Saturday, April 26, 2003The history of Palestine and the Palestinians has been marred by centuries of foreign occupation and repression, with their right to self-determination, equality, freedom, and peace denied. In the 20th Century alone, the Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Jordan and Egypt have each taken their turns at ruling the Palestinians.

In 1948, Israel was formed and became the fifth ruler, placing over 50 percent of Palestine under Zionist rule, though the Palestinians were the overwhelming majority. After the Israeli invasion of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967, Israel conquered the remaining areas of Palestine: the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Both incidents created large waves of Palestinian refugees, accounting for one of the largest refugee populations in the world, who were, for the most part, terrorized and expelled by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Unlike the former rulers of Palestine, Israel is the only ruler to build permanent settlements, expropriate Palestinian land, request taxes while denying suffrage to the Palestinians, deny Palestinians access to roads, services and resources, create a massive refugee population and continue to occupy and rule the Palestinians who are denied legal status and live in limbo.

The Socialist Party of Michigan recognizes this historical plight of the Palestinians and supports their national right to be free from foreign control and to live in dignity. To this end, we demand:

1. The immediate, unconditional and unilateral withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces from all lands occupied in the 1967 invasion;

2. An end to the $3 billion a year aid given to Israel by the United States. The governments and corporations of the World, in particular those of the U.S., must also halt all sales of military and civilian equipment that could be used by Israel against the Palestinian people;

3. An immediate halt to settlement building, the expropriation of Palestinian land, the Jewish populating of Palestinian-majority cities for the purpose of creating Jewish-majorities and the Zionist ambitions to expel all Palestinians, with the ultimate aim of dismantling and evacuating the present settlements and pave the way for a viable Palestinian state, encompassing all of the territory occupied by Israel in 1967;

4. An immediate end to violence against all innocent, non-combatant civilians, in both Israel and the Occupied Territories, committed by either the Israeli Defense Forces or Palestinian guerrillas; the rights of civilian non-combatants must be protected at all times;

5. The immediate release of all conscientious objectors and political prisoners, both Israeli and Palestinian. Israel must respect the right to refrain from military or civil service, and the right to free speech, expression and protest;

6. The abolition of all discriminatory policies within Israel and the Occupied Territories against non-Israelis and non-Ashkenazi (European-origin) Israelis in regard to employment, housing, services, resources, permits and movement; no taxation without equal representation;

7. A solution to the Palestinian refugee problem: either compensation and reparations equivalent to the current value of all property lost at the time each person sought refuge, or immediate return with full restoration of property and citizenship rights, with all costs paid by the State of Israel;

8. The abolition of Zionism as the official ideology of the State of Israel, and the elimination of its theocratic-nationalist character. Zionism is a colonial, racist and xenophobic ideology that contradicts the essence of democracy, equality, freedom and secularism. The so-called “Jewish character” of Israel inhibits it from providing equality to all its citizens;

9. A democratic and secular Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and cooperation, and hopefully working toward a unified federal republic. Israel should give to the newly formed State of Palestine all taxes collected from the Palestinians, since 1967, to be used to rebuild Palestine’s infrastructure and fund universal education and health care, and other social services.

The Socialist Party of Michigan supports the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. We support armed resistance as a legitimate means of self-defense, aimed at ending the occupation. We also support and encourage worldwide demonstrations, strikes, rallies, boycotts and divestment actions, and the use of civil disobedience and other non-violent means and cooperation between all ethnic, national and religious groups to end the occupation and achieve peace and security for everyone in the region.

Saturday, March 22, 2003The Socialist Party of Michigan (SPMI) opposes and condemns the attack on Iraq in the strongest possible terms. We stand with the majority of people in the United States and around the world in opposing this unilateral war of aggression and conquest.

This war is illegal, immoral and unjust. It is a predatory war for the benefit of American and British petroleum companies, many of whom have close ties to the Washington government. The Bush regime, the Republicans and most Democrats in Congress have joined together to bring misery and death to the people of Iraq. It is no coincidence that the first casualties of this war were civilians — mostly women and children.

