WADI AL-NAAM, ISRAEL-PALESTINE, March 30 — Hundreds marked the Land Day in memory of violent land theft engineered by the Israeli government since 1976, in this “unrecognized” Bedouin village in southern Israel-Palestine. Eight thousand working-class families live in this village, with no basic infrastructure such as electricity, running water and proper roads.

Another village in southern Israel-Palestine is al-Arakib, also not recognized by the Israeli government. Its residents hold title for their lands since the days of the Ottoman Empire. This does not bother the Israel Land Administration, which makes fiery speeches about “the right  of private property” but hypocritically forgets this “right” completely when it comes to the rights of workers in general and Arabs in particular.

Racist War vs. Bedouin Workers

The racist Israeli regime attacks the Bedouin workers in the south in “unrecognized” villages and violates their right, despite the fact that this government collects full taxes from them and even drafts them into the military. This is a violent war of attrition waged against workers considered second-class citizens for racist reasons, in the name of spreading the jewish population in the South. 

What stands behind this Zionist rhetoric? The financial interests of the NYC billionaire Ronald Lauder, who greatly profits from building an exclusive town for wealthy religious Jews called “Hiran” on the lands of al-Arakib.

The women of al-Arakib chanted: “al-Arakib is in our hearts and we will stick to it!” Since July 2010, this village was demolished again and again, and always re-built by its residents. Arabic, Jewish and international activists came to show solidarity with the villagers and fight against the eviction of these Bedouins from their ancestral lands.

The regime’s goal, attempted through the Jewish National Fund (JNF), is to “forest the Land of Israel and make the Wilderness Flourish” and “Judaize” the South. These are code names for land theft by real-estate tycoons. This is why peasants, who make a meager living from small-scale agriculture (olive trees and sheep), are being evicted from their land in favor of trees which would soon be up-rooted and replaced with fancy houses for the rich. 

A million trees, which will “bring about the Second Coming,” as the U.S. evangelical donors claim, are more important than people who have lived there for over a century! Each tree costs $25, totaling $25,000,000, not including the money spent by the Israeli government on demolishing the village multiple times with heavy police support.

For such a hefty sum they could’ve connected al-Arakib with electricity, running water, paved the roads, built a school and a medical clinic. This is the essence of capitalism: the bosses and their regime prefer to invest in trees to grab prime real-estate and in racist evictions from this land than to invest money in the lives of poor workers and peasants.

The spokesperson of al-Arakib’s Popular Committee, Awad abu-Farikh, was once interrogated for three hours at the Rahat Police Station on charges for “inciting violence.” This meant fighting for the rights of his Bedouin people. We ask: why don’t they interrogate the riot cops and their masters for violence and racist slander? Or is a worker who defends his home from demolition “inciting violence,” while racist thugs who “enforce the law” can practice violence against workers? This is capitalist “justice!”

The war plan of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Minster of Internal Security Aharonovich — a colleauge of politician Libermann who preaches deporting all Arabs from Israel-Palestine — is to send hundreds of riot cops to demolish villages, starting from al-Arakib. They have invested vast sums of money in a new unit of 200 cops, which will be organized in August, tasked solely with enforcing eviction and demolition warrants in the South.

Meanwhile, a worker who goes to the police for protection from crime gets a sleepy response at best and is ignored at worst, under the excuses of “manpower and resources.” This is an example of how, under capitalism, the role of the state apparatus, including the cops, solely serves the capitalists and their profit interests.

This is a colonialist policy aimed at robbing Arab workers, destroying their sources of income and social fabric. The Isreali state is trying to force this dispossession in order to make way for “Pioneers” (rich Zionists) from the U.S. and Western Europe who will be brought there by the JNF. Prime Minister Netanyahu even says that “changing the South to an area without a Jewish majority is a real threat [to national security]” (Yisrael HaYom, July 25th, 2010).

The same paper, owned by the U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a big supporter of Netanyahu, reported on June 23, 2010, that “the nation goes to war against the takeover [by Bedouins] of its lands.” How can people “take over” their own land? This is also the opinion of Knesset (parliament) member Michael Ben-Ari. Netanyahu and Aharonovich want to “defeat the Bedouin takeover of lands in the Be’er-Sheva regeion as a first stage” and then implement the same program of racist land grab in the entire country.

This is reminiscent of dark times in history when minorities were put in ghettos by fascists. This, of course, prepares the ground for a second “Nakba” (ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948), this time a “creeping Nakba” under the guise of planning and land-ownership laws.

This is apartheid, pure and simple. Netanyahu, an open racist, wants to prevent something he calls “land grab by minorities and criminals.” Meanwhile his administration hands out lands and building rights to the criminal capitalist minority (19 big capitalist families in Israel — far less than 1% of the population — as well as their super-wealthy friends in the U.S.). 

