Israel escalates war with Lebanon, plans Rafah invasion, as Nasser hospital atrocities details emerge
Thomas Scripps, WSWS, Apr 25 2024
Funeral of a 10-year-old girl killed Tuesday by an Israeli strike
on a house in the town of Hanin, Apr 25 2024.
Israel’s conflict with Lebanon is entering a “different phase” of “higher-intensity conflict,” in the assessment of Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Marjayoun in southern Lebanon. She writes:
On Wednesday, Israel carried out the largest number of strikes in a single day, hitting 40 separate targets with fighter jets and artillery. The assault continued into the early hours of Thursday morning, targeting not just southern Lebanon but also the east of the country.
Israeli ‘Defense’ Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters:
Half of the Hezbollah commanders in south Lebanon have been eliminated, and the other half hide and abandon south Lebanon to IOF operations.
An official IOF statement explained that the strikes were not carried out in response to any specific attack but as “part of the effort to destroy the organization’s infrastructure in the border area.” Roughly 250 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the latest round of fighting began after Oct 7, and more than 70 Lebanese civilians. Over 90k have been displaced, forced to leave around 100 southern towns and villages under threat of bombardment, and hundreds of acres of farmland damaged. Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned Thursday after visiting the country:
Communities are suffering throughout. Tensions in Lebanon are on the brink of exploding. It simply cannot continue like this. People fleeing southern villages in search of a safe place end up in overcrowded shelters. Their livelihoods have been destroyed, but we have insufficient funding to help them. There is a feeling of desperation. People must be able to go back to their homes and jobs, farmers to their lands, and children to their schools. Families and children are being caught at the centre of a regional crisis here.
These are the consequences of initial skirmishes heralding a major and far more destructive war. Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht wrote Thursday:
The Israeli government is signalling that after the Rafah operation, whose duration nobody knows, the army will deploy for a more substantial campaign up north to push Hezbollah away from the border. One government minister said: “First Rafah, then Hezbollah, then Iran.”
The Jerusalem Post’s Avi Abelow wrote enthusiastically Wednesday:
Israel is already at war in the North, escalation with Lebanon is inevitable. Israel must put an end to the Iranian regime’s threat to Israeli lives on Israel’s borders, and that can only be done by Israel finally destroying the Iranian capabilities in Lebanon. Just as the war in Gaza is a just war, so too is the inevitable war in Lebanon. It is actually the same war, just on different fronts.
A lengthy piece by Maha Yahya, published Wednesday in ForeignAffairs.com, cautioned that such a war would light the fuse on the region’s conflicts. She wrote:
Israel has now deployed 100k troops to its north to confront Hezbollah. Moreover, on Apr 21, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s emergency war cabinet, declared that Israel’s border with Lebanon now constitutes its ‘operative front’ and its ‘greatest and most urgent challenge. Earlier this month, the Israeli military released a statement titled ‘Readiness for the Transition From Defense to Offense,’ outlining its preparations for a conflict with Lebanon. Since then, its targeted attacks in Lebanon have intensified. It may no longer be a matter of whether Israel attacks Lebanon, but when. A fuller regional escalation would also almost certainly prompt more attacks by Iran’s allies against US forces stationed in Iraq, Jordan, and Syria. Such attacks, in turn, would likely solicit more lethal responses by the US. The symbolism of rockets falling into Israel from a variety of countries in the region could galvanize the United States and other Western powers to get more involved militarily, not only by defending Israeli airspace but by directly attacking Israel’s enemies.
War in Lebanon and beyond is bound up with intensified war, repression and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. According to Haaretz:
The Israeli army has informed the government that its forces have completed their preparations for an upcoming operation in Rafah, and that the date for such an operation is to be decided by the cabinet.
