[Marxism] FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE ! CEASE_FIRE IN SRI LANKA !! [ML Update editorial]

["CPIML Liberation" <cpimllib@xxxxxxxxx>]

Editorial
ML Update
A CPI(ML) Weekly Magazine
Vol.12   No.2 , Jan 06-12, 2009

Editorial:
FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE ! CEASE_FIRE IN SRI LANKA !!

Belying the fond hopes of all those who greeted each other for a
'peaceful' and 'terror-free' 2009, the New Year has begun on a
particularly aggressive note of war and destruction. Armed Israeli
forces have mounted an all-out assault on Gaza, killing and maiming
hundreds of Palestinians through air strikes, ground offensive as well
as sea-borne attacks. Nearer home, the Sri Lankan Army claims to be
advancing towards Mulaitivu, after having already captured the LTTE
stronghold of Kilinochi. The LTTE claims to have killed more than 50
members of the Sri Lankan armed forces in retaliatory resistance and
counter-operations, both around Mulaitivu and in capital Colombo.
Both these campaigns seem to have been timed deliberately at this
particular juncture. Busy with the post-election change of guards,
neither Bush nor Obama will have to face the heat on account of these
wars, and the European Union and all other major players in
international relations are preoccupied with the global financial
meltdown and economic recession.  Israel's attack on Gaza clearly
enjoys the fullest backing of the US which sees Israeli aggression
merely as a 'reply' to acts of military 'provocation' by the Hamas.
The Sri Lankan military offensive may not enjoy that sort of explicit
endorsement by the US and its allies, but Sri Lanka is out to seek
international legitimacy for its action by projecting the whole thing
as a crucial victory over "savage terrorism".
The history of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in Gaza
and West Bank goes back to four decades. Notwithstanding periodic
changes of guards in both Israel and the US, the two establishments
have always had the closest strategic partnership. Every military
assault by Israel on Palestinian/Arab territory or people has enjoyed
the protective political umbrella of the US and since 2001 the
partnership has been reinforced by the US-led global 'war on terror'.
While the US has gone on to invade and occupy countries like
Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel has specialised in targeting the backbone
of Arab resistance, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But
just as the US has got stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, two years ago
Israel too had to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the
Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Regrettably enough, the US-Israel axis has been emboldened not only by
the silence of much of the Western world and big Asian countries like
China and India, but also by the complicity and acquiescence on the
part of sections of Arab rulers. Egypt and Jordan have already been
pushed into so-called peace treaties with Israel, and they now look
away, if not play willing accomplices, as the US-Israel axis targets
the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. In spite of such a division
within the Arab ruling establishment, the Hezbollah had successfully
withstood and defeated Israeli aggression two years ago, thanks to
overwhelming popular support within the Arab world. This time too, the
Hamas and Hezbollah have both called for organising mass protests and
resistance across the Arab world and Israel may once again have to pay
a heavy price for its military misadventure in Gaza. Reports of
communist-led protests are also coming in from within Israel.
Interestingly, the Sri Lankans decry the Israeli action and would like
to project their military operation in a different light than the
ethnic cleansing unleashed by Israeli armed forces even as President
Mahinda Rajapaksa hailed the fall of Killinochi as "the most
honourable victory in the annals of military heroism that runs through
many centuries" of Sri Lanka's history. Whatever truth there may be in
Rajapaksa's military claims, the fact remains that Sri Lanka's
aggressive military bid to put an end to the "false Eelam struggle"
and unite the whole of Sri Lanka under one single flag and as one
single nation smacks very much of the Zionist politics of ethnic
hatred and racist domination.
India has traditionally opposed the Israeli occupation of Palestine
and since the disastrous IPKF experience in the late 1980s, officially
India has favoured a political, and not military, solution of the Sri
Lankan Tamil question. But over the last ten years as Indian foreign
policy has started revolving increasingly around the US-Israel
strategic axis, India too now effectively endorses the aggressive
military strategy pursued by Israel and Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the FBI
has virtually taken over the 'Indian' probe into Mumbai terror attack
and, through the newly set-up NIA, the US now has an ever tighter grip
on various aspects of India's domestic security as well.
The Indian people must therefore come out ever more vociferously
against the Israeli attack on Gaza and also for an immediate
cease-fire in Sri Lanka. The more India endorses the marauding
military expeditions of the US-Israel axis, the more India weakens her
own battle against terrorism. A free Palestine remains the most
crucial unfinished agenda of the contemporary global battle for peace,
justice and democracy and the Indian people must throw their entire
weight behind the just forces of Palestinian resistance and for a
dignified political resolution of the Sri Lankan Tamil question.

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