Israel’s murderous onslaught on Gaza and the struggle for genuine liberation

The war machine of Israel is drawing fresh blood from Gaza. While a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire has been agreed to as at the time of writing this essay, estimating the cost is itself a horrific venture. Close to 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 80 percent of whom are civilians – with well over 300 children – have been killed by Israeli bombs and artilleries. Since the latest onslaught began on 8 July 2014, close to 1,500 buildings, including residential and administrative buildings, schools and hospitals, have been turned into rubble or partially destroyed. Close to 10,000 people have been wounded. The only electricity generating plant which, prior to this latest onslaught only guaranteed few hours of power supply, was destroyed by Israel’s bombs. With the new development, Gaza will be thrown into the dark ages of civilization, perhaps for a year. Also, about 70 Israeli lives including those of three civilians and at least 65 soldiers have been taken by Hamas. Clearly, the monstrous god of Israel is indeed bloodthirsty.

The world’s conscience is outraged, and justifiably so. Mass protests have erupted in several corners of the world. From Europe to the Americas, the Middle East, and of course Israel and Palestine, mass protests are ridiculing the arrogance of Netanyahu-led Israeli regime. The blanket cover of the imperialist states of the US and Europe can no longer protect its rotten skin. While the Netanyahu regime can still bank on home support –premised on raw nationalism – the reality of the war being unable to give any solutions or protect Israeli citizens or destroy Palestinian resistance will cause a serious schism within Israeli society in the coming period. This, coupled with the crisis that the neoliberal economy will face in the coming period, may lead to a serious social crisis, during and after the current murderous onslaught on Gaza.

JUSTIFYING CARNAGE

No reasonable human being, who is not blindfolded by raw religious, racial and nationalist bigotry, will accept the ridiculous justification for the mass murder being carried out by the Israeli apartheid state. Moreover, the fact that Israel has maintained an occupying status in the Gaza Strip since 1967 is a greater cause of anger for many people. Should we mention the arrogance and total disregard for international rules that established occupation in the first instance?

The Israeli government and its propaganda machine, desperate to justify its murderous campaign, have come up with very bizarre excuses for the onslaught on Gaza. These excuses have been echoed by most western capitalist media – and unfortunately by those in the third world –while global capitalist governments in America and Europe are using the same excuses to continue their reactionary support for Israel. The first premise of this excuse is that this is a war, and that Israel has the right to defend itself against rockets from Hamas. In the first instance, this is not a war; it is a one-sided onslaught against a people considered inferior by Israel. Indeed, Gaza, and in fact, the whole of Palestine, has been subjected to economic, social and political onslaught prior to this time. Referring to the killing of almost 2,000 people, 80 percent of whom are civilians, by one of the most armed states in the world as a defence is worse than being hypocritical.

Assuming, without conceding that this is even a war, the fact that Israel, as one of the world’s most armed states, has the military precision to target Hamas military facility, but instead chose to engage in the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, ostensibly for having the ‘misfortune’ of being ruled by Hamas, is worse than being inhuman. Moreover, most of the rockets fired by Hamas hardly reach Israel, with most of them being captured in the air by Israel anti-rocket facilities. Of course, firing rockets inside Israel as a way of fighting the Israeli apartheid state is counterproductive; the reality is that this is only a smokescreen allowing the Israeli war machine to reduce Gaza to ruins. Is bombing the United Nations’ buildings, where thousands of children and women took shelter, part of defending Israel? Is the deliberate and ‘joyful’ shooting and bombing of Palestinian children and women an act of self-defence?

The excuse that Israel is defending itself is standing reality on its head. The arrest of hundreds of Palestinians, military invasion into Gaza, killing of scores of Gaza citizens and further siege by Israel all occurred under the guise of avenging the kidnap of three Israeli citizens, which was a major cause of the latest Israeli onslaught. Despite not being able to trace the kidnappings to Hamas, Israel went ahead to launch terror on Palestinians in Gaza. This, coupled with existing tightening of the noose on Gaza, led to the defensive firing of rockets by Hamas. Interestingly, when a Palestinian was horribly mobbed and killed by some Israelis, the Israeli government could only reluctantly launch an investigation and make some arrests, ostensibly after global outcry.