Israel’s war and security cabinets both met in Tel Aviv Thursday to discuss the plans. The Times of Israel reports that Israel’s Nahal Infantry Brigade has been withdrawn from Gaza to train for the offensive, allowing with the rest of the 162nd Division. Nine new military bases have been established near Gaza as staging posts. Airstrikes continue to be carried out against the city of more than 1.5 million refugees in preparation. Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud, reporting from the city, described a “surge in attack drones” flying over the city. Among casualties were a Belgian aid worker, Abdallah Nabhan, and his seven-year-old son Jamal. They and five others were killed in an Israeli strike on a building housing 25 people, including displaced refugees. Two more children were among the day’s victims, adding to the 2% of Gaza’s children killed or maimed in the Israeli genocide to this point. Another child, 16-year-old Khaled Raed Arouq, originally from Jenin, was shot in the chest and killed by Israeli security forces in Ramallah, in the West Bank. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces used stun grenades and live fire against several young people who they claimed were “terrorists” who had “thrown stones.” Arouq’s cousin, Majed Arqawi, told AFP:
He was hit by a bullet in his back, which exited through his chest. They assassinated him in cold blood.
In the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, another Palestinian boy was shot and hospitalised in an Israeli house raid. More details have meanwhile emerged of the atrocities carried out by the Israeli occupiers at Khan Younis’s Nasser hospital, where close to 400 Palestinian dead have been discovered in three mass graves. Corpses have been uncovered for six consecutive days. According to the Palestinian Civil Defence organisation, only a minority have been identified because the others are too badly decomposed or mutilated. Head of the department Yamen Abu Sulaiman said Thursday that there was evidence of torture and field executions, including the killing of patients. Ten bodies had their hands tied, and others still had medical tubes attached. Children are among the dead. Palestinian Civil Defence member Mohammed Mughier commented:
We need forensic examination for approximately 20 bodies for people who we think were buried alive.
An official statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry declared:
Any attempt to blame Israel for burying civilians in mass graves is categorically false and a mere disinformation campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel. The grave was dug by Gazans a few months ago.
A Civil Defense statement released Thursday appealed “to the secretary-general of the UN and international institutions to form an independent international investigation committee to investigate crimes of genocide.” The UN has backed this call, as has a EU embarrassed by the revelations and safe in the knowledge that Israel is opposed, backed unabashedly by the US. Instead, the US has led the publication of a revoltingly cynical open letter, signed by eighteen of the imperialist powers and their allies, placing all responsibility for the war at Hamas’s feet by calling for its release of Israeli hostages. A senior US official commented, “if they would do that, this crisis will wind down.”
Hundreds arrested and assaulted by US police as protests against Gaza genocide expand on college campuses
WSWS, Apr 25 2024
In spite of police assault and threats of expulsion, student-led encampments demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza have continued to spread on university campuses in the United States and internationally over the last 24 hours. As of this writing, over 40 college campuses across 22 states in the US have encampments or protests ongoing.
Around 200 students protested at Georgetown University, Apr 25 2024.
In response to the peaceful demonstrations, local and state police have been summoned by university administrators, at the behest Republican and Democratic politicians, to conduct mass arrests and assaults. As of this writing, over 400 arrests have been reported. Those incarcerated by US police for sitting on grass or camping on pavement to voice their opposition to the genocide include many Jewish students, and even faculty. One of the largest police actions occurred Thursday morning, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. At least 108 people were arrested after erecting an encampment in the morning. Even though the encampment was entirely peaceful, city and state riot police viciously assaulted protesters less than four hours into the demonstration. In one video, Georgia State Police and cops with the Atlanta Police Department are seen tackling and choking students, while another cop is heard firing dozens of pepperballs into the crowd.
In another disturbing video, a cop is shown using a taser on an already handcuffed person. As the person is being tased, two other cops pushed down on the person with their body weight.
While it appears many of those arrested at Emory were students, faculty who stood alongside their students were also not spared police repression. In one video, an Emory student documented the arrest of Noelle McAfee, chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory. In the video, the student is heard attempting to gather information to assist Professor McAfee as she’s being led away in handcuffs by a thuggish trooper wearing a black balaclava. As McAffee gives her name to the student, the cop is seen squeezing and twisting her arm.
Another video documented Emory University Economics professor Caroline Fohlin thrown to the ground and arrested by police. Prior to assaulting the professor, one of the cops is heard yelling at her to “Get on the fucking ground!” The cop is shown grabbing the professor by the arm and throwing her to the concrete, causing her glasses to fall off. Another cop grabs and twists her other arm as they put in her handcuffs. A voice is heard off camera yelling at the cops, “You people are fascist!”
