Locally, and internationally, support for Palestine continues

Written by: Rete dei Comunisti (Italy) on 27 January 2024

 

(Invasion Day 2024   Photo Twitter/X)

At yesterday’s (January 26) Invasion Day rallies, many tens of thousands of Australians marched to demand that the date of Australia Day be changed so that it no longer commemorates the violent seizure of the lands of Australian First Peoples by British colonialism.

At these rallies, it was not uncommon to see Palestinian Australians carrying the Palestinian flag in support of the Australian First Peoples’ struggles, nor to hear First Peoples expressing their solidarity with Palestine.

Both peoples have experienced and are experiencing colonial settler racism and know what each other is going through.

We reprint below a statement from Italy where the fascist government has tried to prevent pro-Palestine demonstrations today (January 27) which, in Italy, is observed as a remembrance day for the Nazi Holocaust of World War 2.

The statement reminds us that reaction everywhere opposes the progressive demands of the people.

The movement against Zionist genocide is world-wide and cannot be suppressed – Eds.
...............
Against the submission of the Italian government to the state of Israel
For the continuity of the internationalist political initiative

A Public Security notice sent to the Questors on the territory orders the postponement of demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine for this weekend.

“As is well known, 27th January is the Remembrance Day, on the occasion of which initiatives, ceremonies and meetings will be held, in observance of Article 2 of the Law of 20 July 2000, No. 211, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and of those who, at the risk of their lives, opposed the project of persecution and extermination. For the same date”, underlines the circular, “in some provinces, initiatives in favour of the Palestinian cause have been announced in connection with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and it is likely that further events with similar aims may be organised on the national territory for the same day”.

The demonstrations referred to in the circular are those that have been held for months all over the world to condemn the Israeli retaliation and collective punishment after the October 7th Operation Deluge of Al Aqsa, and to promote the ceasefire that would bring an end to the Palestinian genocide by Israel.

These mobilisations, initiatives, and direct actions in some countries, including the United States, see the prominence of an important part of the Jewish community.

An important part of world public opinion, starting with that of countries whose governments are accomplices of Israel in the massacre being perpetrated in Gaza and the West Bank, continues to speak out, flanked by a number of states that have supported the South African government’s political-legal action at the International Court of Justice in The Hague to prevent what South African lawyers rightly judge to be – both from the point of view of the subjective will of the Israeli political-military establishment and the incontrovertible objective data – a veritable genocide.

This would theoretically nail the UN international community to prevent this from happening by taking a whole range of appropriate measures from arms embargoes to sanctions to diplomatic isolation.

The popular mobilisations, which are accompanied by an effective worldwide boycott campaign against Israel, in fact take up the ‘spirit’ of those political campaigns that contributed to the fall of apartheid in South Africa, isolating at the time the segregationist regime in Pretoria that was then only supported by Israel and Taiwan.

In this context, under a pretext – apparently at the input of the Jewish communities of Milan and Rome, but clearly on the diktat of Tel Aviv – they want to prevent it from taking place on the very day on which the 17 judges of the United Nations International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled on the transitional measures with respect to the genocide being perpetrated.

The Court rejected the Israeli, and strongly supported by the United States, request to dismiss the case, and although it will take years for a legal judgement on Israel’s actions, the right of the Palestinians to be protected from acts of genocide was recognised.

The court also ruled that Israel must return in a month to report on what it is doing to uphold the order to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, a ruling that creates international legal obligations for Israel.

Returning to the directive of the Ministry of the Interior, this one, with a mix of creativity and bureaucratic nit-picking states, with respect to the mobilisations: “if carried out in conjunction with the aforementioned anniversary, they could assume connotations detrimental, under the formal organisational and content aspect, to the national value that the Italian Republic has attributed with the aforementioned law to the commemorative spirit of the racial laws (...)”.

The circular ends by saying that ‘in the current international conflictual context, the rise of tensions with the consequent risk of negative effects on the maintenance of public and social order’.

So while our country’s involvement in the trend towards war on various fronts - with this week’s vote in Parliament on arms supplies to the Kiev regime and its announced participation in the EU’s Aspide military mission in the Red Sea against the Houthi rebels -, it wants to criminalise dissent to governmental political choices in advance, starting with mobilisations that highlight its complicity with the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians, with a very dangerous precedent being set by centre-left local administrations such as in Milan or Rome.

Because this is genocide, just like the various ‘holocausts’ that took place in the golden age of colonialism, starting with the European one against the Amerindian peoples, the one perpetrated by the young Turkish state against the Armenians, and the one perpetrated by the Nazi-fascists (and their allies) against the Jewish people as well.

Italy, under pressure from Tel Aviv, is aligning itself with the initial unsuccessful attempts by France, Great Britain and Germany to prevent a human tide from rising in solidarity with Palestine by isolating the Israeli government.

We politically denounce this extremely serious act on the part of the Italian government, which undermines the already slim margins of democratic political viability in this country and is the consequence ‘on the domestic front’ of a wicked warlike adventurism.

We call to vigilance all those who in recent months have taken to the streets in support of Palestine and against the ongoing Zionist massacre, to continue with greater determination and lucidity these internationalist initiatives to which we have contributed, and will continue to contribute.

January 26th, 2024

Rete dei Comunisti (Italy)
Cambiare Rotta (Communist Youth Organisation)
Opposizione Studentesca d’Alternativa (OSA)

 

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