2005-2014: LEGACY OF REPRESSION

Since 2005, when Israel claimed to have relinquished control over Gaza to Palestine, Palestinians living there have been subjected to repression and subjugation. They have not been allowed to live freely. The airspace, coastal areas and borders have been taken over by Israel, which many times uses this control as a tool of punishment and provocation. In reality, Gaza’s people are living as Israeli prisoners. This is more so that Gaza is a strip of land with unprecedentedly high population density – 4,270 persons per square kilometre, with over 80 percent living in poverty and unemployment as high as 50 percent. The other part of Palestinian lands like the West Bank also face similar situations, only unlike Gaza, these areas are larger. The 8,000 Jews withdrawn by Israel from Gaza under Ariel Sharon in 2005 were replaced with 12,000 Israelis occupying the West Bank.

The 2006 western-backed and Israel-supported elections in Palestine that saw a massive electoral victory for Hamas were a turning point for Israel and western governments’ policies towards Palestine. Israel and western governments had expected the Mahmoud Abbas-led Fatah government to be strengthened by the elections, which would have provided an opportunity to continue the repressive policies towards Palestinians, ostensibly under the veil of diplomacy and peace talks.

On the contrary, Palestinians, tired of the pusillanimity of the Abbas-led Fatah government, which only provided Israel with strength to continue the siege and repression of Palestine, voted for Hamas, which was seen as less corrupt and braver than Fatah government. Incidentally, the very reason the Palestinians used to reject Fatah was the same reason Israel and western governments wanted the Fatah government to continue. Therefore, before you could spell ‘election’, Israel and the US rejected the elections and opposed any government formed by or with Hamas. This clearly shows the bankruptcy of western democratic credential. The same western governments and Israel that rejected the election results accepted the right of Hamas to contest, hoping to use the credibility that Hamas’ participation would confer on the electoral process to strengthen the Abbas-led Fatah government. But when the ‘democracy’ did not go the way it was planned by Israel and the US, it became another term: a vote for terrorism.

In order to counter this ‘vote for terrorism’, Israel and western governments came up with a ‘better’ terrorism: state terrorism. Money meant for the Palestinian government was withheld, thus denying workers access to salaries, while the siege was upped. Repression became the order of the day. Many Hamas politicians including members of parliament were arrested by Israel and jailed. The central aim of this is to discredit Hamas as the cause of the economic and political terrorism on Palestine, thus trying to instigate uprising against Hamas. Of course, the Abbas-led Fatah, itself jolted by the result of the election, and wanting any means to continue to hold on to power, played out the imperialist agenda of divide-and-rule by organizing a coup against the Hamas government, ousting it from the West Bank. The result was that Hamas moved to Gaza to form a government. Since then, Israel has specially isolated Gaza for special ‘state terrorist treatment’. As said earlier, borders, serving as the only window for bringing in needed materials for survival, were indiscriminately closed at the insistence of Israel and Egypt. The coastal areas were sealed off, except when Israel was appeased by international community. Constant mass arrests and killings became the order of the day. The economy of Gaza was destroyed such that Palestinians have to rely on the benevolence of Israel and international support for basic survival. Interestingly, the same Israel that had in the 1980s backed Hamas in order to weaken Yasser Arafat-led Fatah now wants Hamas’ obliteration.

