 I would like to introduce Cal, who will be speaking on the question of Israel and Palestine a revolutionary way forward. Now Cal is the London organiser for Socialist Appeal and he's been leading a lot of the demonstrations that we have been participating in Socialist Appeal. Now this discussion, this topic today, a revolutionary way forward for Palestine is very important. The last few weeks Israel has been increasing its violence and oppression of the Palestinian people. Its bombing campaign has murdered over 10,000 innocent Palestinian people, including over 4,000 children. There is no end in sight and Cal is going to be discussing the history of the situation in Palestine. Why, contrary to what the media and the bourgeois are telling us, this so-called conflict did not begin at a desert party on the 7th of October. It's been going on for over 75 years and that has been a history of oppression, genocide and brutalisation of the Palestinian people. So how long will we be speaking for Cal? We'll be speaking for about 40 to 45 minutes and then we'll open up the floor for discussions afterwards. It will be a popular session for contributions so please ask you to keep to 5 minutes absolute maximum if you can. But without further ado, I think I'll welcome Cal to the podium. Thank you Nelson. Well Comrades, a political witch hunt is underway against those standing on the side of the Palestinians. And every capitalist politician has rushed to the defence of Israel. Rishi Sunak flew out to see Netanyahu to tell him, we want you to win. Sir Keir Starmer, the former human rights lawyer, seems to have forgotten that collective punishment breaks countless international laws. And Soella Braverman, the Home Secretary, has branded demonstrations as hate marches and urged the police to use the full force of the law. Our organisation has been politically targeted by the police, student unions have intimidated and harassed our activists, schools have shut down our discussions and to top it all off, the capitalist press has printed lies and slanders about our demands and slogans. For our international visitors, welcome Comrades to free and democratic Great Britain. Here on this rainy little island, the wonderful values of free speech apply only if it chimes with what your ruler has to say. If you brought a Palestinian flag, think twice about waving it too provocatively on the streets of London. But despite these best efforts from the establishment, these tactics have not worked. The repressive measures being used are backfiring spectacularly because in our thousands, in our millions, the solidarity movement is growing to new heights. And millions place the blame for the war, not just on Netanyahu and the Zionist ruling class, but the hypocrites in London, in Washington, in Berlin. And the chickens have really come home to roost for the rulers at home. People have drawn the correct conclusion that it is the decades of grinding poverty, of everyday oppression and the continued occupation that has once again made war inevitable. And so they refuse to join in with the chorus of condemnation coming from their rulers. Once again, our racist, corrupt, murderous ruling class is moving heaven and earth to conceal the real reasons why the war broke out, what it represents, and how we got here. But to understand anything about Israel or Palestine or the region for that matter, you have to go back to this very city over 100 years ago, where a plan was hatched by Britain and France to divide up the region for themselves. Of course, what I'm referring to is the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which was a clandestine carve-up of the region between the imperialists. That's why you will find arbitrary lines crisscrossing throughout the Levant. And the Ottoman Empire crumbling presented a real reason for the British and French to fervor their own interests in the region. Emerging as victors from the war, that is the foremost robbers of the world, Britain was recognised with a mandate over modern-day Iraq, Palestine and a protectorate over modern-day Jordan. It should be noted that whilst the First World War was taking place, the British promised a homeland to both the Jews and to the Arabs as a cynical way of trying to curry favour with both peoples. But the Balfour Declaration, secretly written by a British Lord in 1917, was the real turning point in the situation. Here, a homeland was promised for the Jews in historic Palestine, which was a real starting gun for the Zionist project. Around this time, the slogan of a people without a land for a land without a people was popularised in the British press. Palestine was presented as a land of desert and destitution, a barren land that Jewish settlements could make loom. Now, despite how this might seem, or the modern spin on the matter, Balfour was not motivated by religious considerations in the slightest. One of the considerations behind promising the Jews a homeland elsewhere out of sight was actually the rampant anti-Semitism of the ruling elites at the time. It was a cynical bid to appeal to these downtrodden layers of society, because the Jewish people had been relecated to a caste-like status across Europe, reduced by class society to a social role that could easily be scapegoated. And so the Zionist project, which aimed to stop the persecution of the Jews, was actually pushed most heavily by some of the most anti-Semitic characters in politics at the time. Another very important consideration was to cut across the burgeoning national Arab consciousness, which stretched all the way from Iraq down to Morocco. And this was seen as