of dollars - what a former head of the Bank of Can­ ada calls ‘dead Capital’. That means the NDP proposed no way to fund a serious attack on poverty, on home­ lessness, or to end the deepening crises in public transit, education and health care.

Horwath and her strategists said nothing about phasing

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(continued from page 9: “The Marxist analysis of women’s oppression”) to any nation on earth. The vast portion of this “for­ eign aid,” it is worth noting, is spent on the purchase of military equipment from the largely monopolized U.S. military-industrial complex. That is, funds spent on arming Israel to the teeth are returned to the U.S. to beef up the coffers of U.S. war profiteers. Additional munitions were transferred to Israel after the present bombing campaign began to replenish the bombs and missiles just employed. Some of these arms, includ­ ing mortar shells and grenades, come from an arsenal that the U.S. maintains within Israel for “emergency” use by the Zionists. The War Reserves Stockpile Al­ lies-Israel is estimated to be worth nearly $1 billion. And on top of that, Congress voted on Aug. 1 to grant Israel an additional $225 million in order to restock its “Iron Dome” missile defense system. Growing opposition to Israel Since the formation of Israel in 1948, systematic war against the Palestinian people has been the rule, not the exception. In 1948, no Arab nation recognized the legitimacy of this colonial racist state, carved out of Palestinian land. Indeed, leading American philoso­ phers and scientists opposed the formation of the Zionist state, including scientist Albert Einstein, who rejected an Israeli offer to become Israel’s first presi­ dent. Einstein expressed grave concerns that the vic­ tims of the Nazis holocaust not become the colonial persecutors and overseers of the Palestinian people.

Today, some 66 years later, perhaps the world’s most well-known living scientist, particle physicist Stephen Hawking, refused to participate at a scientific gath­ ering in Israel. In recent days and months, Hawking, now pilloried by the Zionist media, has been joined by a constant flow of leading U.S. academic and pro­ fessional associations that have added their voices to the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanc­ tions) movement protesting Israeli’s policies. The 1.5 million-member Presbyterian Church voted in early July to condemn Israeli’s murderous policies toward the Palestinians.

Perhaps the world’s leading general medical journal, The Lancet, published in England, presents a damning statement on Israel’s atrocities. Signed by 28 doctors and scientists who have worked in Gaza, the July 28 statement, entitled, “An open letter for the people of Gaza,” begins:

“We are doctors and scientists, who spend our lives developing means to care and protect health and lives. We are also informed people; we teach the ethics of our professions, together with the knowledge and practice of it. We all have worked in and known the situation of Gaza for years. On the basis of our ethics and practice, we are denouncing what we witness in the aggression of Gaza by Israel.

“We ask our colleagues, old and young professionals, to denounce this Israeli aggression. We challenge the perversity of a propaganda that justifies the creation of an emergency to masquerade a massacre, a so-called ‘defensive aggression.’ In reality it is a ruthless assault of unlimited duration, extent, and intensity. We wish to report the facts as we see them and their implications on the lives of the people.

“We are appalled by the military onslaught on civil­ ians in Gaza under the guise of punishing terrorists. This is the third large-scale military assault on Gaza since 2008. Each time the death toll is borne mainly by innocent people in Gaza, especially women and children under the unacceptable pretext of Israel eradicating political parties and resistance to the oc­ cupation and siege they impose.” The Lancet state­ ment continues with a detailed documentation of the horrors perpetrated by the Israeli government.

Meanwhile, the world is ablaze with unprecedented protests, exceeding any others in history, condemn­ ing the Zionist state and its policies. Hundred of thou­ (continued from page 10: “Huge rallies for Palestine in Toronto”)

ernment of Kathleen Wynne to reduce the provincial deficit by cutting public services and jobs, the NDP is hamstrung by its regressive election platform, epitomized by its gravely wounded Leader. The clear choice now is for New Democrats, labour unionists, feminists, LGBTQ folks, environmentalists, social­ ists and social justice advocates to take the NDP away from the latter-day Blairites, and re-direct the party to lead the battle against capitalist austerity, and for socialist solutions to the mounting problems we face.

That course starts with the demand that Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath resign immediately. It is time for a full review of the party’s leadership and political direction, leading up to its Nov. 14-16 con­ sands have taken to the streets in England, France, and across Europe. In the U.S. almost daily mobiliza­ tions have been organized across the country, with thousands participating in actions in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C. and other cities. In almost all instances, these actions have been initiated by U.S.-based Palestinian and associ­ ated Arab organizations and supported by a myriad of antiwar and social justice organizations.

Indeed, the largest U.S. antiwar organization, the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), at its na­ tional conference two years ago of 800 activists from 30 states, nearly unanimously adopted the demand, “End all U.S. Aid to Israel—military, economic, and diplomatic.” This demand is today central to all pro­ tests in the U.S. and around the world.

For a democratic, secular Palestine I will conclude this admittedly angry ssay by stating that Socialist Action has never recognized the legiti­ macy of the Zionist entity called Israel. Nor have we done so with regard to the overseers of any colonized nation on earth, whether in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, or anywhere else. We have always stood on the side of and in solidarity with the oppressed masses of the world who challenge their colonial or neo-colonial subjugators.

