Gaza ceasefire proposal–Full Text / by Guarantors of the Agreement

_{^{Gaza ceasefire proposal | Image credit: Aljazeera}}

_{Reposted from Defend Democracy Press}

Below is the full proposal for Gaza ceasefire and prisoners exchange, which was accepted by Hamas on Monday.

The text below is a draft translation of the Arabic text, which was published by Al-Jazeera Arabic website.

Proposed Agreement

Basic principles for an agreement between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side in Gaza on the exchange of detainees and prisoners between the two sides and the return of sustainable calm.

The framework agreement aims to release all Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip, civilians, and soldiers, whether alive or otherwise, from all periods and times in exchange for an agreed number of prisoners in Israeli prisons, and a return to sustainable calm in order to achieve a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction and the lifting of the siege.

The framework agreement consists of 3 interconnected phases, as follows:

First Stage (42 days)

The temporary cessation of mutual military operations between the parties, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces east and away from densely populated areas to an region along the border in all areas of the Gaza Strip (including Wadi Gaza, Netzarim axis and Kuwait roundabout) as indicated below:

Suspend flights (military and reconnaissance) in the Gaza Strip for 10 hours a day, and for 12 hours on the days of release of detainees and prisoners.

Return of IDPs to their areas of residence, withdrawal from Wadi Gaza (Netzarim axis and Kuwait roundabout).

On the third day (after the release of 3 detainees), the Israeli forces completely withdraw from Al-Rasheed Street in the east to Salah Al-Din Street, completely dismantle the military sites and installations in this area, start the return of the displaced to their areas of residence (without carrying weapons during their return), the free movement of residents in all areas of the Gaza Strip, and the entry of humanitarian aid from Al-Rashid Street from the first day without hindrance.

On the 22nd day (after the release of half of the living civilian detainees, including female soldiers), Israeli forces withdraw from the central Gaza Strip (especially the Netzarim Shuhada axis and the Kuwait roundabout axis) east of Salah al-Din Road to a nearby area along the border, the complete dismantling of military sites and installations, the continued return of displaced persons to their places of residence in the northern Gaza Strip, and the freedom of movement of residents in all areas of the Gaza Strip.

From the first day, the entry of intensive and sufficient quantities of humanitarian aid, relief materials and fuel (600 trucks per day, to include 50 fuel trucks, of which 300 to the north), including fuel for the operation of the power plant, trade and equipment necessary to remove rubble, and the rehabilitation and operation of hospitals, health centers and bakeries in all areas of the Gaza Strip, and to continue this throughout all stages of the agreement

Exchange of Detainees and Prisoners between the Two Sides:

During the first phase, Hamas released 33 Israeli detainees (alive or dead), including women (civilians and soldiers), children (under 19 non-soldiers), the elderly (over the age of 50) and the sick, in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, according to the following:

Hamas releases all living Israeli detainees, both civilian women and children (under the age of 19 who are not soldiers), while Israel releases 30 children and women for every Israeli detainee released, based on lists provided by Hamas according to the oldest detainee.

Hamas releases all living Israeli detainees, the elderly (over the age of 50), the sick, and wounded civilians, while Israel releases 30 elderly (over 50) and sick prisoners for each Israeli detainee, based on lists provided by Hamas according to the oldest detainee.

Hamas releases all living Israeli soldiers, while Israel releases 50 prisoners from its prisons for every Israeli soldier released (30 life sentences and 20 sentences) based on lists provided by Hamas.

Scheduling the Exchange of Detainees and Prisoners between the Two Parties in the First Stage:

Hamas releases 3 Israeli detainees on the third day of the agreement, after which Hamas releases 3 more detainees every seven days, starting with women as much as possible (civilians and soldiers), and in the sixth week Hamas releases all the remaining civilian detainees included in this stage, in return Israel releases the agreed number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, according to the lists to be provided by Hamas.

By the seventh day (if possible) Hamas will provide information on Israeli detainees to be released at this stage.

On the 22nd day, the Israeli side releases all the prisoners of the Shalit deal who have been re-arrested.

If the number of Israeli living detainees does not reach 33, the number of bodies of the same categories will be completed for this stage, in return Israel will release all women and children (under the age of 19) who were arrested from the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, provided that this will take place in the fifth week of this stage.

The exchange process depends on compliance with the terms of the agreement, including the cessation of mutual military operations, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the return of displaced persons and the entry of humanitarian aid.

Complete the necessary legal procedures to ensure that freed Palestinian prisoners are not arrested on the same charges on which they were previously detained.

The keys to the first stage described above do not form the basis for negotiating the keys to the second stage.

Lift the measures and penalties taken against prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention camps after October 7, 2023, and improve their conditions, including those arrested after this date.

No later than the 16th day of the first phase, indirect talks will begin between the two parties on agreeing on the details of the second phase of this agreement, regarding the keys to the exchange of prisoners and detainees from both sides (soldiers and the remaining men), provided that they are completed and agreed upon before the end of the fifth week of this phase.

The United Nations and its relevant agencies, including UNRWA and other international organizations, should carry out their work in providing humanitarian services in all areas of the Gaza Strip, and continue to do so throughout the agreement.

Start the rehabilitation of infrastructure (electricity, water, sewage, communications and roads) in all areas of the Gaza Strip, and introduce the necessary equipment for civil defense, and to remove rubble and rubble, and continue to do so at all stages of the agreement.

Facilitate the entry of supplies and requirements to accommodate and shelter displaced people who lost their homes during the war (at least 60,000 temporary houses – caravans – and 200,000 tents).

Starting from the first day of this phase, an agreed number (not less than 50) wounded military personnel will be allowed to travel through the Rafah crossing to receive medical treatment, the number of passengers, sick and wounded will increase through the Rafah crossing, and the restrictions on passengers will be lifted, and the movement of goods and trade will resume without restrictions.

Initiate the necessary arrangements and plans for the comprehensive reconstruction of civilian homes and facilities and civilian infrastructure destroyed by the war and compensate those affected under the supervision of a number of countries and organizations, including Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.

All measures at this stage, including the temporary cessation of mutual military operations, relief and shelter, withdrawal of forces, etc., will continue in the second phase until a sustainable calm (cessation of military and hostilities) is declared.

Second Stage (42 days):

Announcing the return of sustainable calm (permanent cessation of military and hostilities) and its entry into force before the start of the exchange of detainees and prisoners between the two parties.

All the remaining surviving Israeli men (civilians and soldiers) – in exchange for an agreed number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detainees in Israeli detention camps, and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip.

Third Stage (42 days):

Exchange of bodies and remains of the dead on both sides after reaching them and identifying them.

Start implementing the reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip for a period of 3 to 5 years, including homes, civilian facilities, and infrastructure, and compensate all those affected under the supervision of a number of countries and organizations, including: Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.

