The High Court of Puttalam last Tuesday (12) acquitted poet and teacher Ahnaf Jazeem of the charge against him framed under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), three and half years after his wrongful arrest. The acquittal is based on the failure of the State to prove the alleged offence, as none of the State witnesses testified against the poet. In spite of the established fact that the whole case was concocted, the Court refused to declare the prosecution as “frivolous and vexatious” and denied awarding any State costs to Ahnaf.
Ahnaf Jazeem
Ahnaf was arrested, at his home at Mannar, by the police Counter Terrorism and Investigation Division (TID), on May 16, 2020, in the climax of the anti-Muslim racist campaign of the government of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as part of a broader onslaught on the democratic rights of the working people. The government endeavoured to link Ahnaf to Easter Sunday terror attacks of April 21, 2019, and to the “Save the Pearls” organization, one of the patrons of which was the human rights lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah, who was also wrongfully arrested, detained for months and prosecuted in connection with the Easter Attack.
In view of the severe economic crisis the then administration of former president Maithripala Sirisena was confronted with and the presidential elections scheduled for November 2019, the post-Easter Sunday arrests, detentions and prosecutions of hundreds of Muslim youth and political leaders, and the continuous surveillance of Muslim community areas, heightened under Rajapaksha government, were intended to humiliate and intimidate Muslims and fan racialist sentiments within a section of vulnerable Sinhalese majority of the island.
With the subsequent revelations of the facts behind the Easter Sunday Attack and of the complicity of the ruling elite in the attack or in not preventing the attack well-known by the intelligence apparatus, people largely came to cognize the true nature of the racist crack-down upon Muslims, intended to divide the working class on ethnic lines. These revelations along with the unprecedented economic and financial crisis and corruptions widely discredited Rajapaksha government, leading to the mass struggles (also called “Aragalaya” in Sinhalese) of the April-August 2022, that toppled the regime in last August.
The eldest son of a poor farmer’s family, Ahnaf was 26 years old when arrested, and was employed as a Tamil language teacher in a private international school named, “School of Excellence”, whose dormitory, where Jazeem stayed with about 15 students, was housed temporarily in a building owned by the “Save the Pearls”. Ahnaf had by then published a poetry anthology titled Navarasam (Nine Moods). The arrest notice alleged him for “publishing books and teaching students on (Muslim) extremism and racism“. This reference to the book was to Navarasam.
Ahnaf was unlawfully detained under the hand of Rajapaksha for 13 months and remanded for another 6 months, until he was bailed out by the High Court in mid December 2021. During the period of detention, he was kept incommunicado for several intermittent weeks, denied meeting with parents or lawyers for months, physically and mentally tortured and forced to confess and admit allegations which TID leveled against him in Court reports. TID kept the poet tied to a table in handcuffs, day and night, for over five months.
Ahnaf’s lawyers filed a fundamental rights case in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in April 2021, along with authoritative translations of the poetry book. The Attorney General filed the indictment against him in mid August 2021 under Section 2(1)(h) and 2(2)(ii) of the PTA. The charge had dropped the TID’s allegations made in respect of the poetry book, as by then it was widely known that the poetry book contained nothing advocating racial violence or Muslim extremism. Ahnaf was charged for “indoctrinating” his students with ideas “to arouse feelings of racialist or religious or communal ill-will or hatred between different races or religions”, during a two-month period at the end of 2019. If the offense was proved, Ahnaf would have been subjected to imprisonment upto 20 years.
During the trial, State led evidence of the principle of the School of Excellence and 4 of Ahnaf’s students. One of the students was even declared by the State counsel to be an adverse witness. Most revealingly, another student testified to the fact that the statement obtained from him was not read out to him before his signature was taken on the statement. Sri Lanka police, especially the TID and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), are notorious for obtaining forced confessions/statements from arrestees, which would be used against them in court under the PTA. Thus, the acquittal was made under Section 200(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which dispenses with the requirement of the defence opening its case.
Second from left is Ahnaf’s father, third his mother. First from the right is his brother, third Ahnaf and fourth is this writer. Two other lawyers are standing next to Ahnaf and this writer. They pose for the photo just after Ahnaf’s acquittal.
While knowing very well that the case against Ahnaf is a frameup, as a cover-up, the ministry of defense enlisted Ahnaf in a list of designated persons related to terrorist financing for two consecutive years since 2022, and confiscated his bank accounts, where there was no penny. In spite of appeals, Ahnaf still remains in the blacklist, and so, is unemployed.
