This May 2021, there has been a new genocidal attack by the Israeli government and army on Gaza. Over the 73 years since the creation of the Israeli State, the life of the Palestinian people has been subjected to terrorist attacks, wars of colonisation, the plundering of land, an increasingly violent policy of apartheid and the arrest of many of its leaders.
PRESENTATION:
Still on 17 June, many days after the 25 May 2021 ceasefire, Israel goes on attacking the Gaza strip in the North West of Gaza City and North of Beit Lahia. Still now and in spite of the ceasefire, 1,500 Palestinians are still threatened with violent eviction from their homes around Sheikh Jarrah.
In spite of its hypocritical media reports, UK’s policy in Palestine is defined by its unconditional political, economic and military support for Israel. This is now applying increasingly to the Starmer Labour Party as it now makes supporting Israel a de facto condition for Labour membership.
On 13 May, Netanyahu drew plans for the ground invasion of Gaza. Right-wing Nationalist-Zionists took to the streets across Israel in search of Arabs and chanting: “death to the Arabs!”. For the first time however, Hamas in Gaza stood in support of these Israeli Arabs, whilst these expressed support for Gaza’s liberation.
This increasing unification of the Palestinians is going to be irreversible. This is the form that the defeat of Israel is taking. The ground is being prepared for more links between all the Palestinians groups, and between them and anti-imperialist other forces in Jordan, Sudan, Turkey, Egypt and the whole Middle East. In the US and Britain, the huge demonstrations in support of the Palestinians are sustained by a growing anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-war consciousness in the youth, the working class and the broad masses.
As the article below analyses, the 25 May ceasefire represented a particular blow for Netanyahu and acolytes. Although Biden may use this lull to advantage, this ceasefire is an admission of defeat. Israel and the US haemorrhage social and political authority in all the countries of the world, and in the Arab bourgeoisies particularly. Jordan has condemned Israel’s attacks on Ramadan and on the al-Aqsa Mosque. Egypt and Qatar helped with the ceasefire that Netanyahu was opposing. Even Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud denounced Israel’s “flagrant violations” of Palestinian rights at the meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
In every country, the use of the IHRA mis-definition is beginning to boomerang against the apologists of camouflaged Palestinian extermination. The big lesson being learnt everywhere is that US and world capitalism uses Israel as its spearhead in preparation for world war – and not for the second return.
In Britain, 6 major trade unions, 3 University and College Unions and 10 national community groups signed a public repudiation of these new attempts by Israel at further ethnic cleansing in Palestine. In – or at the base of – the Labour Party, the best way for the various left-wing currents to unite is to look for support in the wider left-wing parties, trade unions and social movements on a programme of active opposition to the war of capitalism on the Palestinians and on the ex-colonial countries getting ready to bury the capitalist system.
ISRAEL’S CRIMINAL ATTACK AND THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
This new escalation – 11 days of bombings in May 2021 against the Palestinians in Gaza – is taking place in conditions of very great instability in the region with the war in Syria and the defeat of imperialism, the crisis in Lebanon, the elections in Iran and the electoral loss of the Likud.
Because Netanyahu could not make a government, he looked to this war to keep his immunity now much threatened by prosecution, bribery, fraud and embezzlement – he is expected to serve 10 years in prison. For him to stay in power, there had to be attacks, bombings and this new war on Gaza.
No dignified life is allowed in Gaza
There came the national-Zionist mobilizations of the Flags in Jerusalem, the attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque and the eviction of East Jerusalem Palestinian families. When Hamas riposted, these provocations gave rise to the criminal attacks on an almost defenceless Palestinian population, by one of the most powerful and best equipped armies in the world. The death toll was 242, including 65 children, with some 1,500 Palestinians injured. So, Israel’s bombs did not just aim at military targets. In addition to Palestinian homes, Israel’s army destroyed the press building and the al-Jawhara tower with 14 media outlets inside, including the Palestine Daily News.
With one and a half million inhabitants on 300 km2, Gaza is considered the largest concentration camp in the world. As the Israeli navy stops the Palestinian boats using their own territorial waters, the latter can only fish on their polluted coastline; there, sewerage and drainage systems can never be rebuilt due to successive Israeli attacks and the dearth of materials caused by the blockade.
It is never possible to rebuild the civilians’ homes ruined by Israel’s wars either. Stripping the Palestinians of all infrastructures and destroying their homes is the “scorched earth” tactic that the Israeli army uses to enforce expulsion.
The controlled entry of food into Gaza ensures no more than malnutrition and atrophied growth for half the under-fives, and anaemia for the pregnant women.
If you add to this all the air traffic controls and surveillance, the blockade, the isolation, the limitations on communications and on the means to travel to work – you see that no dignified life is allowed in Gaza. Hospitals lack medicines. Their professionals are thwarted in the exercise of their functions, the patients suffer unnecessary pain.
Israel cannot accept a capitalist Palestinian State, and a Democratic Republic even less:
The cause of this new escalation, as always, is the brutal occupation and expulsion of the inhabitants of the Palestinian territories that began in the 1967 war. The settlers are extremists created for the purpose of cornering the population and its oppression.
Europe has been passive in this conflict by not taking responsibility for this crisis. No other behaviour could be expected from its right-wing governments. Due to the US veto, the United Nations Security Council issued no resolution to demand the end of the bombing.
The mobilisations in support of the Palestinian people showed the impact and the authority of their struggle over the masses of the world. But this is not enough to contain the massacre. A decisive statement by Russia, China and other Workers’ and Revolutionary States is needed, condemning this disproportionate and unequal aggression.
Left-wing parties, trade unions and social movements must also issue resolutions and organise actions condemning the criminal actions of the Israeli Government.
The elections in Palestine have been postponed again after 15 years since the last ones. This comes about because the Mahmud Abbas’ leadership fears being defeated by Hamas and new rivals in Fatah. Hamas is a religious party with no agenda for development and social transformation – its sole objective being to confront and expel Israel from its territories. As a result, confrontation is the only thing it offers as a movement to maintain its base of support.
This situation of constant conflict demonstrates the impossibility of coexistence through a two-nation-State. Israel would not allow the creation of a Palestinian State with a capitalist functioning that competed with it. And even less would it accept a Democratic Republic to serve as example and stimulus to all the Arab masses.
Monarchies and Arab bourgeoisies afraid of radicalisation in the region:
The force relations in the region were altered by the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ leader Kasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi. These had been acting as organizers for a Single Front against the United States and Israel. This has also been a blow to the Palestinian movement.
Account must be taken of the monarchies in the Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and of the right-wing government of Egypt. They lend their support to the state of Israel in order to contain a process of radicalisation in the area, and to receive military and political aid in return. The masses of these countries need to intervene with the perspective of reversing this, whilst helping processes of social transformation.
The left Parties, the trade unions and the social movements must demand:
– Immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army and an end to Gaza’s blockade!
– Global boycott of trade with Israel!
– Dismantling of all Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, the Golan, the West Bank!
– The enabling of the entry of food, medicines and all necessary materials for the reconstruction of homes, infrastructures and public buildings!
– Breaking the European Union’s trade and military agreements with Israel!
– Freedom for all the Palestinian political prisoners!
Posadists Today, 27.6.2021
