Friday’s Meeting of the Communist Party Political Committee (29 December 2023) expressed its grave concern that Israel’s ‘inhumane, genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza’ could escalate to a wider regional conflict. This follows the formation of a new US-led military alliance – Operation Prosperity Guardian – in the Red Sea targeting the Yemeni Houthi movement, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the Israeli-US drive to war against Iran. CP international secretary Kevan Nelson told the party’s Political Committee that these developments ‘pose a serious threat to world peace’. ‘The global wave of solidarity with the Palestinian people is an essential antidote to the threat of a wider war’, he told the online meeting. In particular, he welcomed the South African government’s application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to find the state of Israel in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention by reason of its military onslaught against the Palestinian people. For two decades, Israeli governments collaborated closely with the South African apartheid regime until shortly before the latter’s downfall. Mr Nelson also contrasted the readiness of the British and US governments to condemn Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure to their silence on Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Britain’s Communists condemned the forced displacement of two million Gazan citizens under threat of Israeli bombardment as a strategy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and urged government and ‘people’s’ sanctions against British trade with Israel. The CP political committee also congratulated Palestine Action campaigners against arms exports to Israel, including the jurors who recently acquitted activists accused of targeting Elbit Systems premises in Britain.
- CP members and supporters are urged to mobilise for local Palestine solidarity protests on the January 6 Day of Action and the Ceasefire Now!’ national demonstration in London on January 13.