Mobilisations against genocide in Gaza fill the streets of the world
The brutal extermination unleashed by the State of Israel in the Gaza Strip, condemning its inhabitants to forced exodus and starvation, without water, electricity, food and medicine, and with brutal bombings that have already left almost 3,000 dead, a third of them children, and more than 10,000 wounded, has unleashed the indignation of millions.
Dozens of demonstrations in every corner of the world, especially in Arab countries but also in the US and Europe, have flooded the streets against Zionist genocide, in defence of the Palestinian people, and denouncing the West's boundless cynicism. An indignation that has become a banner of struggle in the face of the evidence of the macabre plan of Netanyahu's ultra-reactionary, racist and fascist government for the 2.2 million inhabitants crowded into the Gaza Strip: flee or be exterminated.
The threatened evacuation of 1.1 million Gazans from the northern Gaza Strip, in preparation for a military invasion for which 300,000 soldiers have already been massed at the border, is nothing more than an excuse to justify their crimes. An evacuation that has already been described as impossible by both the UN and the WHO, the latter pointing out that it will mean a "death sentence" for thousands of wounded and critically ill people crowded into hospitals, including children and the elderly.
A criminal plan that has had the support of the US and the EU, reflected in Von der Leyen's shameful visit to Israel and her unreserved support for any action whatever the consequences. A position which, following the eruption of mass demonstrations across the continent, and the impossibility of imposing their propaganda, they have now been forced to qualify.
An exemplary internationalist solidarity movement
Huge demonstrations have swept through all the countries of the Arab world, from Yemen, Iraq, Qatar and Jordan, where they were harshly repressed, to Egypt and Morocco, which recently re-established relations with Israel under US sponsorship. The mobilisation of the Arab masses in solidarity with the Palestinian people contrasts with the complete inaction of their governments, corrupt military dictatorships that do juicy business with Israel, Europe and the US, and which have collaborated for years in perpetuating Zionist oppression of Palestine.
They fear that these protests will go much further, turning solidarity into an uprising for the liberation of the Arab peoples. They fear a new Arab spring, and so they cry crocodile tears and make empty appeals for the massacre to respect the limits of "international law". But in practice, beyond the speeches, they have long since abandoned the Palestinian people to their fate. Hence the constant moves over the years to re-establish relations with Israel in order to do lucrative business, which may now be cut short by the magnitude of the punishment against Palestine.
On the other hand, in the USA, the mobilisations are growing all the time. Tens of thousands in New York, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Kansas City, Washington DC... against Zionist brutality and, above all, against the blatant participation of their government in the genocide against Gaza, sending warships, two aircraft carriers, to ensure that no one in the region can respond militarily to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. These mass mobilizations are generating a lot of worry in the US Goverment.
Here we see the "Democratic" Biden administration in action, which some on the left dared to call progressive, and which has become the starkest representation of militarism. The fact that millions are once again occupying the streets of dozens of American cities highlights the serious difficulties facing American imperialism.
And the same can be said of Europe, where tens of thousands have also taken to the streets of London, Glasgow, Madrid, Paris, Lyon, Rome, Milan, Athens... despite the attempts of many governments to prevent demonstrations or any symbol of solidarity with Palestine through open repression, with measures befitting a military dictatorship.
In France, Macron has ordered the police to forcibly prevent demonstrations in favour of the Palestinian cause, and has even threatened the NPA with terrorism in a statement on its website. In Britain, the minister of justice has ordered the arrest of anyone waving a Palestinian flag, although they have been powerless in the face of mass demonstrations. And in Germany, the Social Democrat and Green-led government, with the shameful support of Die Linke, has outlawed a Palestinian prisoner solidarity organisation and harasses and arrests anyone who publicly demonstrates against Israel and in solidarity with Palestine. This must be the European garden Borrell was telling us about!
Israel's brutality has been of such magnitude, and in plain sight, that neither repression nor the nauseating Zionist propaganda campaign of the Western bourgeois media, disguising and justifying genocide, has been able to stop a massive upward movement of struggle. A solidarity movement that will not cease to grow in the coming weeks, especially in the face of a military invasion whose only intention is to raze Gaza to the ground, and if possible, to expel its population as in 1948.
The EU's warnings to Twitter, alleging disinformation in favour of Hamas, and Israel's threats to journalists in the area, including assassination, are blatant examples of the attempt to prevent the genocide of the Palestinian people from being broadcast live. It is a blow to freedom of the press in the face of which the vast majority of the media remain completely silent.
In Spain, where tens of thousands of people filled the Puerta del Sol in Madrid on Sunday, the government of Pedro Sánchez, in which Sumar, the PCE and Podemos participate, continues to echo this shameful campaign, justifying Israel's crimes with the excuse that it has the right to defend itself.
This is what Pedro Sánchez said at a rally this weekend, but he did qualify that it can defend itself, but respecting international law! International law? Israel, which has systematically failed to comply with all UN resolutions, which promotes illegal settlements and a policy of apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and which gives carte blanche to settlers and soldiers who murder with impunity children, women and men in Gaza and the West Bank? What kind of macabre joke is this? Do they think we are stupid?