a threat to the British interest and something that had to be prevented. So after the First World War, Britain continued to promote Jewish settlements and brutally put down Palestinian resistance. This led to an almighty revolt, the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936, which commenced with a six-month general strike, followed by the boycott of the British and Zionist parts of the economy, and this was mercilessly put down by the British army, who destroyed the Palestinian leadership and trained up the Zionist forces in the process. The British had no qualms with terror organisations, such as the Haganah, volunteering alongside them, training them up in the dark arts of warfare that would be later unleashed on the Palestinian people. And whilst the revolt was ongoing, the Peel Commission was presented to British Parliament. And this was a rudimentary partition plan and was really the starting gun, a real spur for the Zionist forces in everything they wanted to see. Now the next 10 years saw many twists and turns, and I'm not going to be able to go into all of them, but suffice to say, British imperialism played the age-old game of divide and rule during the Second World War, not exactly promoting the formation of Israel, but seeking to create an internally divided state. But despite these best-laid plans, they were scuppered, emerging severely weakened from the war, the British mandate was collapsing, and the British had conjured up forces they could no longer control. They then handed over the question of partition to the United Nations, which we must remember was primed at the time as being the saving grace for the free world, there to stop atrocities from happening, crimes against humanity, and to establish a so-called rules-based order. Of course, in reality, it did nothing of the sort. It was a shield for US imperialism, and it picked up exactly where the British had left off. A partition plan was drawn up, discussed, and decided upon by everyone but the Palestinians themselves. So the war's victors presented their fate accompli on 30 November 1947, which was naturally rejected by the Arabs. But at this point, all Zionist forces turned to the point of attack. We saw it all laws collapse throughout historic Palestine, and the British army in their tens of thousands stood idly by as a campaign of terror began. Now, Israel was proclaimed on the 14th of May 1948 over the ruins of the British mandate and over the bones of the Palestinians, which, by the way, had the full blessing of Stalin, adding to a long list of betraying the oppressed masses in their struggle. Now, May the 15th is commemorated by the Arabs as the Nakba, which literally translates to catastrophe. And what a catastrophe it was. In this six-month period, we saw 531 villages raised to the ground, and over 700,000 Palestinians expelled from their land. This at the time, just to put it into perspective, was over half the Palestinians that resided there. A massacre after massacre took place at the hands of the Zionist forces. You can read about Der Yasin, you can read about Tantora, where today you will find Israeli malls and theme parks to conceal the real history of the bloody beginnings. Now, this is all part of the historical record. This is not up for debate. You can also find the minutes of the meetings held by David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of Israel, writing out the orders to his military advisors to purge the land of Palestinians, these commands being written out in the letters of fire and blood to use the expression of Marx. Now, this is the much-needed context to the question of Israel-Palestine. And it is, of course, left out by our Western leaders for good reason. Because the beginnings of Israel was based on the oppression of the Palestinian people, who had been kept prisoners in their own homeland, or have been forced to spill out into the region as refugees over the last 75 years. And it's this fact that determines our unequivocal support for the Palestinians in their struggle for a dignified existence and also a homeland. Now, one interesting observation was made by Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Russian Revolution alongside Lenin in 1914. He wrote that the creation of a Zionist state of Israel would be a bloody trap for both the Jews and the Arabs. Such a state lacking an advanced industrial base and requiring a strong military army would become a tool of imperialism. And he was right. Israel was created by the imperialists to serve the interests of the imperialists. Now, capitalism and Zionism have created a living hell on earth for Palestinians. That much is clear. But the promise of a dignified life for Jewish people, as it was initially pitched, is also a cruel joke. These blood-soaked beginnings have stained the whole of the country's history. The reckless actions of the Zionist rooting class have put millions in harm's way and provoked countless conflicts. Now, Israel has changed quite significantly since 1948. What was laid out in the partition plan was always to be a mere starting point. And David Ben-Gurion even said as much, the following year he said that no border is absolute. And he actually said that since the West Bank hadn't been seized during the fighting, this would be the lament for generations to come. Now, there are two main ways in which this has taken place. The first, creeping annexation and land grabs, where manipulating the land laws has proved absolutely essential. Go back to 1950. The absentee property law was introduced, which was an Orwellian classification that meant if you had been expelled