PERHAPS the most dispiriting aspect of the invasion of the Gaza Strip is the utter pointlessness of the exercise; while military victory is all but certain, at every other level, Israel can only be the loser.

Decades of refusal to allow Palestinians their legitimate political rights has not left it even marginally more secure, and its current savage actions will only serve further to galvanise support for Hamas.

The brutalities that the Israel Defense Forces are perpetrating right now guarantee the rocket launchers and the suicide bombers more recruits then they will know what to do with, for a generation and more to come.

Meanwhile, the 100:1 ratio of the death tolls has horrified liberal opinion everywhere. Even the European Commission is now openly accusing Israel of breaching humanitarian law.

What, then, can possibly be the motivation of Israel’s political establishment for a course of action both murderous in the literal sense and spectacularly misconceived at the strategic level?

One issue is of course the need to restore IDF credibility in the wake of the Lebanon debacle. Then there is the desire of Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak to out-Netanyahu Netanyahu himself in the run up to general elections next month. Why should they concern themselves with the growing pile of corpses – and they are 99% Palestinian corpses, after all – when such vital issues of credibility are at stake?

Let it be stressed at once that the open admiration for the reactionary Islamists of Hamas – so obviously on display in some quarters of the left - is profoundly misplaced.

Nevertheless, the organisation won the Palestinian elections in 2006 because it articulated opposition to Israeli oppression, and because of popular revulsion at the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. That gives it an undeniable popular mandate and makes it central to the quest for a solution, whether we like that reality or not.

Opinions as to what constitutes a viable settlement to the Palestine question differ, and at times like this, all of them seem somewhat chimeric. But a precondition of ever reaching one is an Israeli leadership that is both aware of the extent of the injustices meted out since 1948 and determined to rectify them. That is clearly not the Israeli leadership we see right now.

POLITICIANS are banging on about the white working class again. Hazel Blears - daughter of a maintenance fitter from Salford - at least knows the milieu in the firsthand way Harriet Harman never will.

Even so, she has managed completely to misinterpret the results of a survey that shows many ordinary white working people on council estates express fears about immigration, and feel a sense of unfairness at the way they are treated. Then again, so has almost everybody.

In some quarters, the notes of bien pensant contempt are readily audible. ‘These people’ simply do not understand what integration means, we read in several newspapers.

Further to the left, those that stress the middle class nature of the British National Party after the recent leak of its membership list will be outraged at the very notion that workers can possible be racist.

Still others reject the concept of a white working class, separate from the working class in general and with a distinct identity, often regarded as implicitly reactionary.

But if the general point is well taken, simple observation suggests that outside of a relatively limited number of melting pot areas, an undeniable white working class cultural identity exists in this country.

Political commonsense over the last two decades has insisted that elections are won and lost in a small number of key marginals, and manifestoes have been geared exclusively to swing voter concerns. If there are millions of ordinary people out there who think that New Labour has written them off as mere voting fodder with no viable electoral options, they are not far wrong. That, of course, potentially represents a colossal opening for the far right.

Now, I was born in east London and am the son of a railway worker. Culturally - if hardly socially these days - I remain white working class. First generation middle-class white working class, if you want to put it like that. Top university-educated white working class, even. White working class, despite now knowing which fork to use in an overpriced restaurant. But I will never forget that I didn’t used to be a poncey tosser.

As a result of being brung up proper, I have managed to avoid the all too frequent romanticisation of ’the workers’ to which upper-class lefties are sometimes prone. It has always been the case that many proles are politically rightwing and viscerally racist. I don’t have to go outside some – but only some - of own family to know that.

On the other hand, there is something new in today’s situation, something different about today’s racism, that has made the growth of the BNP possible. It is no longer a racism based a deliberately-inculcated mass ideological basis for imperialism, which I noticed in an uncle sent to Korea in the early 1950s to shoot at gooks, for instance.

This is instead a racism rooted in the collapse of social housing, a racism born of the disappearance of blue collar employment and grassroots trade union organisation, a racism of benefit cuts, a racism centred on the perception that nobody in a position of authority really gives a shit. You might even want to call it a racism of desperation.

But whatever you call it, it is ugly and festering and dangerous, and Labour’s conscious decision to snub the white working class in favour of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman is no small part of the explanation. In her heart of hearts, I suspect Hazel Blears knows that.