Completely end the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

_{Guarantors of the Agreement: Qatar, Egypt, the United States, and the United Nations.}

India’s BJP defends the super rich by giving wealth redistribution policy a sectarian color during general elections / by People’s Dispatch

_{^{Modi supporters protesting income and wealth redistribution in India.}}

_{Reposted from People’s Dispatch}

Voting for the first three phases in India’s general elections has concluded and the race continues to heat up. The center-left coalition of parties and the right-wing incumbent coalition are vying for votes and clashing over the issues of wealth and income redistribution in the country.

India is the world’s fastest growing economy. However, it also has one of the highest levels of economic inequality in the world, which have grown in the last few decades. The Congress Party, leading the center left INDIA alliance, has accused the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central government of failing to take appropriate policy decisions to curb inequality. However, instead of acknowledging the need to address inequality, the BJP has twisted the claims and accused Congress of planning to rob people’s “hard earned wealth.”

During election speeches, Prime Minister Narendra Modi even claimed that Congress is planning to take wealth away from the people of religious majority community (Hindus) to give it to minority Muslims whom he accused to be “infiltrators, and produce more children.”

In its manifesto, Congress has promised to conduct a nationwide socio-economic and caste census and take measures to “address the growing inequality of wealth and income through suitable changes in policies.” Its leaders have also loosely talked about redirecting billions of dollars of tax benefits given to the corporate houses under the current government to the country’s marginalized sections.

However, though it defended the need of social and economic justice, fearing polarization on religious lines following Modi’s explicit allegations, Congress appeared reluctant to articulate how it plans to achieve that agenda. It outrightly denied it had ever planned to impose wealth or inheritance tax on the country’s super rich.

This nevertheless, has led to a national debate on the need for wealth and income redistribution in the country and ways to achieve it.

Rising inequality in India

India has seen a massive rise in inequality in the last three to four decades due to the neoliberal economic policies followed by all central governments, led by both the Congress and the BJP. The study conducted by the World Inequality Lab by Thomas Pikkety and others, says that income inequality in India is higher today than even during the inter-war British colonial period. It claims that the income of the top 1% of the population has gone up from around 6% in 1981 to over 22.6% in 2022.

The report says that 10,000 wealthiest individuals of the 92 million Indian adults own an average of Rs 22.6 billion in wealth which is 16,763 times the country’s average wealth holdings.

A country with over 228 million poor has the world’s third largest number of billionaires (271) today after China and the US.

India’s top 1% of the population owns more than 40% of all national wealth and over 22.6 % of national income. In contrast India’s bottom 60% own just 4.7% of the country’s total wealth. This is higher than the share of the top 1% in the national income of Brazil, South Africa and the US, says the World Inequality Lab study.

An Oxfam study claims the richest in India, “have cornered a huge part of wealth created through crony capitalism and inheritance.” This is hugely responsible for the chronic under investment in health, education and other essential services. Wages are mostly stagnated for over 90% of the population and there is rising unemployment.

The wage gap is clear from the example from the Oxfam study which claims “it will take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.”

Progressive taxation along with wealth and inheritance taxes are ways through which income and wealth inequality can be tackled to some level. However, India abolished inheritance tax in 1985 during a Congress-led government and wealth tax in 2015 under the Modi regime. The Modi led government also reduced the corporate tax rates radically in 2019.

The left presents an alternative

Communist Party of India (Marxist) is the only major party which has explicitly promised the imposition of wealth and inheritance taxes and increased corporate tax in its election manifesto for this election.

The left argues that Modi’s speech should be seen in the context of the right wing’s “visceral hatred for any proposal for redistribution of wealth and incomes to tackle the high degree of inequality that exists in India.” Use of explicit bigotry is rather an attempt to shield the corporate and their profits.

Left parties have asserted that the fact that over 99% of the country’s population would not be paying any wealth tax as it would be limited to the billionaires. Using bigotry is the only way to scare the proponents of such a move. It claims that a 4% tax on the dollar billionaires in India would generate enough revenue which can increase the public expenditure in health and education to substantial levels.

_{Peoples Dispatch, formerly The Dawn News, is an international media project with the mission of bringing to you voices from people’s movements and organizations across the globe. Since its establishment three years ago, it has sought to ensure that the coverage of news from around the world is not restricted to the rhetoric of politicians and the fortunes of big companies but encompasses the richness and diversity of mobilizations from around the world.}

Israel’s Fascist Govt on Verge of Causing Humanitarian Disaster in Rafah, Hadash and CPI / by the Communist Party of Israel

_{^{Protesters block on Monday evening Begin Road in front of the Kirya Israeli Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv, urging a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza, May 6 2024 (Photo: Black Flag Movement)}}

_{Reposted from the Communist Party of Israel}

“Israel’s fascist government is on the verge of bringing about a humanitarian disaster in Rafah,” Hadash and Communist Party of Israel (CPI) says in a common statement on Monday, May 6.

Protesting far-right Israeli government plans to “bomb and invade the Rafah area on the Egyptian border, which houses hundreds of thousands of displaced people,” Hadash and the CPI warns of “the mass slaughter and humanitarian disaster involved in the bombing of a very small area containing more than a million displaced people.”

Launching such an operation would entail “sacrificing the kidnapped and hostages on the altar of the survival of the bloody and murderous government,” it continues, calling on the international community to intervene in order to bring about a ceasefire and an end to hostilities.

According Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, “Mere days after his government has agreed in principle to the Egyptian framework of a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages, Netanyahu hurried to change his mind when it became apparent that Hamas accepted the conditions. There is no explanation for this senseless U-turn other than as a continuation of the surrender to the wicked Kahanists on whose support his government depends.”

“For these criminals, ‘total victory’ is nothing less than the total annihilation of Gaza and its citizens, in the very same period that we observe Holocaust Memorial Day. For them, the lives of the dying hostages, who have been tortured by Hamas criminals for over seven months, are worthless – a sacrifice worth making on the altar of the government of atrocities and the bloody messiah. Not only is this position morally repugnant and vile, but it is also against the real interests of the citizens of Israel, which are being repeatedly sacrificed in favor of a handful of hate-filled, revenge-obsessed lunatics. I call upon all of the public to take all available nonviolent means to avoid doom for Gaza, the hostages, and all of us. Stop the war! All for all, now!”, he said.

Israel launched an offensive on Rafah on Monday after Netanyahu refused a ceasefire and said he wanted to continue the war. After dropping leaflets asking the Palestinians deported to Rafah to leave the “safe” city, the Israeli air force bombed eastern Rafah. The panicked population no longer knows where to go.

The civilians were being called to move to an expanded humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi and Khan Younis areas of southern Gaza. The Israeli occupation forces ordered the residents of nine blocks in eastern Rafah to “temporarily move” to a so-called “expanded humanitarian area” in Al Mawassi. The area slated for evacuation is about 31 square kilometers and includes Al Shokat municipality area, As Salam neighborhood, Al Juneineh, Tal Azar’a and Al Bayuk. This area was home to some 64,000 Palestinians prior to 7 October and currently encompasses nine sites hosting internally displaced persons, three clinics, and six warehouses. With today’s evacuation orders, 277 square kilometers or about 76 per cent of the Gaza Strip have been placed under evacuation orders; this includes all areas north of Wadi Gaza, whose residents were ordered to evacuate in late October, as well as specific areas south of Wadi Gaza slated for evacuation by the Israeli military since 1 December.

