On the one hand there is a highly militarised state, with one of the best equipped armed forces in the world, generously subsidised by billions of dollars in Western military and non-military aid. On the other hand there are 1½ million people, subjects of this state, which has herded them into a walled ghetto on which it imposes a starvation siege.

“Civilians were the overwhelming majority of the more than 1400 people Israel killed in it’s 2009 assault on Gaza. Today, Israel is beginning another assault. A quarter of the Palestinians killed so far are children, including babies,” Sue Bolton, newly elected Socialist Alliance member of the Moreland City Council said.

Policy background

The Socialist Alliance recognises the essential role that international, including Australian, imperialism plays in supporting the Israeli system of apartheid and occupation through massive political, economic and military aid. It condemns the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the state of Israel and the denial of Palestinian rights by Israel throughout what was historic Palestine, both within the 1948 borders of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Morocco invaded and illegally occupied Western Sahara in 1975. Since then more than 165,000 Saharawis have been living in refugee camps in South West of Algeria in dire conditions, and facing the threat of violence and imprisonment, waiting to return to their homeland.