DIRECT action against housing evictions is a tactic last adopted by the far left in London in the 1930s. You can read the inspiring details in Phil Piratin's biography Our Flag Stays Red, an excellent book that I once owned but have somehow mislaid over the years.

Piratin, later Communist MP for Stepney, tells how Communist Party members mobilised mass blockades outside the apartments of working class families threatened with losing their homes, so preventing the bailiffs from gaining access.

Famously, in June 1937 they even suceeded in keeping the roof over the heads of two British Union of Fascists-supporting families at a block called Paragon Mansions in Mile End; those they assisted soon turned their back on the Mosleyites.

North of the border, of course, Scottish Militant Labour organised in similar fashion to prevent poindings and warrant sales during the struggle against the poll tax in the late 1980s, and good on 'em.

So I was intrigued to come across a poorly-produced computer printout flyer without any graphics, sellotaped to a phone booth in Stoke Newington last night. Here it is, with grammatical errors intact:

ARE YOU/SOMEONE YOU KNOW FACING REPOSSESSION?
0207 819 1170/1172 www.swp.org.uk
- We have 100s of people ready to stop bailiffs evicting.
- Public gatherings in public streets are OFF property - let innocent repo victims of dodgy banker's playing an accumulator bet know this.
- Resist new Govt powers bailiffs, bailout baniks and repo courts have to pindown family/friends/neighbours in own home and get hands on wives/daughters/sisters.
- If you tolerate this then your children will be next.

While there is no mention of who is behind the initiative - and I entirely approve of it, let me stress - your starter for ten is that the telephone numbers and the website listed are those of the Socialist Workers' Party.

With repossessions set to skyrocket in 2009, this is the sort of effort that is clearly worth a shot. But the obvious question is whether this is a new policy officially sanctioned by the centre, a project by the local branch, an unauthorised move by one or more off-message member, or simply a hoax. If it does have the blessing of the central committee, one would expect rather better publicity material.

And assuming the leaflet is genuine, can the SWP really get hundreds of people out at relatively short notice? That is a tall order, even in Hackney North, the closest the party gets to calling anywhere a traditional powerbase. And what's all this stuff about wives, daughters and sisters? Odd wording.

As ever, I'd be grateful for further information and any comments. Is this turn being adopted elsewhere in the country? Are any other leftwing organisations planning something like this? Do you think it is a good idea in principle? Would you join in such actions yourself?

ISRAEL is not behaving like a civilised nation; that inevitably raises the question of whether it should be treated as one. Even its strongest supporters must be finding it difficult to mount a positive case.

The third day of the bombardment of Gaza has taken the death toll to over 300, including four young sisters killed when a bomb aimed at a nearby mosque missed its target. Some 1,400 have been injured. Even as I write, warships are reportedly bombarding the strip’s rudimentary port facilities. Welcome to Operation Cast Lead.

There have been debates in many British trade unions - including my own, the National Union of Journalists - centred on demands for a labour movement boycott of the state of Israel. I now suspect that I have lacked clarity on this issue. Sadly, prevarication is no longer tenable.

Opponents of such a move have typically argued that the country should not be ‘uniquely demonised’, and indeed, it should not be uniquely demonised. But minus any religious overtones and rhetorical flamboyance, demonise is in this context is simply a more elaborate synonym for condemn, and Israel’s action certain does deserve condemnation.

What are the viable comparators here? Tolstoy famously notes that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and likewise each odious administration finds its own specialities in human rights abuses.

Burma, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China, Zimbabwe; all manage to be unequivocally execrable in one degree or another, irrespective of the way some on the left try to grade them into ‘pro-imperialist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ regimes. But it’s not our job to play favourites. Let us demonise the lot of them.

Perhaps we can best compare what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip right now with Russia’s treatment of Chechnya. But nobody is pretending that Russia is a liberal democracy. The irony is, history shows that brutal repression is never a solution. The tactic simply doesn’t work, as Tel Aviv will find out to its cost.

I wish I could be outside the Israeli embassy in London at this afternoon’s protest, although unfortunately other commitments preclude that. In the meantime, if the issue of labour movement sanctions comes up inside the NUJ once more, I shall reluctantly be forced to back the call.

Yes, I am fully aware that that will align me with political elements I don’t really find savoury, but I cannot see what other choice there is; while I used to be on the middle ground in this debate, Israel has demolished that space, just as surely as it has levelled Gaza’s interior ministry.