An Emory student told a local CBS reporter:
They got my friend, they tackled him to the ground …It makes me feel sad, but not just for Emory University, but for the state of America. What the hell is this? It’s freedom of speech. We didn’t even do anything wrong, now people are tied up, heads down … it’s atrocious.
Following the police assault on the encampment, Emory University President Gregory Fenves stated in a campus-wide email that the protest was “completely unacceptable.” The scale of the attacks against the protesters reflects the heightened nervousness of the corporate and financial backers of Emory University. This fear of the ruling capitalist class to opposition against its economic and political prerogatives is replicated throughout the entire education system in the US. While the university advances superficial claims about “advancing racial and social justice,” Emory’s board of trustees consists of representatives from Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Coca-Cola, among others. These are the real interests the university administration is beholden to and seeks to advance against the popular opposition to state-sponsored genocide. In Boston, Massachusetts, near Emerson University, 108 anti-genocide protesters were arrested early Thursday morning after putting up an encampment in Boylston Place alley, a walkway near the college. The number of students arrested at Emerson is the same number of students who were arrested at Columbia University last week. Video of the arrests early Tuesday morning shows police grabbing students and throwing them to the ground. While on the ground, police are observed choking and smashing students faces into the pavement. In the morning, a student at the university recorded city workers cleaning up the blood from students following the police assault.
https://twitter.com/Tori_Bedford/status/1783516820411941000
In Evanston, Illinois, police attempted to break up an encampment erected by students at Northwestern University. The Daily Northwestern reported that police are “getting physically violent with faculty.” One faculty member was heard yelling at the police, “You will not touch our students.”
As of this writing, it appears police have temporarily retreated from the campus. In an interview with the Daily Northwestern, a student organizer with the encampment said they planned to continue their demonstration until university officials agreed to demands advanced by local chapters of Educators for Justice in Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace. In two other major police actions, cops at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, confirmed they made 93 arrests Wednesday evening. In Austin, Texas, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office confirmed police arrested 57 people on Wednesday at the University of Austin.
Student encampments continued at Columbia and other New York City-area universities on Thursday.
The anti-genocide encampment at Columbia University, April 25, 2024.
Sitting on the steps of the library, a student majoring in English told the WSWS:
The right to protest is at stake. It is only an anti-war protest. It has not become something more. It is not really new. Students protested Vietnam, South African apartheid. But it is growing fast and the possibilities are greater. Our voices are much stronger. But I think it is a cyclical thing, that these struggles happen in election years. Biden’s $95b bill with the arms it is sending out is making young people angrier.
Another student at Columbia commented on the massive police-state response to the peaceful protests:
If it was something they weren’t so scared of, they wouldn’t send in the National Guard, the police and all of these things. The idea of people truly being liberated scares folks in positions of power.
In addition to Columbia, protests are ongoing at City College of New York (CCNY), less than a mile north. CCNY is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. CUNY security attempted to remove the encampment but was repelled by a large crowd of supporters. Winter, a graduate of the CUNY system who came out in support of CCNY students, told the WSWS:
I expected CCNY to be among the first to protest the genocide because it is more working class than Columbia or NYU. Everyone knows that CCNY students are tied to the working class. There is a need to get support from the unions but they are hierarchical and there needs to be a shift of the union workers from the Democrats. The Democrats are trying to contain the protests, trying to give us a larger cage, to pretend we have our freedom, to keep us to little protests. We need to have all of the money and time and energy divested from Israel and other imperialism. There is no reform to this system. This system is not sustainable.
In Midtown Manhattan, protesters stormed the State University of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology building and set up an encampment. As of late Thursday, several dozen students remained in the lobby while others protested outside.
Protests also continued at New York University outside the boarded up Gould Plaza, the site of the student occupation Tuesday raided by the NYPD, which resulted in 120 arrests. Hundreds of students gathered at tent encampments throughout the Washington region this week as a part of the Gaza solidarity movement to oppose the US-backed Israeli genocide.
The student-led encampment at George Washington University, Apr 25 2024.