Ahnaf’s freedom was secured by the masses. The campaign, “Defend Poet Ahnaf” initiated early 2021 by the Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression (ACDAE) and the World Socialist Web Site for the immediate and unconditional release of Ahnaf gathered widespread support from academics, journalists, artists, working class youth and other sections of the middle class, cutting across ethnic divisions. A number of local and international organizations, including the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, supported the defence campaign and called for the poet’s immediate release.
The betrayal of the unprecedented mass struggles of 2022 by the trade unions and the pseudo-left paved the way for the parachuting of Ranil Wickremasinghe as the President following Rajapaksa’s ousting. Committed to saving the crippled financial system, Wickremasinghe entered into a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and launched severe austerity measures which included import restrictions, price hikes, drastic lowering of the income tax threshold, privatization, commercialization, pension aimed domestic debt restructuring and large subsidy cuts.
To suppress the anti-austerity protests by the working people and students, Wickremasinghe brutally deployed military and the police, arresting several hundreds. Social media activity was highly censored and activists and journalists were attacked, arrested and prosecuted. Far right racist elements were given a free hand to contain social unrest. The whole parliament has been largely discredited among the working class, farmers and a significant section of the middle class.
This greater unpopularity of the whole ruling establishment and the constant watch by the masses of the development of Ahnaf’s prosecution prevented the government interfering with the witnesses, so that the truth finally prevailed. History is witness to the fact that, in a different political climate, “truth” would have been shown to be proven otherwise.
Few weeks back, another victim of the same anti-Muslim campaign, activist Ramzi Razeek was discharged from the case filed by the CID. Arrested one month prior to Ahnaf, Razeek was kept in remand for five months. Later, in mid November, the Supreme Court declared that his fundamental rights had been breached by the government and awarded rupees one million compensation. Learned from recent mass struggles, the court has stepped in to save the system, not taking the risk of the people losing its last bit of trust in every organ of the parliamentary democracy.
The ruling class is well aware that it sits on a social powder-keg. As with other right-wing governments of the world, the Sri Lanka government has no option but resorting to military police measures to face the rising militant class struggles. Defence of the democratic rights is a task of the working class, and that requires the uprooting of the rotten capitalist political system. This needs the independent mobilization of the working class and all those who defend democratic rights around committees of action that will unite the working class across ethnic lines and organize industrial power to win political power to implement socialist policies.
An Open Letter to the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Sri Lanka
Dear comrades,
On November 19th, Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Sri Lanka held the second meeting of 3 meetings under the title “Stop the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in GAZA” in Galle at the Galle de Galle Auditorium. There, comrade Saman Gunadasa, the Assistant Secretary of SEP spoke in the following manner, during his two-hour lecture.
We defend “massacre of civilians, or taking hostages, or every other thing”, that was carried out on October 7th by Hamas, inside Israel, on account of the intolerable oppression that was carried out continuously by Israel. According to him, history runs through such uprisings of the oppressed masses. This is a distortion of the Marxist premise that, written history of all societies hitherto is the history of the class struggle. Marxism or working class has not stood with the petit- bourgeois suicidal methods.
Also during the first meeting of the above mentioned series of meetings held in the Millennium guest house on November 15th, the main speaker, Saman Gunadasa said, “I don’t approve the religious nationalist program of the Hamas organization”, while emphasizing at the same time “ however, I stand with the leadership and the actions of Hamas in the uprising of the Palestinian masses” and so on.
Saman Gunadasa addressing Jaffna meeting
Among the hundreds of articles published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and by the World Socialist Web site (WSWS) on the Palestinian question there has been no room for such a concept.
Instead, they show that the October 7 attack was prompted by a series of attacks on the Palestinians until this moment, starting from the conspiracy of creation of Israel, while they stand against the broad campaign that works to divert the attention of the masses from the roots that caused the entire conflagration. There, we base ourselves from a definite political standpoint. That is, mobilizing the international working class to establish a working-class rule, by sweeping away imperialism and capitalism, root of all crimes.
Gunadasa’s proposal to stand with “Hamas Organization’s existing leadership and its actions” represents a turning away from the Permanent Revolution that says “democratic tasks of national unity and liberation during the period of imperialism can be achieved only by the working class based on the class struggle, armed with Marxist program.”
