A critical moment for Palestinians – Political Parties must Act - Genocide Blog 79
10.11.2025
Using the word “critical moment” about Palestine, as I have done in the title to this Blog, feels like a déjà vu. A repeating déjà vu. How many moments have been “critical” since October 2023?
After over two years now, and the accelerated genocide having raged for 766 days, today is more critical than ever. It is perhaps the most critical political moment since Israel began the genocide with the Nakba in 1947-8. Everything is in balance. We must all work to find ways to add to the movement to prevent the USA and its cringing European and Arab regime hangers-on, from pretending the genocide is over. It is not even on hold.
The good news is that attempts at hiding the genocide have so far failed.
Pro-Palestinian Zohran Mamdani has been elected Mayor of New York City. The combined efforts of the leadership of the Democratic and Republican Parties to place bang in the middle of the political agenda Mamdani’s stand against Israel, have rebounded against these parties. They thought his support of Palestine would prevent him being elected on his socialist program. But instead it helped him be elected as Mayor of New York City, the city with the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel. How is that for keeping the genocide on the agenda world-wide? How is that for broadcasting a change in the balance of political forces in the USA, the main enabler of the genocide? Trump just can’t get his poor head around it. The Israeli lobby in the USA is in tailspin. It has been exposed for what it is. And rejected.
Yes, everything plays out at the level of political parties. Which is why we must encourage everyone in Mauritius who stands with Palestine and against Israel to make their party act against Israel now, or better still, if you support a class struggle socialist party, join a party like LALIT, or the alliances it builds with unions and Associations. It is not enough anymore to stay away from the political reality. Zohran Mamdani’s election is a political victory – not for what he will do, which we do not yet know, but for what the people of New York City believe – especially, according to the surveys, the young people.
At the political level, we know that the Israeli genocide, supported by the West, is not over. The media might try to mask it. Trump might change the subject. At the political level, we must act to prove that Israel and Trump calling something a “ceasefire” while killing 240 people, a third of them children, in one month of ceasefire is an additional crime of the same on-going genocide.
It is time for the four parties in the government coalition, Labour-MMM-ND-ReA, to announce that Mauritius supports the South African case at the ICJ against Israel for genocide. It is the critical moment to do so because the new USA Ambassador to South Africa Brent Bozell has vowed to pressure South Africa to withdraw its case. Here is what he said to the Senate Hearing: “I would press South Africa to end proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice and to pressure the International Criminal Court prosecutor to discontinue this lawfare, which is belied by Israel’s support for the ceasefire in Gaza and commitment to the rules of war throughout the conflict.” [Senate Foreign Relations Committee 23 October 2025]. See how the man uses the pretense of the ceasefire in his argument, and pretends Israel has shown commitment to the rules of war!
The Turkish party in power has acted. It has taken the political course of issuing arrest warrants for genocide and for crimes against humanity against Prime Minister Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Israel Katz, his National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and the Israeli defense forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. In all there are 37 Israeli senior figures who are suspects in Turkiye under national law, for genocide or war crimes against the flotilla going to Gaza. What if, meanwhile, these wanted war criminals are visiting Mauritius? Do we, the people of the Republic of Mauritius, even know if we are harboring such war criminals?
We call on the Mauritian National Assembly to force the Government to act as Turkiye has on this. Why not lay charges against these Israeli war criminals?
And if Ramgoolam and Bérenger and their hangers-on are too cowardly to do this, why not at least impose visa restrictions on all those visitors holding an Israeli passport? Israeli citizens must be made to submit a sworn statement with their visa application to the effect that they have not ever been part of the IDF or related military institutions nor are they now. This would put political pressure on Israel immediately.
These are ways to further expose that the “cease-fire” that does not mean “ceasing to fire” but continuing the slaughter is a criminal lie.
The Israeli genocide is not going away. It cannot. The crime is too heinous.
It is so hideous that the political parties in the Mauritian Government cannot go on as if their coalition is hunky-dory. The legacy they will leave for supporting the genocide is a heavy one. It is worse than a heavy weight tied around their necks. It is an albatross.
The MMM leader Bérenger, fearful of this, has already said publicly that Israel is committing a “krim”. He complained he was not free to speak openly. Well, Israel’s “krim” of genocide has not stopped. Nor has it been pushed under the rug. The starvation has not gone away. When Ramgolam-Bérenger-Duval-Subron and their political parties in government refused to criticize the genocide by intentionally withdrawing Mauritius’ “oral submissions” from the ICJ case against Israel for intentional starvation of children, they have destabilized their own Government. This moral failure on the issue of our times, is one of the three things responsible for the Government’s MPs not being able to visit their constituencies. (The other two are the selling of Diego Garcia, and the abolition of universal pensions for 60-65 year-olds.)
