Statement of the Israeli Communist Forum (26.10.2001)

Stop the Massacre in the Occupied Territories!

Stop the Terrorist War against Afghanistan!


1.) The war in Afghanistan

The Israeli Communist Forum strongly condemns the war, that US and its allies are waging against Afghanistan, which has cost already the lives of many hundreds of innocent Afghan civilians, among them women and children. The American Imperialism exploits the criminal terrorist attack upon US targets on September 11 in order to open a total war with the most sophisticated weaponry on earth precisely against the population of one of the most retrograded people in the world, who anyway suffer from horrible distress.

The U.S. administration utilizes the September 11 terror attack for extremely increasing military expenditures, including the developing of a so-called "Star War" which has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting terror and terrorism. The U.S. rulers utilize the situation in order to further in a most caustic and perpetual way their claims for hegemony over the world by assuming the right to use aggressive military means against any country or organization around the world that they define as terrorists or assisting to terrorism. This war is perused also in order to strengthen the U.S. positions in strategically important regions on the Asian continent which are rich in oil, natural gas deposits and other valuable minerals.

In the US itself anti-democratic legislation is indiscriminately enacted in order to suffocate at the roots any criticism and opposition to the war led by the Bush administration and its overall policy. The American mass media is ignoring the fact that the Taliban regime in general, and Bin Laden in particular, had been for years U.S. financed and supported collaborators, as long as their terrorist operations served the interests of the U.S. imperialists. At the same time an instigation campaign is waged against U.S. residents of Arab and Muslim descent.

The Bush government, as well as other western rulers, attempt to utilize the situation in order to silence the broad protest movement against the globalization which lately organized a chain of protest actions with mass participation. However, this anti-globalization movement can't be stopped, neither in the USA, nor in any other place around the world.

In spite of the created atmosphere of enmity against any expression of protest against the war many anti-war actions had been taken place in US with the participation of many thousands. Throughout the world, on all continents, manifestations of hundreds of thousands of participants demanded to stop the war.

In Tel-Aviv, an impressive anti-war vigil took place in front of the U.S. Embassy on October 10, and thereafter several more at various localities in the country. The Israeli Communist Forum calls to continue to protest against this war and to increase the public demand to put an end to it.



It should be stressed that the use of force to hold up occupations, as well as shameful economic exploitation of a underprivileged population, in our region as well as worldwide, has to be apprehended as one of the major causes for frustration, out of which acts of terror are born. In order to eradicate these roots of the phenomenon called terror, foreign occupation of countries, the suppression of national rights of peoples, the shameful economic exploitation of a majority of peoples around the world by a handful of powers and transnational monopolies they serve, has to be stopped. As long as territorial occupations, exploitation and unprecedented social gaps prevail, it will not be possible to uproot the collateral results, including actions which hit also innocent civilians who pay with their lives for the criminal policy of the rulers of their countries.



2.) The Escalation in the Occupied Territories

Immediately after the tragic September 11 events in the USA, we have raised our warning, that the Sharon government would utilize the matter for opening a new escalation of its own war against the Palestinian people. In fact, its aggressive military activities had been increased to a broad extent immediately after the September 11 events, including the massive use of "liquidation" method of extra-judicial execution assassinations of Palestinian leading cadres. As a retaliatory act for the latest, and past such "liquidations", the assassination of Israel's Tourism Minister Ze'ewy was perpetrated. We have always opposed political assassinations and we oppose it in the Ze'ewy case too. However, we lay the responsibility for its use fully upon the shoulders of the Israeli government, because its actions are at the root of the latest general escalation with all its consequences. The Ze'ewy assassination was utilized by the Sharon-Peres cabinet to realize designs which had been blue-printed a long time ahead, namely the re-capture of a large part of the Palestinian cities and rural areas in the West Bank. These designs had been implemented now, accompanied by bloody massacres of Palestinians, including of boys and women. All this is perpetrated with the aim to achieve the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (which will fail like all former attempts to achieve this goal).

Since the inaction of the current Intifada (13 months ago) more than 750 Palestinians had been killed, 180 of them under the age of 18; more than 30,000 Palestinians had been wounded; over 5,000 houses had been destroyed, and approximately 200,000 fruit trees uprooted. All this comes on top of the ongoing closures and blockades of towns and urban areas, of obstructing the freedom of movement, of continuing and escalating the inhuman harassment of Palestinians at the fortified roadblocks throughout the countryside, all of which made life unbearable for the Palestinian population, and in not a few cases even to the loss of life.

We are demanding from the Sharon cabinet to stop the warlike actions and to unconditionally and immediately withdraw its forces from all the lately captured Palestinian areas. We once more confirm our condemnation of the U.S. rulers, who continue to back Israel and the war crimes, perpetrated by it. True, during the last days, official U.S. spokespersons had been calling on Israel to stop the infiltration into the Palestinian administered area "A", and to withdraw from there. However, in fact, on the ground, the most heinous atrocities had been perpetrated precisely after these U.S. statements were published, and while Foreign Minister Peres had been welcomed by the White House bosses. Truth is too, that Peres and his Labor Party have arrived at a state of bankruptcy with its participation in the so-called "Unity" Government, by this sharing full responsibility for its criminal policy.

Past experiences show that any attempt to eliminate the Palestinians' legitimate struggle for realization of their just national rights by means of military force, is condemned to failure, and is leading only to more and more Jewish and Arab blood to be spilled. In the end, there anyway will be no other solution to the conflict, but by making peace on the basis of two states for our two peoples with the dividing borders along the pre-1967 demarcation lines, also within Jerusalem, as well as by honoring the right of return of the Palestinian refugees as laid down by the related UN resolutions.