Faced with this racist robbery by Zionism, we, the workers and unemployed of all nations, ethnicities and religions in historical Palestine, must unite and fight back. What happens today to the Arab worker will happen tomorrow to Jewish workers as well; and, indeed, starts happening to them even today, especially in the public housing sector. The growing fascism has already showed its hostility to workers, both Arab and Jewish, such as the brutal arrest of “Zochrot” activists on Israel’s Independence Day last month. They “dared” to try and hold a vigil reminding the residents of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa about all the Palestinian villages which were destroyed to make room for the city; of the violence against Jews and Arabs who protested against the apartheid in Silwan, East Jerusalem; and of the arrests and harsh violence against Jewish and Arab workers who showed solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike in front of the Ramle jail.

Capitalism means repression, poverty and fascism on the backs of most workers in order to enrich the tiny ruling class. We, the workers and unemployed, must take charge of our destiny, overthrow the capitalist regime and replace it with communism, both in Israel-Palestine and in the rest of the world. Workers of the world unite!

“Liberals” and “conservatives” both tell us that the U.S. Constitution is there to protect the working class and middle class from oppression. As Jerry Fresia’s Toward an American Revolution — Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions shows, nothing could be further from the truth. In a word, the Constitution was intended to be and always has been an instrument of the capitalist class to protect its wealth from former slaves and the rest of the working class. It ensures power over the propertyless. Initially it protected the slaveowners from the northern bankers and manufacturers. The book is now almost a quarter century old, but is still very relevant and an easy read.  

Today, there are numerous executive orders and laws, that pretend to protect us from terrorism. They permit increased wiretapping and electronic surveillance. They allow anyone the government chooses to be held in extended arbitrary detention without trial. They carry out military tribunals with no rights of appeal, and many other forms of governmental oppression.  

Constitution’s Purpose: Protect Profits 

But workers cannot appeal to the Constitution for protection from these orders and laws, since, as Fresia shows, they are all completely consistent with it. He shows that the very intentions of the men who wrote the Constitution were to protect owners of profit-making property from the working class.

Furthermore the Constitution was sneaked through by the slavocracy over the anticipated objections of certain state legislatures whose populations, fresh from a war of liberation against the British aristocracy in 1787, were up in arms over the even greater oppression that they faced at the hands of domestic property owners.  

The first 10 amendments of the Constitution adopted in 1791, the Bill of Rights, is often touted as a guarantee of freedom from oppression by the government. The Bill of Rights, however, does not even address the right of participation in government, only protection from it, and only for capitalists at that. And there is nothing that protects us from our bosses.  This “afterthought” to the Constitution took four years of arguments in Congress before it was even passed. Lincoln’s famous claim that this is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” was then, and continues to be, a bald-faced lie.

Fresia gives detailed proof that supports Marx’s and Lenin’s demonstration that all states (governments) serve only the interests of the class that rules. Meanwhile they drown the interests of the oppressed and exploited (literally, in the case of New Orleans Hurricane Katrina). For example, the authors of the Constitution, including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison (first, third, and fourth U.S. presidents), owned vast amounts of property, including hundreds of enslaved Africans. He shows how they designed the Constitution to protect themselves from rebellion by those workers who slave to generate the profits — whether through chattel or wage slavery. 

Racism: Bosses’ Insurance Policy vs. Rebellion 

Each U.S. President, including Obama, belongs to a long and dishonorable line of accumulators  of wealth who display total contempt for workers — most particularly, black and Latino workers — generated by a fear of losing this profit-making property. Murderous racism is no accident. It was and is designed as an insurance policy against united rebellion by the oppressed and exploited.  

In order for the ruling capitalist class to avoid having to resort to armed force on a daily basis to maintain this oppression, as they have done on many occasions in the past, they inserted a deceptive Preamble to the Constitution, that all U.S. school children are forced to memorize. It starts with “We the people,” a term that lacks class consciousness and links workers to their oppressors. 

Fresia brings it all up to date with the secret operations of the CIA and private mercenaries who assassinate, train in torture techniques, and otherwise blaze a trail throughout the world to secure profits for U.S. corporations. He shows how the Constitution encourages and protects the rights of these secret operators to carry out this world-wide terrorism, and protects the rights of the government to wage war for oil and gas in the Middle East and kill millions in the process.

Pacifism: An Achilles’ Heel for Protest Movement 

He also shows, significantly, how the non-violent and peace-directed approach of most modern protest movements prevents effective opposition to the ruling class. 

In summary, the book helps destroy the illusion that somehow things have gone drastically wrong in the last 200 or so years. The fact is that things have been drastically wrong for the great majority of us right from the start. The major weakness in the book is that Fresia never addresses the fact that the only solution to this problem is a revolution of the working class for an egalitarian communist system all over the world. But for the alert reader this conclusion is all but inescapable. PLP is organizing just such a movement of workers worldwide. Join the fight!