The occupation army estimates there are about 100,000 residents in the southern Gaza neighborhoods ordered to evacuate and Gaza medical sources say 26 civilians killed in Rafah as Israel begins forced evacuation ahead of ground operation. Between the afternoons of May 3 and May 6, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 113 Palestinians were killed and 241 injured, including 52 killed and 90 injured in the last 24 hours. Between October 7, 2023 and May 6, 2024, at least 34,735 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 78,108 Palestinians were injured, according to MoH in Gaza.

On Monday evening, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh tells Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel that the Palestinian group accepts their terms for a ceasefire with Israel, according to an official announcement from Hamas. A senior Hamas official tells Al Jazeera the same.

Israel has repeatedly said it will not accept a deal, as repeatedly demanded by Hamas, that conditions the release of hostages on the end of the war. On Saturday, furthermore, an official source, widely believed to be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stated that Israel had not empowered the mediators to issue guarantees of an end to the war, either.

US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators have been negotiating with Hamas in recent days over a three-phase proposal, green-lit by Israel. The proposal has not been published, but reportedly provides, in the first phase, for 33 living hostages — women, children, the elderly and the sick — to be freed during a 40-day truce, in return for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.

As per the reported text of the offer, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas would begin anew on the 16th day of the truce, to set out an arrangement to restore sustainable calm to Gaza over the second and third stages of the deal. In the second phase, all remaining living prisoners would be released during a further 42-day truce, in return for hundreds more security prisoners, and the Israeli occupation army would withdraw from Gaza. The third and final stage of the deal would again last 42 days and Hamas would reportedly be required to hand over the bodies of those who were killed on October 7 or died in captivity, in exchange for bodies of Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli custody.

The rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip would begin during the first phase of the deal, starting with the restoration of Gaza’s roads, electricity, water, sanitation, and communication infrastructure. Preparations for a five-year reconstruction plan for Gaza’s homes and civilian infrastructure would be completed during the second phase of the deal, and construction would begin in the third stage.

Racist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rejects Hamas’s acceptance of a ceasefire as “a trick.” “There is only one response to Hamas’s tricks and games — an immediate order to conquer Rafah, increase military pressure, and continue to crush Hamas until it is utterly defeated.”

On Monday night, hostage family members blocked parts of Begin Road, near the army headquarters, and Ayalon Highway, calling for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages. The demonstrations came shortly after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had informed Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence chief that it had accepted their ceasefire proposal. Other demonstrations against the offensive launched in Rafah and the war in Gaza were held in Central Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheva.

_{Communist Party of Israel}

800 Settler Attacks in Occupied West Bank Since 7 October 2023 / by the Communist Party of Israel

_{^{Settlers attack against Palestinians at the occupied West Bank (Photo: WAFA)}}

_{Reposted from the Communist Party of Israel}

Since 7 October 2023, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA) has recorded at least 800 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians that resulted in Palestinian casualties (84 incidents), damage to Palestinian-owned property (629 incidents), or both casualties and damage to property (90 incidents). These incidents resulted in the killing of 31 Palestinians either by Israeli settlers or forces, close to 500 injuries, and vandalization of nearly 80 houses, at least 11,700 trees and saplings, and about 450 vehicles.

There were 16 other settler incidents during the reporting period that did not result in casualties and/or property damage. In one incident, Israeli settlers established a new outpost on land belonging to the villages of Al Mughayyir and Kafr Malik in Ramallah governorate. Hundreds of settlers accompanied by Israeli forces also entered the archeological site in Sabastiya village in Nablus governorate, reportedly to celebrate the Passover, preventing the movement of Palestinians to and from the area. In addition, there were incidents of intimidation and access obstruction, affecting Palestinians’ access to their farms and water pumps in Ein al Hilweh and Ad Deir herding communities, respectively, in Tubas governorate.

Today (Saturday) morning, settlers assaulted Palestinian homes in the Arab Al-Malihat community, northwest of the city of Jericho. Hassan Mleihat, the supervisor of the Al-Baidar organization for defending the rights of the Bedouins, said that a group of Israeli colonists broke into the community, where they searched four homes belonging to the Mleihat family. Earlierr, another group of settlers destroyed water supply pumps in Khirbet al-Deir in the northern Jordan Valley. Human rights activist Arif Daraghmeh said that a group of Israelis sneaked their way into Khirbet al-Deir and destroyed water supply pumps belonging to a Palestinian farmer.

Since 7 October 2023, at least 206 Palestinian households comprising 1,244 people, most of whom are herding families, including 603 children, have been displaced amid settler violence and access restrictions. In addition, since 7 October 2023, some 1,765 Palestinians, of whom 43 per cent are children, have been displaced due to the demolition of their homes. Over half (961 people) were displaced during operations by Israeli forces, of which 94 per cent took place in the refugee camps of Nur Shams, Tulkarm and Jenin. This is followed by 37 per cent displaced by lack-of-permit demolitions and eight per cent due to demolitions on punitive grounds.

_{Communist Party of Israel}

No books burned this time in Berlin despite ominous parallels / Victor Grossman

_{^{A woman is carried away by police officers during a pro-Palestinian demonstration by the group “Student Coalition Berlin” in the theater courtyard of the ‘Freie Universitat Berlin’ university in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Pro-Palestinian activists occupied a courtyard of the Free University in Berlin on Tuesday. | Markus Schreiber/AP}}

_{Reposted from Peoples World}

BERLIN – It was May 10 in Germany’s terrible year, 1933. Hitler had been in power for hardly three months, when students and staff emptied the university libraries of forbidden books and threw them, an estimated 20,000 books by over a hundred authors, into the flames of a giant bonfire.

Most authors were German-Jewish, atheist, liberal, and leftist, Bertolt Brecht, Anna Seghers, Sigmund Freud, and Magnus Hirschfeld, but also some foreign works were thrown into the flames – Maxim Gorki, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and Dos Passos.

Ninety-one years later, this May 3, just across Berlin’s famous Unter-den-Linden Blvd. and in the same university courtyard where those books had once been dragged from, some of today’s students – courageous, determined, the total opposite of the Nazis of 1933 – were forcibly hauled away to waiting police vans. The students of 1933 were advocating murder, preparing for the genocide which was to follow. These students of 2024 are protesting against murder and genocide.

The mayor, and the authorities, claimed that forbidden Hamas slogans were called out, justifying their brutal cuffing and arrests. It is possible that some participants, emotionally moved by the news and the pictures from Gaza, may have generalized these feelings. Who knows? And does it matter?