On Monday, students occupied the lawn at University of Maryland (UMD), in the suburbs of the nation’s capital. On Thursday, students at George Washington University (GWU) built an encampment as hundreds gathered from throughout the region. Earlier in the day, hundreds of students marched at Georgetown University to protest the genocide. WSWS reporters interviewed students at the protests. A philosophy student at GWU told a WSWS reporter:
If the working class mobilizes against the genocide, together we will be a lot stronger. It’s all an interconnected system. We need to work together to overthrow the system.
Student and faculty protest at George Washington University, Apr 25 2024.
Despite the peaceful character of the encampment, authorities at GWU, as they have at other universities, have moved to crack down on the protest. Previously, the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was suspended for projecting images at buildings with slogans calling for the liberation of Palestine and for GWU to divest itself from Israeli apartheid. On Thursday, protesters were beset by Zionist student provocateurs and faculty who were attempting to photograph and doxx participants at the school. Ahlam, a public health student at the UMD, said:
The claim the protests are antisemitic is completely false. The claim conflates things which are not equivalent. Anti-Zionism is a very strong political movement to stop the apartheid state of Israel and Zionism is a racist, fascist ideology. Anti-Zionism is trying to stop that.
In an effort to limit the outpouring of solidarity and decrease the visibility of the protest, GWU administrators sought to run media reporters and supporters off the premises. GWU president Ellen Granberg stated in emails to campus faculty reported by the Washington Post:
We will not allow students from other local colleges or unaffiliated individuals to trespass on our campus.
The WaPo reported:
Granberg requested the assistance of DC police officers after ‘multiple instructions made by GWPD to relocate to an alternative demonstration site on campus went unheeded by encampment participants.’
GWU has imposed a curfew on the students which went into effect at 7:30 pm local time Thursday. As of this writing the encampment has only increased in size after the curfew. Boston police in riot gear moved in on a peaceful encampment at Emerson College in the early morning hours Thursday, arresting 108 pro-Palestinian protesters at the “Popular University Encampment.” Videos posted on social media show police in helmets and reflective jackets forcibly dismantling the tent camp at Boylston Place Alley. Students in nearby buildings could be heard pounding on their windows as the arrests were made.
Boston Emergency Medical Services reported four people were taken to area hospitals. Boston police reported four officers injured and said no arrested protesters suffered injuries, although those on the scene said two students were injured in the assault. According to the Berkeley Beacon, the Emerson student newspaper, shortly before 2 am Thursday seven police vans arrived in front of the walkway at the Boylston Street side of the encampment, and arrests of protests soon ensued. Photos and video taken at the scene showed officers wearing helmets and visors, with some appearing to be wearing tactical gear.
A Massachusetts State Police spokesman said several troopers were also sent to the area to “maintain security” and to “assist any demonstrators not willing to be arrested.” State police reportedly did not make any arrests. Students had occupied the walkway for several days. On Wednesday, police and fire department officials warned the protesters that the tents were in violation of city ordinances banning camping on public property and that police action was imminent. Students had described the camp as “porous” and that they had been allowing people to pass through. Emerson officials were on scene at the time of the arrests. They said in a statement:
Of additional concern, Emerson has received credible reports that some protesters are engaging in targeted harassment and intimidation of Jewish supporters of Israel and students, staff, faculty, and neighbors seeking to pass through the alley. This type of behavior is unacceptable on our campus.
All Emerson classes were canceled Thursday. Emerson student Adam Nuñez, who was held overnight at a police station and booked Thursday morning, described the scene to the Boston Globe as “chaos.” He added:
I was pulled by my collar, pinned to a table, thrown to the floor, then dragged into the state transportation building. It’s stressful. But we know what we did, and we know that we’re on the right side of history.
One supporter of the Emerson camp said:
They wanted us the hell out. The police officers had helmets, shields, clubs, and they were hitting people. People were on the ground and in chokeholds.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, commented that “Boston is a city where upholding the right to protest is very important to us,” but defended the assault on protesters saying, “Public access to this right of way was not accessible.” It appears that ordinances originally intended to target homeless people pitching tents are now being utilized against students’ democratic right to protest. In response to a large demonstration at the University of Texas, Austin, far-right Governor Greg Abbott mobilized state troopers on horseback to crush the protest. In a Twitter/X post from his official social media account, Abbott declared:
Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperse. These protesters belong in jail. Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.
