Israel storms and sets fire to the last hospital in northern Gaza
Kevin Reed, WSWS, Dec 30 2024
IOF raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, forcibly removed patients and staff and then set the facility on fire. The hospital was the last medical facility in northern Gaza that remained open since the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians began in Oct 2023. The New York Post reported that over 240 individuals were detained, including the hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, whom Israel accused of being an operative for Hamas. The Zionist military sought to cover up the impact of its brutal assault by claiming it had evacuated 350 patients and staff before the raid. However, the forced evacuation disrupted patient medical care, especially for those who were critically ill or dependent on life-saving treatments. Details about the hospitals or shelters where patients were transferred were not readily available, as the situation remained chaotic with the ongoing military action.
The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the raid, stating that rendering the last major hospital in northern Gaza non-operational meant that the lives of around 75k residents who relied on its services were endangered. The WHO further criticized the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure, highlighting that the remaining hospitals are ill-equipped to handle the influx of patients from Kamal Adwan. Medical and humanitarian groups expressed deep concern over the raid, emphasizing Dr Safiya’s dedication to children’s health under dire conditions. Hamas denied Israel’s claims that militants were using the hospital as a command center and called for international intervention to protect medical facilities. The incident has intensified debates over the protection of healthcare institutions in the conflict zones and the humanitarian impact of military operations on civilian infrastructure. A report published on Saturday by WHO said:
Initial reports indicate that some areas of the hospital were burnt and severely damaged during the raid, including the laboratory, surgical unit, engineering and maintenance department, operations theatre, and the medical store. Earlier in the day, twelve patients and a female health staff were reportedly forced to evacuate to destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital where it is not possible to provide any care, while most of the staff, stable patients and companions were moved to a nearby location. Additionally, some people were reportedly stripped and forced to walk toward southern Gaza. Over the last two months, the area around the hospital has remained highly volatile and attacks on the hospitals and on health workers have occurred almost daily. This week, bombardments in its vicinity reportedly killed 50 people, including five health workers from Kamal Adwan Hospital. Kamal Adwan is now empty. The movement and treatment of these critical patients under such conditions pose grave risks to their survival. WHO is deeply concerned for their wellbeing, as well as for the Kamal Adwan Hospital director who has been reportedly detained during the raid. WHO lost contact with him since the raid began.
The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been the target of repeated military attacks and sieges by Israeli forces over the past 14 months. On Oct 25, IOF besieged the hospital and trapped approximately 600 patients, companions and staff inside. The WHO reported at the time that medical staff suffered injuries and were detained during this raid. Director Dr Safiya stated that Israeli tanks surrounded the facility, cut off electricity, and shelled the building, targeting the second and third floors. Following the raid, the hospital suffered significant damage, including the destruction of critical supplies due to bombings. In early Dec 2024, the IDF conducted airstrikes near the hospital, resulting in civilian casualties. On Dec 11, the hospital’s maternity ward was targeted, leading to the deaths of two mothers and their newborn babies. The following day, Israeli forces raided the hospital, detaining approximately 70 medical staff members and ordering all males above the age of 16 to leave for searches. Reports have also emerged that Israeli bulldozers crushed people sheltering outside the hospital, causing numerous fatalities. The Palestinian Health Minister called for an investigation into these incidents, and international organizations expressed deep concern over the humanitarian implications of the attacks on the hospital.
The intensifying attacks and shutdown of Kamal Adwan Hospital are part of the systematic destruction of the medical infrastructure in Gaza by Israel. Since Oct 7 2023, numerous hospitals have been targeted, and the sustained assault on healthcare facilities is a central component of the deliberate murder and ethnic cleansing operation of the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has carried out air strikes against the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, the Al-Wafa Hospital in central Gaza City, the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in central Gaza and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. Dozens were killed in the strikes, and countless others died from lack of access to medical care amid Israel’s rampage that has destroyed or damaged two-thirds of all structures in the Palestinian enclave. Although comprehensive data is limited, a significant number of civilians, including children, have been killed as a direct result of attacks on medical infrastructure, including drone missile strikes on ambulances attempting to reach injured people or transporting victims to hospitals. The airstrikes on Oct 22 2023, near the Al Shifa and Al Quds hospitals, for example, contributed to what has been described as the “bloodiest” night of the genocide at the time.