This group was not anti-Semitic; it also included Jewish students, a few of them Israeli exiles. The spirit of these first three hundred demonstrators, as in similar scenes at other colleges and universities in Germany and other countries – and so very courageously all over the US – was directed against destruction worse than any since 1945, of homes, mosques, churches, libraries, schools and universities in Gaza. The protests were also directed against the killing of over 35,000 human beings, a majority of them women and children, and the maiming of so many more.

But these demonstrations, now growing rapidly in number, were more than that. For many, they also expressed protest at the entire scene now engulfing Germany, and not only Germany.

Hatred is in the air, with century-old feelings of superiority over “inferior” people. There is growing pressure to build ever more destructive weapons and prepare to use them. The justification is always “self-defense,” whether it is regarding Gaza, Lithuania, or Estonia. The horror also includes blockades against human beings at frontiers in Texas, Arizona, and along Mediterranean seashores.

And with this hatred, there are mounting pressures for conformity. Don’t rock the boat – or else! Such trends are gaining strength, aiming at the accession of total power, and not only with the obviously far-right groups! Too many of the proper, accepted leaders have ties with the billionaire profiteers thrilled at new conflicts and more mansions, jets, and yachts.

It is the new spirit of protest against these trends, the hunt for new answers, which has dominant circles worried, even fearsome. That is why they send police into Hind’s Hall or the courtyard of Humboldt University.

Sometimes they prevail and can break resistance, sometimes local victories can be won. But it is the long-awaited movement which counts, and its match-up with equally courageous workers at auto plants, at Walmart or Starbucks shops, or in Central Africa and Central America.

There is an added irony; the site of Friday’s protest was the courtyard of Humboldt University in East Berlin, given that name soon after the defeat of the Nazis and the liberation of Berlin by the Red Army on May 8 in 1945. Looking down upon today’s fighters is the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, a great scientist and explorer, who ardently opposed the slavery he saw in Latin America and the US in the 1820s – and oppression everywhere. A worthy patron.

And inside the handsome building (where Albert Einstein once taught) and despite many changes in the university’s character over the years, one sentence has been saved, in golden letters above a wide central staircase. It was written by another famous man, who once studied here, and it might also be considered as very relevant. The author was none other than Karl Marx. The words were: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

Perhaps it is fear of the revival of such a spirit which has caused the mayor and many politicians to become so angry and worried and to send in the police. Let us hope the better analogies are models, not the frightening ones!

_{We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!}

_{Victor Grossman is a journalist from the U.S. now living in Berlin. He fled his U.S. Army post in the 1950s in danger of reprisals for his left-wing activities at Harvard and in Buffalo, New York. He landed in the former German Democratic Republic (Socialist East Germany), studied journalism, founded a Paul Robeson Archive, and became a freelance journalist and author. His latest book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 – 1990, the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism, the reasons for the fall of socialism, and the importance of today’s struggles.}

Mass Israeli protests accuse Netanyahu of ‘torpedoing’ ceasefire and hostage release deals / by Zo Haderekh

_{^{People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2024. | Ariel Schalit / AP}}

_{Reposted from Peoples World}

TEL AVIV—With an exceptionally large turnout, protests against the far-right Netanyahu government took place across Israel’s major cities on Saturday, May 4. Demonstrators demanded the government negotiate a hostage deal, early elections, and the end of the war in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, and Beersheva Saturday night. Other demonstrations were held in Kfar Sava, Caesarea, Nahariya, Herzliya, Eilat, Carmiel, Rehovot, Modi’in, and Raanana. Five people were arrested during the demonstrations in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa; they accused police of using excessive force.

The rallies, by now a weekly affair, took place hours after a “senior Israeli official” issued anonymous statements to the press denying reports that Israel would commit to ending the war in Gaza in exchange for the hostages’ release.

The comments, dictated by Netanyahu, added fuel to protesters’ fury over what they allege is the premier’s refusal to reach a deal aimed at rescuing over 130 hostages and remains of captives, instead preferring to preserve the political support of his racist coalition partners, who insist that Israel push ahead with plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

In Tel Aviv, there were separate demonstrations; one calling for elections and another against the war held by activists of the “Block against occupation” (among them Hadash and Communist Party of Israel members) at Kaplan Street and another held at the Hostage Families Square, next to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. A smaller rally, involving families of hostages, also took place near the Israeli army headquarters, known as “the Kirya,” at Begin Road.

The demonstration at Begin Road featured strong statements from relatives of the hostages directed against Netanyahu. The mother of hostage Matan Tzangauker, Einav, accused him of “torpedoing the deal.”

“This is the 211th day that our families are in hell in Gaza and there is now a deal on the table. Hamas has signaled that it agrees to it, but Netanyahu is initiating another move to torpedo the deal,” Einav said.

“It’s a crime, he abandons them to their deaths. End the war, bring back the hostages first,” she said, accusing him of “committing a crime against his people.” After marching throughout the heart of the city, protesters staged a sit-in lasting over an hour on Begin Road and then blocked Ayalon Highway.

In Jerusalem, carrying posters reading “Stop the War” and chanting for an immediate deal with Hamas to free the hostages, marchers initially set out together from the main protest hub of Paris Square but split off into several groups heading in different directions throughout the city center as police rushed to contain the crowds.

One group managed to block the city’s light rail on Jaffa Street, while another came to a halt outside the YMCA, after police formed a human barrier in front of the unauthorized march. Protesters later recongregated in Paris Square, clashing with police as they attempted unsuccessfully to obstruct a major traffic intersection.

_{We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!}

_{Zo Haderekh (This Is The Way) is the Communist Party of Israel’s Hebrew-language newspaper.}

Universal Health Coverage: A failure of implementation or strategy? / by WHO-Watch Team

_{^{A discussion on UHC during session of World Bank Group Spring Meetings, 2014. Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank}}

Halfway to the 2030 deadline for Universal Health Coverage, the world is severely off track. Nearly half of the global population lacks access to essential health services, with one in four facing devastating healthcare costs

_{Reposted from People’s Dispatch}

The world is approaching a global deadline—the year 2030—to evaluate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals and ensure everyone, everywhere has access to essential healthcare. Yet, the progress looks seriously off pace. According to the latest WHO report, nearly half the world’s population, 4.5 billion people, still lacked universal access to crucial health services as of 2021. Worse still, one in four people faced crushing healthcare costs that can push them into poverty. Since 2015, progress on achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC), or SDG 3.8, has not only stalled but reversed, particularly hitting rural and low-income areas hard, deepening health inequalities within countries.

Financial safeguards and access to essential health services haven’t improved since 2015 and, in many cases, they’ve deteriorated. The COVID-19 pandemic complicated things further, freezing any little progress made in service coverage between 2019 and 2021 and driving more people into poverty. While the WHO report urges countries to double their efforts to catch up, it stops short of explaining why we’re falling behind or laying out a clear plan to turn things around. It also doesn’t address how to make essential medicines more affordable and accessible in today’s policy landscape.

