EL SALVADOR — In our November communist school here, many comrades participated in the political discussion about the reality workers this country and the rest of the world live in. We must destroy the brutal capitalist domination to have social equality. PL’s politics have motivated many young people. About 26 have participated with us in each school.

We must fight against the electoral parties of this capitalist machine. This dead-end strategy is used by the bosses to alienate us and to make us believe that their “democracy” works for the working class. As members of the Party, we have made the commitment to spread CHALLENGE widely, as a revolutionary weapon, to politicize and make our co-workers and neighbors aware. We have communist ideas, perseverance and the will to win workers to PLP.

Mobilize the Masses

Our young comrades from different parts of the country have developed a strong ideological ability and understanding of PL’s ideas. The main subject of this school was how to mobilize the masses for communism. It is clear that communist revolution is the only way to defeat and destroy capitalism; therefore, this must be the only goal of the revolutionary process. The participation of each one of the comrades was interesting. We discussed our friends’ understanding of the Party’s line, related to the ideological-political work with their communities.

Other subjects we debated were the way the revolutionary struggle in El Salvador has been betrayed by the FMLN, and the way to rescue the contributions of the Paris commune, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution. We highlighted the mistakes made in those revolutions in erecting a new bourgeois class and ignoring the fact that the masses could have led the battle towards communism.

We analyzed the role of CHALLENGE, which must always spread the Party’s ideas. We focused the discussion on how to use the paper to recruit and how to increase its circulation among our base.

Each of the participants has agreed to spread our communist ideas. We are working on strengthening the communication between our members from different areas of the country with the international Party. This will help us fight capitalism until we destroy the capitalist class, and its armed power.                  

It’s worth mentioning that at this event, most of the comrades participating were young women and men, with a high level of revolutionary consciousness, with clarity on the steps to take and with an immediate objective of building a consciousness in the exploited class.  Our main objective is to conquer power by establishing a communist system on an international scale.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE, January — We have returned from the winter project to the Middle East, with our minds once more agog at the racism, oppression and absurdity of the actions of the Israeli government. Not only did we see the horrors of the 45-year-old military occupation of Palestine, but also the discrimination against Israeli Arabs and the marked class distinctions among Jews. Those who were new to the area were in a constant state of shock and disbelief at the situations we encountered. We were buoyed, however, by participating in struggles and meeting new friends who were digesting our ideas.

The Israelis are continuing their policy of driving out Palestinians by actually demolishing their houses by the thousands or otherwise making their lives so miserable that they will emigrate. In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the weekly demonstrations continued against Jewish takeover of homes Palestinians have lived in for 60 years, having been driven out of West Jerusalem in 1948.

Israeli Attack-Dogs

We sat with a family there, half of whose home has been occupied by young Israeli men and their dogs, who attack members of the family. In two other East Jerusalem areas, we visited villages whose land is being confiscated by Israeli expansion.

To the south, in the Negev (desert), Bedouins who agreed to become citizens in ’48, live in “unrecognized” villages that receive no services. One, El Araqib, has been razed and rebuilt 33 times since July 2010 because the government, with the financial backing of an U.S. fundamentalist Christian organization, wishes to build a forest. We saw how houses for 500 people and 4,500 olive tress had been bulldozed into a sandy wasteland. The remaining residents are living in trucks and trailers in their cemetery.

Every week they, their neighbors and Israeli activists stand nearby at a busy intersection with banners, drums and speeches. They welcomed a talk about fighting racism by one of our young visitors.

In Tel Aviv, the massive tent cities and summer demonstrations for more social services and housing are gone, for they mostly involved middle-class people and lacked any political analysis. However, in a working-class area of Tel Aviv, Hatikvah, and in other places around the country, small encampments remain of those who have lost their homes even though most work. We marched in a militant demonstration of hundreds of workers and activists at which 43 people were arrested.  Our comrades participate regularly in all these actions and have a steady base of readers and friends.

Fascist Military Courts

In the West Bank, conditions continue to be appalling. The representatives of a prisoners’ support group described how Palestinians can be arrested for belonging to any political party, even the ruling Fatah, holding a flag, congregating in a group of more than 10, or making any political statements. They come before military courts and can be held without charge for “investigation” indefinitely, as long as a military officer renews it every three months.

Forty percent of all Palestinian men have been jailed in the last 50 years. Since over 400 prisoners were released in the widely publicized exchange for the sole Israeli prisoner Shalit, an equal number has been arrested. There is widespread use of torture, even on children. The corrupt Palestinian ruling parties, Fatah and Hamas, also arrest and abuse hundreds of Palestinian activists.

Life in the Occupied Territories continues to be constrained by the wall erected by Israeli rulers to fence in the Palestinians and the lack of work, mobility, goods, and health care. In one refugee camp we visited, unemployment is 40%, compared to about 32% in the rest of the West Bank. Activists we talked with were pessimistic about mass resistance erupting soon, since there is a lack of a uniform set of demands or goals.

Our ideas, the need for a secular, multiracial, communist society, were attractive to some, and we renewed this discussion with friends we had met on previous visits. Many Palestinians are held back by nationalism, the desire to build a Palestinian state free of Israeli oppression, and too ready to ally with the local ruling parties, Fatah and Hamas, even as they recognize their corruption and ties to imperialism, the U.S., and Israeli bosses.

