Class solidarity with the proletarians and the oppressed Palestinian masses!
(«Proletarian»; Nr. 18; Winter 2021-2022)
For several days the media has been talking about the “escalation of violence” between Israel and the Palestinians, putting the oppressed and the oppressors on the same level. In the last few hours, the Israeli army has announced and then denied having invaded the Gaza Strip, on which its artillery is firing and which its planes are bombing, while Hamas is firing salvos of missiles on Israeli cities. The death toll to date is over 100 (including 27 children) and hundreds of injured on the Palestinian side, and 7 dead on the Israeli side (including a Palestinian and his daughter).
Clashes took place in the Israeli towns of Lod and Jaffa between Arab youth and Jewish far-right groups, and similar scenes were reported in other towns, including Tel Aviv, where calls to demonstrate against Arabs were disseminated; meanwhile clashes between Arab protesters and police continued in Jerusalem. To the point of forcing Prime Minister Netanyahu to warn against anti-Arab pogroms, fearing that they would lead to revolt among Israeli Arabs. The Arabs, who make up a little more than 20% of the total population of Israel, and who generally hold low-paid jobs, have been the hardest hit by the economic crisis which has led to a surge in unemployment, and they constitute a social bomb.
It all started with a mobilization in support of Arab families in East Jerusalem who were threatened with eviction from their homes to make way for settlers. As the demonstrations grew and led to clashes with the police and settlers, Hamas stepped in: it fired missiles from the Gaza Strip, which it controls, where 2 million Palestinians survive miserably, locked in a veritable open-air camp under a blockade from Israel and Egypt. His objective is not only to take the lead in the mobilization, but above all, by his show of strength, to be recognized by the Hebrew state and its imperialist sponsors as the legitimate representative of the Gazans with whom to negotiate; this is why he has launched several calls for a cease-fire.
But what the Israeli leadership needs is a docile and obedient guardian, a subordinate servant, not an equal, so it has undertaken to “punish” Hamas, killing two leaders of its military wing and destroying buildings belonging to it - while taking care not to hit the Palestinian police, who is essential to maintaining order in Gaza. It is the civilians who are the main victims of this bloody gangsterism.
The Arab states have long since abandoned their platonic declarations of support for the Palestinians, while the imperialists have abandoned any attempt to curb the actions of Israel, the fundamental pillar of the Western imperialist presence in the region. The new US administration is essentially continuing Trump’s policy (recognition of the annexation of Jerusalem, unwavering support for Israel, etc.), and the Europeans are content with melancholic statements. The French government, following a practice established by former socialist Prime Minister Valls, has even banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris and other towns!
The Palestinian proletarians are alone; they cannot count on the Islamists of Hamas who dream of selling their skin, nor on what remains of the nationalists, who have already been sold out, nor on the fading mirage of internationally negotiated peace agreements. But they have tens and tens of millions of class brothers in the region and in the world who have the same enemy - capitalism. Sooner or later they will enter the struggle to destroy this bourgeois system and its murderous imperialist “order”. The international proletarian revolution will then put a definitive end to all the oppressions, all the injustices, all the massacres of capitalism.
Real solidarity here with the Palestinians as with other victims of oppression and exploitation, opposition to the crimes committed by the Hebrew state, does not consist only in denouncing support for this state which maintains its domination over millions of Palestinians through violence and terror.
It also and above all consists in working for the resumption of the anti-capitalist class struggle, in the perspective of overthrowing “our” bourgeoisie and its state - and not in trying to convince them to change their policies!
May, 14th 2021
International Communist Party
www.pcint.org