Um al-Hiran, ISRAEL-PALESTINE, January 18— Early in the morning, a large police force arrived at Um al-Hiran, an “unrecognized” Bedouin village in the Negev (southern Israel-Palestine) to demolish the village and evict its residents from the land. They have done this repeatedly over the years to set up a town for rich Jewish people from abroad, which will be named “Hiran.” The cops attacked with brutal violence and massive force. They killed Yaqoub Mousa Abu al-Qia’an, a Bedouin teacher from the village, and wounded many residents and activists, including two members of the Knesset (the legislative body in Israel) from the leftist organization “Joint List.” The cops were armed as if going to war with heavy weapons and body armor. Before the demolitions, the police blocked the roads leading to the village and tried to stop activists from arriving to the aid of the residents.
To cover up their racist murder, the police quickly branded Yaqoub Mousa Abu al-Qia’an a “terrorist”. The story they gave was that he was driving a truck during the demolition of his village, which he used to hit and kill a policeman. He was then killed by police fire. The government claimed that this was a “terrorist attack” aimed at police officers. However, Abu al-Qia’an’s autopsy revealed the regime’s blatant lies. The police shot him first, which caused him to lose control of his truck and hit them. Then they shot him again.
The attacks enraged people all across the country. On the same evening, activists went out to protest in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities. On the next Saturday, activists - both Jewish and Arab - came to Umm al-Hiran to show solidarity with the residents. All of this was done in defiance of the government and its slander of the Bedouins. The boss’ main strategy is to divide and pacify working class anger by scapegoating the most vulnerable. We must defeat this boss’ lies by building multi-racial unity, like the workers did here.
These events are typical of the Israeli government. For decades, its Zionist policy has been the same: give Jews as much land as possible, and take away as much land as possible from Arabs. When Arabs try to resist this, the regime brands them as “terrorists”. Compare this eviction to how the Israeli government wants to “evict” settlers from Amona (a blatantly illegal west-bank settlement) to a nearby hill, after being sued for building on (stolen) private Palestinian land. Each settler family will get 2 million NIS ($500,000) in compensation, and no one will be shooting at them. This hypocrisy is racism at work, plain and simple.
However, Israeli bosses also uses the same tactics against Jewish workers to enrich themselves. In 2015, Israeli police violently evicted working-class families from the Tel-Aviv neighborhood of Givat Amal Bet. The billionaire real-estate tycoon Yizhak Tshuva purchased the land - formerly state land - and decided to build luxury towers on it. Jewish workers housed on this land by the government since 1948 stood in his way, so he sent the cops to throw them out violently, without them having alternative housing.
This is why Jewish and Palestinian (including Bedouin) workers must unite against this racist policy and defend the right of all workers for their homes. The ones who should be evicted from this land are the tycoons, the fascists, and the cops. As long as capitalism exists, justice for workers is a pipedream. We need to continue to be in the fight exposing this racist system and struggling for more multi-racial, revolutionary, working class unity.

SAN FRANCISCO, January 28—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends joined hundreds of protesters at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on Saturday night to demand that all refugees be let in! It is the capitalists who create millions of refugees with their imperialist wars and racist violence. Then they use their borders to divide workers from each other. We need to smash Trump’s racist ban as we fight for a communist revolution that will eliminate all borders and end imperialist wars so that workers can build an egalitarian world without racism and sexism.
We were supposed to have a meeting that Saturday, but we quickly shifted our plans to join the protest. At first some of us were hesitant to cancel the meeting, but as soon as we got to SFO we were all energized. As we entered, people on their way out raised their fists and said, “Thanks for coming! We need people to replace us!” Hundreds of chanting protesters were at the international arrivals gate. The crowd was multiracial and was not divided by identity group or organization.
We joined the chanting, and we even led some chants. The crowd loved our chant, “They say go back, we say fight back!” While people gave speeches, we handed out fliers and CHALLENGE newspaper. After the apolitical women’s marches last weekend, this militant SFO rally was energizing. Mostly, the politics were limited to reforming immigration and criticizing Trump, but in conversations, people were open to making bigger connections. One comrade told us later that someone had responded to getting CHALLENGE with, “Of course the issue is capitalism!”
After the protest, we ate and talked about our experience. A comrade noted that the political vacuum left room for us to take leadership. Many people are mobilized now, but we must struggle to put revolutionary communist politics out front every time we fight back against these racist attacks on the working class. Another comrade agreed, saying that she noticed something similar amongst her friends. Many have reached out to her about politics more in the past few weeks and seem to be seeking political leadership.
As we deal with the fear and chaos so many people are experiencing, we have to be clear that “It’s not just Trump, It’s capitalism!” After all, it was Obama who laid the groundwork for Trump’s racist ban. Obama deported 2.4 million workers, more than any other president ever. Obama was first to list the seven mostly Muslim countries in his racist 2015 Terror Prevention Act (see front page). As those young, Black rebels in Ferguson said “The whole damn system has to go!” Join the Progressive Labor Party to make that happen.

