Analysis | Israel’s brutal offensive in the Gaza Strip reach two years - video Dailymotion

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We interview Julia Wallace, social worker and member of the Service Employees International Union, in the context of the 2 years of Israel’s deliberate genocide against the people of Palestine. teleSUR

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00:00We're informing the world is marking today two years of Israel's deliberate and brutal genocide

00:06against the people of Palestine and in this context we invited from the south Yulia Wallace,

00:12social worker and member of the Service Employees International Union. Hello and welcome to From the

00:18South. Hello, thank you so much for having me. Yulia, we are two years into this genocidal war on Gaza

00:31with over 67,000 Palestinians killed, most of them women and children. How would you describe

00:37the current situation on the ground beyond numbers? I think there's just an incredible

00:45amount of devastation being suffered by the Palestinian people and especially women and

00:53children as the Israeli government has been bombing and attacking hospitals, universities,

01:00members of the press with a horrible incessantly starving the population and preventing flotillas

01:08that are sending aid, medicine, food from being able to get there. We're seeing that

01:15the Israeli government used October 7th as a pretext to escalate its already genocidal practices

01:23against the Palestinian people and are attempting to go into Gaza and are going into Gaza with the

01:31assistance and aid of the Trump administration backed by both parties who have continued to fund

01:38Israel's Israel's genocidal attack. Despite official positions, we've been seeing massive public support

01:47for Palestine, such as you were mentioning the actions of the Global Summon Flotilla that received

01:54worldwide attention, also massive demonstrations worldwide. Do you believe this represents a fundamental

02:00shift in global public consciousness regarding Palestine? Absolutely. There was a New York Times article that

02:09recently came out that from December 2023 there was 21 percent of those polled believed that Israel was bombing

02:21innocent civilians and that has now jumped to 40 percent and that's in the United States of folks polled.

02:28People are protesting around the world. There was a strike in Italy with two million people in the streets.

02:35Spain had work stoppages. There was a strike two years ago at UCLA for Palestine. There are protests

02:45happening all over the world, as you said, in Argentina, opposing these authoritarian and repressive

02:50right-wing right-wing regimes like the Malay government and the Trump administration. And so we're seeing

02:57more people in my union at CIU. We have a group Purple Up for Palestine, as well as Labor for Palestine.

03:05So workers are also taking initiatives and fighting so that we withhold our labor to prevent and stop this

03:13genocide and show real solidarity to the Palestinian people. From two years ago today, we are seeing

03:23a deep fundamental support and a delegitimizing of U.S. imperialism internationally, from the UN when

03:32delegates left when Donald Trump spoke and left when Netanyahu spoke, to even in Israel, people taking

03:40positions to support the Palestinian people. And some of our comrades of left voice, from Bruno Gilga to

03:49Dane, who were on the flotilla and were detained but are now free. An international character of support

03:59and people willing to put their bodies on the line for Palestine. The fight for Palestine, and people from

04:06South Africa as well from Brazil. The fight for Palestine is international. In the United States are also taken up with goals.

04:15We recently also saw, during the United Nations General Assembly, a massive support with a greater number of

04:24countries, members of this organization, recognizing Palestine as a state. Do you believe that this massive

04:32support, including the flotilla, including the demonstrations, but also the stances of the

04:37government regarding Palestine, do you believe that it can also be translated into a tangible possible

04:44policy change?

04:49I think that the declarations are showing, are representing the groundswell of international support

04:57by the population, by the international community. And these resolutions are great, but what we're going

05:04to need in order to fight for a free Palestine, a Palestine that isn't repressed by the United States and by the

05:13apartheid state of Israel and all the other complicit countries and leaders of countries, is it's going to

05:20require things like the strike that happened in Italy? And we will need a general strike, an international

05:27uprising of youth, of students, of workers, of Black people, immigrants, who are also affected by this.

05:35The training that's happening by ICE and by police all around the country, much of that has happened

05:42because of the assistance of the Israeli government. Folks, like I'm in Los Angeles, LAPD has been trained

05:51by the Israeli government. And so us standing up and being defiant, defying Donald Trump's attempts to

05:59attack university staff, students and faculty like the CUNY fired for, that we're going to need to take

06:08positions to defy them and to use our power as the masses and our power as the working class

06:16internationally to stop the genocide.

06:21In matters of legal, from a legal perspective, we've seen over the past two years rulings from the ICJ,

06:30investigations as well at the International Criminal Court, countless of United Nations resolutions.

06:37Why have these international legal mechanisms so far failed to hold the violence or enforce accountability?

06:44We've seen how Benjamin Arañejo is acting with total impunity in this context.

06:50Do you believe the international legal order itself is in crisis?

06:56I think that the legality is only going to go so far

07:01So far, if there isn't an actual groundswell, if there aren't things like what happened in Italy,

07:11you know, there have been resolutions passed against Israel since its existence.

07:17Organizations and countries have opposed the Nakba since 1948.

07:23So the difference is that there are strikes for Palestine. A strike at UCLA and not just at UCLA.