For his defense, he might say that he has explained that “we defend the right of those oppressed masses to rise”. But he doesn’t explain the political logic behind his standing with the Hamas leadership and its actions, disregarding the concerns of two contradictory classes that represent the oppressed masses and bourgeois Hamas leadership. He will never do that. ICFI wrote against the opportunistic clique including Healey, when Palestine Liberation Movement was elevated instead of emphasizing the independent leadership of the working class, as follows: “Without defining the specific class forces in the nationalist movements, speaking of Palestinian people is once again a political aberration that serves to bury down the critical role of the working class” (How Workers’ Revolutionary Party betrayed Trotskyism, 1973-1985, page 107). History and foundations of Marxist Movement is built up through such a struggle.
However, at the last meeting of the proposed series of meetings held at Colombo Public Library Hall on November 21st, it was very clear that SEP General Secretary comrade Deepal Jayasekera stands opposed to Gunadasa when he emphasized that “we, as the world’s Trotskyist movement, have criticisms against Hamas Organization. They are political criticisms. They are not at all moral”.
“Hamas Organization is a bourgeois nationalist movement. We emphasize the fact that the methods employed by them including the October 7th attack will in no way contribute to the defeat of the Zionist state, nor to the liberation of the Palestinian people. Further, Hamas Organization is based on the support of the bourgeois apparatuses of the Middle East. Its Orientation is towards them. Their appeal is to those governments. Hence, they subjugate the struggle against the Zionist state to the requirements of the bourgeois regimes of the Middle East, and to the settlements they seek to arrange with Israel and the world imperialist powers.
“It has been shown that the workers and the youth around the world don’t have a habit of idly watching the genocidal war being carried out by the Zionist regime of Israel….. We stand in line with these workers and youth in solidarity. We insist to develop these movements as much as possible against the war in Gaza. Further, we in particular, intervene to direct these movements towards the working class. That is the only social force capable of stopping the Imperialist war and Israel invasion.”
Deepal Jayasekera addressing Colombo meeting
The program of the International Committee presented by comrade Jayasekera is clear, and we should say that we work in solidarity with this program. But, the fact that the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the party proposed two different policies that are contradictory to each other, and allowing these two policies to co-exist, as a matter of course, is clear evidence that the political health of the party has degenerated. Gunadasa has publicly expressed his position at two public meetings. Party members, including at least half a dozen members representing the Political Committee or the Central Committee participated in these discussions. The complete video of the meeting has been posted in the SEP Facebook page. Nobody seems to have opposed Gunadasa’s proposal. What does that clearly Indicate? Isn’t it that, within the party, there is room not only to hold working class and non-working-class concepts, but also to campaign for them?
Above all, the fact that in Jayasekera’s speech at the Colombo meeting, there was not even a hint being shown of the danger raised in Gunadasa’s statement showed that such a situation exists within the party. When the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary were talking on the same matter from two extremes, members and friends applauded both of them very generously. Politically, this existence is centrist. Centrist politics creates revolutionaries as well as reactionaries. But, in general, it strengthens opportunism in the party.
Pseudo leftists say that Israel attacks have affected Palestinian princes, capitalists, workers and peasants alike, and therefore it necessitates a solution that all can participate, and for that, one of the two solutions, either a dual state solution or a capitalist unitary state like that of Nelson Mandla’s South Africa is suitable, while they work devotedly to subjugate the world-scale public revolt, developed by the Palestinian genocide, to the capitalist class once again. When representing the rights of the oppressed, while accepting Hamas Leadership, doesn’t Gunadasa’s proposal express allegiance to this reactionary class collaborationist movement that made the working class pay with their blood on many occasions?
Was this a mistake that happened at the spur of the moment? When it was suggested for a general strike during the 2021 Teachers’ struggle, not only the party got frightened, but also those party members who made the proposal were viciously attacked. During the Covid-19 pandemic, having allowed the cremation of Muslim dead bodies in silence, it supported the cruel reactionary proposal of the government that the funeral ceremonies of Muslims should be done according to science. Although a discussion was requested by a few Central Committee members in order to resolve that matter, it was not allowed by the majority of the party apparatus. In 2022, during the public uprising, despite the development of the appropriate perspective and the program with the help of the ICFI, it abstained from intervening in the mass struggles in all possible ways, providing the necessary intervention required by the situation and the necessary leadership. Above all, when a request was made for a discussion to clarify these matters, those comrades including this writer who gave leadership to the SEP-Left group, were expelled en masse.
