This week, Mozambique led the other nine non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to pass the first Security Council resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It is only temporary, covering only the remaining two weeks of Ramadan. The US, facing domestic and foreign pressure, abstained. It then quickly moved to undermine the resolution, falsely claiming it was “non-binding”.
Here we see the continuing influence and impotence of Empire. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has not only turned it into a global pariah. It has deeply cracked the fresco of hegemony that sits on top of naked US power.
When hegemony is operating effectively, a narrow interest — of a state or a class — is substituted for the general interest. Think of references to the “international community” in the 1990s and 2000s, which typically referred only to the US and its subordinates, or how stock market performance is taken as a proxy for national wellbeing in much of the media.
But that narrow “international community” now stands isolated and is shrinking further. The pendulum of moral leadership has swung from the Global North to the South.
This world-historical shift in the international system is now well underway. Its impacts will be felt in Palestine and stretch to all corners of our planet. Countries of the South have led the opposition to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians: Brazil, Indonesia, China, Colombia, Yemen and South Africa all contributing.
In the North, this process is having a radicalising effect on sections of the population. The US American, British and German elites that back Israel to the hilt increasingly find themselves out of step with the public at large — and respond with repressive measures that only accelerate the people’s radicalisation. Most want an end to the violence — and an end to the arms sales that facilitate it.
Millions have joined protests for Palestine, joining the mutiny against violent domination that is well underway in the South. This political pressure is shrinking the roster of subordinate states that the US can rely on. The UK, usually the reliable little brother of Empire, voted for Mozambique’s UNSC ceasefire resolution this week. Fresh from criticising US President — and proud Irish-American — Joe Biden to his face for his role in the genocide, the Irish government has announced it is joining South Africa’s case under the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice.
Nevertheless, the genocide continues. Weapons from across the Global North continue to destroy Palestinian lives. Famine stalks the land — a deliberate weapon of war. The damage — to health, infrastructure, psyches — is mounting and will last a very long time.
We must speed up the process of isolating the US empire and its support for Israel to bring the devastation to an end as quickly as possible. That means more political pressure, more marches, more blockades, more arms embargoes, more direct action, more coordination, the full panoply of tactics but all moving in the same direction: squeeze the US-Israeli war machine so Palestine can breathe.
But once the Palestinians have a space to breathe, we will have the opportunity to go much further, both in Palestine — for full national liberation, at last — and in the world system.
US empire and multinational capital cannot be allowed to claim they act in the interest of humanity. They are our oppressor, not our worthy leaders.
Today, the pendulum swings. Our task is to push it further.
NATO was founded 75 years ago on 4 April 1949. Since then, it has been a force for reaction, division, and war — both within Europe and beyond it. On its 75th anniversary, progressive forces around the world are mobilizing to stop NATO. You can join an action or plan your own here.
On Tuesday, the UK High Court offered a glimmer of hope that Julian Assange will be freed. The Court ordered the US to provide further assurances that Assange would be able to rely on the US First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, wouldn’t be discriminated against due to his foreign national status and wouldn’t face the death penalty.
The US will seek to provide these assurances, which will then be debated in a further court hearing on 20 May. What those assurances can be worth from a state that plotted to assassinate Assange remains to be seen.
The Progressive International was present at the High Court on Tuesday, with Council member Jeremy Corbyn showing his support to the crowd and media present. Watch his interview with Democracy Now here.
On Wednesday, PI Council member and British MP Zarah Sultana organised 134 of her fellow parliamentarians from a range of political parties to call for an immediate suspension of UK arms sales to Israel. The demand is the latest move from politicians from arms exporting countries seeking to end their countries’ complicity in Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
As part of the Honduras Resiste campaign, the PI sent an international delegation to the island of Roatán. The delegation visited Crawfish Rock, the community that sits directly alongside Próspera, a US-owned corporation that operates as a special economic zone (known as a ‘ZEDE’) on the island.
Próspera seeks more than $10 billion — one-third of Honduras’ GDP — as compensation for the country’s decision to overturn the “ZEDEs” law that forfeited Honduran territory to foreign corporations like Próspera to found private cities that operate almost without regard for labour, environmental, or health regulations.
The PI delegation — which included Guillaume Long, Ana Caistor Arendar, José Miguel Ahumada and Christian Pino — travelled to Roatán to hear directly from the community affected by the Próspera ZEDE. Crawfish Rock is home to a few hundred people of mostly English-speaking Black Caribbean descent, who are concerned about what is going to happen to their ancestral land. Members of the community spoke of how "the ZEDE is destroying the beach, the mangroves, and the forest.”
"We are a free, sovereign and independent country and they need to follow our laws, just like in any other country."
More than 200 workers went on strike for two days on Wednesday and Thursday of this week at an Amazon warehouse near Birmingham, England. The workers are demanding both a £15-per-hour minimum pay rate and recognition for their union, the GMB.
Brigitte García, Ecuador's youngest mayor, has been murdered. The Progressive International stands in solidarity with her friends, family, constituents and with the Citizens Revolution, the political movement to which she belonged.
PI Wire partner Mercé is joining forces with Théâtre le Levain, led by long-time PI translations volunteer and friend Attila Piroth, to launch the Hungarian edition of Working Class History — an initiative that will see them publish Hungarian translations of books by a number of PI Council members. You can read more about the initiative and offer your support here.
Art: The Future is Collective Liberation is a limited edition artwork created especially for the Progressive International by esteemed creative and podcast host Kamea Chayne.
The old-growth olive tree represents the Palestinian people’s rootedness to their land through 100’s of years of cultivation despite an ongoing Nakba. The tree has regenerated in full following previous severing of branches. It extends past the borders of a red sunrise, reminding us that each day brings new possibilities for transgressing oppression.