A different look

UHC has been promoted as a publicly sponsored health insurance strategy with strategic purchasing of a selective package of essential services from a variety of providers, including the private sector through private health insurance plans. Its stagnation or off-tracking is not the failure of implementation of a successful concept, but the failure of strategy. The global drive for attaining ‘universal coverage’ rather than ‘universal access’ limits public funding of healthcare and thereby minimizes actual funding for primary healthcare systems.

Thus, it limits the coverage of essential services among the poorest and rural populations across the world. The limited public funds are primarily siphoned towards supply of expensive diagnostics, vaccines and selective interventions as dominated by powerful lobbies, crippling the public health systems, and indirectly promoting the growth of unregulated, profit-making private systems.

The WHO report presents a new initiative in response to the lack of financing for Primary Healthcare (PHC). The Health Impact Investment Platform is a new initiative of four banks – the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to provide €1.5 billion to low and low and middle-income countries as concessional loans and grants to strengthen PHC. Though this seems to be an exciting intervention to maintain flow of essential funds in PHC, it overlooks the fact that the loans will cripple these countries with debts considering the current level of indebtedness. Instead of relying on debt to fund PHC, the strategy should focus on cancellation of debts and increase internal public funding to replenish PHC. It should also increase coverage of essential health services and development of sustainable systems.

There is a need to organize healthcare services as a public good and not as a commodity purchased from a spectrum of providers from free-market mechanisms. The governments should take the idea of ‘Universal Health Coverage’ cautiously and reshape it as ‘universal access’ to affordable, public sector driven, accessible and decentralized services to ensure financial protection of even the poorest and most vulnerable billons of the world. It should be re-iterated that PHC is not a bankable investment and loans should not be promoted as a means for promoting PHC or “universal access”.

This calls for a shift towards public healthcare providers overseeing health care delivery, with a focus on ensuring quality, efficient, fair distribution of resources, and improving population health. The funding mechanisms should primarily rely on taxation or social insurance, with a gradual transition towards a single-payer system that is equitable and sustainable. As we approach the next World Health Assembly, members of the WHO should make this shift of paradigm a priority.

_{People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.}

France sends combat troops to Ukraine battlefront / by Stephen Bryen

_{^{An honor guard from the French army’s 6th Battalion stands at attention as they await the arrival of Lt. Gen. Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, commander of Joint Forces in Saudi Arabia, during Operation Desert Shield. The soldier in front is holding a 5.56mm FA MAS rifle, equipped with a bayonet | via asiatimes.com}}

Will the deployment of a Foreign Legion unit commanded by French officers trigger a wider European war?

_{Reposted from Asia Times}

France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine. They have been deployed in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in Slavyansk. The French soldiers are drawn from France’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is one of the main elements of France’s Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère).

In 2022 France had a number of Ukrainians and Russians in the Foreign Legion. They were allowed to leave the Legion and, in the case of the Ukrainians, return to Ukraine to join Ukrainian forces. It isn’t clear if the Russians returned home.

The Legion today is run by French officers but the rank and file are all foreigners. Under the curren anonymat (being anonymous) a volunteer who joins the Legion can decide whether to keep his given name or adopt a new one. Legionnaires serve for three year terms, after which they can ask for French citizenship. If a legionnaire is wounded, he is entitled to gain French citizenship without any waiting period. There are no women in the Foreign Legion.

The initial group of French troops numbers around 100. This is just the first tranche of around 1,500 French Foreign Legion soldiers scheduled to arrive in Ukraine.

These troops are being posted directly in a hot combat area and are intended to help the Ukrainians resist Russian advances in Donbas. The first 100 are artillery and surveillance specialists.

For months French President Emanuel Macron has been threatening to send French troops to Ukraine. He has found little or no support from NATO countries outside of support from Poland and the Baltic States. Allegedly the US opposes sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine (other than as advisors).

One of the questions to immediately arise from France’s decision to send soldiers from its 3rd Infantry Regiment is whether this crosses the Russian red line on NATO involvement in Ukraine? Will the Russians see this as initiating a wider war beyond Ukraine’s borders?

France itself does not have many troops to put on Ukraine’s battlelines, should the French government want to do so. According to reports, today France cannot support an overseas deployment of a full division and won’t have this capability until 2027 at the earliest.

The decision to send Foreign Legionnaires is, itself, a peculiar French compromise. France is not deploying its home army and, besides the small number of officers, the men sent are not French citizens.

France’s decision has two meanings, beyond the obvious one of potentially triggering a pan-European war.

First of all, it allows Macron to send troops to Ukraine and act like a tough guy without encountering much home opposition. That’s because no French army soldiers are being sent and there is no consequent conscription or other measures in the offing. This clearly reduces the potential fury of Macron’s political opponents.

The second reason is Macron’s anger at seeing French troops, almost all from the Legion, getting kicked out of Sahelian Africa and replaced by Russians. Control of Francophone Africa, and the riches it provides to French politicians, has been broken by the revolt and revolution in Africa and a decisive tilt to Russia – either directly or through PMC Wagner (the Wagner Group). now clearly under Vladimir Putin’s direct control.

This “humiliation” is felt in the Élysée Palace and particularly by Macron who, his opponents say, has lost France’s influence and harmed France’s overseas mining and business interests.

A particular blow is in Niger, an important supplier of uranium to France. France gets 70 percent of its electrical power from nuclear power generators. Global uranium supplies are tightening and prices rising. With Russia and Kazakhstan, along with Niger, on the top of the heap in terms of supplying uranium for nuclear reactors, France has a home economic security problem. The US decision to ban Russian uranium (but probably not realistically, in the next few years) the Russians could deal a serious blow to France and the United States by cutting off supplies.

Given the risk of losing access to uranium, or at least enough of it to supply France’s reactors, Macron has to hope that his troop deployments to Ukraine won’t trigger a Russian embargo on sales to France.

It isn’t clear how the Legionnaires can help the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians know how to operate artillery, and they have sophisticated intelligence support, some of it generated by their own FPV drones and spies and some of it thanks to US and other NATO intelligence and surveillance assets supporting Ukraine.

Anyway, the Ukrainian issue is not about how to use artillery but where the ammunition is supposed to come from. Ukraine continues to complain it lacks adequate supplies for 155mm howitzers.

The decision to put the Legion soldiers in Slavyansk is extremely provocative and goes against statements from the French side, including Macron, to the effect that if France sent troops they would replace Ukrainian army units in western Ukraine who could, therefore, be moved eastward to fight the Russians. As Slavyansk is on the front line, this French image of a soft deployment is turning into a war with Russia directly.

A key question is how NATO will react to the French decision to deploy. As France is acting on its own without NATO’s backing, the French cannot claim support from NATO under its famous Article 5, the collective security component of the NATO Treaty.

Should the Russians attack French troops outside of Ukraine it would be justified because France has decided to be a combatant, and forcing an Article 5 vote would seem to be difficult if not impossible.

