The Palestine solidarity encampment movement has come to Canada. This escalation of the struggle is a breath of fresh air.

On Friday 26 April, heavily armed Israeli police raided the Nazareth offices of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI), and the Hadash coalition of which it is part, on the eve of the perfectly legal annual May Day rally. This disgraceful violation of democratic rights shows the utter hypocrisy of the imperialists who justify their support for Israel’s slaughter in Gaza with references to this being ‘the Middle East’s only democracy’. We extend our full solidarity to members of Hadash and the CPI in the face of repression by the Zionist state.

Student activists have escalated the Palestine solidarity movement significantly over the past week, establishing encampments at campuses across the country. The goal of the students is to divest—that is, cut all financial ties—from companies that are aiding Israel’s war.

Across the United States over 60 universities and colleges have seen students and faculty organising encampments in a growing movement against the massacre in Gaza. A whole generation is being politicised and drawing conclusions about the nature of imperialism, the role of the police and the state and the need for collective action.

Protests against Israel’s American-backed genocidal onslaught in Gaza are escalating on campuses across the country. On April 17, students at Columbia University in New York City set up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” demanding the university divest from Israel and companies that profit off the slaughter. The protest coincided with Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s appearance at a Congressional hearing aimed at slandering the Palestine solidarity movement as

On Thursday 18 April, 28 workers were fired in retaliation for their occupation of offices in California and New York in protest against Google’s assistance to the Israeli military through ‘Project Nimbus’. The draconian action of the Google bosses against these brave workers shows their determination to stamp out this example. They know that without the permission of the working class, the imperialists’ war machine would grind to a halt.

A new Nakba is not only a dream of the Israeli far right, but would also be a profitable opportunity for the ‘free market’. Several western companies are speculating in the occupied Palestinian territories, and the banks have promoted this with more than $300 billion in investments and shares already tied up in the territories.

On Saturday 13 April, Iran announced that it had launched an attack on Israel with over 300 drones and missiles. That afternoon, Joe Biden left the comfort of his beach house in Delaware and hurried back to the White House amidst a looming sense of crisis. The same night, the President met with members of the National Security team regarding the unfolding missile attacks in the White House Situation Room. 

On Sunday 31 March, the Turkish masses inflicted the biggest electoral defeat on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to power more than 20 years ago. These local elections returned a vote against Erdogan rather than one for the bourgeois opposition, which inspired little enthusiasm. Nonetheless, these elections are symptomatic of a storm of anger that is wearing down Erdogan’s authority. His days could be numbered.

Establishment politicians have decried Israel’s killing of aid workers in Gaza, including several Britons. But the truth is that Sunak, Starmer, and the rest of the Westminster warmongers have blood on their hands. We say: overthrow their system!

Below, we publish an article sent to us by a young Israeli communist who has been living abroad. After refusing to serve in the IDF, this young comrade faced serious personal repercussions. But after being arrested at a Palestine solidarity protest, he was stripped of his Israeli citizenship and told he would no longer be able to return to Israel. This is a scandalous violation of the most elementary principles of democracy.

The term “to shed crocodile tears” derives from the fact that crocodiles have been noted to shed tears as they consume their victims. According to the Collins Dictionary, the meaning of the saying is “to pretend to be sad or to sympathise with someone without really caring about them.” Crocodiles do indeed produce tears, but they serve to keep the eyes clean and lubricated and are in no way connected to emotions. Today, we have many crocodiles in human form – they are called Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Secretaries, newspaper editors, and so on. But Biden stands out clearly as the Chief Crocodile.

The 10 March deadline for the attack on Rafah has come and gone, and there is no attack yet. Could it be that Netanyahu is having second thoughts? The answer to that is clearly, no. The Israeli government is manoeuvring under pressure from outside, in particular from the US administration, while at the same time being internally divided. Is the US pressure due to humanitarian concerns on the part of Biden? The answer, again, is no. The US continues to support Israel in its genocidal onslaught on the Palestinian people, as testified by its increased military aid. So why the delay in the attack?

On 25 February, 25-year-old US airforce serviceman, Aaron Bushnell, took his own life by self-immolation outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, in protest at US imperialism’s support for the crimes being carried out by the IDF. His last words, livestreamed to the world, were: “Free Palestine!” Just days later, IDF soldiers murdered over 100 civilians at an aid convoy in Gaza, embodying the horror and injustice that inspired Bushnell’s act.

The editorial board of marxy.com and communists of the IMT in North Africa and the Middle East are proud to publish a new issue of the magazine Freedom and Communism. This is the 14th issue of a revolutionary magazine that is received with great enthusiasm by the youth of the region, and includes all the articles of issue 44 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, dedicated to marking the centenary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.