SEP-Left group stood for developing the theoretical struggle of the party at least since 2014. As was concluded by the 12th plenary session of ICFI in 1992, it understood that rebuilding the Marxist Culture that had been deteriorated by opportunism, including Stalinism, is the foremost responsibility of the party, and preparing the party for that task could not be delayed. But, this necessity was ignored by a conservatism that led to avoiding taking necessary turns at the appropriate moment. Conservatism was characterized by the obstacles that impeded the establishment of the Marxist perspective among the working class.
While this was the root of the disputes within the party, party apparatus, instead of solving these problems based on the lessons of the history of the movement, followed the easy path of moving forward disregarding them.
As for Gunadasa, this was reflected by his abstaining from the interventions in the factories of Ratmalana working class centre, where the interventions had been carried out over a long period. For a long time, not even a report had been published at least to reflect that there’s a working class there. Instead, he recently announced a fake railway action committee. No matter how much the subjective desire for the revolution is, the skepticism about the struggle that should be carried out for the political perspectives within the working class, opens the door for such frauds.
In order for them to organize themselves to adapt to these conditions, the party apparatus needed to get rid of the SEP-Left who opposed it. Appointing yes-men, who were not politically tested or who were incapable of taking political leadership, to the Central Committee and the other main committees, was one step taken by them. The nature of their politics is already apparent by now. Just consider the political fraud carried out by Aruna Malalagama – the businessman, who was newly appointed to the Central Committee – together with his local secretary Ratnasiri Malalagama. He announced a Southern Province action committee. He and Ratnasiri announced a series of action committees, such as those of cinnamon peelers, garment workers, Tangalle farmers and of hotel workers. Establishment was reported on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) too. One who has at least a scant respect of the history of the authentic struggle of the reputed website and of the party would not drag the party to the risks posed by such lies. The so-called hotel committee that Malalagama announced, calling the workers of his hotel by force, was maintained for a few days through creating a fear in them of losing their jobs. What has been done there was causing disgust for the very same organizational structure of the action committees.
The frenzied desperation in Gunadasa’ effort to disrupt the online public meeting organized by the Colombo Action Committee, which was the only organization that actively defended the artist and freedom of expression within the working class against her arrest, by unruly intruding into the midst of it, levelling unfounded allegations against the members of the Committee, is an indication of the abyss, the party has fallen into. Today, the very same person suggesting to stand with bourgeois Hamas is not surprising.
This also reveals that, when the entire party apparatus attacked the Marxist position on the national democratic right of self-determination – that it can be attained only through the dictatorship of the working class – Gunadanasa’s appearance as the chief proponent of the attack was not an accident.
The world vacillates between world war and socialist revolution. Preparation of the party for this situation cannot be reduced to mere relying on the word of the International Committee. Party can be prepared only through developing those perspectives in the party and in the class through active practice.
In that sense, investigation of the centrist behaviour expressed by Gunadasa cannot be delayed. On the other hand, his propagation of the anti-Party position must be corrected immediately. The role of individuals like Malalagama, and the question of how the party tolerates such behaviour, must be examined based on the history of the international struggle for building the party.
In order to do this, the party membership must take an initiative, and the theoretical capital that has already been provided by the experiences of the history of the International Committee and the SEP would provide the necessary tools for that. Sections of the International Committee should be built by the leadership and membership of relevant sections, subject to the perspectives and guidelines developed and provided by the ICFI – the perspectives and guidelines the ICFI has developed with the participation of all the sections. It is important to realise that the ICFI cannot substitute for the place of the party membership in this process.
Finally, it should be said that party building is absolutely bound up with the following emphasis of the ICFI: Firstly, explanation of the history, perspective, and the program; Secondly, intensification of the political struggle against opportunism in the working class; Thirdly, turning directly towards the working class physically and consistently.
The Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE), a Kathmandu based think-tank has joined the bandwagon of lies and slanders in rationalizing the Zionist genocide in Gaza against Palestinian people, and is sponsoring war mongers in its public platforms.
On October 31, NIICE had invited former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert to speak on “Israel Palestine Conflict: A Way forward for Peace”. However, rather than being a discussion on ‘peace’, as one would expect as per the topic, the speech and Olmert’s answers to the few questions presented – representing the ideology of the imperialist-backed Zionist ruling class – were simply aimed at justifying war and the Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians.
