Today is another huge national march for the people of Palestine, which I’m proud to be part of. I am grateful to the Morning Star for distributing papers to the wonderful people marching today.

As we speak, there are horrific wars going on around the world.

In Ukraine, where Russia wrongly invaded, the terrible war goes on and on — and thousands are now dying both in Ukraine and Russia.

In Gaza, the bombardment carries on unabated. Now, the invasion of Lebanon and the dangers of a disastrous war with Iran.

In Sudan, a massive war is being fuelled by the arms trade.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands have been killed because of the greed of mining companies, extracting cobalt to produce mobile phones we use here and now.

What seems to me to be so badly lacking in the media and the debates in our Parliament is the language of peace and diplomacy. All wars have to end with some kind of negotiation, diplomacy or conference.

It is to the credit of the UN general secretary that he’s been trying to do that. It is to the shame of Israel that they have banned him from even entering the country. It is also to the credit of Latin American presidents and the African Union that they too, have tried to bring about a diplomatic end to these horrific wars.

The horrific attack in October last year was not the start of the war. The start of the war was the occupation of Palestine. It is the continued settlement policy in the West Bank. It is the system of apartheid. It is the displacement of Palestinians denied their right to self-determination.

So far, in Gaza alone, 45,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment. The infrastructure has been totally destroyed: hospitals, roads, schools. Now, with the invasion of Lebanon, a million people have already been displaced.

If the US can afford $8.9 billion to support Israel’s war, why can’t the same resources be used to fund peace, energy security, food security and human rights around the world?

We are witnessing mass death, live on our TV screens. Let us achieve a vision of peace and justice instead. With these increasingly dangerous and uncertain times, it is more important than ever that voices for peace are amplified across the globe.

We reiterate our calls for an end to all arms sales to Israel and for the only path to a just and lasting peace: an end to the occupation of Palestine.

In light of these demands, I am proud to sign the Progressive International’s most recent statement below:

End Arms Sales

Amid its genocide in Gaza, the Israeli regime is now plunging the wider region into war. It must be stopped.

One year on from the start of the genocide in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed over 45,000 Palestinians — and, by some counts, many times more. Around half the victims are children.

Gaza has been decimated. Its infrastructure has been damaged beyond repair. Most of its hospitals are inoperational and all its universities are destroyed. Much of the population has been forced into a tiny parcel of land where they are regularly bombarded by Israeli warplanes.

Amid this genocide, the Israeli regime has now launched a series of violent escalations that threaten to plunge the entire region into war.

In Lebanon, Israeli forces have launched a relentless bombing campaign. Within days, they massacred hundreds, displaced over a million, buried entire communities under rubble, and assassinated leaders of the regional resistance. Since then, they have begun a ground invasion into Lebanon — the fourth such invasion in less than 50 years.

All together, the Israeli regime is now waging war on four separate fronts — in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen — adding to the instruments of economic warfare already set against their peoples. All the while, Western politicians and their stenographers strain to sustain the lie that Israel is acting merely in “self-defence.”

The Israeli regime is thus not acting alone. It has the full backing of Washington, which recently sent an $8.7 billion military aid package to Tel Aviv. European countries are also continuing to export arms to Israel, aiding and abetting war crimes while ignoring their responsibilities under international law to prevent genocide.

The Israeli regime’s brutal violence recalls that of apartheid South Africa, which escalated its war against Angola, Mozambique and Namibia through the 1980s. Then, as now, international solidarity was critical in dismantling apartheid. It was with the support of Cuban soldiers — and Soviet arms — that South Africa was defeated in Angola, accelerating apartheid’s demise.

The Israeli regime’s reckless escalation is not a show of strength. It is a sign of weakness. But it is also a grave portent of further violence on the horizon.

It is clear, now more than ever, that liberation is the only path to peace. The task of progressive forces today is to internationalise the resistance to the Israeli regime, to break the chains of complicity that sustain it, and to accelerate the global struggle for Palestinian liberation. Nothing less can secure peace for all the peoples of the region.

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