Of course, NATO members individually could support the French, either by sending their own forces or by backstopping the French logistically and in communications. For example, there is no way Foreign Legion soldiers can go to Ukraine without passing through Poland. Will the Russians see this as evidence they are at war both with France and Poland?

Right now no one can answer any of these questions with any degree of certainty. It is unlikely the Russians will long tolerate a buildup of French army troops, even if they are Foreign Legion soldiers. What Russia will do in response is not certain.

Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.

_{Stephen Bryen is a former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and is a leading expert in security strategy and technology. Bryen writes for Asia Times, American Thinker, Epoch Times, Newsweek, Washington Times, the Jewish Policy Center and others.}

Israel’s war on Gaza updates: ‘Full-blown famine’ engulfs northern Gaza / by Usaid Siddiqui

_{^{Palestinians gather to receive free food as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, during the holy month of Ramadan | Credit: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters}}

_{Reposted from Aljazeera}

A Hamas delegation is negotiating in Egypt in what appears to be do-or-die talks on a ceasefire to halt the nearly seven-month war.
Northern Gaza is now experiencing “full-blown famine”, the head of the UN World Food Programme says, as Israel continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid.
Besieged people in Rafah take to the streets and cheer on ceasefire talks in Cairo with some displaced Palestinians packing up their things in the hope of soon returning home.
At least 34,654 Palestinians have been killed and 77,908 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139 with dozens of people still held captive.
There is no sign of any progress in the critical truce and prisoner exchange negotiations in Egypt, with Hamas and Israel refusing to back away from their core demands.
The United Nations says “Full-blown famine” has engulfed northern Gaza and is spreading south as Israel continues to limit the amount of food aid getting into the war-battered territory.

You can continue to follow coverage of the war in Gaza here.

_{Usaid Siddiqui is a journalist at Al Jazeera English Online based in Doha. He tweets @UsaidM16}

The Canadian State Is Euthanizing Its Poor and Disabled / by David Moscrop

_{^{Doctors and family members gather around a patient’s hospital bed who has decided on euthanasia on February 1, 2024. (Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP via Getty Images)}}

Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.

_{Reposted from Jacobin}

For want of a mattress, a man is dead. That’s the story, in sum, of a quadriplegic man who chose to end his life in January through medically assisted death. Normand Meunier’s story, as reported by the CBC, began with a visit to a Quebec hospital due to a respiratory virus. Meunier subsequently developed a painful bedsore after being left without access to a mattress to accommodate his needs. Thereafter, he applied to Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.

As Rachel Watts writes in her report, Meunier spent ninety-five hours on a stretcher in the emergency room — just hours short of four days. The bedsore he developed “eventually worsened to the point where bone and muscle were exposed and visible — making his recovery and prognosis bleak.” The man who “didn’t want to be a burden” chose to die at home. An internal investigation into the matter is underway.

Disability and other advocates have been warning us for years that MAiD puts people at risk. They warned that the risk of people choosing death — because it’s easier than fighting to survive in a system that impoverishes people, and disproportionately does so to those who are disabled — is real. Underinvestment in medical care will push people up to and beyond the brink, which means some will choose to die instead of “burden” their loved ones or society at large. They were right.

Canada now has one of the highest assisted-death rates in the world. As the Guardian reported in February, 4.1 percent of deaths in the country were physician-assisted — and the number is growing, up 30 percent between 2021 and 2022. In a survey of just over 13,100 people who opted for MAiD, a significant majority — 96.5 percent — chose to end their lives in the face of terminal illness or imminent death, Leyland Cecco, author of the report, noted. But 463 chose it in the face of “a chronic condition.”

A libertarian ethos partially underwrote the fact that not many people blinked when MAiD was initially rolled out. Taking a more expansive view of rights, many of those not swayed by rote libertarianism were convinced that concerns over bodily autonomy and compassion were reason enough to adopt MAiD. However, in the absence of a robust welfare state, and in the face of structural poverty and discrimination, particularly toward disabled people, there is no world in which the MAiD program can be understood to be “progressive.”

Indeed, last year, Jeremy Appel argued that MAiD was “beginning to look like a dystopian end run around the cost of providing social welfare.” Initially supportive, he changed his mind on MAiD as he considered that the decisions people make are not strictly speaking individual but are instead collectively shaped and sometimes “the product of social circumstances, which are outside of their control.” When we don’t care for one another, what do we end up with?

“I’ve come to realize,” wrote Appel, “that euthanasia in Canada represents the cynical endgame of social provisioning with the brutal logic of late-stage capitalism — we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life [. . .] and if you don’t like it, why don’t you just kill yourself?”

Bracketing the question of whether the program should even exist at all, permitting those suffering from mental illness to access a suicide program — which the government was prepared to allow before rescheduling the controversial expansion of the law until 2027 — is the stuff of nightmarish science fiction. We can instead focus on the absurd and disturbing reality that our underfunded and subpar administration of care in Canada has led some up to, and through, the door of assisted death. As things stand, more will follow. It’s grotesque.

In Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, a recipient of disability support receives about $1,300 a month — a pittance they’re meant to stretch to cover food, shelter, and other basic needs. Ontario Works — the province’s welfare program — pays a current maximum of $733 a month. Meanwhile, rental costs for a one bedroom apartment routinely push toward an average of $2,000 a month in many cities. In April, in Toronto, a one bedroom apartment averaged almost $2,500 a month.

Euthanized by the State

In a 2023 paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled “What Drives Requests for MAiD?” James Downar and Susan MacDonald argue that

[d]espite fears that availability of MAiD for people with terminal illness would lead to requests for MAiD driven by socioeconomic deprivation or poor service availability (e.g., palliative care), available evidence consistently indicates that MAiD is most commonly received by people of high socioeconomic status and lower support needs, and those with high involvement of palliative care.

By their own admission, the data on this matter is imperfect. But even if it were, the fact that “most” patients who choose MAiD are better off socioeconomically is beside the point. Some are not — and those “some” are important. That includes a man living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis who, in 2019, chose medically assisted death because he couldn’t find adequate medical care that would also allow him to be with his son. It also includes a man whose application listed only “hearing loss,” and whose brother says he was “basically put to death.” This story came a year after experts raised the concern that the country’s MAiD regime was in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those “some” who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management.

Given the way our institutions and economic and political elite create and perpetuate poverty in Canada, particularly among disabled people, we should be particularly sensitive to the implications of the country’s MaiD regime for those who are often ignored when warning about the dangers of the law.

The fact that we collectively have the wealth, means, and resources to address endemic poverty and provide adequate care to all but choose not to while any number of poor and disabled people are euthanized by the state is profane.