Bush and his cohorts have chosen to spend billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to invade and occupy Iraq in order to “stimulate” the bottom lines of capitalist industries, many of which have close ties to the Republican Party. Meanwhile, critical social services like education, housing, healthcare and local infrastructure are ignored and allowed to collapse.

At a time when there appears to be no end in sight to the economic recession and crisis, Bush and his generals are spending billions in a cynical oil and land grab. Cost projections for the first year of war and occupation range between $90 and $300 billion. At the same time, the State of Michigan estimates its current budget deficit at around $2 billion.

The money that Bush is pouring into this war could easily alleviate the financial shortfalls in the budgets of every state in the Union, including Michigan — money that would go to fund school arts programs, college scholarships, fixing roads and highways, job training and unemployment benefits, and providing healthcare for every resident.

Washington claims this is a war of “liberation,” and that “democracy” will be product of the American occupation. The SPMI rejects this argument as pure propaganda. We do not forget that Bush came to occupy the White House through a coordinated campaign to rob African American voters in Florida of their rights. No government that came to power through such undemocratic and illegitimate means could ever export “democracy.”

Because of this, we also reject the idea that the United States has the right to demand “regime change” in Iraq or any other country. It is the sole right and responsibility of the people of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. They are the ones who have suffered for decades under his regime, itself the product of a U.S.-sponsored coup in the 1960s. “Regime change” begins at home — whether your home is in Baghdad or Detroit.

The Socialist Party of Michigan calls on all those opposed to war to join and build the antiwar demonstrations happening across the state in the coming days and weeks. These protests represent the real democracy that we are all taught embodies “America.” They are the main obstacles at the moment to the Bush agenda of endless wars, unionbusting, racist repression and destruction of our democratic rights.

It is the people’s organization and democracy against the capitalists’ police state and misery. One must defeat the other. The SPMI will work with anyone who wishes to achieve the people’s democracy.

Saturday, January 25, 2003

The socialist Left is and has been for decades split and bitterly divided. There are good historical reasons for this and real political differences. But there are also artificially magnified hatreds and deeply grooved, knee-jerk, reactions often based on events that took place decades before, with little or no consideration that an organization’s membership and even programmatic perspective may have changed. We tend to ignore or dismiss each other out of hand without ever or just rarely tuning in. The fact is that left and revolutionary socialists disagree with each other on only a handful of issues and many if not most of these perceived differences are tactical and secondary in nature and not principled ones.

We stand on the eve of tremendous social and political upheaval. The world’s ruling classes are not as strong as they pretend. There are deep divisions and signs of worried apprehension about the fate of their system. The masses of the world itch for revolution. Even in this bastion of imperialism, ever deeper layers of the population are becoming angered and fed up as their lives disintegrate. There are mammoth opportunities for socialists just around the corner, including what has already become a mass anti-war movement.

In this context it is time to dramatically speed up the pace of efforts toward regroupment and unified front cooperation among left and revolutionary socialists. To not thus put aside our customary sectarian and ingrown, inbred rivalries, constitutes a betrayal of our historic duties and mission. We must find ways to work together, not ignoring our real differences, but casting out our contrived and exaggerated ones and emphasizing our commonality.

To this end the Socialist Party of Michigan calls for and proposes:

• The formation of a Socialist “roundtable” where representatives of all groups and tendencies will come together to discuss possible avenues of mutual effort.





• Included can be seminars and conferences to discuss and debate political questions, although this by far is not the most important area of interaction.





• The formation of a permanent united caucus of left and revolutionary socialists, set up to facilitate intervention into existing and upcoming movements, union and strike struggles, peoples’ organizations, etc.





• The eventual building of a united electoral entity (something like, but not limited to the nature of the Peace and Freedom Party of California) where all socialist groups would have proportional representation in the selection of candidates for public office, all groups agreeing on a basic set of principles, but also free to run and campaign on the basis of their own program. This tactical concession to reality would allow us to pool our efforts and labors for going through the arduous task of petitioning to get on the ballot under an actual party label rather than each group struggling to do so on their own, something none of us are able to do at the present. Some socialist groups will, of course, reject this approach and opt for other or no electoral action.