07:34UCLA was repressed by Zionists, by anti-trans people, and the complicity of LAPD and the sheriffs who were there

07:46and watched people be beaten bloody. The repression at UCLA, at the encampment at UCLA, led to a California-wide strike.

07:55Not just for Palestine, but explicitly for Palestine, but also for the right of free speech,

08:01for the right to condemn the genocide, for the right to even just say Palestine.

08:05And what we're going to need to do is it goes far beyond just legal declarations, forms and things like that.

08:14It's going to require work stoppages. It's going to require economic disruptions, political organization.

08:21And in the United States in particular, where the Democratic Party, led by then Genocide Joe,

08:29lost the election in part because of its escalation in the genocide.

08:34It's going to require that we as working class people form our own political organizations

08:40that are independent of any of these capitalists, landlords, cops, and bigots and developers

08:46who are supporting the genocide. It's going to mean that we form our own political organizations

08:53and not rely on the Democratic Party, where some may be condemning aspects of the genocide,

08:59but in reality all defend the apartheid state of Israel's right to exist. It's going to mean that we

09:06organize ourselves with enjoying the immigrant rights movement that is strong in Los Angeles,

09:14that we unite with the forces in the black community that are opposing police brutality,

09:20the state, that same state that beats us is the same state that beats the Palestinians,

09:25that shoots and kills them. It's going to mean that we unite the struggle for trans rights.

09:32Trans people are also attacked by the same police that are trained by the Israeli military.

09:38It's going to mean that we unite all these struggles in a struggle against imperialism

09:44and that we use our power as workers in order to make that so.

09:48Angela, there is a new negotiation underway for a ceasefire with a new proposal from the US

09:56President Donald Trump. How would you describe Trump's and the US stance and the role in this

10:02genocide? What interests do you believe lies behind this position, taking into account the

10:10imperialist aspirations of the White House in the Gaza Strip, in the territory?

10:17Yes, so Israel remains the number one funder from the United States, from US imperialism,

10:26long before the Trump administration. What's new is the escalation using October 7th as a pretext

10:35to increase their attacks. Trump said he wanted to turn Gaza into a casino, a resort, on the bones

10:44and the blood of the Palestinian people. And we must vehemently oppose that. The ceasefire

10:51that the Trump administration is attempting to do is really a surrender of the resistance and attempting

10:58to to quell that. He's not interested in any of those things. What Trump's main attempt to do is

11:06geopolitical control using Israel as a satellite in order to maintain its tentacles, its claws into the

11:17Middle East and into North Africa. And that's why even if Trump criticizes certain aspects or tactics of

11:26Netanyahu, the regime of Netanyahu, that in fact, they have no interest in the welfare or the well-being

11:35of the Palestinian people or any other working class or oppressed people around the world. They have no

11:42interest in that. And this supposed ceasefire is really a tactic in order to force submission

11:50through starvation now, through bombing and starvation.

11:53We've seen how the United States have been the main complicit in this genocide. However,

12:00it has not been the only one. Several European powers have continued as well to provide Israel with

12:07unwavering diplomatic cover, also with a steady flow of weapons. What is the legal and the moral

12:14responsibility of these nations in this genocide?

12:17I think that many of these countries that are still supporting Israel also have anti-immigrant,

12:27anti-Muslim, anti-Arab policies connected with the struggle in Palestine. So it's no surprise that

12:38they then the leaders of these countries then take these positions to support the genocide,

12:46because in fact, they are supporting the repression of their own populations domestically.

12:53So I think what we're going to need to do, and maybe I sound like a broken record, but I think

12:59we're going to be as working class people, we're going to have to do things to rely on ourselves and not

13:04on these leaders who have proven themselves time and again to support oppression, capitalism and

13:12imperialism. So we as working class people, it's going to be up to us. And then the legal things will

13:19change. As we have seen in history, you know, when there is a struggle, then things are passed. For example,

13:28you know, the laws against racism and discrimination that the Trump administration is attempting to roll

13:35back. Those laws were because black people in particular took up the fight and were supported

13:43internationally for liberation and against racism. And the Palestinian people also supported that. They

13:50supported people like Malcolm X and Huey Newton. They supported the struggle for black liberation. Even

13:58one of them being murdered for the protest for George Floyd. And so I think what's going to need to happen

14:05is we're going to, as regular working class people, members of unions, people that are not members of

14:13unions, older, younger, youth, women, queer people, we're going to have to unite together internationally and

14:21take on this juggernaut of U.S. imperialism, complicity with Western European powers and the apartheid state

14:31of Israel. We're going to have to take them on clearly with a political perspective that, as the

14:36latest Sada Shakur said, we have nothing to lose but our chains and to take it up as a working class,

14:42independent perspective.

14:43Thank you very much, Julia, for your time here from the South in this critical moment for humanity.

14:51That's right. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. And we will continue to struggle in

14:56our workplaces and our communities for the working class liberation of Palestine and for the world.

15:03So thank you so much for having me get on.

Analysis | Israel’s brutal offensive in the Gaza Strip reach two years

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