At the time his speech was being delivered, the Israeli genocidal bombardment in Gaza had continued for three weeks, killing over 8000 Palestinians, over one third of the killed being children. Every ten minutes a kid was being killed. Yet, even from the very start of the programme, neither the speaker nor the moderator showed any empathy or made any reference to this mass massacre of innocent men, women and children.
In explaining the “context” in which the webinar was held, the moderator, Dr. Pramod Jaiswal, the Director of NIICE, referred only to Hamas’ “large scale invasion” of Israel and “offensive attack” on civilian communities on October 07, and not a single word to the carnage in Gaza Strip.The organizer’s intention to suppress any talk of the bloody side of the Israeli onslaught was evident. Carrying on, Olmert, during his speech, referred to this attack several times and the nature of atrocities committed, and endeavoured to portray the Hamas strike as the most unprovoked and unreasonable crime on earth. For both Jaiswal and Olmert, there had been no Palestinian deaths at all, and the history starts from October 07!
Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking on October 31, 2023 at NIICE webinar
Throughout his entire speech, Olmert was talking about how to wage the war, not how to stop it; how to kill more people, and not how to immediately stop a genocide. The speech was filled with lies, slanders and war-mongering.
Hamas’ unprovoked ‘savage’ attack?
Olmert started with usual propaganda lies in respect of the October 07 attack. He said the attackers had carried out the “worst atrocities”: They had “butchered, beheaded, slaughtered” citizens and “raped young ladies in their homes”; “two, three years olds were burnt to death,” he said attemting to assert the “savagery”, “brutality”of Hamas, without any proof whatsoever. It is well known now that the claim of kids to have been beheaded as claimed by Benjamin Netanyahu is wrong.
Admitting that since 1967 Israel controlled Gaza, Olmert lied about illegal occupation: “In 2005, we decided that we don’t want to control Gaza. And we decided to pull out completely from Gaza. …I was the one who initiated this move to pull out from Gaza, because I said we will have to take care of our defence and security, but we can’t continue to be occupiers of other people. Prime Minister at that time General Sharon agreed with me and together we made this dramatic decision and Israel pulled out entirely from Gaza. So from 28th August 2005, Israel does not control Gaza, Israel does not occupy any piece of land from Gaza…but the Hamas organization from day one started to attack the state of Israel. Literally, a day after the Israeli evacuation, Hamas was already shooting short range rockets against Israel townships. Over the years it had spread and expanded into intolerable proportions. Palestinians improved their weaponry system. They were starting to shoot rockets. They were doing it for a very long time.…All these years the Palestinians were trying to penetrate, and not only were they not prepared to negotiate with us, they didn’t want to find a pattern of living alongside the state of Israel without any conflict, particularly since we pulled out and there was no piece of land we occupied which can be claimed by the Palestinians.., And the international borderline is recognized by the United Nations. So there is no question that Israel does not occupy any piece of land. But, in spite of this Hamas was not prepared to negotiate. Over the years we had many such confrontations.”
Collateral Damage
This is what he has to say about civilian deaths crudely referred to as “collateral damage”:
“Finally we started to move ground forces into Gaza. Once we started our ground forces, immediately there was a wave of criticism, emerging from everywhere: Europe, America, from other places criticizing Israel for the collateral damage which is inflicted on non-involved civilians and what they call the humanitarian question..”