from your land, refused entry back to your land, the Israeli state could seize your land and your bank accounts. And these kind of legalistic smoke and mirrors play a role in the struggle today. Look at East Jerusalem. Look at Sheikh Jarrah, where the Supreme Court approves of the settler project time and time again. Now, the second way in which the map has changed has been under the cover of war through lightning attacks. And one worthy example is the Six Day War of 1967. During the Six Day War, you saw Israel seek control of Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golden Heights. So this, these two mechanisms are how the map looks the way it does today, roughly 60% of the West Bank is under Israeli control. And the toothless United Nations reckons that 750,000 illegal settlements are to be found in the West Bank, where the life of Palestinians has been made intolerable by the Israeli ruling class. Now, to really understand this, we have to understand what Zionism is. Zionism emerged as a political project in the 1800s, which is popular only amongst a few left intellectuals at the beginning. It was one of many different solutions to the problems blighting the Jewish population. And it was always a reactionary ideology, hence why every single Western leader wears the label as a badge of pride. And a rather candid explanation of the aims of Zionism were given by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister in the 2000s. He explained the intention of Zionism was never to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz Israel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and the Jewish people alone. As we can see, it is the racist, poisonous ideology of the Israeli ruling class. It depends upon divisions between the Arabs and the Jews. And the Zionist ruling class justifies the occupation through its incessant fear mongering about the Palestinians saying they are the mortal enemy to blur over the class lines in Israeli society and also to justify the egregious state violence of the IDF. So Zionism, though it's often phrased in religious verbiage, is a political tool wielded to divide the masses and breed distrust amongst them. This is why we unequivocally oppose it. And we completely reject the equivalence between Jewishness and Zionism as do many Jewish people that you find at the demonstrations but the media doesn't think their voices should be amplified. Now you can look at Netanyahu and his king-makers to see the logic of this poisonous ideology. The current Israeli minister of the interior, Itamiah Ben Gavir, who is a very deranged individual, he has very often said that he wants the whole of the West Bank for the Jews and the Jews alone. And what does that look like? Wiping out the Palestinians en masse, causing another Nakba. He talks openly about how David Ben Gurion got cold feet during 1948 and what is necessary is to expel the Palestinians once again. These people do not mince their words when it comes to their genocidal hatred of the Arabs. And by the way, they have been saying this stuff for years. It didn't start after October 7th. So no wonder why millions of Palestinians say that the Nakba never relented. For millions, the catastrophe never finished. But this has not been taken lying down by the Palestinians. The struggle of the Palestinians to break from their chains is a massive source of inspiration for the working class and youth of the world that sympathize with their plight. Much to the dismay of the Israeli ruling class and the Western leaders, resistance runs like a thread through the history of the entire conflict. But comrades, it has had many different shades. Islamism, secularism, nationalism, socialism, et cetera. And this puts all the more responsibility on communists to understand the conflict and its complexity. We must understand what is reactionary, what is progressive and draw a balance sheet on this basis. Because 75 years on, we can say rather confidently the lack of revolutionary leadership, the lack of revolutionary perspectives has led to, as Lenin would say, horror without end. Now, if we go back to the proclamation of Israel, it is almost unbelievable that the Zionists succeeded in their initial aims surrounded by hostile Arab states. How did this come to pass? Well, the lackluster response from the Arab leaders is indicative of a fact that has not changed. They don't give a damn about the Palestinians. They didn't back then and they don't to this day. And it's this that provided an opportunity too good to be missed by the Zionists. So the Arab League was set up nominally to represent the interests of Arabs on hearing the news of the Nakba, on hearing the news from Der Yassin. What did they do? They did nothing and they waited for the United Nations to re-intervene. And if you think that this is bad, look at the role of the Jordanian monarchy. After the partition plan was presented back in November, what did they do? They entered into secret negotiations with the Zionists to annex the West Bank for themselves. In fact, the Jordanian Prime Minister flew to Britain to give assurances that they wouldn't fight against a fledgling Israeli state as long as they could have a piece of the pie. Now, of course, this didn't come to pass, but it shows the cynical calculations of the Arab rulers in bright colours. The bourgeois nationalism of these leaders, of these warlords, never represented the interests of the poor and oppressed. And that fact has not changed. Now, the Arab League established the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964 in an effort to control Palestinian nationalism but