Nothing exemplifies the maniacal character of Israel’s murderous campaign better than the fact that every time Israel provokes Hamas into firing rockets, unprecedented force is used against Gaza, which definitely makes the humanitarian situation worse at every instance. This, rather than stop the cycle of horror, has only sustained it. Between 2008 and now, Israel’s war machine has bombed Gaza to ruin three times, with close to 3,500 lives lost, mostly civilians, and close to 20,000 people wounded, aside from thousands of buildings and billions of dollars’ worth of properties destroyed. Infrastructures including water supply and electricity have been battered, while social services like schools and hospitals have been rendered useless. Yet, the carnage has not stopped. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), on the basis of these horrible situations, Gaza may be unliveable in the next ten years, as the population density will far outweigh available resources, facilities and infrastructures. Worse still, the people are not allowed access to outside world, as Egypt’s dictatorship has made the Rafah crossing a tool of its allegiance to global imperialism. Yet, Israel and its western backers are not moved. Ostensibly, Israel is waiting for Gaza to become fallow, as a means to take over the land. This of course will be accomplished through the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza from famine, disease, hunger and miseries.

HAMAS’ REACTIONARY IDEOLOGY

Worth stating also is the fact that Hamas’ reactionary ideology of not recognizing Israel and its political Islamism are disservices to the cause of Palestinian liberation. It is absolutely wrong for Hamas or any Palestinian organization to think that Palestinian liberation can be achieved by obliterating Israel. Firstly, on the basis of existence of several generations of Israelis, coupled with Israel's economic power, it will be reactionary and backward to think that Israel can be obliterated, without Palestine itself not being swept off, economically and socially. Secondly, the idea that Israel should cease to exist can only isolate Palestinians not only in Israel but globally. How will Palestinians expect Israelis to support organizations that believe that Palestine can only exist with the end of Israel? What will happen to the millions of Jews who have found homes in Israel? Meanwhile, without local opposition and mass movements of Israelis (both Jews and non-Jews), coupled with mass movements in the Arab world and global support, the Israeli war machine cannot be stopped in its murderous path.

Also, the idea of political Islam, which is intolerant to other people, their beliefs and their cultures, and which suppresses the rights of citizens in the name of enforcing religious doctrines and laws, can only isolate Hamas and serve as a cog in the cause of Palestinian liberation. In a period of relative peace, Hamas will be one of the most reactionary organizations, advocating and enforcing medieval and undemocratic religious laws that infringe on the basic rights of the people. Moreover, Hamas has no viable economic programmes to improve the lives of Palestinians, even if there is no siege. It, along with other reactionary religious fundamentalist groups like Islamic Jihad, will only replace Israeli state terror with localized economic and political subjugation, perhaps on a lower scale.

FATAH AND CORRUPT ARAB SHEIKS

On the other hand, Fatah’s kowtowing to the Arab ruling classes will not guarantee any way out for the Palestinians. Indeed, Arab rulers are themselves tools in the hands of global imperialism for the sustenance of capitalist relations. Arab rulers are corrupt and bankrupt; they rely on patronage from and sustenance of the geo-political status quo, in order to guarantee their obscene lifestyles. They are armed and propped up by western capitalism. They have vast business interests in the US and Europe. Therefore, they cannot allow the current apple cart to be upset. More than this, victory for the Palestinian struggle can excite a sense of victory in the whole Arab region, which can unseat many of these corrupt Arab rulers. The mass revolts between 2010 and 2012 across the Middle East and North Africa, show that the Arab sheiks are sitting on simmering mass discontent, which they only try to manipulate through religious façades, bribery and repression (backed by western imperialist governments). Therefore, it is a futile venture for Palestinians to believe that Fatah’s so-called ‘peaceful’ and diplomatic approach that seeks to gain support of Arab rulers can provide a way out of the current Israeli repression and occupation.

It is not surprising that the horrible ceasefire agreement drafted by Egypt was accepted by many Arab governments including Saudi Arabia. This agreement met all the conditions of Israel including the right to destroy tunnels and continued occupation of Gaza, while rejecting the basic demands of Hamas for opening of borders, end to the siege, payment of withheld funds and access to the coastline. While they faintly grumble about Israeli state terror, they are quick to condemn Hamas at the slightest opportunity for not accepting the horrible truce conditions. Left to the Arab regimes, the slightest instance of radicalism, either from Hamas or Hezbollah – neither of which actually represent the long term interests of the Palestinian and Arab people – is a major headache to the corrupt Arab sheiks. Gone and never to return is the minimal Arab nationalism that saw Arab leaders identifying with some elements of Arab radicalism against imperialism. Today, they are fully integrated into the global capitalist order, and hardly act independently of global imperialist arrangements. The mass revolts and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa that almost toppled the rotten ruling arrangement in the Arab world has taught the Arab tiny gods the hard lesson: never allow any veneer of mass radicalization.