Meanwhile, military operations in Gaza have caused significant casualties among medical personnel. The Gaza Health Ministry has reported that approximately 986 healthcare workers have been killed since Oct 2023. This includes 165 doctors, 260 nurses, 300 management and support personnel, 184 health associate professionals, 76 pharmacists, and 12 other health workers. On Nov 3, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 136 paramedics had been killed, and 25 ambulance vehicles had been destroyed since the beginning of the conflict. On the same day, Israel bombed a medical convoy outside of Al-Shifa hospital. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who has been detained in the latest assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, was born in 1973 in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip and is a Palestinian pediatrician and human rights defender. Dr Safiya has refused to evacuate the hospital choosing to remain with the patients, despite orders from IOF. In Oct 2024, during an earlier Israeli raid, Dr Safiya was briefly detained but returned to continue his work. Tragically, during his detention, his 15-year-old son Ibrahim, who was sheltering at the hospital with the family, was killed by an Israeli drone strike.
On Dec 27 2024, IOF detained Dr Abu Safiya again during a raid on the hospital, accusing him of being a Hamas operative. This action has drawn condemnation from medical and humanitarian organizations, highlighting his commitment to children’s health under dire circumstances. Throughout the Gaza genocide, the WSWS has reported on and analyzed the Israeli government’s attacks on medical facilities and healthcare personnel which has unfolded with the backing of the US government. These deliberately murderous attacks now barely illicit comment from the Biden administration as it focuses on exiting the White House for the incoming second Trump administration. On Friday, NSC spox Adm (Retd) John Kirby made disingenuous comments to reporters, saying:
Hospitals should not be active scenes of combat and conflict. People should be able to be able to feel safe going to a hospital, get the medical care that they desperately need.
Kirby also reiterated Israeli claims that Hamas is using hospitals to “store caches of weapons, to house fighters, to plan and coordinate,” allegations that have never been backed up with a single piece of evidence. Kirby then declined to answer specific questions about the strike on the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
South Korea’s acting president impeached amid ongoing protests
Ben McGrath, WSWS, Dec 30 2024
The acute political crisis in South Korea continues to deepen as the National Assembly, led by the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), voted to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo on Friday. Han, who is also prime minister, assumed presidential duties on Dec 14, when President Yoon Suk-yeol was also impeached and suspended from office over his failed attempt to impose martial law on Dec 3. The DP submitted the motion against Han to the 300-seat parliament on Thursday. It passed the following day 192-0, with the DP’s 170 seats and the rest from minor parties or nominal “independents” aligned with the Democrats. All 108 members of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote. Although a parliamentary minority, it holds ruling party status as President Yoon comes from the PPP. The PPP is seeking an injunction to reverse parliament’s decision last Friday. While the South Korean constitution requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority to impeach a president, a cabinet minister can be impeached by a simple majority. The party argues that since Han is serving as the acting president, the two-thirds majority rule should apply to him. Han publicly accepted his impeachment, stating:
I respect the decision of the National Assembly, and in order not to add to the confusion and uncertainty, I will suspend my duties in line with relevant laws, and wait for the swift and wise decision of the Constitutional Court.
The court rules on whether impeached officials are removed from power or not. He has been replaced as acting president by Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok. Han, appointed by Yoon to his cabinet, and the PPP have stonewalled impeachment proceedings against Yoon. In impeaching Han, the DP cited his refusal to appoint three new Constitutional Court justices to fill existing vacancies, as well as blocking bills to establish special counsel probes into Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law and into his wife, Kim Geon-hui, who is accused of corruption. The DP also accused Han, in his capacity as prime minister, of failing to oppose Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law, essentially a coup plot, which Han admitted to learning about nearly two hours before the president made his declaration.
In order to remove a president from office, six of nine judges on the Constitutional Court must approve. They have 180 days from Yoon’s suspension to make a decision. Currently, there are only six judges on the court, with three vacant seats since October. This means if only one justice sides with Yoon, he would return to office with all presidential powers, including over the military. The Constitutional Court is one of the country’s two top-level judicial bodies, alongside the Supreme Court. The president appoints all nine justices; however, only three are directly chosen by the chief executive. Three justices are nominated by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the other three are nominated by the National Assembly. At present, two justices were directly appointed by Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, a Democrat. One was directly appointed by Yoon. The other three were chosen by the Supreme Court. The National Assembly is now wrangling over the appointment of its three allotted judges, with the PPP claiming that an acting president cannot legally appoint the justices. Han had sided with the PPP.