For Whom the Bell Doesn’t Toll

In a February piece for the Globe and Mail, University of Toronto law professor Trudo Lemmens wrote, “The results of our MAiD regime’s promotion of access to death as a benefit, and the trivialization of death as a harm to be protected against, are increasingly clear.” In critiquing MAiD’s second track, which allows physician-assisted death for those who do not face “a reasonably foreseeable death,” Lemmens points out that within two years of its adoption, “‘track two’ MAiD providers had ended already the lives of close to seven hundred disabled people, most of whom likely had years of life left.”

In raising concerns about expanding MAiD to cover mental illness, Lemmens added that “there are growing concerns that inadequate social and mental health care, and a failure to provide housing supports, push people to request MAiD,” noting that “[a]dding mental illness as a basis for MAiD will only increase the number of people exposed to higher risks of premature death.”

In 2021, Gabrielle Peters warned in Maclean’s that extending MAiD to cover those who weren’t facing an immediately foreseeable death was “dangerous, unsettling and deeply flawed.” She traced the various ways in which a broader MAiD law could lead to people choosing to die in the face of austerity, adding an intersectional lens that is often missing from our discussions and debates over the issue.

She warned that we were failing to consider “how poverty and racism intersect with disability to create greater risk of harm, more institutional bias and barriers, additional layers of othering and dehumanization, and fewer resources for addressing any of these.” And now here we are. We should have listened more carefully.

While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.

It thus falls to proponents of MAiD to show how such deaths can be avoided, just as it falls to policymakers to build or rebuild institutions that ensure no one ever opts to end their life for lack of resources or support, which we could provide in abundance if we choose to.

_{David Moscrop is a writer and political commentator. He hosts the podcast Open to Debate and is the author of Too Dumb For Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones.}

May Day 2024: Day of resistance in the U.S.A. and around the world / by C.J. Atkins

_{^{May Day 2024 in Gaza}}

_{Reposted from Peoples World}

May Day in the U.S.A. saw intense repression tactics used against Palestine solidarity encampments at university campuses coast-to-coast. But no sooner could police clear one encampment before another popped up at a different college to take its place.

Along with the demand immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. military support for Israel these student demonstrators have put divestment at the forefront of the movement opposing the genocide. They are demanding that their institutions divulge the details of how and where they investment their endowments and that they divest from any companies that have financial ties with Israel.

More than 1,600 students have been arrested at 30 schools since the movement exploded onto the scene at New York’s Columbia University on April 18.

Divestment encampments weren’t the only sites of action on May Day, though. Major rallies and marches took place in several cities around the country demanding stronger protections for workers’ rights to organize into unions, higher wages, immigrant rights, and other causes.

Solidarity was the central theme , too, at marches around the world, where demands for a ceasefire in Gaza were merged with fights against worker exploitation, poverty, and racism. It was a day of resistance around the globe, with millions participating.

Targeting the ceasefire movement

**_{^{Police repression at the University of California – Los Angeles. | AP}}**

The police attacks on student divestment demonstrators in the U.S. started late on Tuesday night, April 30, in New York, when police used armored military-style vehicles to raid the occupied Hamilton Hall—renamed “Hind’s Hall” by student demonstrators in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israel in Gaza City on Jan. 29. Dozens of people were arrested.

NYPD’s assault on the demonstrations was an instance of history repeating itself. It happened 56 years to the day after police violently cleared an occupation of the Columbia campus by students protesting the U.S. war in Vietnam and segregationist policies regarding the construction of a gym in Harlem.

Radical historian Robin D.G. Kelley slammed Columbia President Minouche Shafik for calling in the NYPD to suppress the encampments on the grounds of “safety.” Pointing to the chemical attack on ceasefire demonstrators that occurred in January for which no arrests were made as well as death threats made against anti-genocide students, Kelley criticized the “blatant dishonesty.”

“You are keeping no one safe, except your donors, your trustees, and the university’s endowment,” Kelley said.

On the opposite side of the country, security officials stood by as supporters of the Israeli government beat ceasefire protesters with metal rods and shot fireworks and chemical agents into the encampment at UCLA.

The counter-protesters started their attacks by tearing down encampment barriers and fences. Eyewitnesses reported that they were screaming “Second Nakba!” referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that paved the way for the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Hours went by before police intervened, and when they did, they focused their attention on encampment protesters rather than those attacking them. California Highway Patrol continued the work of the counter-protesters, ripping apart the encampment’s barricades and tents.

The White House concerned itself more with policing what demonstrators were saying than with what the police were doing to trample on constitutional rights or with the genocide its ally Netanyahu is overseeing. A statement from President Joe Biden condemned the use of the word “intifada,” which means “uprising” in Arabic, as an “anti-Semitic smear.”

Waleed Shahid, a senior Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for Sen. Bernie Sanders, expressed the disappointment of many in the ceasefire movement. “Biden’s team uses harsher language toward 19-year-old students than they do toward far-right Israeli ministers who all but advocate for the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza, a war which has killed over 35,000 civilians.”

Ministers in the Israeli government and their supporters in the U.S. have tried to portray the encampments as anti-Jewish, a tactic to divert attention from the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and silence opposition. Many felt Biden’s initial statement joined in that effort.

In a follow-up press release on Thursday, the president said the National Guard should not be used against the demonstrations, but he declared that “order must prevail.”

In a statement issued from New York, the Communist Party USA dismissed the misleading press coverage of the demonstrations. “Amid concerns about anti-Semitism,” the CPUSA said, “politicians, administrators, and media ignore the fact that a significant number of students and faculty protesting against the genocide in Gaza are Jewish.”

The CPUSA denounced “in the strongest possible terms” the “repression and arrests.” It condemned the crackdowns and situated them as another aspect of university administrations’ “moves to the right” recently on everything from the genocide in Palestine and labor rights on their own campuses to affirmative action and student debt.

Encouraging protesters to “keep the pressure on” for an end to U.S. backing for Netanyahu, the CPUSA said the students and workers are not just standing up for Gaza, but also for constitutional and democratic rights in the U.S.

Labor takes over U.S. streets

**_{^{May Day in Los Angeles. | Eric Gordon / People’s World}}**

Other prominent labor and progressive figures also spoke up for the encampment protesters on International Workers Day.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain declared in a post on X (Twitter), “The UAW will never support the mass arrest or intimidation of those exercising their right to protest, strike, or speak out against injustice.”

The struggle for justice wasn’t limited to college campuses, though. Unions along with broad coalitions of community, immigrant rights, and other progressive groups, initiated marches and rallies in cities large and small across the land.

With inflation still eating up paychecks and corporations announcing wave after wave of layoffs, economic demands were central concerns for many marchers. The importance of having a union on the job was highlighted as the number one way to give workers better financial security for their families.

“When I started my job, I was making $9-an-hour,” home health care worker Boxinett King said at a march in San Francisco, “but now I’m on the way to making $25.50 an hour.” King is a member of SEIU Local 2015 and a leader in the national home care worker movement.

“I know when we have unity, when we stand together, we can fight, and we can win,” King said. “We fight for all; we are making a movement, not just for this generation but for the next generation.”

