AQEL TAQAZ looks warily at the implications of Western states’ proposed recognition of the Palestinian state

DECADES of capitalist globalisation and neoliberal economic policies have left Britain and many other countries in a far worse condition to meet the challenge of a pandemic such as the Covid-19 crisis.
In particular, the failure to rectify the deep structural problems of an economy dominated by the banks and their financial markets means that the Covid-19 pandemic has broken out as the international capitalist economy is heading for the brink of another economic downturn made worse by financial speculation and panic.
Privatisation, financialisation, a disproportionate concentration of investment in the military-industrial sphere, huge tax cuts for the rich and big business and an obsession with extending free markets in commodities of all kinds — including capital and labour — have left the national and local state apparatus incapable of meeting the complex challenges now facing us all.



