NO13. November, 2023
Peace and Justice sees opposition to weapons for Ukraine and the desire to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza as two sides of the same coin.
The fact that support from the US is sufficient to allow Israel to continue is linked to the US’s global hegemony. FOR leader Marielle Leraand describes the connection in a post on Facebook:
The US prevents Israel from being stopped
Israel is the only country in the world that in this century has been allowed to imprison 2.3 million people in a single large concentration camp, without access to electricity, water and food, and which will slowly but surely starve the population to death.
Israel is the only country in the world that is allowed to bomb hospitals with critically injured patients.
Israel is the only country in the world that is allowed to bomb UN schools, churches, and mosques where tens of thousands of refugees have sought refuge.
Israel is the only country in the world that is allowed to kill and injure hundreds of UN nurses and doctors.
Israel is the only country in the world that is allowed to kill dozens of journalists.
All this in just over a month.
And why can they do it without any response?
The answer to that question is simple:
The US
The US BLOCKS all attempts to stop Israel.
And when the world’s supreme military power ensures continued bombing and confinement of a people, yes, they decide that this bombing and killing of confined children should continue.
The big question then becomes:
How can the world community stop the US?
How:
Well, it’s the same political tools that we have to use against Israel.
Economic boycott, trade blockade, cut military and diplomatic ties; yes, do everything we can to isolate and point the finger at the US.
Weapons to Ukraine strengthen US hegemony
Marielle Leraand’s point that the US must be isolated if the Palestinians are to be saved from Israel’s genocide is directly related to Peace and Justice’s opposition to supplying weapons to Ukraine.
FOR justifies its opposition to weapons on the grounds that continued warfare leads to nothing other than thousands more being sacrificed on the battlefield to no avail, and that negotiations are what can realistically end the war. But at the same time, FOR rejects that a possible Ukrainian military victory with NATO weapons would be a contribution to strengthening international law and thus creating lasting peace in the world.
The war in Ukraine started because NATO insisted that Ukraine should be able to join the alliance. This insistence is about NATO expansion being intended to maintain and strengthen the hegemony of the USA and the West. And it is the same hegemony that enables Israel to rampage through Gaza with impunity.
Support Palestine by stopping arms deliveries to Ukraine!
Rødt and SV have sought to use their own support for sending weapons to the war against Russia in Ukraine as an argument for Norway as a state also having to react when it is one of our allies that attacks and occupies. However, most Palestinians and others with a background from the Middle East or other countries in the Muslim world that FOR activists have spoken to at Palestine demonstrations have seen the same connection that FOR emphasizes:
It does no good to support the Palestinians in words if you also support the enemy in deeds. And the enemy is not just Israel directly. It is the United States. And giving weapons to Ukraine is not giving support to the people of Ukraine. It is support for the USA, for the USA to remain the dominant superpower in the world.
Therefore, working politically for a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine, and against more Norwegian weapons to Ukraine, is the most important form of solidarity you can contribute to the Palestinians in Gaza.