NAR for the Communist Liberation
Statement on the prosecutions against CPI and anti-war activists
NAR and Communist Liberation Youth denounce the arrests of communists and anti-war protesters on Thursday 9/11 as part of the violent repression by the State of Israel against any voice calling for peace and an end not only to the invasion of Gaza, but also to the occupation. Among those arrested was Mohammad Barakeh, a member of CPI, former MP and chairman of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, who was on his way to a peaceful protest in the Israeli city of Nazareth. Along with him, four other CPI members were arrested, including two former Knesset members. At the same time, anti-war protesters, Jewish and Arabs in Israel were arrested by the dozens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv while trying to hold peaceful protests. In a climate of terror and a ban on gatherings, Jewish and Arab citizens are trying to break the wall of silence against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The ban of protests was upheld by Israel’s Supreme Court, criminalising any action in solidarity with Gaza and even allowing live fire against unarmed civilians and demonstrations.
The prosecutions and bans intensifies the apartheid regime that affects not only the occupied West Bank, but even the Palestinian Arab community that has the citizenship of the Israeli state. This community accounts for almost 20% of the total population of Israel and is mainly made up of descendants of Palestinians who remained in their land after 1948 and the Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes, living to this day as refugees in the West Bank, Gaza and neighbouring states. The Arab community within Israel faces constant discrimination with degraded public services and unequal distribution of resources for education, health and housing. Intheir cities they suffer from a lack of infrastructure, while in mixed population cities they are marginalised in poor and densely populated neighbourhoods, pushed to the margins under the pressure of Jewish settlements within the borders of the State of Israel. These policies became even more aggressive after 2018 and the “Jewish Nation-State Law” which states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have the exclusive right to national self-determination in it”. The law abolished the recognition of Arabic as an official language, and openly promoted discrimination against Israeli Arabs as it states the state’s goal as “the development of Jewish settlements as a national value” and thus any action that “will encourage and promote their establishment”. In 2021, during the previous Israeli army intervention in Gaza, and also amidst clashes in the West Bank, for the first time in decades the Palestinian struggle in the occupied territories found active support from their brethren in Palestinian towns in Israel.There were protests in cities with mixed populations, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Ako and Lod, where the Israeli army was forced for the first time to intervene to quell what was described as a “risk of civil war” inside Israel.
The existence of mixed communist and leftist organisations with Jewish and Arab members shows that the possibility of a common struggle and coexistence is possible, against nationalism and religious intolerance. The Communist Party of Israel, smaller left-wing organisations, conscientious objector collectivities, left-wing journalists are trying to stand up and strengthen the anti-war/anti-occupation movement within Israel. These forces and voices, together with the leftist and communist forces of the Palestinian Resistance, are a beacon of hope for the peaceful, equal coexistence of the two peoples, regardless of the future form of the state and borders.
The common struggle against the imperialist forces and the bourgeoisie, the linking of the liberation struggle with the class struggle is the road that Palestinians and Jews can take to end the occupation in order to liberate themselves from all exploitation. In this direction, NAR and the Communist Liberation Youth call for the immediate release of the members of the Communist Party and all the demonstrators, as well as the release of the Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, To continue the wave of solidarity in Greece and in every corner of the planet towards the Palestinian people in order to put an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza. For peace, justice and freedom in Palestine!