BROOKLYN, NY, May 9 — “Fight back, fight back!” Hundreds of Clara Barton H.S. students poured out onto the streets today to protest harassment and show support for two teachers, both PLP members, who received an unsatisfactory (U) rating last June. The rally had a broad base of support and was endorsed by local union delegates as well as union caucuses, including  SOTU (State of the Union). Hundreds of students and many staff members wore stickers with messages of support all around the school. 

When students came out of the building, a group of retired teachers were there to greet them with signs. The students grabbed flyers as they left the school. Many still wore the stickers and chanted “Schools Not Jails” as they exited.

The administration tried to prevent the rally. The front exits were closed and students were forced to exit through the back entrances. Their efforts backfired when these students joined hundreds of others and marched around to the front of the school and then to the train station. 

At the train station the rally regrouped as students led chants and gave speeches, along with staff members. One teacher, a friend of PLP, explained why it is so important to “think outside the box” and that this is the reason why the administration fears PLP. Many people from the community came forward to speak to us and show their solidarity. When local cops tried to end the rally, student leaders stayed strong and started to chant “The cops, the courts, the KuKluxKlan, all are part of the bosses’ plan!” and “Know your rights!”

These two teachers were rated unsatisfactory by the racist Principal Forman for going to a union rally and march in Washington, DC, with students and parents. That rally was organized by a host of unions and attended by thousands of students, teachers and parents nationwide. However, racist Forman, along with the assistant principal of security, has tried to implement a policy that all teachers and students need administration’s approval for any after-school or weekend activities! He and the Department of Education (DoE) think they have more say-so over the students than their parents! How’s that for fascism! The DOE flunkies take control of the students from their parents!

Simultaneously, they have made the school feel like a jail with harsh suspension policies, school uniforms and interrogations of students who take CHALLENGE or leaflets from PLP members. We have consistently pointed out that while students in more elite schools are encouraged to travel and “see the world,” students in our school face rules, regulations and limits when they try to do the same. We explained that this is a racist attack on our students, who are mainly black and Latino. While we are challenging these U ratings in the courts, our main fight is always in the streets!

The day of the rally, the administration acted as if they thought the revolution was about to start. They showed their contempt for the phony rights of free speech and the right to assemble and demonstrate. They called for an early dismissal, canceling all after-school classes and activities. They lied to staff and students about what was going on. One administrator said something about practicing a different exit tactic. The DoE also cancelled classes in the school next door, and dismissed the nearby elementary school early. 

This rally exposed the truth that the administration and the DoE are not about education; they are about keeping staff, but especially students ignorant, passive and obedient. Sounds like they want willing soldiers for their expanding wars.

This rally is part of a long fight for a better world — a communist world. As the rulers prepare for more and bigger wars to dominate the world, we must also prepare for more battles against racism and sexism and for communism. This was about more than just defending two communist teachers. 

During this rally many students stepped forward showing bold leadership and initiative. Some wanted to fight for communism; some were just angry and fed up with the administration’s harassment. Some have been organizing and fighting back for some time; some stepped forward for the first time. We all have to step forward and toughen up. Join the Progressive Labor Party!

CHICAGO, May 20 — Thousands entered the streets here today to protest the meeting of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). NATO was formed after World War II to contain and undermine the first workers’ state, the Soviet Union. The western bosses feared that the example of the communist-led USSR, which had just defeated the German Nazis, the world’s most powerful military, would inspire workers worldwide to fight for a workers’ state. 

NATO has rained terror on workers from Kosovo to Afghanistan to Libya and all points in between. This is the military wing of the U.S.-ruling class, to protect the financial interest of western bosses. One needn’t be a communist to know that NATO bosses use extreme racism to justify their imperialist wars and the super-exploitation of black, Latino, immigrant, and Muslim workers.  One does need to be a communist to understand that the way to defeat this genocide is not through reform battles or siding with “lesser-evil” capitalist politicians.  The working class must fight for, and take, state power through communist revolution.

Today we saw all manner of well-meaning people misdirected by liberal reformist leadership. They prevented us from getting no closer than half a mile from the conference. A red beacon of light in this conglomerate of mis-leadership was about 20 PL’ers.  We distributed 500 CHALLENGEs, led revolutionary chants and made militant communist speeches, explaining the true nature of capitalism and the communist solution for its horrors heaped on the working class. Many workers approached us after each speech, telling us how much they liked what we said. Many interested workers gave us their contact information, which we will pursue. 

As communists we know that our struggle is long and hard. But, when we experience the working class’s eagerness for change and the receptiveness of those same workers to our ideas, they can be won to join PLP. We know then there will come a day when this ruling class will be overthrown and a communist world will be born.