Student demonstrators refused to be intimidated by Abbott and his police thugs, chanting, “You will not scare us” at the heavily armed police.
University officials later confirmed to ABC News that at least 20 people had been arrested. Jerry White, the vice presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, provided live coverage and commentary on the student protests and issued a call for workers to come to the defense of the students.
White said:
The police attacks ordered by Abbott are part of the effort to criminalize all anti-genocide protests. These attacks are being fully backed by the Biden administration, working with the most right-wing Republicans. The right to protest is a fundamental right, and the working class must defend the rights of students at the University of Texas and elsewhere.
After the police rampage, faculty at University of Texas at Austin released a statement condemning the state assault on protesters and pledging to strike on Thursday.
After Columbia University threatened to deploy the National Guard against student protesters yesterday, the university administration “extended” an ultimatum to the protesters by another 48 hours. In an openly fascist provocation on Wednesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited the Columbia University campus. Johnson, a prominent supporter of Trump, has echoed Biden’s smear of the student protesters as “antisemites.” Johnson was met with overwhelming hostility by the students.
The Gaza solidarity encampment on the campus of Columbia University, Apr 23 2024.
On the same day, fascist Gavin McInnes was allowed access to Columbia’s campus. McInnes is the founder of the far-right “Proud Boys” organization, which was centrally involved in the Jan 6 2021 attempted coup d’etat in Washington. According to student organizations involved in the Columbia encampment, while on campus, McInnes harassed pro-Palestinian students, hurling derogatory slurs at the protesting youth. This is not the first time the Proud Boys and other fascist dregs have been deployed to harass and attack left-wing student and youth protesters.
WSWS reporters spoke with a faculty member at Columbia University in front of the student protest encampment on campus on Wednesday. The faculty member said:
Much of the faculty is inspired by the students and organizers here who are leading this effort. I think it’s very brave of them, especially knowing the history of student protest in this country. Genocide is happening in Palestine. I think that the real antisemitism is conflating the Israeli state with Jews. And I think that everyone inside this encampment will tell you that. There are plenty of Jewish comrades inside the encampment who would say the same thing and that are leading these efforts and are publishing press about this that are absolutely wonderful. This is not an antisemitism issue, this is a genocide issue and it’s not a hard thing to be on the right side of generally speaking, philosophically, but to take this risk, I think, is very important.
Asked by a WSWS reporter if students should be reaching out to the working class for support, the faculty member replied:
I agree. I think that this is a labor issue, this is a class issue. And I think that anyone in the United States who is not part of the ruling class needs to be concerned about this. And the ruling class frankly should be concerned too, and they are. And that’s why you see the reaction that you see. Of course, we’re all worried about an overreaction such as we saw at Kent State. There’s a history of violent reactions and surveillance and suppression and criminalization of people who engage in organizing. So, we know that that’s a risk here, but the reason that that is, is because this poses the threat to the ruling class’s stranglehold on the way that everybody has to live. So, this is absolutely is an issue that transcends all those matters that we care about.
Asked to comment on the Democratic Party joining with the far right to crack down on students, they replied:
The great unifier between the two parties is class and socioeconomic status and power. People in the ruling class find their niche, wherever they can fit it, wherever they can get elected, whatever they have to say to maintain power, but really the great unifier is holding onto that power. So, something like this, that threatens it, I think really does, in a very stark way, unify both Democrats and Republicans around those issues even though we are told that that shouldn’t happen.
At The New School in Lower Manhattan, protests were also ongoing Wednesday.
United Parcel Service (UPS) workers in New York expressed their opposition to the attacks on student protesters and the genocide in Gaza. One “inside” shift worker at the UPS 43rd Street facility in Manhattan said:
The attacks on these students is not right. Why should you be arrested for demonstrating on your own campus? What is going on is wrong. Students shouldn’t be arrested for protesting at all.
Another worker at the facility declared:
They are protesting! You should be able to say what you want, whatever it is. I know this is controversial, but it is over killing more than 30k people. They have a right to protest. What are things coming to?
At New York University, the Stern Business School’s Gould Plaza has been walled off, with NYPD stationed across the street. The library entrance is now also guarded by NYPD and campus security.