Building an International Party

As we left we were excited by the friends and adherents we left behind and saw our chance to influence many Jews and Arabs with our struggle to build an international, anti-nationalist working-class Party. In the U.S., we will educate our friends about the conditions there and work with the many organizations here that oppose the U.S. governments’ massive support to Israel, $3 billion annually, that keeps it afloat. Israel, with its powerful army and nuclear weapons, serves as the U.S. policeman in the region, to protect oil interests and serve as an ally in potential military ventures, such as an invasion of Iran. A fight against imperialism here is an essential part of the fight against fascism in Israel.

MINNEAPOLIS, December 28 — Recently the AFL-CIO held its annual NEXT UP! Young Workers Conference. Despite the union hacks toeing the Obama/Democratic Party line, many young workers were not fooled and dozens eagerly took copies of CHALLENGE.
Many workshops provided opportunities to talk to young workers from throughout the U.S. about communism and PLP.

Those conducting the immigration workshop, while well-informed, refused to discuss the racist, fascist nature of deportations, E-verify or Secure Communities. They conveniently found no time for questions when a PLP’er fought to discuss this.

A session on starting a Labor Party led to heated debate over whether a new electoral party was needed or the Democrats were good enough. Several youth complained that any party operating within capitalist rules would be useless. Time to share another CHALLENGE!

A PLP’er took advantage of the “un-conference sessions,” where individuals could propose their own ideas before all 700 participants. He stressed the need for multiracial unity, making the anti-racist fight primary, and realizing that any capitalist “solution” would fail the workers. Obama, he said, had been a horrible option for workers, citing the legal lynching of Troy Davis in Georgia and the multiple bombing campaigns by U.S. imperialism abroad.

Initial groans were followed by feverish clapping at the bold comments. Twenty young workers joined this session that pushed for militant multiracial unity to fight capitalism. One student, frustrated with the unions and elections, said he saw no end in sight to the myriad of problems created by capitalism. He eagerly took CHALLENGE and listened carefully to PLP’s ideas.

The conference, which opened poorly with Obama’s Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, ended just as badly with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka giving the usual reformist speech supporting both Obama and Occupy Wall Street (but only to lead them into the Democratic Party). These misleaders do not walk the walk. They just front for the bosses. But despite their efforts, this conference was a great opportunity to distribute CHALLENGE and meet workers from all over the U.S., many of whom are tired of electoral politics and of the lies and misguidance of the union misleaders.

Next year, more PLP’ers should attend this conference, where young unionists come with open minds for our kind of solutions to capitalist, racist oppression. At such conferences, we must continue to identify the contradictions that separate reform from revolution.

SHEIKH JARRAH, EAST JERUSALEM, January 6 — Palestinian and Jewish activists, including PL’ers from Israel-Palestine and the U.S., held a rally protesting the racist eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in this neighborhood, minutes away from the center of Jerusalem. The demonstrators demanded real justice, the return of the families to their houses and the removal of violent settlers and brutal cops from the neighborhood.

Since the 1990’s, settlers, paid for handsomely by the El’ad and Ateret Cohanim NGOs (non-government organizations), used the Israeli courts to seize houses here. Despite the fact that the Palestinian residents, all working class, were the legal owners of their homes and had all the documents necessary to prove this, the court ruled for the settlers — upper-middle-class Jews — who only had very dubious documents of ownership. Obviously the Israeli court of “justice” is openly racist and prefers the “rights” of wealthy Jewish settlers over those of Palestinian or Jewish workers.

NGOs Serve Ruling Class

Both settler NGOs operating in East Jerusalem, El’ad and Ateret Cohanim, are heavily funded by Irving Moskowitz, a U.S. capitalist and “philanthropist” based in Miami, who has made his fortune from constructing private hospitals and casinos. Moskowitz pays the settlers to take over Palestinian houses and land throughout East Jerusalem so he can build real-estate projects (for wealthy Jews only) a few minutes drive from the city center, and reaps super-profits in the process.

PL’ers from both Israel-Palestine and the U.S. have visited the home of the al-Kurd family here. The family had received its home and land from UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency) in 1956. A few years later the Jordanian government, which ruled the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, acknowledged the family as the owners of their house.

But apparently having full land title and living on the land for 56 years wasn’t enough for the Israeli court. In the 1990’s, the al-Kurd family built a small housing unit in their yard for one of their sons. The Israeli court ruled that this construction was “illegal” and repossessed the housing unit. From 1999 to 2009 it stood empty.

In 2009, however, teenage settlers were allowed to live in this unit, rent free, and were also paid to live there! These settlers are very violent towards the al-Kurd family; they order their dogs to attack the family members. However, if the al-Kurd family dares to report these attacks to the police, they themselves get arrested, not the aggressive settlers!

The court has decided that the entire al-Kurd house belongs to the settlers’ NGO. Now there’s a standing lawsuit against the family, demanding they pay a hefty rent to that NGO for the house which they own.

Free Housing for Racist Thugs; Evictions for Workers

This is the true face of capitalism: free housing for racist thugs and evictions for workers. Be it Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem (at the expense of black workers; see CHALLENGE, 01/04/12) or Moskowitz’s take-over of East Jerusalem, the bosses use courts, cops and racism to rob the working class and make huge profits along the way.

We, workers and unemployed from all nations and ethnic groups, must unite and fight these racist bosses and their fascist state machine, be it liberal Obama’s subtle fascism or openly fascist Israeli ruler Netanyahu’s overt apartheid state. As long as the bosses control the state, they will use it against our class. The only real answer to capitalism’s horrors is for us, the working’ class, to rally behind the flag of the communist PLP and smash the bosses’ state, replacing it with a communist state of, for and by our class.