ISRAELI CAPITALIST WAR PROPAGANDA AGAINST ISRAELIS

While the Israeli war machine is barraging Palestinians with bombs and artillery fire, the Israeli masses are being subjected to the most horrible of racist and raw but reactionary nationalist propaganda. The fake belief being sold to the Israeli people that they will be secure if Hamas is destroyed or if enough carnage is inflicted on Palestinians as a means to end their agitation for liberation, is only a tool in the hands of the Israeli capitalist state and its international backers for the sustenance of capitalist rule. No set of people can be subdued by force of arms permanently. On the contrary, the continuous pounding of Gaza with bombs can only ensure new generations of radicalized youths, not only within Palestine but also globally. The Israeli capitalist state is not interested in any genuine peace for Israeli citizens, much less Palestinians; otherwise the siege would not have existed at all.

For the Israeli capitalist state, the continuous crisis with Palestine is a viable tool for securing Israeli consensus to rule in the name of capital. By rallying the Israeli masses behind itself in the name of security, the capitalist ruling class secures the mandate to not only pound Gaza to ruins or oppress Palestinians, but to also engage in exploitation of the working and poor people of Israel. It is no accident that Israel itself was engulfed by an unprecedented mass movement in 2012 against shortages in social services and high cost of goods. Interestingly, the Israeli capitalist state, while hiding under security to destroy Gaza, has been privatizing the Israeli economic mainstay. The siege on Gaza is also meant to ensure that Gaza and other Palestinian territories remain markets for Israeli capitalists.

Moreover, occupation of Palestinian lands and other resources is aimed at furthering the profits of the capitalist class. For instance, it is the big real estate and construction companies that benefit from expansion of settlements into Palestinian lands, while the siege on Palestinians ensures that Israel continues to control their trade and economy, obviously in the interests of the capitalist class. Furthermore, it is the big defence companies and weapon manufacturers both within and outside Israel that benefit from the continuous killing of Palestinians. Moreover, the so-called war on terror only ensures that Israel’s ruling class maintains a semi-police state, which will mean attack on the democratic rights of Israelis. The Israeli apartheid state has nothing to offer the working and poor people of Israel on the basis of the current status quo.

UNITED REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES

Only the united struggles of Palestinians and Israelis against Israel’s capitalist ruling class can guarantee long term peace, liberation and development. This will mean just struggles of Palestinians in Gaza and other Palestinian territories against repression, mass murder and siege, with a solidarity movement from the Israeli masses. This is the central way of defeating the murderous war machine of the Israeli state. This should be linked with the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist ruling classes in Palestine and Israel. The Arab masses will also have to overthrow their corrupt capitalist ruling classes that are tied to the apron strings of imperialism. In replacement, we need the formation of working people’s governments in Palestine, Israel and the Arab world, premised on a democratic socialist arrangement, where the economies will be put under democratic public control and management. With this, the societies will be run in the interests of the working and poor people. This will mean ending wars and strife, and engendering solidarity among working people in Palestine, Israel and the Arab world. It will mean a socialist Palestine side by side with a socialist Israel, as part of a Confederation of Socialist States of Palestine, Israel and the Arab world.

The need for the building of mass organizations of the working people including trade unions, youth movements, etc. in Palestine, Israel and the Arab world become more expedient now than ever before. These organizations will build mass struggles for economic and social demands, which will be linked up with the struggle against war, mass murder and carnage. A non-sectarian struggle of working people and youth in Palestine, Israel and the Arab world, will serve as a beacon to the working people and youths around the world, and will undermine the parochial, racial pseudo-nationalist and religious divisions being promoted by various ruling classes in Israel and the Arab world. Moreover, working people and the youth need their own political parties that will champion their interests on the political plane. It is only these kinds of political parties, built on non-sectarian programmes and demands for social, political and economic liberation of the Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs, that can undermine the political hegemony being enjoyed by all the sectarian and capitalist political parties in the region.

