The Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu (Socialist Equality Group, SEG) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Turkey are holding a public meeting entitled “Stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza” in Istanbul on Sunday, December 3.
The event is part of a global campaign by the sections and sympathizing groups of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) against Israel's imperialist-backed genocidal war and to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky in 1923.
It has been a month and a half since the Zionist regime launched its offensive against the Palestinian people of Gaza, which has been an open-air prison for 2.3 million people. Nearly 15,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured in Israel's military attacks, most of them women and children. Half of Gaza's buildings have been destroyed or damaged. The plan for ethnic cleansing by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been made clear in statements by senior officials and leaked documents.
This war, which is being waged with the full support of the US and NATO powers, is the Middle Eastern front of an emerging Third World War. As the US imperialism is preparing a war against Iran in line with its aim of total domination in the Middle East, it wages a war against Russia in Ukraine. These are accompanied by preparations for war against China, the main target of Washington.
Whatever Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's verbal condemnation of Tel Aviv’s actions, the Turkish government is a member of the NATO military alliance that is supporting Israel’s war on Gaza. The same hypocrisy is also true for the bourgeois opposition, the pseudo-left parties and the trade union apparatus which pretend that genocide is not taking place on Turkey's doorstep.
However, this criminal war has provoked mass protests around the world, bringing out millions of workers and young people for weeks. The masses all over the world are asking how it is possible to commit such a colossal crime and are looking for a way forward to stop it once and for all.
In welcoming and supporting these historic demonstrations, the SEG and its sister parties and groups in the ICFI offer workers and youth a historically based socialist and internationalist perspective to put an end war and its main source, capitalism.
An extremely important component of this work is the holding of public meetings that address critical historical issues related to the formation of the Left Opposition under the leadership of Trotsky against the Stalinist degeneration of the workers’ state established after the October Revolution of 1917 in the context of the present global capitalist crisis.
We call on workers, youth and intellectuals to attend the meeting to discuss these critical historical and political issues and to participate in building an international socialist movement against the war.
Due to the ongoing widespread transmission of COVID-19 and to ensure a safe healthy environment, the audience is requested to wear a mask while in the event room.
Event details:
Sunday, December 3 at 2.00pm
Genel-İş Union Istanbul Anatolian Local No. 1, Kadiköy / Istanbul