A couple of hundred students, along with some faculty, protested in front of NYU President Linda Mill’s multimillion-dollar residence. An NYU faculty member told the WSWS:
The most important reason we’re out here is to protest against the genocide that is taking place in Gaza. But it’s also because they called in the riot police on a totally peaceful protest and arrested over 120 students and faculty members. They always use the language of safety. Then they say it’s because it’s “antisemitic” and it’s “protection” for the Jewish students. That is really problematic for a range of reasons. First of all, there is nothing antisemitic about criticizing the state of Israel. It is a country. Even Zionism is a political ideology that has been around for less than 200 years. The Jewish religion is a couple thousand years old. What is, in fact, antisemitic is to lump all Jews together and assume that they all believe the same thing.
There are a lot of anti-Zionist Jews who are criticizing Israel and would like to see social justice and a free Palestine, but they always hide behind the rhetoric of antisemitism. They conflate the two, antisemitism and anti-Zionism. And they are completely separate things. There were a lot of Jewish students at the protest Monday. There was a Passover Seder. The language of safety is completely false. If you want to keep your students safe, you don’t call the riot police. There’s no need for the National Guard to come to stop students from shouting for Palestinian liberation. And of course, some of us who are old enough or have seen it, the last time the National Guard was called in to stop student protests, we saw what happened at Kent State. I don’t know that they’ve been called in since, but it’s really obscene.
Asked about the bipartisan support for war and genocide and the attacks on students, she responded:
Well, I mean, the Democrats aren’t that different from the Republicans, for one thing. I think a lot of people know that. Mayor Adams… the NYPD has trained with the Israel Occupation Forces, and the political machine is in bed with war manufacturers, the manufacturers of surveillance equipment. I’m not an expert on surveillance systems, but from what I’ve read, Israel is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of surveillance systems, practiced on Palestinians, and they sometimes actually advertise it that way.
Student protests are beginning to spread to Europe. After initial protests in Italy yesterday, students at the SciencesPo Paris took to the streets to demonstrate against the genocide and the police crackdown on students in the United States. In France, the Macron government, much like the Biden administration, has moved to implement a police state crackdown on protesters against the Gaza genocide.
At the University of Southern California (USC), where the speech of the valedictorian was censored last week for her pro-Palestinian views, the LAPD has launched a violent crackdown on a solidarity encampment. Protests by students are continuing despite the attack.
After surrounding Alumni Park in the early evening, campus police issued a dispersal order, followed by a warning that the LAPD would begin carrying out mass arrests. As of this writing, at least 50 arrests have been made.
Polish government steps up military indoctrination in schools
Martin Nowak, WSWS, Apr 25 2024
In future, Polish schoolchildren are to be indoctrinated in militarism beginning in primary school. Polish Education Minister Barbara Nowacka and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz presented a program to this effect titled “Edukacja z wojskiem” (”Education with the army”) last Wednesday. The governing coalition in Poland led by former European Union Council President Donald Tusk, which has been in office since last autumn, is thereby increasing the militarisation of Polish schools. During the pilot programme, Polish soldiers will conduct a three-hour training course in primary and secondary schools. the ministry’s statement reads:
The main objective of the programme is to raise the awareness of children and young people in the field of security and defence and develop basic habits and skills in the field of defence and civil protection as well as behaviour in crisis situations.
All grades from the first year of primary school to secondary school are eligible to participate. Only the eighth year of primary school and the first year of secondary school are excluded. The PiS (Law and Justice Party)-led government, which was voted out of office in 2022, had already introduced “security training,” meaning military training including shooting practice, into the curriculum for these grades. Registration takes place via the local authorities. The program will run from May 6 to Jun 20 and cover around 3.5k schools. If the program proves successful, it will be permanently established in the curriculum, the two ministers announced. At the press conference, the ministers made it abundantly clear that the programme is not about imparting neutral knowledge about first aid and disaster control, but instead is aimed at creating a militaristic culture, ”showing the army at school.” Education minister Kosiniak-Kamysz emphasised:
We are increasing the resilience of our society. We live in times in which all measures that can improve security must be taken. From pre-school children to senior citizens, everyone must be prepared for challenges. Patriotism is the willingness to act for the fatherland, but above all to acquire the skills necessary to serve one’s country and one’s neighbour. And that is exactly what our programme is for.
