The Palestinians in struggle continue to die, but they are no longer news. A few lines lost in a sea of more recent events, some concerning even greater massacres in other parts of the world. It is clear that war and death are still man's favorite sport.
It is impossible however to go into everything that is happening in the world. We must instead focus our interest on situations that we understand best and try to do something about them, at least at the level of counter-information if nothing else.
As far as the Palestinian struggle is concerned, we must underline the importance of an insurrectional struggle that has been going on for over nine months, and which is putting one of the strongest armies in the world in great difficulty.
In spite of the brutal beatings, imprisonment, torture and killing of the young Palestinians and the systematic burning of the homes of the Palestinian people, the struggle continues unabated.
Israel would not be able to continue its war on the Palestinian people were it not for the interests and financial and political support they get from the USA and the European countries that have a vested interest in maintaining the Zionist State.
There have been a number of actions in solidarity in Italy and France, such as pickets of banks and airlines, boycotts and sabotage of Israeli products and demonstrations.
Like the struggle of the South African blacks against apartheid, the Palestinians in struggle need internationalist revolutionary solidarity.
[ Insurrection, Anarchist Magazine, Issue Five, 1988, London, UK ]
PALESTINE: TIME FOR ACTION
With the continuing struggle in Palestine we are growing used to all the levels of horror which the Israeli army is using to try to repress it. But beyond the horror there is also disgust for those who, seeing how things stand, continue to do nothing about it, hiding behind a veil of historical and political justifications.
We are not among those who like to describe all the repressive means that the State studies and uses to try to crush the just rebellion of the oppressed. This is a typically English affectation that has a very negative effect on facing the problem of what is to be done.
But we must make an exception this time. A brief catalogue of the means and the means and the particularly atrocious way they are being applied at this moment in time against the Palestinian insurrection in the occupied territories, should throw anyone with a minimum of dignity into the most profound consternation. Normal tear gas bombs such as those used by the police in Europe, are loaded with chloracetophenone, itself dangerous in a certain concentration in closed places. Those used in Palestine are loaded with dychlorobenzylidene, which is often lethal even in open spaces. It should be borne in mind that those most exposed to these dangers are children, especially in conditions of malnutrition such as those in Palestine.
The old gas spreaders containing about two and a half kilos have been substituted by the 606 Jumbo which spreads 4 kilos of gas, and by the 303 with rubber bullets, which when shot bounce back spreading gas and cannot be picked up. Now the army also possesses the 809 version that can be shot as far as 150 metres, uniting the effects of the gas to the kinetic impact on the body of whoever receives it. As it is mainly a question of old people, women and children, it is easy to imagine the consequences.
The hard rubber bullets first tried and tested in Ireland are now used regularly in Palestine and have caused over 30 deaths in the past 22 months. Some of the bullets contain lead and are deadly at a distance of less than 70 metres. A special machine of recent construction responds to the stones thrown by the young Palestinians with other stones blasted out in huge quantities. A device called the "washing machine" is mounted on an armoured truck and jets a 200 litre spray of foam. This foam solidifies immediately, walling up alive those who get caught in it.
Reconnaissance controls are now carried out by radio controlled helicopters which can lower themselves without running the risks that normal helicopters used to of possibly being struck down by a well aimed stone.
A special ultra light spotter has been perfected to survey the countryside. It is a biplane that costs less than £10,000, flies at a speed of 180 kilometres per hour and requires only 16 hours flight training.
Radio-controlled pilotless reconnaissance aircraft are used to transmit pictures to the operational centre. They fly at a speed of about 75 kph for about 25 minutes at a time.
As well as these new ultrasophisticated means, they continue to use the normal ones that were put into action right from the start of the uprising. One of the most highly equipped and most efficient armies in the world are trying -- without succeeding -- to crush an unarmed people who are rebelling by throwing stones. All the horrors of classical genocide have been used: mass deportations, concentration camps, indiscriminate massacres, destruction of individual dwellings and whole groups of houses, shooting on the spot, violence, rape, attacks on the mosques, attacks on the Red Cross, planned massacres, use of death squads, and the list could go on endlessly.
Be careful comrades. At this moment, the historical conditions that have presented themselves since almost the beginning of humanity are continuing. The spiral of death continues unabated. There are many today who are intent on underlining historical distinctions or insisting on differences, even valid ones, but which date to times too far in the past to be of any value in clarifying the reality of today, of a people dying in the face of the almost total indifference of the world. These people bring to mind the bourgeoisie who lined up under Mazzini's doubts, then in the days of the massacres felt the need to comfort their theses by coming out into the streets and gouging out the dead communards' eyes with the points of their umbrellas. And in the same way those good people near Dachau who, during the extermination of the Jews presented a complaint to the local authorities because the smoke from the "factory" was killing the birds in the nearby trees, are the same ones who today are speaking of the "positive aspects" of Nazism.
The important thing to note yet again is that there is a moment for examining theory, but there is a time when Minerva's bird must go to sleep and this is the time for action and the destruction of the enemy.
Internationalist Action
[ Insurrection, Anarchist Magazine, Issue Six, 1989, London, UK ]
Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories