The genocidal barbarity of Zionism continues ceaseless, and now more than half a million Palestinians in Gaza face atrocious famine with children as the immediate victims. 80% of those affected worldwide by phase 5 of famine, the maximum, are currently Gazans. Israel uses hunger as a weapon of war, with the full support of the US and the EU.
Despite the hypocritical deliberations of the UN International Court of Justice to decide whether or not there is genocide, or whether or not war crimes are being committed, the evidence leaves no room for doubt. The atrocious massacre perpetrated by Zionist soldiers in Gaza City, shooting at a crowd desperately looking for a bag of flour to feed themselves, is the latest example resulting in one hundred dead.
Internationalist solidarity
Genocide is a fact. There is no possible discussion. The International Court of Justice knows it, the US and the EU know it, the Arab governments know it, and the international community knows it. But they only make speeches full of petty waffle and vomiting justifications, asking halfheartedly Netanyahu to hold back a little and massacre the Palestinian population following a supposed international humanitarian law that does not exist.
What a descent into barbarism and the justification of barbarism! At the same time they try to deceive world public opinion, they continue to massively supply weapons to the Zionist regime; they keep buying and feeding Israel’s enormous war industry, almost 20% of all their exports [1] as well as maintaining all economic and diplomatic ties.
The genocide of the Palestinian people is a blunt condemnation of the Western ruling class and its rotten democracy, which has put the power of the oppressed back on the table in order to sweep away this scum. The Gaza solidarity movement, with millions on the streets around the world, continues to vigorously combat the Zionists and their accomplices.
The weekend of March 2 and 3 in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and more than 100 US cities; in London, Manchester and dozens of cities in the United Kingdom; in Toronto, Berlin, Vienna, Pisa, Rabat, Cairo or Havana. More than 200 cities around the world. And the previous weekend, February 24 and 25, in more than 100 cities in the Spanish State, against Netanyahu and the complicity of the Government of Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz.
This pressure from below with mass demonstrations; blocking companies and ports from where military material is supplied to Israel; carrying out actions against Western multinationals that do lucrative business with Israeli apartheid, is what is behind Borrell's crocodile tears, or the pathetic demagoguery of Biden and his Government, and now of Pedro Sánchez, suggesting the parachute of humanitarian aid as an alternative to the Israeli blockade. Meanwhile, hundreds of trucks remain blocked on the Egyptian border next to Rafah, a few meters from famine, leaving tons of food to rot.
Hell is here thanks to the US and Europe
Netanyahu's supremacist, colonialist and far-right government, with the collaboration and applause of this supposedly secular and "moderate" opposition, has devastated the Gaza Strip, causing nearly 40,000 deaths, 25,000 of them women and children, as the US Government already acknowledges. This barbarism threatens to take a new leap with the invasion of Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans are crowded in inhumane conditions. The figures, with 127 Palestinian children murdered daily compared to the 118 murdered daily in Auschwitz, are horrifying. “If there is hell on earth, it is northern Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In the West Bank the offensive of the Israeli army and the fascist squads of settlers continues. Nearly 500 Palestinians have died since October 7. The worst number in decades. But Zionist barbarism seeks to surpass the Palestinian borders, with brutal bombings on Lebanon, attacking the civilian population and threatening to escalate the conflict with the invasion of southern Lebanon and reduce Beirut to ashes.
All of this is possible thanks to the economic, logistical and military support of the Biden Government and the Democrats, and the connivance of European governments, whether conservative or “socialist.”
Washington has delivered 14,000 million dollars and intends to deliver another 14,000 to Netanyahu, almost half of the 69,000 million that the Bank of Israel has work out that the conflict will cost in the period 2023-2025, and they continue to activate all their diplomacy in the Council of UN Security to veto any resolution condemning the Zionist regime or calling for an immediate ceasefire.
This is the face of US imperialist “democracy.” Biden and the Democrats act openly, with the same barbaric methods of Trump and the Republican Party, the same as his predecessors did in Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, Nicaragua or Indonesia.
The same can be said of the EU, of the European Governments and of the cynical crocodile tears of Borrell or Pedro Sánchez. They tell us that what is happening is terrible. As if the thing has nothing to do with them! Still, the EU has a preferential free trade agreement with Israel, its main partner, accounting for 25.6% of its exports and 31.9% of its imports.
If the EU and the governments of the old continent broke all economic relations with Israel, blocking imports and exports, the supply and purchase of weapons or energy, blocking its accounts in London, Paris and Berlin, then the Israeli economy would sink without remedy and the war effort would end up collapsing. But obviously this is not going to happen. It is utopian to think that something like this will happen unless a popular uprising threatens the Western bourgeoisies.
That is why we must be clear: fighting against the genocide in Gaza is fighting against the American, German, British, French or Spanish bourgeoisie, against their puppet governments. The enemy of the Palestinian people is not only in Tel Aviv, it is here, within our countries. The enemy is also at home.
The challenge for the Palestinian and global militant left
We must also point out that the other imperialist bloc led by China and Russia is not moving forces to prevent this massacre. They could impose an embargo on oil and gas, or break off economic relations that would cause serious problems for the Israeli economy and its military industry. But they don't, and the reason is obvious: the Beijing regime has lucrative businesses in the Middle East with the Arab dictatorships and also with Israel, and it does not want to ruin them. The suffering of the Palestinian people matters little to them compared to their buoyant economic relations.
Gaza offers a valuable lesson for all those who continue to consider that national liberation will depend on strategic alliances with imperialist governments or bandits.
In this battle, the Palestinian people, like all oppressed and colonized peoples, have the right and obligation to take up arms against their oppressor. But the armed struggle must be guided by a revolutionary program, and not by religious fundamentalism or by maneuvers of subordination to reactionary powers like the Iran of the Mullahs.
The harsh class and national oppression suffered by the Palestinian people, the ethnic cleansing and genocide they face, can only be stopped through the most forceful mass mobilization, the general strike and insurrection, with a class, internationalist program that raises the flag of the socialist revolution against capitalist and imperialist barbarism. The example of the Intifada led the way.
The combative left of Palestine and the revolutionary left of the world face an extraordinary strategic challenge. After the failure of the Oslo Accords, after the fiasco of the ANP's policy and its subordination to Western imperialism and the dead end represented by the bourgeois and fundamentalist politics of Hamas, we must return to the methods of struggle and the program of socialism, of the class unity of all the oppressed above ethnic, religious or national differences.
Sweeping capitalism in the Middle East and overthrowing the Zionist State is the condition for conquering a free Palestine.
[1] Defense exports reached their record in 2021 with 11.8 billion dollars, 18.78% of total exports that year. On the other hand, it is estimated that 10% of the Israeli workforce works for the arms industry