We likewise reject imperialism’s originally imposed division of the Middle East into separate states, de­ pendent on and ruled by imperial occupiers or their agents. These divisions—these lines on maps drawn by conquerors—artificially divided or incorporated peoples with diverse origins, histories, languages, and cultures. Today’s tragic unfolding events in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon—and indeed, throughout the Middle East—are testimony to the deadly effects of imperial­ ist divisions.

Zionist Israel is nothing less than an imperialist creation that is administrated, tragically, by Jewish people—whose forebears were subjected to the mon­ strous Hitlerian holocaust. Today, Palestinians consti­ tute the largest refugee population in the world. At more than four million, expelled from their land and homes, tortured, murdered and denied basic human rights, they are a beleaguered people struggling for their freedom and dignity.

Socialists do not demand “negotiations” or a “cease­ fire” or a “just solution” to the “Palestinian problem”— all code words or expressions that are premised on extending legitimacy to the Zionist state, including its historic and continuing expulsion of the Palestin­ ian people from their homeland. Only the Palestinian people can legitimately participate in the decision of which concessions they might be forced to give up to Israeli force and terror.

From our vantage point in the United States, social­ ists and antiwar activists have but one immediate and vention in Toronto.

But how do we make that happen? It’s simple. A full review is triggered by a vote of non-confidence in the leader. A confidence vote occurs at every party con­ vention. If even 35% of the delegates vote for a lead­ ership review (that is, if less than 65% vote to support the current leader), a leadership race will begin. It is clear that such a vote would open up a period of in­ tense discussion about the future of the NDP.

So, what should socialists and labour activists do? This is where bold initiative is needed—to galvinize the widespread discontent in the party and its voter base by posing a concrete course of action:

Demand that Andrea resign, and insist that a full re­ view of the political direction of the party take place, starting now. —B.W.

Tony Savino / Socialist Action central demand—for the immediate, total, and uncon­ ditional withdrawal of Israel from Gaza, including the immediate end to the bombing and a condemnation of the horrors committed by the racist Zionist state.

The 72-hour “ceasefire,” reportedly negotiated on Aug. 1 by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, with the assis­ tance of Qatar and Turkey, was premised on a sup­ posed agreement that the Israeli IDF forces would continue to search out and destroy all tunnels in Gaza—the prime route for food and necessities uti­ lized by the Palestinian population, other than UN lar­ gesse—all other foodstuffs and essentials of life being essentially banned from entrance by the longstanding Israeli blockade. Within hours, the “ceasefire” disinte­ grated, as the IDF, free to continue their annihilation campaign, murdered another 70 Palestinian fighters and civilians.

The Obama administration and the UN tops were quick to place the blame for the breakdown on Hamas, failing to mention that the destruction of the tunnel network and the continuation of the Israeli war would in essence totally cut off an already starving people from any outside resources. The mere thought of Is­ raeli troops rampaging through Gaza during a “cease­ fire,” armed to the teeth and firing at will, chills the soul and cuts deeply into the conscience of all who cherish freedom as opposed to the Zionist massacre.

Socialist Action supports the 1973 historic demand of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) for a “Democratic Secular Palestine” with the right of re­ turn to all dispossessed Palestinians should they choose to exercise it. Achieving this demand would entail the rejection of the Israeli settler state and the re-establishment of historic Palestine with democrat­ ic rights for all—Palestinians, Jews, and Christians.

“Free, Free Palestine!”—the demand increasingly shouted out by antiwar activists and supporters of Palestinian freedom around the world—likewise strongly implies the abolition of the Zionist and racist settler state of Israel.

At the same time, we understand that Palestinians can never achieve true self-determination in the con­ text of capitalism. We simultaneously advocate and struggle for a socialist Palestine, as we do for a united socialist confederation of the Middle East as opposed to today’s neo-colonial states in this region—essen­ tially subordinate to and exploited by the various world imperial powers. The revolutionary mobiliza­ tion of the vast majority is a prerequisite for this out­ come. Anything less can only mean continued subju­ gation to the imperialist ruling rich and their appoint­ ed, supported, and armed dictators and monarchs.

These are not revolutionary abstractions. They are based on our rejection of the colonialist and neo-co­ lonial occupations and wars that are the rule today in that region. Revolutionary socialists support the right of all oppressed and colonized people to self-determi­ nation—free from colonial rule.

Today, the central imperial power in the Middle East is the United States. Free from U.S. intervention in its myriad forms, the people of the Middle East would have long ago ridden themselves of local would-be tyrants. These tyrants, as with the Nouri al-Maliki government in Iraq, exist only at the behest of the U.S., which finances, arms, and directs its brutal pup­ pet dictators in order to facilitate the exploitation of each nation’s resources and peoples. “Regime change” is imperialism’s current code word for replacing one dictator with another, provided only that the new ap­ pointees protect U.S. interests.

In the United States, we demand, “End all aid to Is­ rael!” We call on the world’s working masses every­ where to take to the streets to demand, “Stop the Israeli massacre in Gaza!” and “End the Israeli block­ ade!” For a democratic secular Palestine! n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2014 11

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SOCIALIST ACTION