Palestine Affairs

NOVANEWS by crescentandcross     1. Today I just want to do a couple of things quickly.  First of all, Skulz Fontaine has been sending me some great stuff and I’ve been a bit remiss in not sharing some of these with you.  I like this one. But of course the land theft continues, as does the killing – killing Palestinians being the Israeli national pass time.  Plus it just seems that attacking, harrasing and shooting at Palestinians is as Israeli as assaulting the USS Liberty. 2. But I want to address something else as the main topic today. What some people like to call Islamophobia – I call it what it is – Anti-Muslim Bigotry – in the United States is getting out of hand. Our country is sick and we need to understand the source of this sickness and do something about ...

THURSDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2009 I have been contacted by Bernie Regan asking that his personal e-mail address be removed from the memo he sent round to selected members of PSC asking them to support stuffing PSC's Executive with Socialist Action and Communist League members. I'm happy to do so. But perhaps Bernie could comment on information I've just received regarding the appointment of 3 staff members to PSC's office. All of whom happen to be supporters/members of Socialist Action. Socialist Action gained a rather unfortunate reputation in Ken Livingstone's administration for having their apparatchiks placed as advisers to Livingstone, in extremely well-paid jobs. It would seem that though PSC jobs aren't that well paid, the tried and trusted road of having political appointees to an o...

SUNDAY, 2 AUGUST 2009 Earlier this year we ran two articles on the situation whereby a secretive political group, which originated in the International Marxist Group, but which doesn't print any literature or even have a web presence of its own, has taken over PSC. The group, Socialist Action, seems to have completely jetissoned any class politics, hence why one of their supporters in PSC, Carole Regan, has taken exception to the occasions when I have termed Mahmoud Abbas a 'quisling'. Abbas it might be recalled when the Gaza war started, spent more of his time blaming Hamas than criticising Israel. Abbas co-ordinated his every move with President Mubarak of Egypt, who has been a junior partner to Israel in enforcing the siege of Gaza. This is of course unsurprising since it has been...

9 OCTOBER 2009 Below, in an e-mail to two PSC activists, Betty Hunter, General Secretary of PSC, admits that the Palestinian Authority decision was 'appalling.' And that's it. She denies burying the Goldstone Report. But that is not the point. PSC have refrained from any criticism of the Palestinian Authority's decision to do exactly that. The main factions in PSC Executive - Socialist Action and Communist League - believe in uncritical support of all representatives of an oppressed people. If the Anti-Apartheid Movement had taken this approach to the South African regime then it would never have said anything about its stooges in the Bantustans and Mangasuthu Buthelezi. Let us recap: i. Last week Mahmoud Abbas, Chair/President of the Palestinian Authority withdrew its own resolution...

12 APRIL 2010 Last September the Trades Union Conference passed policy in support of the Boycott of Israeli Goods.At least that is what PSC Executive argued had happened. In fact the TUC had voted for a policy of boycotting Israeli settlement goods not a boycott of Israel’s economy. A more radical Fire Brigades Union motion, which called on the TUC ‘to develop an effective Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign by working closely with the PSC’ was undermined by a statement from the TUC’s General Council which only supported a boycott of settlement goods ‘where trade union members should not put their own jobs at risk by refusing to deal with such products’. Statements from the General Council take precedence over successful motions that unions have put forward. That is how the T...

It is sometime since I last posted an article on the goings on Palestine Solidarity Campaign nationally and in particular the efforts of a small neo-Stalinist group, Socialist Action, to retain control by stifling debate and fixing votes. At last year’s AGM, PSC Executive went to extraordinary lengths to retain control including ensuring that all affiliated unions sent their maximum representation, fully ‘briefed’ as to whom to vote for and what to vote for. The ‘high point’ of last years AGM came when the Chair, veteran trade union bureaucrat Hugh Lanning of PSC, someone who has spent a lifetime straddling the divide between the left and right, prevented conference even voting on the motion to break links with Histadrut . His reasons were that a motion had already been passed which was i...

26 JANUARY 2010 PSC Executive Accuses Its Opponents of Being Zionist Agents  Executive Response to Criticism is to Restrict Democracy Further Last summer, 13 of us (subsequently 27) sent a letter to Palestine Solidarity Campaign Executive. It is copied below*: As can be seen, we raised issues concerning the way PSC was being run. In the Annual Report of PSC Executive, which has just been sent (to some people) it states that ‘in August a group of 13 people made unsubstantiated allegations to the EC.’ A cursory reading of the Open Letter demonstrates that it wasn’t alleging anything, merely asking questions. Having the audacity to raise such questions was, however, deemed an act of lese majeste. PSC Executive and its Socialist Action/Communist League components, don’t do accountabi...

7 FEBRUARY 2010 AGM 2010 Report Socialist Action Uses Every Device to Retain Control Palestine Solidarity Campaign's Conference will be seen as a watershed, the year that the organisation surrendered its last vestige of independence as theSocialist Action retained its control of the organisation. SA have effectively handed the trade union bureaucracy a veto over the organisation’s policy and campaigning work in the unions. The key debate this year, like last year, was over breaking links with Histadrut, Israel’s racist settler ‘union’. Unlike last year, trade union officer Bernard Regan did not pretend that our disagreements were only tactical. Now Bernard was honest about his and Socialist Action’s position. According to Bernard Regan, Histadrut was all the things we sa...

NOVANEWS UNITED NATIONS — Sean Penn and Robert De Niro joined stars who appeared at the UN headquarters for the US premiere of a contested movie on the Middle East conflict that IsraHell tried to get cancelled. Penn, De Niro, Josh Brolin and Steve Buscemi on Monday turned out to support award-winning American-Jewish director Julian Schnabel at the premiere of "Miral," the story of two Palestinian women after the creation of the Zio-Nazi state of IsraHell in 1948. The IsraHell mission to the UN had said that showing the movie in the UN General Assembly hall was "clearly a politicized decision" that "shows poor judgment and a lack of even-handedness." But UN General Assembly president Joseph Deiss of Switzerland turned down the IsraHell request to cancel the event. A spokesman said Deis...

NOVANEWS   ' The Palestinian Authority should dissolve itself, as it is acting in Israel's interest, writer says. Ali Abunimah     New elections will not give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the credibility he needs, writer says [Reuters] The slow collapse of Palestinian collective leadership institutions in recent years has reached a crisis amid the ongoing Arab revolutions, the revelations in the Palestine Papers, and the absence of any credible peace process. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction has attempted to respond to this crisis by calling elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and the PA presidency. Abbas hopes that elections could restore legitimacy to ...