to pay lip service to their cause. But soon enough, this was conquered by the Revolutionary Guard of Fatah and other groups, which at the time had a very strong secular tinge to them. They earned their stripes through organising Palestinians, not just in historic Palestine, but in Lebanon and Jordan. And once again, the reactionary role of the Arab regimes alongside the Israeli Defence Force aimed to behead the movement. We had Black September in Jordan in 1970, which saw up to 20,000 Palestinians murdered. The PLO then moved to Lebanon, where the ruling class unleashed a civil war through phalanges, fascist squads against the Lebanese working class and the Palestinians. This resulted in the gruesome massacres of Sabra and Shatila camps in 1982. And the PLO fled from town. Well, in fact, it fled from the Middle East, all the way over to Tunis in 1982. But the limits of the PLO were becoming clear at this time. Gaza Arafat, who headed up the PLO, had no clear idea as to what form the struggle would take, or, for that matter, to what end. And this led to vacillations between the so-called armed struggle and diplomatic pressure. You can see this, in fact, in Arafat's speech to the United Nations, where he said, I come bearing a gun, and, obviously, the other thing he said, an olive branch. Don't let the olive branch break. In reality, though, the armed struggle was just acts of individual violence and terror divorced from the masses. And in the end, diplomatic pressure won out. The idea that liberation would come from the Palestinian people themselves was completely abandoned. And instead, the Palestinian militancy was used as a bargaining chip to parlay with the greater imperialist powers. The Palestinians were reduced to being passive observers of their struggle. But the Palestinians had very different ideas. And whilst the officially recognized leadership was nowhere to be seen, what happened next took the whole world by surprise. And, of course, I'm referring to the 7th of December, 1987, when the ruling class was caught aghast by news from Palestine. After 20 years of direct Israeli military occupation, the Palestinian masses burst onto the scene of history after four gardens were murdered by an Israeli trucker. Now, acts of wanton violence like this are commonplace. You will find them today as well. But as is the case with all revolutionary movements, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. And the usual methods of putting down Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories by bullets did not work. The interfader was born, and it was unlike any form of resistance we had ever seen before. Now, the word interfader translates from Arabic to shaking off. And it was different from the PLO's slogan, thawra hatal nasal, which means struggle until victory. It was very popular in Beirut amongst their militants. And I think this is significant because the interfader was the most democratic and massive movement you could have ever found on Palestinian soil. That remains the case to this day. And the entire psychology of the past, one of submission, was shattered in a matter of weeks. We saw popular committees mushroom across historic Palestine where young men and women would assume the day-to-day responsibilities for struggling against the occupation, food, healthcare, protests, self-defense. This was all organized from the grassroots. And liberated zones were set up in Palestinian camps, in villages, where the young Palestinian men, the foot soldiers of the revolution, the Shabbabs, would chase the IDF out of town with its tail between its legs. Typically armed with sticks and stones, these courageous people would come up against the might of the Israeli war machine. And this struck an iconic resonance across the world. A true David and Goliath battle. But in this version, it was the Palestinian youth wielding the slingshot. And this sudden and sustained struggle led to general strikes, to commercial strikes, to roadblocks. And civil disobedience ran through the veins of the first interfader. The famous tax revolt in Beit Sahur brought international attention to the question. And it completely undermined the Israeli lie that they were dealing with terrorists. It was the mass character of the interfader which gave it its strength. The entire population of Palestine rose up. And that, comrades, is why we proudly call for interfader until victory. And that, comrades, is precisely why we are attacked in the press. Because for the serious strategists of capital the idea of another interfader fills them with horror. This is because their faithful ally in the Middle East completely lost control of the situation. The struggle of the Palestinians began to resonate within Israel itself, loosening the grip of Zionism on ordinary Israelis. Israelis began to see women and boys armed with sticks and stones be attacked, be killed for the crime of resisting the occupation. They saw people refusing to pay taxes besieged by the Israeli forces. And so the might of the Israeli army began to wane as a consequence. It spurred on the Refusenik movement where young IDF soldiers were repulsed by the occupation and refused to serve. And this mood percolated up to the higher commands of the army as well. On the flip side, it showed the Palestinians where they belonged at the forefront of their own struggle. It showed them where the power really lay in society and it threatened to teach the workers and youth of the entire region that lesson as well. This was not something that could be tolerated by the dictators in the Middle East whatsoever. And this is what worries all of the