Syria: The fall of the regime, the future of the country & Turkey’s war on the Kurds

 

[Educational given to the Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, December 17, 2024.]

The extremely rapid and unexpected fall of Syria’s Assad dictatorship is a political earthquake in the Middle East. A regime (father and son) that had endured since 1970 is gone.

There were hardly any battles; the regime’s forces didn’t want to fight and just melted away (deserted, defected). Assad’s long-time backers — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — had all been weakened by recent events but in any case they couldn’t support the regime if its own forces had lost all will to fight.

Palestine: Notes on a tumultuous year

 

[Educational given to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, October 1, 2024. Photo above: Gaza ruins.]

The world is not the same since October 7

Since October 7 last year, Palestine has become the number one issue in world politics. And, as Israel’s current war on Lebanon shows, this is likely to be the case for some time to come.

‘Two-state solution’ a fig leaf for Western leaders

At the time of the Fatima Payman affair, Prime Minister Albanese told the ABC on July 1: “Labor supports a Palestinian state existing alongside an Israeli state. We don't support a one-state solution.” 

Calling for a separate Palestinian state serves as a fig leaf for Western politicians to cover their fundamental position of support for Israel. It suggests they support Palestinian rights when they know it is never going to happen. And the West has no intention of ever doing anything to even try to make it happen (like ending all arms deliveries to Israel and imposing strong sanctions).

Notes on the war in Gaza

  

[Educational given to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance,April 2,2024. Photo above: Palestine solidarity rally in Amman, Jordan, October 13, 2023.

The struggle in Palestine is now the number one issue of world politics. The armed breakout from Gaza on October 7 by Hamas and its allies has raised numerous questions, mainly because the West and Israel have spread lies about what actually happened and continually try to obscure what the real issues are.

A discussion about Hamas & October 7

 

We are constantly told by the Western corporate media that Hamas is a terrorist group, that the October 7 attack was a terrorist attack, atrocious, a massacre and so on. In the days following the raid pro-Palestinian interviewees in the media were repeatedly pressured: “Do you condemn Hamas?”