Olmert questions, “I need to ask everyone, particularly those who say from the outset, whether they understand Israel’s right to respond and support Israel’s counter-attack against Hamas. How do they think we can counter their [Hamas] attack? They must understand that the Hamas organization is very skilfully stationed, positioned, in the center of towns. The headquarters of Hamas is the ground floor of the biggest hospital in Gaza [A blatant lie and they soon attacked hospitals, causing hundreds of civilian deaths. Israel forces bombed four hospitals including al-Shifa hospital on November 10]. Their bunkers from where they shoot their missiles, the command positions of Hamas, all of them are in the center of towns, many of them are in the ground floor of schools, or hospitals or public facilities. The reason is very simple. They use the civilian population as a human-shield, in order to protect themselves. They don’t really care for the quality of life of the Palestinians. They don’t really care for the possible ramifications of their terrorist actions against us, what it may bear on the lives of the innocent people that live in Gaza. [Is it? Fine. Does Israel care about international humanitarian law? Do Hamas actions rationalize collective punishment, targeting civilians to the extent of ethnic cleansing? genocide?] [parentheses are by the writer]
Olmert’s war and ‘peace’ strategy:
Hamas wants, he says, “to say to the International community, look at what israelis are doing, but we are doing what we can, number one we need to reach out the leaders of the Hamas organization because if we will not eradicate Hamas, if we will not break the ability of Hamas to carry out these terrorist actions, then how can anyone ever expect to be able to make peace between us and the Palestinians, if the Palestinians are dominated by a most extreme terrorist, violent, radical religious organization [Israel wants to decide who they want to talk with on behalf of Palestinians, and for that matter destroy any party that opposes their partisan proposals] when they agree to make peace if they continue to be the dominant force amongst the Palestinians in Gaza. So we have to react and what we are trying to do in order to avoid the unnecessary collateral damage and the loss of lives of many citizens that live in Gaza, we advise them to move out of the center because the center they have the command positions, they have the bunkers, they have the weapons hiding places for themselves and their leaders, in order to avoid collateral damage [‘collateral’, close to 9000 innocent civilian deaths!], we advise the civilian population to move out from the center of towns into the South part of Gaza [and they bombed the South too], where their humanitarian needs will be provided by Israel in coordination with America, Egypt and other more moderate countries. And everyday now there are at least 50 huge trucks coming from Egypt to Gaza to where the residents of Gaza [their humanitarianism so huge that they supply 50 trucks with humanitarian aid for 2 million people, after demolishing all their livelihoods, cutting water, electricity and fuel and even bombing the remaining bakeries!] were advised to move and they are provided with all the needs; but one thing we have to accomplish and this is destroying the military control of Hamas [at any cost] in Gaza.”
Olmert attempted to separate the interests of Hamas from the wishes of the Palestinian working people for freedom from oppression, and equate the people with Palestinian accomplices of imperialism and Zionism who are ready for whatever concessions they demand. He suppresses the fact that there is no possibility of existence for Hamas without mass support of the Palestinians: “Hamas doesn’t want Palestinian authority to make peace with Israel, Hamas wants Palestinians not to compromise with Israel because if they compromise with Israel that weakens the ability of Hamas to carry on this frontal attack against the Jews and the State of Israel and this is not in their interest. So one must understand that by killing the leaders of Hamas we are contributing to the option of making peace between us and Palestinians. The end game of this operation is hopefully we will destroy Hamas, we will then appeal to the Western countries particularly to America, which is very friendly to us – and the President visited Israel just to reemphasize American commitment to the security of Israel. We would like to convince our friends that at the end of military actions by Israel they have to send an International force like NATO intervention force for Gaza after the Israeli operation [which Gaza do you mean, after the mass extermination?] to restore certain level of civil organization and civil administration in Gaza that will take care of the services that need to be provided to the residents, also we believe that the intervention force [as in Iraq, Afghanistan; as an occupying colonial power and to install their pawn proxies] will remove all the remnants that may have been left from Hamas in order to allow Gaza to start a long recuperating process from the almost endless military confrontation which took place between Israel and Hamas over the years. Only after a period of time that the International force will be present in Gaza [Colonialism is back. They decide who represent and plan for the Plestinians] and take control of it and completely get rid of all those parts of Hamas which may have been left there, will the Palestinian authority be able to come to the Gaza, not on the bayonet of Israel but on the wings of the international force which has nothing to do with Israel, but which will be installed at the end of the confrontation.
Now all this has to lead to a political process between us and the Palestinian authority and this political process must lead to the famous Two-State solution which I proposed to Mohamed Abbas, the leader of Palestine, which he failed to respond to… This is something we have to move forward after military confrontation and may be in order to make it more possible considering the nature of the present Israeli government, we’ll have to change the Israeli government, something many of us want to do anyway, and to have a government which is aiming at establishment of a two-state solution as the pattern of the relations between Israel and the Palestinians and also a possible vehicle upon which we can justify the military actions against Hamas now, because that may lead to the uprising again of the Authority as the dominant force amongst the people.”
’67 Borders?