imperialists in the region, the butchers in Tel Aviv, the butchers in Cairo, the butchers in Amman about the call for an interfader. It is because it has precisely nothing to do with individual acts of terror and everything to do with threatening the status quo. Now the first interfader opened up a truly unprecedented situation. So unstable did the situation become that the U.S. had to lean on the Zionist ruling class in order for them to at least pay lip service to a two-state solution. And as far as the official Palestinian leadership were concerned, the spontaneous grassroots movement had completely run out of its control. And so they were keen to apply the brakes. Arafat viewed the conflict through a purely nationalist lens. He had no faith in the masses to transform society. In fact, he felt undermined by the masses. And as a result, saw the peace process catered by U.S. imperialism as a means of regaining his leading role. The Zionists therefore could make use of him. And the result was to divert the revolutionary power of the masses down the blind alley of the Oslo Accords. Now what did the Israeli ruling class want out of these accords? I would say two things. They sealed off the Palestinians into a series of small prisons masquerading as a state with no territorial integrity and completely dominated by Israel. Tick. The second was to find a new jailer for the Palestinians in the form of the Arab world. And this is exactly what they got. Look at life of Palestinians 30 years on. They live in little enclaves separated by watchtowers and military checkpoints. And a new jailer was found for the Palestinians in the form of the Palestinian Authority or PA which was headed up by Arafat. This was naively seen by some on the left as a government in waiting for a fledgling independent Palestinian state. But this was a mirage. Arafat and his gang started carrying out the wishes of Israeli imperialism and now the PA is completely discredited and it functions more like a dysfunctional local council of Israel. Arresting, surveilling, even killing their own people was the price worth paying for the Petit Bourgeois lifestyle that were afforded to them and the status of being the official leadership of the Palestinians. As is always the case during any national liberation movement I would say, the rich will always betray the poor. So the left nationalism of Arafat was put to a test and it failed miserably. The 1993 Oslo Accords marked a humiliation of everything that the Palestinians had fought for. The Accords in fact legitimized the main thrust of Zionist expansion since 1948. The right to return for all of the refugees was not even placed on the table. As with all peace processes this buried the Nakba and its victims. Now there is some on the left that still believe that with the right kind of leadership and the right kind of pressure a two state solution can come to pass. Now underpinning this idea is the idea that Israeli imperialism will cease to be imperialist. Now even more ridiculous than that is the suggestion of how this will come about. It should not be brought about they say by the Palestinians or the masses of the region the youth of the region it should be brought about by the so called international community whatever that is supposed to mean. It is them that should apply the pressure and make sure that the Israeli ruling class abide by international law and the principles of justice. Now does anyone in this room believe this is what motivates the international community? Well Comrades we have heard a lot about the high sounding values of democracy, of self-determination, of freedom. We've heard a lot about this in the last couple of years but forgive me that's only when we are arming the fascist militias in Ukraine that they talk in such language. Now if these are the same principles of justice that were used and sworn by when they were terrorizing the people of Yugoslavia of Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya then we should want nothing to do with these so called values. No we have no faith in the international community to solve anything. It is precisely international imperialist meddling that has the longest record of death, destruction and destabilization in the region. Moreover the idea that the Israeli ruling class could tolerate an economically viable independent Palestinian state is a mirage. It is a complete utopia. This was the case 30 years ago and it remains the case to this day. Now once we concretize what this looks like we see how ridiculous it is. Where would we draw the line in the sand? The idea that the Israeli ruling class would have any desire to disentangle themselves from the West Bank or revert back to the 1967 borders as the so called Communist Party in Britain would like is a utopia. Listen to what they have to say. They say they want to digest the whole West Bank for the Jews and Jews alone. Never mind disentangle themselves. Now would the Israeli ruling class allow an economic competitor on its borders? Well I would say that the transformation of East Jerusalem which was once prized as the future capital for an independent Palestinian state definitively suggests otherwise it has become a settler's dystopia for the Palestinians. And this sham solution in fact perpetuates a state of no solution whatsoever. And this became very clear in due course. Seven years after Oslo a wave of rage hit the streets of Palestine once again. With the settlers doubling in the West Bank and provocations from the Zionists the second interfather was born. And it was born as a popular non militarized protest at the beginning but it was