The praise for “patriotism” is reminiscent of speeches made by the former PiS education minister Przemysław Czarnek, who introduced military training and a new civics lesson, “History and the Present” (”Historia i teraźniejszość,” HiT), in 2022. According to Nowacka, HiT is to be replaced in 2025 by the subject “political education.” The controversy surrounding HiT shows just how small are the differences between the old and new governments. While in opposition, the current governing parties criticised HiT’s textbook as a right-wing construct because it demonised feminism, communism and even parts of pop culture as anti-Polish ideologies. Now, however, Barbara Nowacka, leader of the feminist party Inicjatywa Polska (iPL), is praising the promotion of “patriotic” attitudes among seven-year-olds.
Pseudo-left organisations and parties play a key role, not only in Poland but worldwide, in accompanying the return of militarism and war with phraseology embracing feminist and identity politics. The Tusk government is seamlessly continuing and intensifying the PiS’s war policy, not only in education but also in all other areas. A few weeks ago, Tusk publicly declared that the world had entered a “pre-war era” and had to prepare accordingly. Poland has long played a key role in the NATO war offensive against the nuclear power, Russia. Foreign Minister Sikorski recently refused to rule out the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine. Certain disagreements between Tusk’s PO (Citizens Platform) and the PiS are primarily of a tactical nature. For example, President Andrzej Duda, who belongs to the PiS camp, recently confirmed in an interview his willingness to station US nuclear weapons in Poland as part of “nuclear sharing.” Tusk reacted coolly and called on Duda to hold consultations on this issue.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the military alliance currently has no plans to station nuclear weapons in other member states. Stoltenberg stated this while visiting British troops stationed in Poland alongside British PM Sunak. This does not mean Stoltenberg and Tusk advocate a less aggressive nuclear policy towards Moscow. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), around 150 US nuclear weapons are currently stored in Europe as part of “nuclear sharing,” in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. The differences of opinion between Duda and Tusk over the stationing of US nuclear weapons in Poland are primarily about foreign policy orientation. While Tusk favours close cooperation with the major European powers, especially Germany, the PiS is seeking to strengthen its close military alliance with the US, also as a counterweight to Germany’s dominance in the EU. Both camps are prepared to risk and wage a third world war and militarise all of society right down to the schools.
Higher for longer interest rates hit the global economy
Nick Beams, WSWS, Apr 26 2024
If one had gone by so-called “market expectations” at the start of the year, then it was going to be relatively plain sailing for the world economy. Inflation was coming down, there were going to be as many as six interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve this year, and at least three, the stock market boom would continue on the bank of the potential of artificial intelligence and there would be a “soft landing” for the global economy. Four months on, this happy scenario is in tatters. The latest data from the US, reflected in other countries as well, indicates that inflation after falling from its previous high levels has reach a sticking point above the target of 2%, meaning interest rate cuts markets have been clamouring for are being pushed further down the track. Fed chair Jerome Powell indicated as much in remarks earlier this month saying that the central bank would need to have “confidence” inflation was moving sustainably down to the target before it would be appropriate to ease monetary policy. Powell said:
The recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence, and instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence.
The change in the interest landscape saw options markets suggesting a roughly 20% chance of a rise in rates over the next 12 months with the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds spiking to more than 5%. Wall Street experienced its longest losing streak in 18 months before rebounding somewhat at the start of this week. In the longer term, the growing problems for the US and world economy were outlined in reports prepared for the annual spring meeting of the IMF held last week. While it put forward what has been described as a relatively “sunny” outlook for the near term (estimates of global growth were revised upwards) the IMF forecast for the long term presented a different picture. It noted that since the global financial crisis, amid fluctuations, the general trend for growth was down which would continue with global growth at the end of the decade falling to more than a percentage point below the pre-pandemic average. The IMF said this was a result of weak productivity, a fall back in globalisation as countries pursue increasingly nationalist economic policies, the misallocation of capital resources and increasing geopolitical turmoil.
