Incredible scenes in Tel Aviv. On Saturday, August 7, over 300,000 took to the streets of a city with a population of less than half a million. Other demonstrations also took place on Saturday, with 30,000 gathering in Jerusalem, and thousands gathering in other cities across the country. The total figure of demonstrators is difficult to estimate, but it could be anything between 400,000 and half a million, in a country of 7.7 million inhabitants. Amongst the familiar demands for “social justice”, a number of banners could be seen bearing the slogan, “Resign, Egypt is here.” Tellingly, resign was written in Arabic.

We republish here this video report from the Real News Network which illustrates the points we made yesterday in the article by Walter Leon and Daniel Morley

All the 223 oil workers at Shiwashok oil company in Kurdistan Iraq have begun an open-ended strike since 05:00 this morning, August 1, 2011, which has stopped the work of the entire field.

The latest news coming out of Israel is that municipal workers across the country have declared a one-day general strike in support of the wave of protests sweeping Israel, taking place today [Monday, August 1]. This is a hugely significant step, as it begins to link Israel’s powerful industrial labour movement with the political demands of the wider youth and working-class, something which has not happened on a large scale for decades.

Friday 8^th July saw the largest protests since the departure of Hosni Mubarak as tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo, and thousands more came out to protest in other cities across Egypt, such as Alexandria and Suez. Material conditions have not improved for the workers and youth of Egypt, and Tahrir Square has once again become a visible epicentre of the revolution.

The scathing remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Barak Obama for suggesting that the ‘two state solution’ should be based upon the pre-1967 borders, just before boarding the plane to Washington for a state visit, exposed the diplomatic weakness of the imperialist leaders.

Dramatic events are taking place in Yemen. The rule of Saleh is clearly finished, and the combined powers of Saudi Arabia, the US, the EU and all that is reactionary is manoeuvring in order to crush the revolution. This, however, will not be an easy task. Now is the time to finish the regime! All that is lacking is a bold leadership that is up to the task.

The situation in Syria is reaching boiling point quickly and confirms our previous perspective that the regime is on its way to being overthrown. Last Friday, The Friday of the Children of Syria, saw a qualitative change in the revolutionary movement.

The last few weeks have seen an unprecedented public dispute between the president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The dispute officially erupted over Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of Heydar Moslehi, the minister of intelligence who was fired by Ahmadinejad (officially he resigned himself) on April 17, but was then reinstated later the same day by a direct decree from Khamenei. Following Khamenei’s decision to reinstate Moslehi – that was done in a particularly humiliating manner first in a personal letter to Moslehi and then in a public address – Ahmadinejad embarked on an 11 day boycott of his cabinet meetings and many other official meetings.

The revolutionary wave sweeping through the Middle East has acquired a new dimension with the eruption of the Palestinian masses along Israel's borders last weekend. Every 15 May, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba (catastrophe) of the declaration of independence of the state of Israel on 15 May 1948. In recent years, protests have been marked by clashes between Israeli security forces and stone-throwing Palestinian youths, but yesterday was the first time the commemorations took on a more widespread and militant character. 

The revolutionary uprising of the Syrian masses has left many among the Syrian left confused and perplexed. Many of the so called “progressives” and “lefts” have taken a negative attitude towards the revolutionary movements, in some cases going as far as repeating the propaganda of the regime regarding “an imperialist conspiracy”, “Muslim extremists”, and “agent provocateurs”. But all this completely misreads the situation.

In 1977 around 34 people were killed in Istanbul’s Taksim Square when snipers opened fire on the unarmed May Day rally. And between 1978 and last year May Day rallies were banned from being held there. That changed last year when for the first time after 33 years workers once more were able to gather in Taksim Square. Following on from last year’s lifting of the ban, this year’s May Day rally was the largest at Taksim Square since 1977.

The Syrian revolution has taken a significant and possibly key turn today after what has been a very bloody week. As thousands of protesters once again took to the streets, the regime has unleashed the most barbaric repression, no doubt gambling on the idea that total repression can stop the movement. But cracks are now appearing within the armed forces.

We have received two letters that give a very interesting insight into what is happening in Syria. In spite of the regime's combination of repression and concessions, the movement that initially began with the youth continues to build up and spread to other layers of society.

In today's [April 8] demonstration on Tahrir Square (Baghdad), the youth marched towards the bridge in order to cross to the Green Zone, and chanted the slogan of “Ousting the System”. The security forces – under the "General Commander of the Armed Forces" Mr. Nouri Al Miliki gave orders to detain and torture all the organizers of the demonstration. Division 11 of the Iraqi army (army intelligence) took pictures of all the demonstrators including the OWFI women. The same division used civilian cars to arrest tens of demonstrators into detainment.