Palestine – Proletarians against bourgeois

The average salary of a teacher living in the Palestinian Authority governed section of the occupied territories is €700. Average monthly expenses for a working-class family is €1,200.

On February 9th, those teachers went on strike claiming compliance with a 2013 agreement with the Palestinian government promising wage increases, improved pensions and adaptation of seniority.

For weeks most of the schools of the Territories remained closed, while other facilities have remained open for very limited hours. Various demonstrations were held in the West Bank cities, the largest in Ramallah, where the processions have reached twenty thousand demonstrators.

Mirroring the Israeli army’s methods, Palestinian Authority security forces have erected numerous roadblocks preventing buses carrying the strikers from reaching the city. Workers were IDed, threatened and arrested. Taxi drivers who transported striking teachers in Ramallah have been threatened with loss of their licenses.

In numerous countries loudspeakers of mosques call on workers to stop the strikes. Everywhere nationalism – even that of oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians or the Kurds – and religion are weapons of the bourgeoisie against the working class. The real oppressed are the workers and the true oppressors the bourgeoisie, around the world, even those who, for now, are not recognized the right to have their own state by the international council of the large and small imperialist robbers, to make better use of the local workforce.

On February 16, the Palestinian police arrested 22 teachers and union leaders who had spoken in favor of the strike. The crackdown caused an opposite effect to those desired by the local bourgeois regime, causing other workers to join the struggle and strengthened the strike, which has become to the bitter end and upped the strike demands for increased wages from the initial 2.5% to 10%.

In Palestine even teachers have run into the official union as an obstacle, and were forced to organize themselves in a “teachers coordinating committee”. The regime union in education, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, was overtly challenged by strikers, who demanded the resignation of the general secretary and the election of new delegates.

The Palestinian teachers are an excellent example for all the region’s workers showing that your own bourgeois government is the primary enemy to organize and fight against. Only through a workers union of the whole area, breaking with nationalism, even the Palestinian proletarians can alleviate their suffering, fighting alongside their class comrades of all colours and nationalities against the international bourgeoisie who for decades have had them fighting for a nationalism that is not theirs and will never be.