The following is the text of a Left Horizons leaflet on Gaza. The text is not right up-to-date, because it puts the general view of Left Horizons on the crisis in Gaza. Copies in PDF format can be obtained by e-mailing the editor
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In a rapidly-changing situation in Gaza, one thing remains constant – the ever-increasing death toll of non-combatant Palestinians, including thousands of children. The Israeli attacks, forced displacement, bombing of hospitals, schools and residential buildings, are clear acts of collective punishment.
Gaza has been sealed off from the world for nearly twenty years, by land sea and air, in what even the UN described as an “open prison”, reliant on the UN relief and donations from rich Arab states, with 50% unemployment and without any hope of economic development.
Israel has restricted food, water, energy and other necessities into Gaza for years. It has offered no hope or future whatsoever the Palestinians workers and youth. Is it any wonder, therefore, that there is seething discontent and even hatred of Israel within Gaza?
Most right-wing government in Israeli history
The most right-wing government in Israeli history is now using the attack by Hamas on October 7, to carry through what has always been their policy – the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, further fuelling the bitter resentment and hatred of the Gaza population. They are considering tightening the blockade even more and/or driving the population into Egyptian Sinai.
In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, Israel is using the war to pursue more ethnic cleansing, and giving a nod and a wink to armed Jewish settlers running amok among Arab villages, driving Palestinian farmers off their land. Even before this month’s exponential increase, 2023 saw a record number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank and thousands detained without trial, including hundreds of children.
West Bank Palestinians fear their cities becoming targets for bombardment too. Israeli ministers – open anti-Arab racists – would find any pretext if they could, to expel them to neighbouring countries.
This war has sharply polarised world opinion. Almost unanimously, Western politicians and media have sided with Israel, even refusing the modest calls for a cease-fire. On the other hand, opinion polls have shown, both in Britain and in the USA, that a majority of the population is appalled at the savagery of the Israeli attacks and favour a ceasefire. We are witnessing a tsunami of protest, particularly among workers and youth, expressed in demonstrations, pickets, and flash-mobs occupying public buildings.
Belgian dockers boycotting Israel-bound goods
Belgian dock workers have boycotted goods bound for Israel – a concrete expression of support for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions).
Workers and labour movement activists were shocked by the indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians in the Hamas attack on October 7. The methods of Hamas are not the methods of the labour movement. This is not “armed struggle”, but an assault that was largely against a civilian community. The mere presence of Israelis on land that was previously part of pre-1948 Palestine does not justify such an attack, nor the hostage-taking. Socialists cannot support such a political method or outlook.
But workers also understand that the Hamas operation did not come out of a clear blue sky. It is ultimately a product of vicious occupation by Israel for generations and the desperate hopelessness of the Palestinian population.
It is impossible to predict in detail what the outcome of this war will be. Gaza is being pulverized, by the most powerful military apparatus in the Middle East. Whether the Israeli army succeeds in driving out the entire population of Gaza – against the wishes of the Egyptian and every Arab government – remains to be seen. How far the Jewish settlers and the Israeli state can succeed in ethnically cleansing the West Bank is also impossible to forecast.
In both Gaza and the West Bank, what the Israeli ruling class want to do and what they will be able to do may differ. But we can say for sure that nothing will be the same again, either in Gaza and the West Bank, in Israel or anywhere else in the Middle East.
All the surrounding Arab states prioritise social ‘stability’. Not one of them offers democratic rights and freedoms to workers and each one in their own way is in crisis. Lebanon, for example, has had no functioning government for over a year, such is the crisis in Lebanese capitalism, financially and politically bankrupt to its core. What the various dictators, kings and emirs fear above all is another Arab Spring, the huge movement of youth and workers who in their millions shook the Arab world to its foundations. But as long as the Gaza war continues, there is a serious possibility of new uprisings, not only within the widespread Palestinian diaspora, but among workers in general, in support of their fellow Arabs in Palestine. That is why the USA has sent two carrier fleets to the Middle East.
Israel depends on foreign military and economic aid
Israel has depended for 75 years on the ‘good will’ of other states – expressed in financial and military support. The USA gives around $4bn a year. Israel is the largest recipient per capita of US foreign aid. This has given Israel the capacity, in three generations, to build a relatively advanced, modern state.
But with the acceleration of Israel towards apartheid, more ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of civilians, the tide of opinion is moving against it. The Israeli army can deliver a military victory for its government, but it is engineering a historic diplomatic and political defeat.
In opinion polls in Britain, there is large swing of support, particularly among youth, in support of Palestinian rights. That is particularly true among Labour voters and members, despite Keir Starmer clinging desperately to a pro-Israel position. Even in the USA, a poll (dataforprogress.org) showed huge support for a ‘cease-fire and de-escalation’, among Democrats and even most Republicans.
There can be no military solutions.
Support for Palestine has grown significantly in the Labour movement. Left Horizons welcomes that. But how can the demand of “Free Palestine”, often heard on demonstrations, be brought about?
The Israeli state, while based on capitalism and the status quo, cannot offer ‘peace and security’ to Jews – only wars, conflicts and social upheavals.
But the same is true of Palestinian freedoms. They cannot be gained by military means, by Hamas in Gaza, against the most heavily-armed state in the region, nor by the diplomatic wheeler-dealing of the corrupt Palestinian Authority. It requires a mass movement of Palestinian workers and youth, one that seeks to change society on democratic and socialist lines. Such a movement could reach out to workers in all the nations of the middle east, Jewish and Arab, undercutting the support of the extreme right-wing Zionist, religious and nationalist groups.
The overwhelming majority of Arab and Jewish workers want, at root, peace, prosperity, human rights and a future for their children. It is a modest ambition. But it cannot be achieved on the basis of a capitalist society built on corruption, greed and profit. Nor can it be built if it means that democracy and prosperity for some is only achieved at the expense of others. War is the greatest possible intensification of all pre-existing social contradictions. Socialist ideas are not just for peacetime, they are even more relevant in war time! That has to be the basis of our fight in the labour movement.
End the bombing of Gaza. End the siege of Gaza
Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of the Israeli state
For a mass socialist movement in Palestine that reaches out to Jewish workers and other workers in the wider region.
For the socialist transformation of Israel/Palestine
For full democratic, economic and civil rights for all, with no exclusive rights for race, religion or ethnicity
For a Socialist Federation of Israel/Palestine in a Socialist Federation of Middle East states.
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A PDF copy this, which can be printed as a two-sided A4 leaflet, can be obtained on request from: editor@left-horizons.co.uk
[Picture top from Al Jazeera TV feed]