Prospects for war. Netanyahu's headlong rush and the danger of regional conflict
As we explained in our last statement, Israel is in the midst of a deep internal crisis, which has brought it to the brink of civil conflict. In this context, the Hamas attack, which is becoming more and more evident was known to the Israeli military and secret services, and to its American counterpart, has given oxygen to Netanyahu and his government, the most reactionary since the founding of the State of Israel with fascist elements in its midst.
They are now trying to heal all wounds by calling for national unity in the name of war and the destruction of Gaza, and avoiding, for the time being, accountability for alleged security lapses that do not appear to be such. At the same time, he and his fascist Zionist partners are taking advantage of the situation to strengthen dictatorial tendencies by attacking and curtailing democratic rights. The latest is a proposed law by Netanyahu's party to be able to arrest and imprison citizens who "harm national morale" by disseminating information or "propaganda" that benefits the enemy. This is Israel's much-vaunted democracy!
But despite all these manoeuvres, and even in this situation, the cracks in Israeli society do not seem to be closing, and if they continue on this path, they could even explode at a higher level.
The still minority protests in Tel Aviv in front of the Defence Ministry's headquarters demanding the negotiation of the hostages' ransom and Netanyahu's resignation are a symptom of the continuing internal crisis. Despite having formed a national emergency government, with the support of only 66 out of 120 seats in the Kesnet, Yair Lapid's main opposition party still refuses to join it as long as Netanyahu does not break with the extremists. This does not mean that he does not support the brutal massacre in Gaza, but rather that he is trying to play a restraining role in order to prevent a worsening of the crisis within Israeli society and the spread of the war in the Middle East.
According to polls in the Israeli press, more than half of the public (56%) believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should resign from his post when the fighting ends. The same is true of Defence Minister Yoav Galant (52%). Fifty-nine per cent have little or no confidence in the government to manage the war, and 88 per cent of opposition party voters have no confidence in the government at all. These figures show the enormous complications that Netanyahu, his government and the Israeli ruling class may face, especially when the invasion begins and Israeli army casualties soar, as analysts are already warning.
Obviously, and despite the huge amount of warmongering rhetoric and propaganda, Israel faces the invasion of Gaza under very negative conditions, which have nothing to do with previous situations. Added to this is the danger of unleashing a regional war, with the entry into the conflict of Hezbollah, which has already threatened to do so if a massacre is unleashed in Gaza, and with a possible confrontation with Iran.
But above all, it is the eruption of the masses onto the stage, filling the streets throughout the Arab world and much of the US and Europe, which is forcing numerous diplomatic moves to avoid escalating the conflict and a war that could put many of the region's corrupt regimes on the ropes, and deepen the serious political and social crisis that the US and European powers are experiencing.
The struggle of the Palestinian people and the need for socialist revolution
The struggle of the Palestinian people for their national liberation will be effective with an internationalist and socialist revolutionary programme.
From Revolutionary Left International we defend the right of the Palestinian people to fight with all their might against the murderous and colonialist Zionist state, to mass mobilisations, to the general strike and, of course, to armed self-defence. The question, as we have explained, is under what political programme this struggle can take place to overthrow the Zionist bourgeoisie and its repressive and militarist apparatus, and also the Arab bourgeoisie, including the Palestinian one, which has not ceased to collaborate and do business with the state of Israel. And this is where the fundamentalist and bourgeois strategy of Hamas and the Islamist militias ultimately proves impotent.
We cannot forget that Hamas, a fundamentalist organisation with a very reactionary religious agenda, was once funded by US imperialism, as was the Taliban, to contain the left forces that dominated the Palestinian national liberation movement.
Netanyahu himself was making deals with the Hamas leadership in Gaza in order to focus his forces in the West Bank, expand settlements and reinforce the armed action of settler paramilitary groups. The Israeli prime minister was very clear about this in 2019: "anyone who wants to thwart a Palestinian state must support the reinforcement of Hamas, it is part of our strategy". A strategy that may have succeeded, however, as a result of the bankruptcy of Fatah and the PLO, which after the Oslo accords became Israel's police and military subcontractor in the occupied territories in order to keep the Palestinian population at bay.
The oppressed masses of Palestine have been betrayed on countless occasions. This must be honestly acknowledged and conclusions must be drawn from it. The alternative is not the Iran of the mullahs, not Islamic fundamentalism, but a revolutionary strategy and policy based on mass struggle, general strike and insurrection. Nor will we stop this genocide with empty appeals to the international community, complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people, as do the leaders of the reformist left in Spain and Europe. Only mass struggle, as we are seeing these days, under a revolutionary and socialist programme will be able to stop this massacre against our Palestinian brothers and sisters.
We revolutionary communists unconditionally support the struggle of the Palestinian people against decades of occupation and extermination. And we do so by proposing the programme and methods of socialist revolution. A free Palestine will be a socialist Palestine, and that will necessarily mean socialist revolution also in Israel by smashing the Zionist state and its military machine.
