State Terrorism and Massacres: Constant Characteristics of the Policy of the Israeli Bourgeoisie
(«Proletarian»; Nr. 6; October 2010)
The Israeli attack on the “Freedom Flotilla” of pacifist organizations under the guidance of the Turkish NGO Insani Vafki Yardim, which wanted to break the blockade to bring medicine and food to the people of Gaza, starving and subjected to terrible imprisonment since June 16, 2007, is another demonstration of the military and repressive nature of the “only democratic country in the Middle East.”
The policy of the Israeli bourgeoisie is dictated by economic interests but also by interests of regional power, the Hebrew State maintained and protected by the United States as their outpost in the Middle East, has long since developed its own international policy not only in conflict with other regional powers or semi-powers (Egypt to Syria, Saudi Arabia to Iran and Turkey as the case may be), but sometimes it even runs up against the interests of its American imperialist sponsors. In addition to the iron heel under which it has crushed the Palestinian people for half a century, Israel has a policy of constant potential aggression against its neighbors, tempered only by the United States and other imperialist countries that support it.
In international waters, 70 miles off the coast of Gaza, Israeli special commandos intervened to block the peace flotilla, but also and primarily to give a brutal lesson to all those who would help the Palestinians, it is a warning especially to Turkey, which although traditionally allied with Israel, is becoming one of its rivals. The media announced nine dead and dozens injured on the “Mavi Marmara”, the Turkish flagship of the expedition, while all participants were arrested, present among them were more or less well-known personalities (a Nobel Laureate, writers, journalists, survivors of the Holocaust, etc..) which helped give additional resonance to these events.
The international diplomatic crisis was not long in coming, the Israeli prime minister cancelled his planned meeting with U.S. President Obama to return to Israel, the Turkish government recalled its ambassador, the European Union has requested an investigation, the UN Security Council met, Iran has thundered for the umpteenth time against the Hebrew state, but once again the plight of the Palestinians is merely a pretext for this diplomatic game through which they assert the differences between various bourgeoisies, their states and their networks of influence in the region. For now, the Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip will try to profit from these events which embarrass Israeli diplomacy in order to strengthen its own control over the population, including through the blockade, which does not prevent it from leaving open the possibility of negotiations with Israel in order to allocate tasks of maintaining the submission of the Palestinian masses to national, wage and religious repression. This is not good news for the Palestinian proletariat. Despite their economic and political rivalry, the Palestinian and Israeli bourgeoisie are united to always increasingly exploit and oppress the masses of Palestine deprived of everything, even prospects
Israeli democracy has nothing to learn from other bourgeois governments. The systematic anti-Palestinian operations and perpetual military interventions, the latest dubbed “Molten Lead” which has seen the use of the white phosphorus bombs already employed by the Americans in Fallujah in Iraq, are the expression of a general trend of post-fascist democracies: the trend towards the militarization of society, social control through repression, an increasingly authoritarian and totalitarian government policy . This trend is much more evident in Israel for historic reasons related to the establishment of its state, while in other democratic countries it is apparent in a more occassional manner, during the repression of demonstrations, attacks against refugees (as in the case of an Albanian refugee boat sunk with all hands in international waters by an Italian warship in 1997) or hunting down undocumented migrants.
The pacifist and legal methods of opposition to authoritarianism, to the militarization of society, the suppression of attempts at solidarity among even the most peaceful and most law-abiding, consistently demonstrate their impotence. In a society where the rule of the bourgeoisie inevitably involves the use of all means, legal, illegal, democratic, violent and deadly to maintain the capitalist order, reformist actions, peaceful and respectful of bourgeois laws will never succeed in reducing and even less in eradicating poverty, unemployment, and the very real slavery to which capitalist profit condemns whole populations.
It is demonstrated by the plight of the Palestinian masses in Gaza and the territories occupied by the Israeli army and colonists, it is demonstrated by the situation faced by the masses in many countries of the capitalist periphery, it is demonstrated by the capitalist crises that afflict the always more numerous proletarian masses in the most developed capitalist countries!
The response to the domination of the bourgeoisie and its methods of government can be found only in reconstructing the social power of the proletariat: proletarians have the opportunity to be a historically positive force directed towards emancipation from the capitalist economic system and bourgeois society, the pre-condition for this is in the renewed fight on the terrain of the open confrontation between the classes, the struggle for exclusively class interests, completely opposed to national and other interests allegedly common to all classes: these are really just bourgeois interests camouflaged behind national, racial, religious or democratic myths.
The response to the domination of the bourgeoisie and its methods of government can be found in the reprise of the class struggle, apart from all democratic and pacifist illusions: we can only respond to iron and fire with the same weapons, used this time for class objectives. If the situation does not yet permit the practical realization of this perspective, it is still the one that groups of the proletarian vanguard worldwide must follow tomorrow . The capitalist system is based on private ownership by the ruling class of all social wealth, as long as this system, defended by all bourgeois States, whether they are the most liberal or the most dictatorial, remains in place, oppression, exploitation, poverty and war cannot disappear!
In order to have an opportunity to defeat the ruling class, the proletarian class struggle in Israel as in all countries of the Middle East, Africa and Europe, America and Asia, will require the action and the direction of the revolutionary communist party, representing the future of the emancipation of the proletariat and of all humanity.
To work for the resumption of the proletarian class struggle and the constitution of the class party is part of the same historical struggle for the overthrow of capitalist domination, struggle outside of this perspective leads only to illusion, impotence, demoralization, continual waste of energy as the pacifists have demonstrated in permanence.
As long as this struggle is not brought to a successful conclusion, the most powerful imperialisms will continue to wage wars against the weaker countries; they will continue to engage in increasingly fierce competition in all fields until their insoluble economic problems thrust them into a new world war to repartition the planet. As long as this struggle is not victorious, humanity will be threatened by the repetition of catastrophic crises and the colossal destruction of wars in an infernal spiral where the proletarians and the majority of the world population will continue to be exploited, martyrized, famished and assassinated with the sole aim of swelling the share of profits collected by the tiny minority of capitalists on the planet!