Israeli-occupied Golan: Another Provocation by Trump!
Workers and Oppressed: Unite against the imperialist robbers at the top of the U.S. and Israel!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 23 March 2019, www.thecommunists.net
1. U.S. President Trump has once again demonstrated his desire to trample on the most basic democratic rights in order to serve the imperialist interests of Israel and the United States. He announced on 21 March that Washington should "fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights". The Golan Heights occupied by Israel in 1967 has always been Syrian territory. Since then Israel has built settlements and moved settlers there in contravention of international law. In 1981, Israel declared the territory formally annexed to Israel. However, no other state in the world has ever recognized this blatant robbery. Quite the opposite, the Golan is recognized as part of Syria by the United Nations. UN Resolution 242 calls for Israel to withdraw from Golan and other territories it occupied in 1967, including Gaza and the West Bank.
2. Trump’s announcement is intended to boost the re-election chances of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It also serves to stabilize Trump’s own fragile and scandal-ridden presidency by strengthening his support among the pro-Israel lobby (like AIPAC), the Christian Evangelists, and Zionists.
3. However, at the same time, Trump’s announcement has provoked a global outcry – not only in Syria and the Arab world, but by nearly everyone except the most reactionary and pro-Zionist hate-mongers. It might help Trump’s close ally, Netanyahu, to save his government (Netanyahu himself might soon face indictment for bribery and corruption). However, at the same time, this provocation undermines, even more, the U.S. position in the Arab world (which is already at a historic low since the White House moved the embassy to Jerusalem).
4. Naturally, the outrage against the unashamed robbery of U.S. and Israeli imperialism must not lead anyone to sympathize with Assad, the butcher of the Syrian people, or with Russian imperialism (which has built closer ties with the Zionist apartheid state in recent years). While these powers formally reject Israel’s annexation of the Golan, they have collaborated with the Zionist state for a long time. Israel always preferred the Assad dictatorship as a “stabilizing force” when faced with the Syrian Revolution since 2011. Netanyahu clearly stated the Zionist states’ appreciation of the Assad regime when he said: “We haven't had a problem with the Assad regime, for 40 years not a single bullet was fired on the Golan Heights.” (Haaretz, 12 July 2018)
5. While Turkey’s Erdoğan and Iran’s Rouhani verbally denounce Trump’s latest provocation, their foreign policy rather serves the interests of imperialism and Zionism. Iran has been a key player in the counter-revolutionary suppression of the Syrian Revolution since the beginning. And Turkey increasingly collaborates with Russian imperialism and plays a crucial role in the reactionary Astana/Sochi process which only serves selling-out and pacifying the Syrian Revolution. In fact both of them are failing to play the role of “protectors of Islam” or “axis of resistance” but are rather adapting to Russian, Chinese, EU or U.S. imperialism.
6. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) calls on workers and the oppressed in Palestine, Syria, the Arab world, and globally to intensify the struggle against the Zionist state (an illegitimate settler state on historic Palestinian land) and against U.S. imperialism! For an international workers and popular boycott campaign against Israel!
7. Such a struggle should be linked with the popular liberation struggles against pro-imperialist dictatorships in Syria, Algeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Jordan, and Iran! The RCIT calls on revolutionary organizations and activists around the world to unite in a revolutionary world party based on a socialist program of liberation and solidarity with the struggles of workers and the oppressed in other countries. Join the RCIT in tackling this great task!
International Bureau
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See also the numerous statement and articles of the RCIT on the liberation struggle in Palestine and the Middle East on the sub-page on our website at www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/.