TREACHERY OF THE IMPERIALIST WEST

The current onslaught on Gaza has further exposed the bankruptcy of the major imperialist countries in US, Europe and elsewhere. While the US government was reluctant to stop the Israeli war machine against Gaza or condemn the horror created by the Israeli war machine, it found it very expedient to sell ammunition worth over $600 million to Israel, just a few days after Israel’s bombs killed scores of children and women in a UN building. In fact, the US has extended billions of dollars in military aid to Israel in the past decade. The US and European ruling governments accept and echo the bankrupt excuses for the carnage in Gaza. Placing Israel’s occupation and mass murder alongside defensive resistance of Palestinians has become a common refrain in the western political establishment and media. The US and Europe’s response to the downing of the Malaysian airplane in Ukraine and its position on the carnage in Gaza have shown the deep hypocrisy of the western imperialist governments. This is not unexpected as the Israeli state is a central satellite state of imperialism in the Middle East.

The position of the western governments has shown how they promote terrorism, both by state and sectarian organizations. The support the US and other western governments are giving to Israel’s state terrorism can only radicalize other sectarian and Islamist terror groups across the world, filling their ranks – in the absence of a working class revolutionary alternative – with young minds disgusted with western hypocrisy. Already, the US and European governments’ support and arming of Islamist forces in Syria to fight the rotten al-Assad regime, aside from leading to death of close to 200,000 Syrians (mostly civilians), has strengthened the Islamist forces assembled under Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, or the Islamic State). This, coupled with the legacy of the US war in Iraq and western governments’ support of the corruptly bankrupt Nouri al-Maliki regime, has further disintegrated Iraq, leading to humanitarian crises, deaths and miseries.

FOR GLOBAL STRUGGLES AGAINST IMPERIALIST CAPITALISM

It will be delusionary for the working masses to believe that western imperialism can act in the interests of the working and oppressed people of the world. They can only leave a trail of blood in the quest to sustain the strategic and economic hegemony of global capitalism that ensures that just 25 billionaires own about a trillion dollars in value while more than half of the world’s 7 billion people live in want.

This is why the working and oppressed people of the western world, and especially of the third world countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, must stop being cajoled by the bankrupt propaganda of the western media and their governments. The crazy racist ideologies and theories, being propounded through religious and pseudo-intellectual platforms to justify Israeli state terror can only serve the interests of global capitalist forces against the working people. It is not accidental that most political leaders across the world, especially in the third world, have maintained a criminal silence over the carnage in Israel. This is because they are puppets of global imperialist forces, and their parochial survival is dependent on this system. It is the central task of the working people, youth and the poor across the world to throw overboard the current global capitalist hegemony which is the cause of wars, strife and genocide ravaging the world. This requires rejection of petty and ridiculous justification for mass murder as are being carried out by the Israeli state against Gaza.

More than ever before, the carnage being inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli murderous war machine has further underscored the need for the working people and youth in each country to build a mass revolutionary movement to end the rule of capital and reorganize society in the interests of the majority working and oppressed people. Rearming mass organizations like workers’ movements, youth movements and socialist organizations with vital revolutionary, anti-capitalist programmes has become more important now than ever. This should begin with mass condemnation of the Israeli mass murder in Gaza and demand an end to occupation and repression in Palestine. Of course, sooner than later the latest Israeli onslaught will end; however, without building an international solidarity movement for peace and against the Israeli war, and a linked up mass movement in Palestine and Israel, the carnage will continue to be a vicious cycle.

* Kola Ibrahim is an activist and writer and a member of Socialist Party of Nigeria

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM
* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka and make a donation NOW to help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.