YESTERDAY the US barred the way in the United Nations Security Council to a resolution condemning the Israeli assault on Gaza, calling for all Israeli troops to be withdrawn and for all of the Hamas government officials that have been arrested by the Zionist military to be freed.
The US ambassador to the UN, Bolton, called the resolution ‘unbalanced’.
It is Israel, the US and Israel’s allies such as the Blair government that are unbalanced.
Since that resolution was rejected by the US, 24 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip and many more injured.
They were killed in a series of tank led advances into the strip and by Israeli air raids.
Israel is now trying to create a buffer zone in the Gaza Strip – which it left last September – and is desperately trying to create the conditions for removing the Hamas government.
However, there is not a single Palestinian trend that would have the support of any section of the Palestinian masses if it was ready to take the place of a Hamas government, which had been elected by the Palestinian people, and whose leaders had been either arrested by Israel, or driven underground.
In fact, the Israeli drive into the Gaza Strip has not brought the Zionist regime even an inch closer to gaining the freedom of Corporal Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured and made a prisoner of war by a daring Palestinian commando raid at a border crossing.
The Israeli government is even at odds with the majority of the Israeli people on this issue of how to gain the release of Corporal Shalit.
Previously, Israeli governments have always opted to trade Palestinian prisoners of war for Israeli soldiers who had been captured.
This kind of swap was arranged many times in the Lebanon.
However, the Israeli government is dedicated to ending the Hamas government as soon as it possibly can, and does not want a prisoner swap that would give the Hamas government a boost.
They prefer to take the risk that Corporal Shalit might be killed, and instead are opting for a military adventure, which in reality is a cul de sac.
The responsibility for this military adventure and the cost in both Palestinian and Israeli lives does not however just rest with the Israeli government. It also rests with those that are encouraging them, and supplying them, the US and Britain.
In fact they encouraged this onslaught from the moment that they decided not to respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people when they elected a Hamas government, and decided to boycott this government, christening it as ‘terrorist’, and punishing the Palestinian people for their democratic vote by a blockade.
Now these governments, the US and the UK, are blocking a UN Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal and the release of all Hamas government officials.
The British workers support the Palestinian people and so do their trade unions.
They must now take action against the Blair government and against the Zionist regime in Israel.
They must tell the Blair government that they will take action, including strike action, against its support for Israel and its refusal to recognise the Hamas government.
As far as Israel is concerned, the British trade unions must organise a complete trade and cultural boycott of Israel and make it an international boycott by carrying the struggle into the international trade union movement organisations.
There must be a boycott imposed on Israel until its troops withdraw from Gaza, and all of the occupied territories, until it recognises the Hamas government and accepts a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with Palestinian refugees having the right to return.
This is the only way to resolve the crisis over Palestine.