The genocide has not gone away. Since the “ceasefire” that is not a ceasefire began on 11 October, there have constantly been demonstrations and other smaller actions.
All actions add up.
In Ireland, the football federation voted on Saturday to send a resolution to UEFA to ban Israel from events organized by the European governing body. This meant one team had had to propose it in the Irish Federation and get a majority, which they did. Now, the Mauritius Football Federation could take a resolution of support – encouraging European federations to follow Ireland’s lead – and send it to all the teams in Europe.
In the USA, Reuters reports on 7 November that five former US security officials said there was “evidence that could support war crimes charges against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza – operations reliant on American-supplied weapons”. The importance of this is that it would mean criminal liability of American politicians, including two presidents. They added there were even “doubts within the Israeli military about the legality of its tactics that contrasted sharply with Israel’s public stance defending its actions.” Disclosing this information to Reuters is a brave political act by five former officers. Brave yes. Yet it is merely their duty. Reuters having the courage to publish it is, too. Yet, that too is just their duty.
In Paris, a man on 8 November lit a flare during an Israel Philharmonic Orchestra concert in Paris to protest the genocide. This is a public political act.
In Australia, there was a Pro-Palestinian demonstration against a Defense Conference last week on 4 November.
In Italy on 24 October, there was yet another demonstration – after the massive national-level general strike that was one of the major pressures for a ceasefire of some kind being forced upon Israel – this time in Rome, at the time of the Rome Film Festival.
In the UK, from September until right up to now, British police have arrested at least 2,100 people for peacefully sitting down and holding up signs, week after week, that read the following gentle message, hand-written: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. The British Government in a fit of Zionist pique declared the group “Palestine Action” a “terrorist organization” so it is a criminal offense to “support” it. Thus the arrests. Right now, the court cases against them begin. For the record, Palestine Action is an organization whose aim is to expose Israeli terrorism and genocide. The Palestine Action group members had been found not guilty even of damaging property when they had wrecked objects in an armaments factory producing the weapons for Israel. The jury found their action to be one intended to counter a worse crime, so found them not guilty. Then some members were found guilty of doing no more than painting airplanes used in the genocide. Then, the repressive British Labour Party Governments hits them with draconian anti-terrorism laws, making a laughing stock of policemen who have to waste their time locking up little old ladies, and other peaceful protesters.
In Mauritius, we attended the Palestine Platform demonstration of 17 October, resolving to continue the struggle.
Absurdity alongside Criminality of Genocide
Meanwhile, Trump is in line, war criminal or not, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize next year! His vassal the Venezuelan woman being set up by the CIA for power after their planned coup, Ms Maria Karina Machado, was a trial-run for Trump next year. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while praising Trump for his assassination, extra-judicial killing, of 70 un-named men in 17 different little boats off Venezuela’s coast, while selling her country to the USA out aloud, and actually calling on a foreign, imperialist power to take over her country! And that gets you the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize? How many Mauritian political leaders are selling our country to the UK-USA? And with the House of Lords postponing its decision, the public performance of our politicians gets drawn out in public. This, too, destabilizes the Government. They have even had to pass a law to rescind the law that makes it illegal to question Mauritian sovereignty over Chagos, including Diego Garcia. It is no longer illegal. Think of all the laws that this Government could have and should have passed, and they only did this one in case they, themselves fall short of the previous law. Imagine them being like Ms Maria Karina Machado, a laughing stock for calling on imperialists to take over your own country?
This shows the moment we are in and why it is critical. You can still win the Nobel Peace Prize while hoorah-ing for extra-judicial vaporization of human beings, un-named let alone arrested, charged, given a chance to defend themselves, then judged. She is a supporter of the Israeli genocide. And you can get rewarded for selling your country into colonial slavery, at the same time. This is what happens while an Empire falls. Things vacillate. Its vassals, like Norway, vacillate. A genocide can continue, bombing and all, starvation and all, while Israel pretends it is respecting a “ceasefire”, and its bank-rollers like the USA supports this pretense.
We cannot. We must act politically. We must force our Government to act against the Israeli genocide NOW. It is late, but not too late.
Lindsey Collen, for LALIT