Mass protests are continuing against Yoon and the PPP, which demonstrators see as an accomplice in the president’s attempt to impose a military dictatorship. On Saturday, upwards of 500k protesters gathered in Gwanghwamun, Seoul calling for Yoon’s removal from office and arrest. They also called for the dissolution of the PPP. Police claimed only 35k took part, a drastic undercounting meant to downplay the protests in hopes of preventing them from growing.Notably, many anti-government protesters on Saturday also waved Palestinian flags in opposition to Israel’s more than year-long genocide in Gaza and expansion of war throughout the Middle East, which has been backed by Seoul. It is a recognition that the attack on democratic rights is not limited to a single government, but is being carried out by the ruling class around the world. It is also a sign of the anti-war sentiment that exists within the South Korean population. A counterprotest of Yoon’s supporters took place approximately a kilometer away, which police also estimated at 35k participants. Organisers ludicrously claimed three million people took part, a fact easily disproven by photos of the rally. Yoon is also widely despised with over 75% of the population supporting his removal from office.
While large by any measure, Saturday’s anti-Yoon rally was significantly smaller than the two million who demonstrated at the National Assembly on Dec 14 to demand Yoon’s impeachment. The Democrats are downplaying the continuing danger to democratic rights, seeking to direct public anger behind the actions of the National Assembly as well as the impeachment of figures like Han Duck-soo. The DP and their supporters in smaller fake “progressive” parties and the trade unions conduct the rallies, like the one on Saturday, as campaign events and present Yoon’s removal from office as practically a done deal. All the problems workers, farmers and youth face are laid at the feet of Yoon, giving the impression that if only he were gone, social and economic problems would be resolved. As well, the DP’s allies in the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) have ended their token “indefinite general strike,” which was nothing more than scattered protests and short, partial walkouts designed to let workers blow off steam without affecting big business or the government.
Yoon’s coup attempt was not ultimately the result of one man’s predilection for authoritarianism. It was a product of the crisis of capitalism, which is unfolding around the world. The ruling classes are increasingly turning to far-right and fascistic figures, notably Donald Trump in the United States, to impose their will on the working class. The DP and its allies are seeking to limit the protests to the safe channels of the National Assembly and court system in order to protect the capitalist system itself, thereby covering up the potential for another declaration of martial law should Yoon resume office. This is in a country that was dominated by dictatorial and military rule from its founding as a state in 1948 through the 1980s. Behind the façade of democratic reforms erected after mass protests in 1987, the military and state apparatus retain tremendous influence.
The Democrats’ perfidy has only emboldened Yoon. He and his legal team have largely rejected cooperation with the impeachment and investigation into his martial law declaration. For nearly two weeks, Yoon refused to accept documents from the Constitutional Court related to hearings in his impeachment trial. On Friday, Yoon’s legal team did finally accept court documents at the last minute before the first impeachment hearing. Yun Gap-geun, one of Yoon’s lawyers, claimed that the documents were delivered “illegally” and that they were unable to prepare properly. The next hearing is scheduled for Jan 3. Yoon has also ignored summons from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) to appear for questioning, including a third summons requesting he appear this past Sunday on charges of insurrection and abuse of power. It is possible the CIO will request an arrest warrant for Yoon, but this will by no means resolve the ongoing political crisis.
Victorian Liberal leader ousted in further shift to right by Australian political establishment
Mike Head, WSWS, Dec 30 2024
A new, more right-wing leader was installed to head Australia’s Liberal Party opposition in the state of Victoria last Friday, backed by the Murdoch media and the most right-wing faction of the federal Liberal-National Coalition. The party-room ouster of supposed “moderate” faction leader John Pesutto and election of Brad Battin, a “law and order” ex-police officer, marks a further political realignment not just in Victoria, the country’s second most populous state, but nationally. Murdoch’s Australian reported on its front-page lead article on Saturday that federal Liberals, factionally aligned with Coalition leader Peter Dutton, applied “pressure” to their state counterparts to anoint Battin in the leadup to the next federal election, which must be held by mid-May.
