International Revolutionary Left sends its unwavering solidarity with the hunger strikers.
While we write these words, four people are still on hunger strike. Two people have paused it after more than 50 days on strike, but vow to continue it. They are part of a group of activists who have been held on remand accused of activities linked to the now British State-proscribed activist group Palestine Action.
Their names are Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed and Lewie Chiaramello.
The British State accuses them of breaking into the Israeli-linked Elbit arms factory and a Royal Air Force site, an organisation which has been accused of giving logistical support and training to the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces). They have, predictably, been treated with extreme prejudice, being held in prison without trial for much longer than the custody limit of 6 months, denied contact with next of kin and solicitors, stopped from associating and moved at will by prison staff. Qesse Zuhrah was only transferred to hospital after a determined long drawn picket by activists, including Zarah Sultana MP.
This is a clear act of retribution against people that, as the bourgeois state always parrots when convenient, are innocent until proven guilty.
Some have started their hunger strike on the 2nd of November, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, and have been on hunger strike for more than 40 days and all are now critically ill. Their demands are simple:
“One: shut down the weapons factories that are supplying arms to Israel. Two: deproscribe Palestine Action. Palestine Action is a direct action protest group and should never have been labelled a terrorist organisation. Three: end the mistreatment of prisoners in custody. Four: set immediate bail.”
They have been met with a wall of silence from both the state and, until very recently, the British press. It follows on the throes of increasing repression of the Palestine Solidarity movement, such as the arrests of activists for marching in London — including Ben Jamal, PSC leader and police interviews Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, the arrest and overturned convictions of activists for challenging their MP, the proscription of Palestine Action and arrest of thousands of people protesting this decision, and the recent ban of the chant “globalise the intifada”.
The Labour movement must act
We need to be honest: that these brave people needed to take such a drastic action constitutes a failure. Not of them, but of the leadership of the labour movement in the UK.
Since the genocide began, wide layers of the working-class and youth have built a mass movement to stop the genocide and to free Palestine:from mass demonstrations — more than 300.000 people in London, and regular demonstrations in cities like Cardiff and Manchester — to workplace actions, boycott and divestment campaigns, banner drops, solidarity events, etc.These actions have been consistent and constant and have helped pressure the state, which was forced to act minimally and cosmetically, recognising the state of Palestine and suspending an infinitesimal amount of trade licences to the zionist state.
Similarly, only the hard work of rank-and-file trade unionists has moved some of the largest unions’ bureaucracy — especially Unison and Unite — to take any kind of action.
Action that has unfortunately fallen very short of what we need.
This is particularly notorious in the hard fought battles inside Unite the Union, where the leadership took a position, as far as March 2024, of not supporting campaigns against arms factories.
Only a protracted struggle by the rank-and-file changed its position, to “support workers' struggles in their workplaces and campaigns for divestment from Israeli companies in their workplaces and the wider economy.” This testament to lay-led organising has achieved a significant shift, but it is still not enough.
The truth is that even the most combative unions have not put forward a coherent and combative plan, not just to stop the genocide and free Palestine, but to make the necessary and evident links between the fight for a free Palestine and the fight for the liberation of the working-class and the oppressed. They have not only failed to organise consistent action, but to link the oppression of the Palestinian people with the capitalist system that exploits and oppresses all of the working-class. And they have refused, even after international examples — in Italy and Spain — to organise for one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of the working-class: the general strike.
A general strike is vital! Welfare not warfare, Free Palestine.
Even after Italy and Spain, the idea of a general strike in Britain has been largely absent. One excuse used by trade union leadership is that general strikes have been de facto illegalised by the anti-trade union laws, which impose strict conditions. But this just shows how the ruling class trembles at the idea of a general strike.
The wording of the Unite the Union statement belies a more fundamental concept — class consciousness is fluid, and can be changed by combative leadership and organisation. To limit the role of the leadership to one of support disavows its potential, which is not just to “support” but, well, to lead by example and to give the working-class the confidence to act.
It is urgent to organise a campaign that links the billions of pounds and dollars which the ruling class has taken from us — the cuts in services, in health, welfare, the pay cuts and increasing exploitation and oppression, the fall in our living standards — to the money fuelled to arms companies and the capitalist machine that promotes and arms the genocide and occupation in Palestine, in Sudan, all oppression at home and abroad.
This campaign would link all our struggles in concrete terms. The struggle for Palestine liberation, the struggle against racism and the far-right and the struggle against the cuts and for a dignified life are inseparable. They are a struggle against a system that profits of the oppression and the genocide of the international working-class and oppressed and for a system that can replace it with true liberation and equality: a socialist system.
We need to consolidate our demands, connecting the fight to free Palestine to the International working class and oppressed:
- Justice for the hunger strikers;
- End arms trades with the zionist regime;
- Sanction and cut all relations with the zionist regime;
- A general strike for Palestine; for Sudan; for welfare not warfare.
These demands will place us at definite odds with the capitalist system. To achieve them, we need to build a coherent and consequent, revolutionary socialist organisation, which organises and leads the best layers of the working-class and oppressed in the struggle to replace a system that slaughters us by a system that is democratically planned for our needs, aspirations and liberation.
We need to build the combative, revolutionary organisation whose seeds we see in the Palestine solidarity movement, in the anti-racist movement, in the rank-and-file trade union movement, in the class-based fight for combative feminism. It will not be easy, but it will be necessary.
Join the International Revolutionary Left to make it happen.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