In several cities, hotel workers with Unite Here led the May Day effort. They are fighting for new contracts with the hotel giants. In Los Angeles, the contracts of 25,000 janitors expired on May 1, so they were among the labor groups at the head of a mass march through Hollywood.

International Workers Day

In Istanbul, Turkish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse thousands of people who tried to break through a barricade and reach Taksim Square, where May Day celebrations are banned. The square holds symbolic value for trade unions. In 1977, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a May 1 there, causing a stampede and killing 34 people. At least 30 people were detained for trying to pass through a police blockade on Wednesday.

In Athens, several thousand people, including Gaza demonstrators, joined marches as strikes disrupted public transport and train services across Greece. The country’s largest union is demanding a return to collective bargaining after workers’ rights were scrapped during Greece’s 2010-18 financial crisis.

“We want to send a message that workers say no to exploitation, no to poverty, no to high prices,” said Nikos Mavrokefalos at the march.

In Paris, thousands of protesters marched through the French capital, seeking better pay and working conditions. Palestine solidarity groups and anti-Olympics activists joined the rally, chanting slogans in support of people in Gaza. Unions have warned of a strike during the Games, which start in less than three months, if the government does not adequately compensate people forced to work during summer holidays.

Government officials have failed to meet with union leaders ahead of the Olympics, said General Confederation of Labour (CGT) General Secretary Sophie Binet. “How do you expect it to go well if the authorities don’t respond to our simplest demand?” she asked.

In South Africa, ceasefire demonstrators joined May Day events, while in Kenya, President William Ruto called for an increase in the minimum wage.

In Iraq, protesters demanded better wages, the reopening of closed factories and the end to the privatization of certain businesses. In Lebanon, ceasefire marchers mingled with workers demanding an end to a miserable economic crisis.

In Indonesia, workers gathered in the capital Jakarta to demand protections for migrant workers abroad and a minimum wage rise.

In South Korea, thousands of protesters shouted pro-worker slogans at a rally against the anti-union policies of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government. In Japan, more than 10,000 people gathered in Tokyo, demanding pay increases to offset higher prices. In the Philippines, hundreds of workers and activists marched to demand wage increases and job security amid soaring food and oil prices.

Workers and activists with the Communist Party of Israel overcame police repression to stage marches and rallies in several of the country’s biggest cities to demand the resignation of the Netanyahu government, the suspension of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and an end to the genocide.

And in the rubble of Gaza on May Day, besieged Palestinians also took action, even if demonstrations or protests were impossible. Photographs emerged showing row after row of Gazans, mostly children, holding signs expressing their appreciation for the encampment movement: “Thanks for your solidarity, Columbia,” along with the names of other colleges were written on signs.

The message of international solidarity, then, was heard loud and clear everywhere on May 1, and it was expressed on a banner unfurled at Columbia University: “Workers and oppressed people of the world, Unite!”

_{We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!}

_{C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People’s World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left. In addition to his work at People’s World, C.J. currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of ProudPolitics.}

Declaration on Mayday 2024 / by the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)

_{^{Image credit: WFTU}}

_{Reposted from the World Federation of Trade Unions}

The World Federation of Trade Unions, the militant, class-oriented voice, representing over 105 million workers who live, work, and struggle in 134 countries of the 5 continents, honors the 138th anniversary of the struggle of workers in Chicago in 1886. A struggle that constituted a lasting milestone of the working class and a bright beacon for the struggles of today and tomorrow, a beacon of the uninterrupted class struggle for stable work with rights, social security, free public, and universal health and education, dignified life.

This year’s May Day anniversary will go down in history as a bloody anniversary. Because while millions of workers around the world organize themselves, demand against the anti-people’s policies of the capital, its governments and the EU, our colleagues in Palestine will be burying the dozens of bodies murdered every day in the genocide that is carried out by Israel. Workers in every corner of the globe will not remain silent in the crime being committed. They will turn every May Day activity into a demonstration of solidarity with the struggling Palestinian people, and of condemnation of the murderous state of Israel and its imperialist allies who in one way or another support the massacre.

***_{Greeks demand pay rises, condemn Gaza war in May Day protest | via eKathimerini.com}***

Similarly, the workers do not remain silent on every other crime committed against the peoples, for the profits of the imperialists and the monopolies. At a time when the planet is dripping blood in various places from military interventions, the international class-oriented trade union movement, organized and decisively, is fighting for peace. We say no to imperialist plans and military conflicts. The struggle for peace has a specific content. It means first and foremost a struggle for the dismantling of NATO and all military coalitions, a struggle to defend the right of every people to choose the path of their economic and social development without interventions, sanctions, blockades, and economic wars. Against the double-standards policy where international law ends up being in practice the law of the powerful ones.

The messages and demands of the Chicago pioneers of 1886 remain relevant today. The crisis of capitalism is generalized and deepens. Social inequalities are widening dramatically. Democratic freedoms and trade union rights, are under attack all over the world.

The high cost of living and inflation are brutally undermining workers’ and pensioners living standards. Τhe right to organize and collective bargaining and the sacred right to strike are under attack.

Individual contracts, privatizations, outsourcing, teleworking and “service leasing” are just some of the forms taken by this harsh neoliberal attack.

Major social achievements such as social security and public health care are being privatized while the authoritarian and arbitrary increase of the retirement age methodically continues.

It is obvious that the burden of the capitalist crisis, is being attempted once again to be put on the shoulders of the working people and the weak popular strata in general.

The workers all over the world do not passively accept the capitalist anti-grassroots, and anti-worker attacks. They refuse to pay the bill of the capitalist crisis. With militant struggles and mobilizations in all corners of the globe, they demand the satisfaction of their contemporary needs. The WFTU and its affiliates are, and will continue firmly being in the vanguard of this struggles!

_{Workers march during a May Day rally in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Thousands of workers urged the government to raise minimum wages and improve working condition. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)}

In this year’s May Day celebrations and demonstrations, the Palestinian flag will wave proudly next to the WFTU’s and its affiliates’ flags. In a spirit of solidarity and internationalism, we firmly stand beside the people of the heroic Cuba, and the peoples who struggle against the murderous sanctions, interventions, imperialist aggression, blockades and economic wars.

On the occasion of May Day 2024, the WFTU calls the class and militant trade unions around the world to organize this year’s campaign and activities under the slogan:

AGAINST THEIR PROFITS, WE RISE UP FOR OUR LIVES!

More Massive and Militant

For the workers’ contemporary needs, against the exploitation!
For democratic and trade union freedoms!
In solidarity with Palestine, against imperialist wars and interventions!

For the class-oriented Trade Union movement, for the workers who resist, who do not compromise with oppression, discrimination and exploitation, there is only one path of dignity: the path of the struggles!

The struggles that have taken place signal hope, show the enormous power of the organized working class, illuminate the path of perspective against capitalist exploitation.

_{The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation of Trade Unions as a single structure for trade unions world-wide, following the World Trade Union Conference in London, United Kingdom.}