At his first media conference, Battin pledged to cut the size of the public service, lower business taxes and boost the police. He signalled a focus on outer suburban voters in Melbourne, the state capital, rather than the affluent layers in inner-city areas that have traditionally been the main social base of the big business Liberal Party. Like Dutton, another former police officer, Battin aims to channel US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory last month, by seeking to exploit the widespread discontent over the intensifying cost-of-living and affordable housing crisis under the state and federal Labor governments, and divert it in a repressive pro-business direction. In another signal of the political shift, Battin and his backers refused to share the state party leadership with the Liberals’ “moderate” faction, as previously was the case. Another member of the right faction, ex-tennis professional Sam Groth, was elected deputy leader at the party-room meeting after that role was denied to the “moderate” wing’s Jess Wilson.
Battin epitomises the turn by the Liberals, spearheaded by Dutton and backed by sections of the corporate elite, to a more repressive and social spending-slashing direction. Battin was a Victoria Police officer from 2001 to 2007, rising to senior constable, before running a suburban bakery franchise from 2007 until his election to the state parliament in 2010. At his media event, Battin declared that tackling an alleged crime wave and reducing the “burden” of an “out of control” government budget were his top priorities. As shadow police minister under Pesutto, Battin had already pushed an agenda framed around “zero tolerance for street crime” and harsher terms of imprisonment. An editorial in Saturday’s Australian threw the Murdoch media’s weight behind the leadership shift and issued marching orders to the Liberals. it declared:
New Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin has been clear on his priorities. They are to tackle crime, fix the budget and reduce taxes. His parliamentary colleagues must fall in behind this agenda and leave behind the divisions under which John Pesutto’s ambitions to become premier evaporated.
Pesutto’s removal was the result of a destabilisation operation triggered by far-right state Liberal parliamentarian Moira Deeming, who successfully sued Pesutto for defamation. A Federal Court judge ruled that Pesutto had slandered Deeming by implying that she knowingly associated and sympathised with neo-Nazis, and ordered him to pay her $300k in damages. Pesutto also faces hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars in legal costs. Pesutto had made comments in an attempt to distance the Liberal Party from Deeming, after neo-Nazis joined a Mar 2023 anti-transgender rights rally she had helped organise on the parliamentary building steps. Neo-Nazis performed Hitler salutes at the rally, causing a public outcry of opposition to such fascist displays.
Deeming was removed from the Liberals’ parliamentary party room last year after launching her lawsuit against Pesutto, but Friday’s state meeting also voted to readmit her. In a last-ditch bid to head off his dumping, Pesutto publicly apologised to Deeming just before Christmas. That backflip came only a week after he cast a presiding vote to refuse to readmit her following a 14-all split in the partyroom. Deeming is a far-right figure who has been promoted by the Murdoch media, particularly Sky News Australia presenter Peta Credlin. From 2009 to 2015, Credlin was former Coalition leader Tony Abbott’s chief of staff, first as opposition leader then prime minister. Credlin is a weekly columnist with the Australian and News Corp Australia’s Sunday tabloids, including the Sydney Sunday Telegraph and the Melbourne Herald Sun. In a September column, Credlin pointed to the underlying far-right political agenda. She said the Deeming “saga” was “essentially about the long-term gutlessness of the Victorian Liberal parliamentary team.” Credlin also recently indicated the level of her personal involvement in the Deeming affair. She reported that she had accompanied Deeming to an unsuccessful meeting with the Victorian Liberal Party state president to seek to settle Deeming’s case against Pesutto.
In one Sky News interview with Credlin, Deeming said she had been “betrayed” by the party and “relentlessly hunted” out of the party room following the anti-transgender rights rally. This echoes one of Trump’s agendas. At an event for young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona on Dec 22, Trump said he would sign executive orders to end “child sexual mutilation,” and to “get transgender out of” the military and schools on day one of his presidency. Deeming has a far-right public record of opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and abortion rights. She has stated that rape victims should reject abortions and turn to the Christian church. She is a member of the conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, which is funded by Australia’s richest oligarch, iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart, who joined Trump and Elon Musk in Florida last month to celebrate Trump’s victory. The elevation of Battin and the promotion of Deeming are in line with the demands emerging in the corporate media for an historic, all-out assault on the jobs, social services and living conditions of workers in Australia, along the lines of that being mounted by Argentine President Javier Milei and planned by Trump.
