What is the Revolutionary Left Saying about Gaza?

Today I attended a protest in New York against Israel's attack on Gaza. I took a bunch of photos, which I will get up soon, but thought I'd start with a round up of links showing what, if anything, exists on the websites of America's Revolutionary Left*.

International Solidarity Organization. They are out in full force, but there is nothing recent about this issue on the website. For shame!

International A.N.S.W.E.R. has devoted much of their homepage to Gaza and Palestine.  It's basically news and information about protests, but not analysis. (I have a flyer from today's demo, but you can't click on a link to see it.)

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) has one of the best websites of its kind. Now, I used to think that International ANSWER was a front group for the Workers World Party, but based on all the photos, stories and links to ANSWER on the PSL site, I think things have changed. Why am I always the last to know? There is good coverate of the demonstrations held last week, but little in the way of analysis (as I define it.)

The Spartacist League showed up today (I counted 2 signs, so there were two members). Their website is a joke. Nothing to see here, move on....

The Communist Party (CPUSA) is presenting a very nice, analytical article on the front page of their site. This quote made sense to me: "This means serious diplomacy that promotes the realist, peace-inclined forces in Israel who realize that peace is in their interests, and, on the Palestinian side, furthers rather than hinders re-establishment of unity and advancement of a more realist, peace-oriented approach"

The Socialist Workers Party doesn't appear to have a site other than that of their newspaper, The Militant. There is a week off, what with the new year, so you can't find anything up on Palestine or Gaza. Sniff.

Socialist Action - nothing on the front page was current, but GAza was the top story on the blog. This quote is precious:

"In the Zionist treatment of the Palestinians the Arab masses recognize the contempt that the imperialists have for them, and the sight of it rubs salt in their wounds. They have suffered this bitterness and have harbored a justifiable hatred for their oppressors for decades without finding an effective outlet. Today their outrage can only become deeper; in time it will eventually overwhelm the neocolonialist rulers of their own countries, who connive with the Zionists and the imperialists."

Solidarity has done what no other group has: turned it's page on Gaza into the main page of the site. The article was ok, not too much purple prose. I liked the photo of a protestor's sign which says "peace, salaam, shalom." The word "peace" as something to strive for was rare among the sites reviewed here today.

The Worker's World Party/Newspaper is apparently the group behind the International Action Center, having lost control of International ANSWER. Naturally enough for this corner of the left, Gaza and Palestine are in the center. Fun quote "Washington-Tel-Aviv axis". I think they should conform to other lefties and call it the "Washington-Tel-Aviv- Cairo axis". Or should it be "Washington-Jerusalem-Cairo axis"? All we know for sure is that they like the word "axis" even when used in a ludicrous way.

The only Maoist group on this list is the RCP-USA, or the Revolutionary Community Party. Their website has many articles, all recent, about the situation in Gaza. Some of them even have analysis. And what do they recommend be done at this crucial time in the struggle for Palestine?

Right now we call on readers to make creative efforts to get what HAS been written out as widely as possible. Get it to community groups, to teachers, to bloggers, to artists and writers, to activists. Get it to those who are still inebriated on the Obama kool-aid, but retain a desire to see justice for the Palestinian people, and challenge them to act. Enlarge things like the quiz on Israel in Revolution #137 and take them out to universities and street corners, and spark debate.

Thus ends our little tour of (part of) the revolutionary left in the United States. The comments section below is reserved for members of these groups who wish to point that one of the other ones isn't actually revolutionary....

* Revolutionary Left refers to entities calling for some kind of socialist or communist revolution in the United States.