Revolution, Germany
In August 2017, delegates of REVOLUTION Germany were invited to the youth camp of the “Independent Youth Union” in Palestine. Below, we publish the statement the comrades addressed to the meeting in English and Arabic.
Be it at the gates of Al Haram al Sharif, in the squares of the Arab spring or on the streets protesting against the G20-summit in Germany, the youth are always present on the front lines of the fight against crisis, war, occupation and oppression. To take their resistance forward, youth around the globe need a new Youth International that unites their struggle with a revolutionary programme against capitalist exploitation, which is the root of crisis, war, poverty, racism and sexism.
REVOLUTION (aka. REVO) is an international communist youth organisation, present and active in Germany and Austria, with a political commitment to fighting exploitation and discrimination. Since capitalism is a universally exploitative system, REVO stands in solidarity with all the progressive struggles of youth and workers around the world.
On the 27th of July of this year, more than 100,000 people in Jerusalem and Occupied Palestine, amongst whom the majority were youth, took to the streets to protest against aggression and the policies of the Israeli occupation forces. Their resistance has been a sharp response to the ongoing expulsion and colonisation of the Palestinian people! The defence of Haram al Sharif and the fight for security-barrier-free access is not only a question of freedom of religious practice but goes far beyond that to a historically rooted struggle against the Zionist State’s ever sharper attempts and policies to erase the presence of Palestinians; the native people of the land. Our full solidarity, therefore, goes to the Palestinian youth whose resistance has once again proven their courage in standing against the repression and expulsion by the Zionist State of Israel.
The German bourgeois ruling class and its security apparatus dedicate all their agencies, including the Police and the Bourgeois-owned media, to tightening the grip on and to demonise socialist leftist organisations, to defame Palestine solidarity activists and to oppress our organisations’ anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist mobilisations, most recently our legitimate protests against the G20 Summit in Hamburg, which was met by brutal police violence, tear gas, water cannons, security profiling and other tools of youth oppression. Be it in Hamburg or Jerusalem; when injustice becomes a divine law, resistance becomes an obligation by which we stand up against every form of repression imposed on our struggles and demand the immediate release of all imprisoned comrades and friends in Palestine, Germany and elsewhere.
While the German State was historically complicit in the occupation of Palestine, today, this imperialist state delivers arms, weapons and unconditional political support to the Zionist State of Israel in order to attain geo-strategic advantages in the “Middle East”. This is one of the reasons why, for us, solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom starts here, by fighting against the German State’s foreign policy and carrying on in parallel the Palestinian struggle to our streets. Our resistance against German capital is indivisible from the Palestinian struggle for freedom since this struggle is also directed against the interests of the German capitalists.
The German State, the German police and various right-wing forces constantly attempt to halt us, but our solidarity is unbreakable! Our solidarity with the Palestinian struggle is unconditional and derives from the right of all Palestinians to national self-determination. Nevertheless, we find it essential to criticise the leadership of certain Palestinian movements that, from our perspective, have not succeeded in steering the struggle in the required direction, towards an end to the Zionist occupation. We see the corrupt old leadership within the PA as collaborators with, and loyal allies to, the Israeli State and the imperialists, rather than freedom fighters. Moreover, we see that the Islamic Resistance Movement, “Hamas”, represents the interests of a small, exclusive elite, while the individual Hamas-controlled attack tactics place the resistance within exclusive hands.
We believe in the inevitability of a united, inclusive resistance movement by all strata of the Palestinian masses to end the occupation; for national self-determination and democratic rights on the streets, in the schools, universities, factories and workplaces. This united and inclusive mass struggle should be driven by unity, collective organisation, coordination and solidarity between the working class, the oppressed and the youth. For this, they need a new revolutionary party with a clear socialist programme that can overthrow Zionism. Meanwhile, the Israeli proletariat has to abandon its Zionism, give up the privileges it has attained at the expense of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, acknowledge the Palestinian right to national self-determination and join the anti-Zionist struggle on the side of the Palestinians in order to free itself.
In parallel, the Palestinian struggle for liberation is indivisible from the struggle for freedom and democracy in the wider regional context. Just as the imperialist countries support the State of Israel with weapons and finance, so they also endorse and arm dictator regimes that serve their interests, from Erdogan in Turkey, Al-Sisi’s military regime in Egypt to the Al-Saud Monarchy in Saudi Arabia. Only a region free from imperialist aid, NATO-bases and capitalist corporations can be a liberated one.
The imperialist states dream of a “Two-State-Solution” in which a geographically besieged Palestinian mini-state faces a highly armed nuclear State of Israel with its free access to the sea, airspace and land. We do not believe a Two-State-Solution will reclaim freedom and sovereignty for the Palestinian people. Instead, we stand for a multi-ethnic, inclusive, secular, socialist state where nationalisation and democratic control of production, finance and trade can guarantee the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees to their lands to live under conditions of justice, freedom, and social equality.
We are here to announce our solidarity with your struggles and offer you our hand! Let us discuss ways, methods, and programmes towards the liberation of Palestine and the building of a new Youth International. Let us advance the international cooperation of our organisations! Long live international solidarity!
REVOLUTION
International Communist Youth Organisation – Germany
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