Musk, the wealthiest individual in the world, will head Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, vowing to slash $2 trillion, or about one-third of the annual US government budget, primarily at the expense of social welfare, health, education and environmental programs. This agenda is an attempt to wind back the historical clock, overturning all the past gains of the working class. This requires a dramatic change in the political forms of rule by the capitalist ruling class, not just in the US but globally. The financial-corporate oligarchy is attempting to reorganise the world, including Australia, by means of social counter-revolution and political dictatorship. The political establishment is being realigned accordingly. A similar thrust is expected to be unveiled by Dutton when he announces a reshuffle of the Coalition’s federal shadow cabinet, an event he delayed until after the leadership shift in Victoria. Dutton’s reshuffle follows what the corporate media described as the surprise resignations of two leading “moderates,” foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham and government services spokesman Paul Fletcher.
Reportedly, members of Dutton’s “conservative” faction have been agitating for stronger representation in the shadow ministry, amid a recent wave of announcements by at least 11 Coalition members of parliament, counting Birmingham and Fletcher, that they will not recontest their seats at the impending election. That came on top of four others who have quit the Coalition since the May 2022 election. This cleanout is accelerating a process that began with the federal Liberal party-room election of Dutton, a widely reviled hardline advocate of militarism and budget-slashing, as Coalition leader after the Labor Party scraped into office in 2022. Labor won only 32.5% of the national vote but was able to gain a narrow majority in the lower house of parliament, largely because the Liberal vote imploded in many of its wealthy inner-city electorates. Since then, the Albanese Labor government has presided over the biggest fall in real wages and living standards since the 1950s, intensifying an historic four-decade decline in the share of income going to the working class. This, plus Labor’s stepping up of the previous Coalition government’s line-up behind US war plans, including its support for the genocide in Gaza, has opened the door for the possible election of a far-right government under Dutton.
Australian Greens leader fraudulently claims Labor shifting to the left on Gaza
Oscar Grenfell, WSWS, Dec 30 2024
For the past month, the Australian Greens have been campaigning for a power-sharing arrangement with Labor in the event that the next federal election, which must be held by May, results in a hung parliament. Under conditions of consistently dire polling for the Labor government, a fragile minority government is a likely scenario. Last month, on the final sitting day of the parliamentary year, the Greens joined with Labor to help push through a barrage of government legislation. That included the Greens directly voting for pro-business housing policies that will benefit the property developers. While voting against bills for mass deportations of immigrants and a social media ban for children under 16, the Greens facilitated votes on those draconian laws, knowing they would pass with bipartisan Labor and Liberal-National support. Prominent Greens figures have given a series of interviews, emphasising their willingness to collaborate with a Labor government in the next parliament.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza highlights the rotten character of these overtures and is a potential source of awkwardness for the Greens. While Labor has stood four-square behind the mass slaughter, the Greens have correctly labelled the Israeli invasion a genocide. They have denounced Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other government ministers for having “blood on their hands.” In their interviews on a power-sharing arrangement, leading Greens have simply not mentioned the genocide. That changed with comments from Greens leader Adam Bandt. The venue he chose was significant. Bandt gave the interview to the Murdoch-owned Australian, which, even amid the universal support of the corporate media for the Israeli offensive, has been the most frothing in its defence of the atrocities and attacks on those within Australia who oppose them. The purpose of Bandt’s interview was obvious. It was a signal to Labor and the corporate elite that the Greens would not let the genocide get in the way of their determination to prop up a big business Labor government. And, from a public relations standpoint, it was a cynical attempt to square ongoing posturing over the plight of the Palestinians with attempts to collaborate with a government complicit in some of the worst war crimes since the Holocaust. The headline of the article summed up the essential point of the interview:
Adam Bandt says Labor ‘slowly moving’ towards Greens’ position on Israel-Hamas war. Bandt noted that the Greens had called for an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire a year ago. Labor and the Coalition then spent the best part of a year attacking us and people who pushed for peace but now Labor is being forced to admit the Greens were right all along. Labor is now slowly moving towards our position we’ve held now for a number of months. They attacked us at the time for it but now they are voting that way in the United Nations.
Those comments can only be described as an attempt to con opponents of the genocide and to promote a government that remains involved in the mass slaughter. The only concrete indication Bandt could give of Labor’s supposed shift was a handful of votes in the UNGA. But all honest supporters of the Palestinians know that such votes, always highly conditional and committing governments to nothing, are meaningless. Their sole purpose is to distance the imperialist powers responsible for the mass killing from the consequences of their support for Israel. When Labor has voted for supposed ceasefire resolutions, it has done so alongside other close US allies such as Britain and Canada. That makes clear that the votes have been coordinated with Washington. While the US votes with Israel against ceasefire motions, some of its “partners” vote for them, to try to bolster illusions that peace can be established through the UN and the “international community.”