During the question and answer time, he was asked, ‘Can Israel and Palestine coexist with all the historical trauma that they share?’ He replied,
“…the end game has to be a peace process [sealed with incessant bombardment and on the thousands of bodies buried] between Israel and Palestinian authority which will be based on what is known as a two-state solution [So, prolonging the oppression and bloodbath for another 75 years to come], in other words, what we need to do is to help the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination [having broken their backbone, under duress and at gunpoint] in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza more or less along the line of ’67 borders. ’67 is the time where we had war with Jordan, Egypt and Syria as a result of which Israel occupied, in an act of self-defence – we occupied the territories in the West Bank and in Gaza. So, we are prepared, we will have to be prepared, Israeli government will have to be prepared – hopefully there will be a new government in Israel; I am not in support of the present government – so that government will have to announce that we are accepting the two state solution, the Palestinians will have to accept the Israeli announcement and will have to sit together work out the details of the framework of two states for two peoples, Palestinian state and the State of Israel.”
These statements are bogus and mere rhetoric. When he was prime minister, Olmert’s ‘peace plans’ were, as part of calculated maneuvers to suit larger imperialist geostrategic demands, designed to remove some isolated settlements in the West Bank, while permanently annexing the larger settlements and east Jerusalem, fully honouring the hawkish greater Israel expansionist plans and building a separation wall. It was Olmert, as Sharon’s spokesperson, declared that Israel is ready to kill the then PLO Chairman, Yasser Arafat. [Refer to Israel: Bush endorses Olmert’s West Bank land grab. (wsws.org, 25 May 2006)]
Palestinian national identity is a very late process which has matured only towards the 70s and the 80s in Gaza and West Bank
Asked, whether he considered the Balfour declaration was the root cause of the existing problem, Olmert once again asserted the military strategy to win the war and continued with the treachery of historical falsification:
“Balfour declaration was made on the 02nd November 1917, which means 106 years ago. It was the confirmation of the historical rights of the Jewish people to the ancient homeland. Now in 1917, there was not a Palestinian State, no one talked about Palestinian state, no one claimed to have established a Palestinian state and there was not any population which at that time was identified as a Palestinian peoples that lived in the Middle East. I think that what eventually developed into what now is known as the Palestinian people is a very late phenomenon, which actually started only in the mid 50s of the 20th Century [What a shameful and brutal falsification of history!]. That is, a long time there was always a certain conflict between the Jews that came to live in the land of Israel, particularly after the second world war, after the Holocaust and so on, and that time there were few Arabs, relatively speaking, in numbers, that lived in here what is known as the Holy land, the ancient land of Israel. And there were conflicts between us and them. Their national identity, the definition of the people that lived in Israel as the Palestinian people, as distinct from Jordinians, from Syrians, from Egyptians, from Lebanese is a very late process which has matured only towards the 70s and the 80s of the 20th Century, not too many years ago.
In any event, we recognized the Palestinians as a distinct people, we recognized their right to exercise self-determination. We think that the natural place for them is where they are, in Gaza and in the West Bank [What? So, for Olmert, historical territories of Palestinians consist only of Gaza and the West bank, and there was nothing called Zionism capturing lands of the others!] They actually signed an agreement that will define the framework of this peace treaty on 13th September 1993, and what is known as the Oslo agreement.
So, now what needs to be done is to get rid of those amongst the Palestinians which are not prepared to compromise with Israel, not prepared to make peace and relieve, release Palestinian authority to have the necessary freedom and political support which is essential for them in order to engage in a process of negotiation with Israel [This is Zionist ‘peace’ strategy – break the backbone of the opponent with bombardment, and have agreements signed at the gunpoint, or sign treaties with an accomplice or with an imperialist-backed pliant puppet regime]
US imperialism warns Iran
Olmert was asked whether he saw any possibility of the war escalating with other Arab countries. His language of war is self-explanatory:
“…In our part of the world, stability cannot be guaranteed, and to make any prophecy about how things will develop is a little bit too risky”, he said. The “enemy in the North“, the Hisbullah organization, he said, suffered ‘painfully’ under his regime 17 years ago, and “they may not want to repeat this experience now”. Olmert said, “yet…Hisbullah wants to assist the Palestinians in the South and they believe that by splitting, forcing Israel to split its attention completely from the South also to the North, will weaken the Israeli ability to deal with two fronts at the same time. This is the reason why there is a concern about the expansion of this war.”
“And also, one must understand that Hisbullah as well as Hamas are long arms of Iran. Iran finances them and provides them with the weapons and the training for military operations. So, the question is whether Iran will trigger Hisbullah to engage itself in the military confrontation we have now in order to weaken the ability of Israel to act as we believe we need to. I think, while Hisbullah will continue to bother Israel with all kinds of skirmishes in the border with confrontation [“confrontation”, a word used a dozen times in his talk] on a narrow scale, they will not broaden the bases into a full-fledged confrontation with Israel because that may be very very devastating to Hisbullah.
