Speech of the LCP in IMCWP in Izmir, Turkey

Comrades and friends,

We express our gratitude to the Turkish Communist Party for organizing this meeting.

Today, we gather as witnesses to the ruthless actions of Israel, which continues to inflict suffering and death upon the people of Gaza, including the bombing of a hospital where innocent citizens sought refuge from the onslaught. In a single strike, more than 500 lives were tragically lost. All of this takes place under the broad international cover provided by the NATO governments.

Thousands have martyred, tens of thousands have been wounded, and quantities of American-made explosives, equivalent to a quarter of the Hiroshima bomb, have been unleashed on a densely populated area that has endured a land, sea, and air siege for decades.

As communist parties across the globe have called for solidarity with the Palestinian people, some forces have sided with the occupying entity. Demonstrations have spread worldwide, particularly in Europe, with the active participation of communists, leftists, and Arab communities, boosting the morale of the Palestinian people suffering under siege. However, a small number of friendly parties were swift to condemn what they labelled as Palestinian "terrorism," thereby undermining the resistance of this steadfast people.

Communist parties in our region strongly reject this position within the communist movement, some of which appear to align with their respective governments. We question the historical legacy of these parties, which once fiercely resisted Nazi occupation to its ultimate defeat. To these comrades, we urge a reconsideration of their positions. It's important to remember that the largest terrorist organization on the planet is "Israel" itself.

This meeting is extremely important amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has quickly turned into a global war, with NATO intervening in arming, training, and equipping it. As the capitalist crisis worsens, especially in the imperialist centers, these countries are trying to get out of it through aggression, sanctions, and waging wars against emerging countries, most notably Russia and China. Thus, the war takes on a crucial dimension for the balance of power in the world, and it is in our interest that the Americans do not achieve political or military victories in it. The current American strategy is to create wars and local and regional conflicts to drown opponents in the mire of war and its political and economic losses.

These crises have been reflected clearly in our region through the various versions of the New Middle East Project aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause and redividing the region and its countries on sectarian lines. However, the people of the region intensify the struggle to defeat the imperialist hegemony.

The Palestinian issue today constitutes a fundamental front in the simultaneous struggle against Zionism and imperialism, as the people of Palestine engage in resistance against occupation, to prevent the enemy from implementing its plans to completely control Palestine and displace its people. Resistance is a necessary tool for liberating Palestine and building a national democratic state on the entire Palestinian territory, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of refugees to the lands from which they were displaced.

In light of the worsening capitalist crisis, it is necessary for the communist movement to focus on distinguishing itself from the political currents that classify themselves as “anti-neoliberal” as they seek to build palliative capitalisms without harming the essence of capitalism itself. It is also necessary for the communist movement to distinguish itself from the nationalist and sectarian forces that face American hegemony but cling to the survival of their capitalist systems in their countries. We emphasize the inseparability and unity of the struggle against capitalism in all its manifestations and stages, as it is a system of man’s exploitation of man, to achieve the interests of the working class and oppressed peoples and build socialism.

The peoples of our region revolted and are still revolting against capitalist, exploitative and oppressive regimes, despite the imbalance of power in favor of the bourgeois and sectarian parties.

In Lebanon, instead of changing this sectarian political system, as the uprising of our people on October 17 demanded, towards a secular, democratic state, the Lebanese people are paying the price of the failure of the ruling system’s policies. Lebanon has reached the bottom of collapse, with rising rates of inflation, unemployment, poverty, and immigration, with the collapse of the purchasing power and basic public service facilities, and the disintegration of the system of social protection. The living crisis also worsened with the rise in medicine prices and the liberalization of fuel and electricity prices, as wages lost more than 95% of their purchasing value.

The recent indirect agreement between Lebanon and Israel, through American mediation, to demarcate the borders and share the oil resources led to the waste of Lebanon’s rights to its territorial waters, as Israel’s control over disputed fields was confirmed and it began producing gas, while preliminary studies indicate that the maritime region that Lebanon only claimed will be devoid of natural resources. This is further evidence of the national treason committed by the ruling forces to satisfy American intermediaries and French companies eager to start extracting gas.

Our party was and still is in the struggle in the street and in trade union, regional and municipal work, to build a secular, democratic, resisting state on the path of socialism.

Our party also affirms its permanent position in solidarity with the Cuban revolution, denouncing the blockade against it. We stand by the peoples of Latin America against US interventions. We welcome the solidarity position taken by the President of Columbia with the Palestinian people.  We salute the comrades in the Turkish Communist Party for their continuous struggles and thank the comrades in the Greek Communist Party for their solidarity against the decision to prevent the icon of the Lebanese resistance, comrade Soha Bishara, from entering Greece. We reaffirm our engagement in the resistance struggle with the Palestinian people and their leftist and progressive forces, and our commitment to the liberation of the occupied lands of south of Lebanon and to recover the remains of the bodies of the nine martyrs of the Lebanese Communist Party who are detained by Israel.

Long live international solidarity, long live the struggle for socialism.

Omar Deeb, Responsible for International Relations in the Political Bureau of the Lebanese Communist Party

Izmir, October 21, 2023.