The votes do not signify a shift in Labor’s position one iota. As a Labor spokesperson noted in response to the interview, the government has voted for “ceasefire” motions since November last year. In that time, it has aggressively defended Israel, politically and diplomatically, insisting on the Zionist regime’s supposed “right to defend itself.” The Labor government has also provided direct material support to the genocide, including through active defence export permits, and likely intelligence for the targeting of strikes provided by the joint US-Australian Pine Gap spy base. Labor’s role has been most evident in its vehement attacks on opposition to the genocide. Albanese and other senior ministers have slandered protesters as “antisemites.” State Labor governments have unsuccessfully sought at times to ban demonstrations altogether. Aware that he was on thin ice, as far as the truth is concerned, Bandt added that while Labor was shifting:
They’re not yet prepared to put any real pressure on the extremist Netanyahu government to give effect to it and we continue to push for that.
That is no comfort for the two million Palestinians in Gaza subjected to the more than a year-long offensive, which by some estimates has killed 200k people. Bandt’s comments, as cynical as they were, did not mark a fundamental deviation from the positions advanced by the Greens throughout the genocide. They have consistently presented Labor’s support for the atrocities as just a moral failing, and called on Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and others to “step up” and “do the right thing.” That is in line with the bankrupt perspective of pressure politics that has dominated the protest movement against the slaughter. The Greens, the middle-class pseudo-left and Palestinian nationalists have insisted that all that is required is to pressure Labor to end its support for Israel. This position, which has so manifestly failed, covers up the connection between the genocide and the broader eruption of imperialist militarism.
The genocide is part of a broader war front throughout the Middle East, expressed in the US-backed Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, as well as the recent regime-change operation in Syria. That, in turn, is a component of a developing global war.
As it has backed Israel, so too has Labor supported the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, aimed at inflicting a defeat on Russia, and Washington’s advanced preparations for a catastrophic conflict with China. Indeed, the signature policy of the Labor government has been to complete Australia’s transformation into a frontline state for such a war, through the vast expansion of the military and unprecedented US basing arrangements. The Greens have buried this broader context, because they themselves are a pro-imperialist party. In parliament, they have been the most vociferous supporters of Washington’s war against Russia, promoting all the lies that it is a conflict for Ukrainian “freedom” and “democracy.” In doing so, they have whitewashed the fascistic character of the Ukrainian regime and the fact that the war was deliberately provoked by the US, through its relentless expansion of NATO. In the Middle East, the Greens backed the US regime-change operations in Syria and Libya.
Two other elements of the Bandt interview should be noted. He was asked about a new “antisemitism taskforce” that has been established by the Labor government. The Australian noted that Bandt did not explicitly support the initiative, but neither did he denounce it. In fact, the taskforce is the latest stage in Labor’s offensive against anti-genocide sentiment, establishing a permanent body of spies, federal and state police and other government agencies to investigate, monitor and harass supporters of the Palestinians, based on a fraudulent conflation of opposition to the genocide with antisemitism. Bandt’s refusal to condemn this initiative shows that a Greens-backed Labor government would continue the assault on democratic rights. Secondly, Bandt was asked about claims that the Greens had abandoned their support for a “two-state solution.” He rejected this, declaring:
Our position is to support both Israelis’ and Palestinians’ rights to self-determination under international law and ensure there’s a just and lasting peace where they both have the security they’re entitled to.
That is, the Greens support the continued existence of Israel, a state based on imperialist colonialism and racial apartheid. The past 75 years, as well as the genocide itself, have demonstrated that the “two-state solution” is a dead letter. Even if it came to fruition, it would mean a Palestinian Bantustan, ruled over by the corrupt puppets of the US and Israel in the Palestinian Authority, and subject to attacks by the inherently expansionary Zionist regime. In other interviews, Bandt has hailed the experience of the Gillard Labor government as the model to be emulated. From 2010 to 2013, the Greens were in a formal alliance with that minority government, ensuring supply and confidence. The Gillard administration supported Israel, began Australia’s alignment with the US preparations for war against China, persecuted refugees and took the axe to healthcare, education and welfare. Conclusions must be drawn. The Greens are a right-wing capitalist party that offers no way forward against the genocide or any of the other pressing issues facing working people. They are bitterly opposed to the socialist and revolutionary perspective that is the only way to end war, inequality and increasing authoritarianism.
Niqnaq 