characterised this time by bitterness and desperation. And this was because of the betrayals of the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat who had switched their military attire for silk suits and were enjoying the benefits of their connection to the Israeli military command. It was this that led to the rise of Hamas. It was the venal capitulation of the so called leaders of Palestine that led to the desperate acts of terrorism of bombings of kidnappings etc. But even during the second interfather it was the Israeli state that had the monopoly on violence. Let's be very clear about that point. The lethal violence and desperate tactics were teased out by this murderous ruling class who had flouted all of its commitments to peace readily deployed bulldozers to turn Janine to rubble and used attack helicopters to destroy a population that was generally speaking unarmed. Three Palestinians for everyone Israeli were killed during the fighting. But let's also be clear on another point. Hamas is a religious fundamentalist outfit that no genuine communist should support whatsoever. They speak in the language of religious holy war which is a game the Zionists know all too well how to play. Hamas has no perspective for mass struggle which is precisely why it was promoted by the Israeli security services, by the CIA during the first interfather to cut across the strong socialist currents in the liberation movement and it has been personally nurtured by Netanyahu himself. Now communists understand that Hamas's rockets do not advance Palestinian liberation one millimetre. These kind of tactics completely relegate the role of the masses. They do not build the confidence and unity of the masses and it plays right into the hands of the Zionists. The interfather was once again derailed by the self-starred leaders of Palestine. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority drew up a roadmap to peace with George W. Bush of Hall People in 2005. But at the time a lot of people were asking a roadmap to where exactly? Well I think the last 20 years speak for themselves. A roadmap to more war, to more settlements to more murder. These are the bitter fruits of imperialist peace. Now the first interfather has certain lessons for revolutionaries. It showed that the masses of the region have enormous power when they end to struggle. They are the only force that can destroy Zionism and capitalism. And there is a bitter lesson from both of the interfathers that this potential is a revolutionary communist leadership that fights for a meaningful peace between the peoples. Now unlike the imperialists we want to see a meaningful peace between the peoples but we cannot get there on the basis of pacifistic phrase mongering. And Lenin was very clear on this point he wrote this was in relation to the First World War by the way the struggle for such a peace cannot be waged by repeating general, vapid, benign, sentimental, meaningless and non-committal pacifist phrases which merely serve to embellish the foulness of imperialism. Now comrades every single reformist has called for a ceasefire or slightly left to that a humanitarian pause which is just calling for an end to the butchery for how long it's undisclosed and then we can just go back to this quote as before now these people are completely unable to envisage anything beyond capitalism so they resort to what seems practical what's realistic and in fact this is the worst utopianism of all these pleas are proving impotent Netanyahu has made it very clear just listen to what he has to say now is not the time for ceasefire now is the time for war and the occupation which let's remember the liberals were saying is the lesser evil has actually blocked all of the humanitarian pause motions from going through the United Nations Security Council so let's be clear on this this war is a result of peace on Israel's terms the occupation is the bitter fruits of imperialist peace and communists are not a solution to the conflict now it was Lenin that explained that there is such a thing as bad peace a bad peace is one that makes war inevitable later down the line and it's a no surprise in fact that the Oslo Accords are compared to the Treaty of Versailles in this sense Lenin continued meaningful peace can only be waged by telling people the truth by telling people that in order to obtain democratic and just peace the bourgeois governments of all the belligerent countries must be over thrown so what is the truth that Palestinian liberation can only come about through the revolutionary overthrow of the Zionist state as part of the revolutionary transformation of the Middle East now by the Zionist state I mean the armed bodies of men which have a monopoly on violence this in no way means that Jewish people should be thrown into the river or any of that reactionary nonsense and just to be crystal clear so I can't be misinterpreted communists are for the revolutionary overthrow of every single bourgeois state we do not discriminate in the slightest and the Arab masses have a key role to play within this after all the majority of people in Jordan are Palestinian the only way of achieving meaningful peace is mass struggle revolutionary struggle interfather throughout the entire region of the poor and oppressed we are for a class war against the system that breeds misery and violence and we will not handering with the pacifists who quake about how terrible war is war is the logical consequence of capitalism and imperialism and that is why we stand for its overthrow this is the precondition for letting refugees return to their homeland this is the