HE T OF THE RICH” egime rocked by historic protests

and pogroms of Palestinian towns such as Nablus and Jenin. Last year saw the highest number of Palestinians killed since 2002 in this part of Palestine.

However, this has been met by mass resistance from a new generation of Palestinian youth, with the calling of general strikes and mass protests in the Occupied Territories as well. This offers a real potential to organise a grassroots movement from below based on democratic councils of struggle organised in workplaces, universities, towns and cities. Such a movement could organise a revolutionary struggle that offers a real challenge to the occupation.

United States: Trump indicted – what now?

organisation to quash any potential opposition to the racism, dispossession and discrimination meted out by the Israeli state towards Palestinians living within its pre-1967 borders. Ben-Gvir is a prominent spokesperson for Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and has been charged with incitement to hatred against Palestinians within Israel’s “green line”, its officially recognised borders.

On Sunday, 2 April a general strike took place in the major Palestinian towns within Israel in the wake of the cold-blooded murder by Israeli police of the 26-year old Mohammed Khaled Alasibi, a Palestinian Bedouin at the entrance of the Al-Asqa Mosque in occu- pied East Jerusalem. This saw the shutting down of schools, post offices and banks, combined with mass protests in Galilee, the Triangle and the Negev. The murder of Alasibi is a by-product of the increased repression that is doled out to Muslim worshippers annually at the AlAsqa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, during Ramadan. On Wednesday, 6 April, Israeli police brutally raided the Mosque and arrested hundreds of Palestinian worshippers.

There has also been a marked stepping up of repression of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, 94 have been killed by the Israeli Defence Force and colonial settlers in 2023 alone. This has been combined with the increase of raids

Socialist change needed Socialist Struggle Movement, our sister organisation in Israel/Palestine, has participated in the historic mass protests that have overrun Israeli society. We have argued that this movement must be independent of the “liberal” section of the Israeli ruling class and argued it must stand against the occupation of Palestinian land and the oppression of Palestinian people generally.

The working class and oppressed within Israeli society have no interest in maintaining Palestinian oppression and should break with the Israeli ruling classes’ Zionist chauvinism and its rule generally. National liberation, justice and democracy will only come about with the overthrow of Israeli capitalism, and the economic and political order of capitalism and imperialism generally in this region.n

By Bryan Koulouris, Socialist Alternative US

SOCIALISTS CERTAINLY won’t shed tears if Trump sees the inside of a prison cell. Trump, along with other billionaires and presidents (from both parties), should be tried for his countless crimes against humanity. Trump won’t be in jail for the 2024 election, and the rightwing fervour he’s come to represent will continue. The legal system won’t save us from Trumpism; we need a mass working-class movement against the billionaire class, racism, and sexism that can challenge both parties and the capitalist system they represent.

At the same time, we need to keep a close eye on these Trump indictments (there will be more!) because they will affect the terrain of U.S. politics. Pro-capitalist liberal media outlets like The Economist are running headlines titled “Prosecuting Donald Trump over Stormy Daniels looks like a mistake.” They claim the legal charges against Trump are weak in this case, that no legal indictment will stop Trump from running for President again, and that this puts Trump’s Republican rivals in a difficult position.

They have all rallied to support Trump against the legal system. An indictment around Trump’s business practices (which could actually cut across his base somewhat) would be difficult for both parties because most politicians are connected to corrupt corporate dealings, from insider trading to collecting funds from taxdodging billionaires.

The biggest crimes

Trump has been committing crimes for decades, from the serial sexual assault of women to his shady business practices. He hasn’t seen jail time because the legal system is rigged in favour of the super-rich and against workers, the poor, and especially Black people. The daily criminal activity of the wealthy and powerful is “perfectly legal” as they destroy the environment, exploit workers, wage war, and dodge taxes in the pursuit of ever-growing piles of cash. Trump bungled the onset of the pandemic, denying it had even come to the U.S., resulting in the needless deaths of thousands. He also encouraged a widespread increase in racist and sexist attacks, whipping up hatred and laying the basis for the dismantling of abortion rights and anti-immigrant policies, all ‘legally.’

While Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was worse than other modern presidents, his policies were actually a continuation of Obama, who deported more immigrants than any U.S. president ever.

Even when Democrats opposed Trump, they always feared a movement in the streets and in the workplaces that could actually defeat the right wing as they held back struggle and tried to push it into “safe” channels like elections and legal proceedings. This failing strategy led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade and countless other terrible right-wing policies at the federal, state, and local levels. They’ve declared “victory” over Trump countless times now, only to be blindsided by the resilience of his support among his hard-core base.

Failure of Democrats

We need an active movement to fight against right-wing attacks, particularly those against trans people who are currently being targeted by reactionary politicians. We need to rely on the strength of working people, not the politicians and the courts since both ultimately protect the interests of big corporations. With Democrats in power, right-wing populism can actually grow as people become disaffected by an administration (and their “left-wing” apologists in the Squad) that breaks potential strikes, oversees runaway inflation, and only offers shallow “woke” words instead of defending oppressed people.

Trump should be tried for his real crimes, ones that he’s been getting away with for years, and the most heinous crimes that are perfectly “legal” in a rigged system. Bush should have been tried as a war criminal instead of being paraded around by liberals as a “good” rich Republican. Democratic warmongers like Lyndon Johnson should have been punished for their countless atrocities against people in Asia. The list could go on and on because this whole damn system is guilty as hell.

The courts won’t stop Trump or Trumpism. They are only prosecuting him now because sections of the ruling class are afraid of the instability it could bring to their system if Trump got back into the White House. While we should analyse the implications of this indictment and the ones to come, we want Trump and his likes to be punished and the system of exploitation and oppression that gives birth to them relegated to the trash heap of history.