The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) applauds the ascent of class struggle, as manifested in the important, prolonged strikes by the social workers, doctors, and the employees of the First International Bank of Israel (Bank Benleumi); as evidenced in the waves of organizing at factories, in private companies, and in the public sector; and as expressed in the campaigns against privatization and in favor of expanding social spending.
May Day in Tel-Aviv, 2010 (Photo: Al Ittihad)
The social workers and doctors, as well as the daycare workers at the Na’amat centers who went on strike, combined a demand for wage increases with demands to improve social services for citizens. By insisting on applying the collective agreement to workers employed in privatized social services, the social workers have accomplished an important step toward consolidating class unity.
The government and the employers continue their close collaboration in implementing privatization policies, with the privatizations of the Eilat port, the national rail company, the Israeli electric company, the education and health systems heading their agenda. In close collaboration with the employers and the leadership of the right-wing Labor Federation (Histadrut), the government has been able to achieve a continuous erosion of wages, while the profits of the financial sector soars and Capital takes action to limit the right to strike. The leadership of the Histadrut, headed by Ofer Eini, has signed damaging collective agreements, which apply to 400 thousand workers in the public sector as to tens of thousands of social workers.
In recent months, we have been witness to popular uprisings both in Europe and in the Middle East. Millions of people in Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and in other places, have been holding demonstrations against “economic recovery” plans and against cutbacks in social spending. The workers and other downtrodden social strata are refusing to pay the price of the global economic crisis, and to underwrite the globalization of Finance and Capital.
Popular uprisings against tyranny and oppression in Arab countries have already led to changes in the leadership of Egypt and Tunis, and are still underway in libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and elsewhere. The popular uprisings have changed the discourse: no regime and no autocracy can continue to ignore the rights and desires of the peoples. CPI condemns the NATO aggressive armed intervention against Libya.
The right wing social and political government led by Benjamin Netanyahu continues to trample workers’ rights, while insisting on expanding settlements, instigating military provocations, and refusing territorial compromise in exchange for peace. The government thus imperils Israel’s citizens with the awful possibility of yet another futile war. The Netanyahu government is panicking about the General Assembly’s anticipated recognition of an independent Palestinian State in the June 4, 1967 borders, slated for this coming September. Instead of viewing this moment as an opportunity to reach a political settlement, the government has been using threats and applying pressure to prevent the two peoples a future of peace and decent neighborly relations.
CPI reiterates that the only path to a just Israeli-Palestinian peace is the evacuation of settlements, Israel’s withdrawal from all territories occupied in June 1967, the establishment of a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside Israel, and a solution to the refugee problem in accordance with UN resolutions.
The right wing circles in government are exploiting the intense social polarization and economic distress, on the one hand, and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian political conflict, on the other, to enflame racist and antidemocratic sentiments, and to pave the way toward a quasi-fascist regime. To do so, they have exploited tactics such as racist and anti-democratic legislation in the Knesset, expropriation of land belonging to Arab citizens (the repeated destruction of the village of El-Araqib in the Negev, for example), the violent repression of demonstrators, home demolitions, and threats of transfer of Arab citizens out of Israel.
CPI warns that continuing occupation and discrimination and the enflaming of national antagonisms and hatred toward Arab citizens, which feeds the increase of racist sentiments among Jewish youth, intensify the dangers to what is left of our democratic sphere. Therefore, a joint Jewish-Arab struggle undertaken by men and women together is necessary to defend democracy, equal civil and national rights for the Palestinian minority in Israel, gender equality and overcome all forms of violence and discrimination.
CPI calls its supporters to mark May Day 2011 with mass events organized by Maki and Hadash, and to participate in mass rallies by Jews and Arabs, joined by workers, residents of underprivileged neighborhoods, students, migrant workers, youth movements, left-wing parties, social and environmental NGOs and women’s organizations.