only way toward against a second Nakba we stand for a socialist federation of the whole of historic Palestine as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East this is the only way to solve both national questions it will not come from a UN resolution it cannot be solved on a capitalist basis why because capitalism relies on division between the people it is only through a social revolution that we could have all the vast wealth of the region pooled under a democratic plan administered by the working class the fact is as long as issues of housing education jobs healthcare remain enmity will fester between the peoples and it will be provoked by various political agents the only successful way of breaking this down is revolutionary struggles and revolutions in the Arab world could provide a massive impetus to this this would provide the basis for rapid economic development the creation of autonomous zones where minorities are guaranteed rights and it would change the entire psychology of the peoples now for those realists that say that this is impossible eventually saying there is no solution so perhaps we should just wash our hands of the Palestinians but there is historical precedent revolutionary struggle has and will continue to break the age old spiral of violence between the peoples now to give but one example because I'm running out of time before 1917 there had been a terrible conflict between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis through the socialist revolution that saw workers come to power that buried the sordid history of pogroms and persecution on the basis of economic growth where socialist republics eagerly joined the USSR we saw the distrust and ill feeling break away it melted into a we saw mixed marriages become the norm and no matter where you lived your rights would be guaranteed nevertheless so the basis of national oppression was severely undermined and it's no wonder in fact that these hostilities have resurfaced with the restoration of capitalism you need only look at the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to see this today in a word a socialist federation of the Middle East is the only way for guaranteeing the autonomy of the Jews of the Arabs and other national groups that isn't based on oppression you might think that this is a little fanciful but let's place this war in it's rightful context the world is being shaken by revolution and war and a very dangerous situation has opened up in historic Palestine the peace accords are a dead letter and the summits the road maps, the foreign intervention it signifies one thing betrayal and this has produced a crisis of confidence in the Palestinian camp the Palestinian Authority is reviled by the youth they see the participation in the blockade as the clearest sign as to where their allegiances actually lie and the death of the two state solution marked the death of the Palestinian Authority but it's not just the PA look back to the Palestinian general strike of 2021 known as the Unity Interfrada which galvanized the Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza and in the Israeli Green Line it was not Hamas it was not the PA it was the self-organized committees of the youth that drove this forward and the class struggle methods point the way in how the struggle needs to go and a new interfrada is being prepared and this time the imperialists won't have a stable pair of hands to rely on instability looms within Israel itself Netanyahu has staked his future on completely destroying Hamas which will prove rather difficult and this could backfire as it's projected to be a very protracted war there is already mass anger towards Netanyahu that goes back yours and once the fumes of nationalism begin to wear off a very dangerous situation will come about I'll sum up the solution to this conflict goes way beyond the artificial lines drawn up in 1916 social instability looms over the entire region revolutionary developments impend in fact, revolutions have swept the Arab world very recently think back 12 years to the Arab spring what did we see 4 dictators toppled huge ramifications in Israel and none of the burning class questions addressed from Iran to Jordan Egypt to Lebanon and amongst the Palestinians themselves the masses have begun to stir and the youth of this region have everything to gain and nothing to lose but the struggle is not just limited to the region as it's been said over the congress this has become a focal point for the radical youth of the world and you can see this on the demonstrations the anger directed towards the butchers in London in Washington in Berlin it shows the struggle against imperialism assume a mass character and people don't believe that there is no solution to this conflict increasingly they see that there is no solution on a capitalist basis it's in times like this where we must use it to build the genuine forces of communism building a hardened revolutionary international is the task we have set ourselves bringing about a socialist revolution in Britain putting a worker's government in power and a foreign policy based on internationalism this is the best solidarity we can offer to the Palestinian people no longer will Britain be a prop to Israel no longer will it apologize for the crimes of a genocidal ruling class in times of war just like in times of peace the main enemy remains at home and Britain has blood on its hands and we the communists must win over the radicalized youth to our banner we will not be cowed we will not back down and we will continue to raise the slogan from London to Gaza we'll have an interfather