Greek Islands Protests the Cruise Ship Carry IDF Soldiers

A report of the Communist Liberation of Greece.

The Greek islands have been turned into protest flashpoints against genocide and starvation in Palestine. There are daily protests in every Greek island where the Israeli cruise ship Crown Iris is trying to deport Israeli tourists (soldiers of the IDF among them). It is known that IDF soldiers are sent to the Greek Islands to "relax" in the middle of the genocide. 

Wherever the Crown Iris cruise ship goes, protests against the genocide erupt! With Palestinian flags and banners against genocide and the cruise of IDF soldiers hundreds of people in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people demonstrated in Syros, Rhodes, and Agios Nikolaos (Crete). The protest in Syros succeeded in stopping the cruise deportation completely.  That angered the Israeli Embassy, and the Greek state is sending strong police forces to the islands, trying to prevent similar protests. But they managed the opposite! The protests are continuing, getting stronger and more massive. These mobilizations are shocking as these islands and towns have a few thousand inhabitants and have no tradition of struggles and organized movement structures.

The police and special forces of the Port Authority had created a police cordon around the ports of Rhodes and Agios Nikolaos to ensure the smooth disembarkation of the Israeli passengers, while they proceeded to violently arrest the demonstrators. The attitude of the passengers of the Crown Iris was particularly provocative as, in response to the slogans of the demonstrators for an end to the blockade of Gaza, they raised flags of the state of Israel and made gestures, behaving like representatives of the Netanyahu regime. The police forces proceeded to use tear gas to disperse the protesters and in their fury they even sprayed their own people. Once again we saw excessive and dangerous violence being used against demonstrators.

The persecutions announced by Minister Chrysochoidis show the extreme degree of identification of the Mitsotakis government with the criminal regime of Netanyahu.  Equally despicable is the alignment of the municipality of Rhodes and the South Aegean region with Israel, in the name of dirty profits for tourism capitalists. It is no coincidence that the far-right rushed to the side of Israel and the tourism industry capitalists.

The attitude of the bureaucratic union leaders is also unacceptable, as they, while absent from the problems of the workers who are being crushed by the tourism industry, showed up trying to cancel the protest rallies. Unfortunately, the KKE forces on the islands gave space for these practices. Initially, they supported the rallies but later backed down, yielding to the pressures of tourism capitalists