In her remarks to the gathering, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned the global economy was at risk of falling into what she called “the tepid Twenties.” The class struggle does not usually get much of a mention in IMF reports, although it is always present in the thinking of the guardians of the interests of global capital. But on this occasion it was referred to directly by the IMF chief as she warned that the fall in global growth could lead to “popular discontent” with the political establishment. The downward trend and how to address it is “what I think when I wake up in the middle of the night,” Georgieva said. Another issue of concern was the stability of the financial system due to the rise of US public debt. At around the equivalent of US GDP and set to rise even further in coming years, it has reached what is universally acknowledged as an “unsustainable” level. The IMF Fiscal Monitor report was replete with calls for the US and other governments to tackle this issue with the restoration of “fiscal buffers” to be achieved by targeting spending on health and pensions and social service entitlement programs.
The toxic combination of higher for longer interest rates and slower growth are beginning to become ever more apparent. This week Bloomberg reported that South Korea is “emerging as a closely watched weak link in the $63t world of shadow banking,” the growing role of hedge funds, equity funds and other non-bank institutions in the global financial system. The cause of concern is the rise in delinquency rates under conditions where because of higher interest rates Citigroup economists estimate that around $80b worth of project-finance debt is “troubled.” Shadow banking finance to the real estate sector is now more than four times the level it was a decade ago. According to the Bloomberg report, the role of South Korea’s shadow banking sector in areas that may risk financial stability is “second only to the US in relative size.” Quentin Fitzsimmons, a financial manager at the T Rowe Price Group, told the news agency:
What is happening in Korea is probably a microcosm of what could be happening elsewhere. It has made me concerned.
The growing financial problems in South Korea, one of the world’s major industrial centres, come amidst mounting concerns that its economic growth model, heavy industry and computer chip production backed by the state, is running out of steam. This week, the Financial Times published an article headlined “Is South Korea’s economic miracle over?” The answer it gave is almost certainly yes. The FT reported that the government is seeking to boost the development of new computer chip technologies and their manufacture “amid growing anxiety that the country’s leading export industry will be usurped by rivals across Asia and the west.” According to a Bank of Korea report last year, cited in the article, having risen at an average of 6.4% between 1970 and 2022, annual growth was set to slow to an average of 2.1% in the 2020s, 0.6% in the 2030s and then start to shrink by 0.1% a year in the 2040s.
For China, the world’s largest manufacturing centre, whose growth has been pivotal to the expansion of the world economy for more than a quarter of a century, the situation is no better. The crisis in the Chinese real estate and property development sector which has seen the collapse of at least 50 companies, of which Evergrande is the most well-known, has not been resolved as the problems of the economy are compounded by a global economic slowdown and escalating warfare measures by the US and increasingly the European powers. On Wednesday, the NYT reported on the growing crisis in the car industry resulting from the slowing of demand and the switch to electric vehicles, leading off a with a description of the fate of a major complex in Chongqing, China’s largest western city. The complex, which was a joint venture of a Chinese company and Hyundai, the South Korean industrial giant, was opened in 2017 with high levels of robots and other equipment to produce petrol-driven cars. It was sold late last year for fraction of the $1.1b it cost to build, and “unmown grass at the site has already grown knee-high.” According to the article:
Dozens of gasoline-powered vehicle factories are barely running or have already been mothballed.
The slowdown goes beyond petrol-driven cars and extends to the electric vehicle market not only in China but globally with major car firms, including Tesla, announcing price cuts. The developing car industry crisis is symptomatic of the marked slowdown in the global economy which will be exacerbated by the continuation of elevated interest rates. The US is the only major economy experiencing growth, but it does so under conditions where the boost provided by the Biden administration (handouts to corporations under the Inflation Reduction Act and increased military spending) is raising the mountain of unsustainable debt. The European economy, led down by the world’s third largest economy, Germany, is barely growing. The UK economy is at or near recession and growth in Japan, the world’s fourth largest is barely above zero. The target for Chinese growth is 5%. But this is the lowest level in more than three decades and the government will be struggling to meet it.
A police officer detains a protester on the campus of Emory University, Atlanta, Apr 25 2024.
Eugene Debs delivering his Canton Speech against WW1 on Jun 16 1918.
Arrests in Sydney, Apr 24 2024
Anti-Gaza genocide camp at the University of Melbourne
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