The cancellation of the last stage of the Vuelta in Madrid, taken over by thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, unleashed an international political storm. While Israel and the Spanish right wing attack the protesters, Pedro Sanchez tries to contain the popular indignation with lukewarm gestures. The escalation of the Israeli offensive on Gaza forces a widespread and massive mobilized response. From a revolutionary socialist perspective, the action in the streets shows that only workers and popular mobilization can stop the Zionist genocide and open the way to a single, democratic and socialist Palestine.
By Flor Salgueiro
With representatives of the genocidal State, the Tour is not over
On September 14, the last stage of the Vuelta Ciclista a España in Madrid ended in chaos. Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied streets and tore down fences to denounce the presence of the Israeli team “Israel-Premier Tech”, representative of the state that perpetrates genocide and causes famine against the Palestinian people.
The organization improvised changes to the route, but finally cancelled the stage with 43 km to go. The awards ceremony was suspended and the peloton left the city, while the streets of Madrid became the scene of resistance against the Zionist apartheid and the charges of an operation composed of 1,500 policemen.
The reaction of Zionism and the Spanish right wing
Hours after the action in La Vuelta, cynically, Netanyahu accused Pedro Sanchez of “encouraging” the demonstrators and described what happened as “shameful”. The Popular Party immediately aligned itself with Tel Aviv: Feijóo argued that a president “cannot encourage violence between compatriots”, implicitly defending a state that bombs civilians, blocks humanitarian aid and starves Gaza. This closing of ranks reveals how the European right wing is an active accomplice of Israeli colonialism.
Actions expose and challenge governments
What is happening is the opposite of what the ultra-right-wing Israeli government and its accomplices say.
Faced with the international impact, the Spanish government tried to present itself as sensitive to the popular indignation. Socialist ministers expressed “pride” in the protests and questioned Israeli participation in sports competitions. However, beyond the declarations, the Executive does not interrupt all relations with Israel, continues to defend the failed strategy of the “two States” and avoids any real rupture with Zionism.
What is really happening in the Spanish State, in other countries of the European Union and the world is that an unprecedented solidarity with Palestine is being expressed, which exposes and questions the inaction and complicity of governments and forces them to “do something” even if it is limited but critical of the criminal Israeli actions.
Palestinian resistance motivates unprecedented solidarity
Neither bombs nor famine have been able to break the Palestinian people, such suffering and resistance for more than 70 years will continue to be written in the most worthy pages of humanity.
And this is what motivates political, social, workers, teachers, students, human rights, artistic and sports personalities and activists from different social and political backgrounds to show their solidarity. They demand an end to the genocide and the humanitarian blockade, the breaking of governments with Israel and warns of more forceful measures if the offensive of occupation of Gaza continues or if the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) is attacked.
Urgently and massively winning the streets
The intensification of the criminal Zionist offensive with bombardments, declaring Gaza a “dangerous combat zone”, urging the population to move to a so-called “humanitarian zone” and launching a ground offensive since September 16, is provoking a massive exodus, more hunger and territorial occupation, all with the endorsement of the US.
In the face of the dramatic situation of the Palestinian people, we must multiply and massify the call for united actions and mobilizations throughout the world.
More popular pressure for fissures to become ruptures
The irruption of mobilization in a massive event like the Vuelta has once again demonstrated that the pressure of the streets, the boycott of Israeli interests and mobilization are the best tools of struggle, which would give a qualitative turnaround if united in partial stoppages and general strikes that would paralyze countries in solidarity with the massacred people.
From the International Socialist League (ISL) we call for united actions demanding that governments break diplomatic, military and commercial relations with Israel. Let us break the Zionist blockade of humanitarian aid and force the sending of effective support to Gaza. Demanding effective protection for GSF and any international solidarity action that challenges the siege. And, at the same time, we will not fail to reject the “two-state” trap, which only perpetuates ethnic cleansing and occupation. We stand for a single, secular, democratic, non-racist and socialist Palestine, as part of a socialist revolution throughout the Middle East that ends the monarchies, the dictatorships, and the traitors in the Arab governments themselves who kneel before the imperialist powers and colonialism.
