The Militant encourages working people around the world to support the Palestinian people in their rejection of Washington’s imperial dictates. U.S. president Bush’s mandates on the Palestinians amount to a blatant abrogation of their right to self-determination.

The U.S. president’s insistence on "a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born" aroused particular anger. Fadel Ahmad Tahboub, a member of the Palestinian National Council, stated that in spite of his political opposition to Arafat, "Bush’s call for changing the Palestinian leadership is an imposition and intervention in internal Palestinian affairs and a contradiction to democracy and the outcome of [1996] elections that were supervised by the whole world.... Neither Bush nor Sharon has the right to force us to change our leadership."

Speaking against "change and reform imposed by an external force," one Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip said, "We don’t have a [President Hamid] Karzai, like America imposed on Afghanistan. We would refuse such a thing."

These and other voices of repudiation of the White House’s intervention are a further manifestation of the resistance by Palestinian people to the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation and brutality. They affirm their refusal to be dispersed and discounted as a people, or to accept denial of their national rights as a historical fact. The Palestinians’ continued standing up to the most powerful empire on earth and its colonial-settler partner reinforces the struggles of all working people around the world who face attacks by the employers and assaults by Washington and the other imperialist powers.

The Palestinians remain a thorn in the side of Washington, slowing down U.S. imperialism’s maneuvers to launch a new assault on Iraq; moreover, they reject the "terrorism" framework the U.S. rulers use to justify everything from new military adventures to jailing U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime.

The Israeli regime’s crackdown and occupation of Palestinian cities in the West Bank also underline why workers and farmers should call for an immediate end to U.S. aid to Israel, and the total withdrawal of Israeli military and police forces from the occupied territories.

The U.S. president’s list of demands is a prescription for intervention into every aspect of Palestinian government and public affairs. This is the very opposite of the national self-determination for which Palestinians have fought for decades.

A people that has won self-determination has the right to choose its own leaders and form of government, and to manage its own affairs free of interference from imperialist threats, blackmail, and military pressure. In fact, the very phrase "self-determination" did not appear in the June 24 speech or in subsequent remarks by Bush or other White House officials.

In such a context, the "provisional state of Palestine" that Bush said he would support once U.S. dictates are fulfilled is a denial of Palestinian sovereignty and an insult to their national dignity. How could the Palestinian people ever be free if they accept the kind of intervention demanded by Washington even before a state is born?

Working people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have outlasted repeated and escalating Israeli military offensives, and continue to resist in spite of the tightening strangulation of their cities and villages by razor-wire fences and police-military checkpoints. This is forcing divisions within the Israeli ruling class, which no longer speaks with a united voice.

Faced with this determination, and with the growing toll of Israeli citizens in the conflict, more Jewish people in Israel and elsewhere are questioning the whole oppressive setup. Some are starting to appreciate that the colonial-settler state, far from being a refuge, is a death trap for Jews everywhere.

The demand for, and the prospect of, a democratic, secular Palestine can mobilize the broadest alliance of Palestinians and working people who are Jewish in a revolutionary struggle to bring down the source of the conflict: the colonial-settler state of Israel.

No to Washington’s dictates!

End all U.S. aid to Israel!

Self-determination for the Palestinian people!

For a democratic, secular Palestine!
 
 
Related article:
Bush lists demands, Israel occupies West Bank cities
Divisons sharpen among Israeli rulers  
 
 
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