The Israeli Communist Forum condemns the new racist onslaught upon the Arab population of Israel, perpetrated by the most obscure elements in the Israeli Police Force, enjoying the support of right-wing parties and certain racist politicians among their ranks.

The Forum demands the immediate dismissal of the Police Chief Inspector of the Northern District, Aleek Ron, who again this time is responsible for the hateful instigation campaign against the Arab population in Israel, as well as against political bodies acting in its midst and their leaders.

We condemn the intention to open a police "investigation" against the Secretary General of the DFPE (HADASH), MP member, Mohammed Barake, as well as the onslaught upon the leadership of the Arab population in general. This attack marks a new step up of a discriminatory and racist policy, undermining the democratic freedoms, accompanied by calls to impose sweeping political limitations on various political bodies, that are active within the Arab population.

The attempt to silence the voices of legitimate protest of the Arab citizens against the discrimination against them have failed in the past, and will fail also now and in future. No force whatsoever will be able to prevent neither the continuation nor the strengthening of the struggles against the new designs of expropriation of more landed property of Israeli Arabs, for whom it is anyway hard to endure on the little land, remaining in their hands after all those innumerable waves of land expropriations in the past.

No force whatsoever will be able to suppress the struggle, lead by Arab working people who suffer from extraordinary harsh working conditions, and by the many unemployed among the Arab population. According to the official statistics in Israel, almost all the localities hit most by unemployment are ones populated by Arab citizens, where extreme poverty is hitting increasingly hard especially during the last few months. A very large number of Arab families endure deepening poverty and misery.

All this is persisting against the background of the general socio-economic deterioration in Israel, which is marked by a decline in the standard of living of many population strata, especially among the economically weaker ones, working people, residents of poverty stricken communities and urban neighborhoods, old people, chronically sick and poor ones.

The Israeli Communist Forum particularly condemns this government policy, which is accompanied by the deterioration in the political field. The Barak government is to blame for the deadlock in the peace negotiation, which easily can lead our region into new bloodshed and war. (See details in our former statement.)

We denounce the attempts to set up a so-called "National Unity Government" with the right-wing Likud Party, the sworn enemy of any peace process, while many of their followers openly, and an increasingly caustic manner, call for a unprecedented racist policy against the Arab population of Israel.

The Israeli Communist Forum calls upon Prime Minister Barak to stop without delay the negotiations for setting up a government coalition with the right. Instead of it, he should make all efforts to establish a government which will lean upon the support of the forces that back the peace process, and not upon the most extreme peace opponents.