NEWARK, NJ, January 20—It rained, and we marched. PLP members worked with a developing Newark-based organization that has sprung up largely in reaction to Donald Trump’s racist immigration policy, to organize a rally, a march, and a general assembly to coincide with now President Trump’s inauguration.
While it literally “rained on our parade,” this rain did not dampen our revolutionary optimism in the face of the potential for a fascist Trump regime to lobby a laundry list of ruthless policies against the economic interests of the working class across the globe.
The rally was held at Independence Park in the Ironbound section of Newark, and it boasted about 60 people in attendance. The event was scheduled to coincide with a walkout planned at East Side High School at 2 pm.
East Side students did not walk out, as they were possibly demoralized—their action to oust Superintendent Cami Anderson did not result in reversing the move towards the privatization of public education in the city. However, many joined the rally and march after school let out at 2:40pm. A representative of the Newark Student Union speak to the crowd, encouraging students that this is not the time to lay down. Instead, he shouted, “It’s time to fight back!”
During the rally and the march, PLP members played significant roles in engaging Newark students and residents, encouraging people to join the march and moving the conversation to the left. When a PLP member took the bullhorn, he emphasized that Trump is simply “a manifestation of capitalist ideologies,” connecting the content of Trump’s rhetoric to a criticism of the capitalist system that perpetuates this type of discourse. The audience responded well to this analysis and the argument that Hillary Clinton is not a favorable alternative, citing the racist and sexist policies that she has endorsed throughout her political career.  When PLP members had the opportunity to lead chants during the march, these truncated articulations of our line worked to energize the protestors, moving them away from popular liberal slogans, such as “dump Trump” and “Donald Trump has got to go,” to chants that promoted the power of global working class solidarity against the reactionary nationalism of a Trump administration. Marchers quickly got on board when PLP members shouted “If Trump wants massive deportation, we say working people have no nation;” and “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, workers of the world unite!”
The march was capped off with a general assembly held at Rutgers-Newark. By this point, much of the crowd had dispersed, and representatives of the various groups that sponsored the march primarily populated the room. PLP members bringing out our communist line. While one group promoted socialists to run for elected office, PL’ers accurately cited the failure of electoral politics as a vehicle to bring forth revolutionary change. That said, the political direction that this new Newark-based group will take in the coming months is not yet clear. It is up to the PLP working within the organization to bring forth an analysis of the state’s relationship to the ruling class power.
Our demonstration in Newark may not have been the size of those in other cities on this day, but it did represent the start of something here on the ground. In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) Marx wrote, “irrespective of the fact that it is always the bad side that in the end triumphs over the good side. It is the bad side that produces the movement which makes history, by providing a struggle.”
Trump, and the fascist regime his administration represents, will intensify class struggle around the world. PLP will fight alongside working people, engage with them politically, learn from their experience, and share our communist line. We cannot be the “tail that wags the dog.” We cannot wait for students and workers to come to us to learn that the only solution is communist revolution.

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY, February 2—While tens of thousands of workers and youth were protesting at JFK and other airports against the racist travel ban on Muslims from seven countries, the NY Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) called a one-hour strike on travel to JFK. This bold act of international, anti-racist solidarity was delivered by an immigrant, mostly Muslim workforce, and enjoyed widespread support.
Uber, on the other hand, tried to make a quick buck by quadrupling their rates on fares to and from JFK. The one-hour strike further exposed Uber as a strike breaker, union buster, and price gouger in the midst of an international crisis. A “Delete Uber” campaign erupted as thousands deleted Uber apps from their smart phones.
Today about 200 members and supporters of the NYTWA rallied in front of Uber headquarters to protest their actions during the strike, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s plans to join Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors. Support came from other unions and community and immigrant rights groups A speaker from the National Writers Union said, “The answer to fascism is not to go back to the way things were before Election Day, but to move forward to a world with no bans, no walls and no borders; a world based on equality and in the interests of the international working class.” This is a good goal but it is unreachable as long as we live under this capitalist system of profiteering and exploitation. In order to get there, we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with workers and youth who are fighting back, and win them to see that this fight requires the long-term struggle for communist revolution.
Just hours before the rally, Kalanick told Trump, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to try to reverse Uber’s sinking fortunes of the past week. While Kalanick may have been forced to give up his seat at Trump’s table, he and Trump and all attack immigrant and Muslim families and make billions by forcing workers to work for less than the minimum wage and destroying other basic worker protections.
Speakers for NYTWA made clear that the solidarity strike was meant to escalate the fight against the racist Muslim ban, and exposed Uber as a corporate collaborator with the rise of fascism. Support for the strike also showed Uber bosses that drivers have mass support. Let’s up the struggle from worker solidarity to working class power. Join us in building a revolutionary movement for communism, a society run by and for the working class!