The Socialist Equality Party (UK) will be hosting three public meetings opposing Israel’s war on Gaza this November: in London on November 9, Bradford on November 2, and Inverness on November 11. We encourage all our supporters to publicise the meetings and make plans to attend. Registration for London is available here, for Bradford here, and for Inverness here.

Below is the text of the leaflet SEP members will distribute at university campuses across the three cities in the coming weeks and at demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza across the country.

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Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza is an historic crime, perpetrated by the Netanyahu regime and its imperialist accomplices led by the US and Britain.

Millions are opposing the horrific assault being carried out by Israel in protests throughout the world, including hundreds of thousands in the UK. These demonstrations have united people of different nationalities and faiths, including large numbers of Jewish people, and are overwhelmingly young. An entire generation is being politicised.

They are taking a stand not only against the Zionist regime, but its imperialist backers in the Biden administration and the Sunak government and their propagandists in the BBC, Guardian and the rest of the mass media. Standing fully behind the war criminals in Jerusalem, Washington and London is the Labour Party, whose leader Sir Keir Starmer is an accomplice to mass murder, despised by workers and youth.

The eruption of mass anti-imperialist sentiment must now be armed with the political perspective necessary for victory.

The United Nations and human rights groups will only issue appeals for a ceasefire that will be ignored by Israel and its backers. The Arab and Muslim states, above all Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have demonstrated that they will do nothing that threatens their decades of collusion with US imperialism and the “normalisation” of relations with Israel, even if the Palestinians face extermination.

This gives the US and its NATO allies free rein to prepare a broader conflict in the entire region targeting Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The American and European ruling class views the conflict in the Middle East as one front of a global war that includes the conflict with Russia in Ukraine and preparations for war against China.

The only force that can defend the Palestinians and put an end to the global eruption of imperialist violence is the international working class. The mass movement in support of the Palestinians comes amid a global strike wave by workers in every part of the world and in every industry—including strikes in the UK by more than two million workers in the last year.

The ruling class is waging war on two fronts: for a global redivision of the world and an internal war against the working class. Every penny of the hundreds of billions spent on war in Gaza and Ukraine will be clawed out of the backs of workers in the UK, Europe and America. And opposition to Israel’s genocide or the destruction of jobs, wages and conditions will be met with state repression, while the trade union leaders urge “calm” and reliance on the election of Starmer and his gang of pro-big business warmongers.

The Socialist Equality Party and our co-thinkers in the International Committee of the Fourth International call for the mobilisation of the working class to stop the genocide in Gaza and the broader war policy of the ruling elite. We call on workers to take industrial action to deprive Israel of all resources for use in its filthy war, above all a block by dockworkers, airport and transit workers of the weapons being used to rain down death and destruction on Gaza.

Our aim is to build a mass movement of the working class and youth to end capitalism and build a socialist world free of class oppression and war. Make plans to attend to discuss these essential questions.