“America wants to signal to Iran that Iran should be very careful not to interfere with the events [yea, the world’s policeman only can interfere anywhere with anything!], and America brought here two aircraft carriers, the USS Gerald R Ford and USS Eisenhower, huge, huge, huge carriers with thousands of soldiers and with missiles, and weapons and, in a way, they signal Iran, ‘Hey, guys you be careful, if you start now to broaden the base and to enlarge the front into a full-fledged war, a direct war with Israel, Israel will not be alone, we America will be fighting with Israel’. So, this is a warning to Iran and I believe that will be sufficient in order to keep Iran from any direct involvement in the military confrontation.”
A question was also asked about Israeli intelligence failure on October 07. His reply was as high-handed and arrogant as was the rest.
Olmert’s culture
Finally, he was asked, where would this conflict be heading? How can we have peace? What would be the best solution?
According to Olmert, “the threat to the stability of the world, not just in our part of the world, in any part of the world, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, in Iran, it’s all with the ultra-orthodox, extreme fundamentalist, radical elements [Sure? American imperialism, its lackeys and NATO have nothing to do with the increasing insecurity and global threat of world war?], which are not interested in particular piece of territory or any political game, they want to destroy the basis of our culture, our values our way of life and make it something entirely different [The culture Olmert and the Zionist ruling class said to belong to is not the culture of ordinary Jews, who have rejected Zionism and Apartheid]. We are not of course prepared to succumb to these and we will not. So, I think, if we will succeed in stopping Hamas and destroying Hamas [Talking about destroying Hamas, when every small kid of Palestine is turned an enemy out of a full-fledged genocide?] its military power, the chain of command of Hamas, then I think there is a good chance that a new cycle of political negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be resumed. And at the end of the day, this is the desire, the dream, this is what the peace loving people want everywhere [No, peace loving masses really want to rally for the dissolution of the Zionist, pro-imperialist, capitalist state and build a United Jew-Arab Socialist Republic].
A long-time member of the Likud party, Olmert served as a cabinet minister in the 1980s, the mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003, and then entered the Likud-led cabinet of Ariel Sharon. He joined Sharon’s breakaway Kadima party in 2005, becoming prime minister after Sharon in January 2006, and served till 2009. During his period in office, Olmert launched a war on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006, imposed an illegal blockade on Gaza, and mounted a further assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. As prime minister, Olmert ordered artillery bombardment of residential areas in northern Gaza killing civilians, including young children. Olmert was sentenced in 2006 to six years in prison for bribery when he was mayor of Jerusalem, and served an eight-month jail term.
Questions to Olmert
Olmert prompted this writer (President of the Colombo Action Committee and a human rights lawyer based in Colombo) to raise the following questions (via chat box as the questions were raised via text) once his speech was over:
There will be no Palestinian civilization for any peace, as the Israeli regime is waging a genocidal war. More than 8000 civilians have been killed so far. This is war crime and crime against humanity. This Zionist-imperialist onslaught should end now. Do you stand with these crimes or denounce them?
Do you accept the Palestinian boundaries of at least in1967 [green line]? Do you accept that you are an illegally occupying force of the historical Palestinian territories?
None of these questions were presented to Olmert by the moderator, Jaswal.
What is NICE?
This writer then challenged Olmert with the statement , “You are simply a Zionist war-monger. You should not have any place in the civilized world to be invited to speak”.
Soon after, Jaiswal immediately deleted this text and disconnected the writer from the webinar. NIICE claims itself to be “an independent, apolitical and non-partisan think tank” missioned to “advance the cause of peace and harmony through analyses and debates”! Such is their ‘peace’, no less their ‘democracy’!
NIICE had recently sponsored another Zionist strategist in its platforms. On October 20, it had held a webinar on the topic of “Reconsidering Israeli Strategy vis-a-vis Palestinian national Barbarism” and had hosted Dr. Dan Schueftan, former Senior National Security Advisor of Israel, advisor to two former Israeli prime ministers, and professor of the university of Haifa, who branded Palestinians as “a very different kind of people” from the Zionist “us”, to the extent of dehumanizing Palestinian people.
