Over a year of incessant mass atrocities and the Government of Death of Netanyahu and the far-right is galloping, full of hubris, into the regional military escalation it initiated. Domestically, it does so under the guise of “security” demagoguery designed to disguise the political purpose of deploying the Israeli war machine. Along with the continuation of the genocidal onslaught on Gaza, the process of expansion of the regional war is now on its way to be stepped up even further, with the threat of an Israeli attack on Iran, striving to change the balance of forces in the region.
Western governments, while expressing concerns about losing control over events, continue to fundamentally back up the Israeli offensive, aspiring that it will weaken the “Iranian axis” and, indirectly, the influence of Moscow and Beijing in the context of the global inter-imperialist power struggle.
The incidental killing of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan refugee camp on Thursday (17 October) came after the assassinations of Hezbollah’s secretary-general Nasrallah and Hamas’s then Political Bureau chairman Haniyeh, and is integrated into a shallow campaign of “triumph” propaganda by the occupying power. It seeks to appear all-powerful in the midst of a strategic crisis that actually attests to the limits of its power. After over a year of a “total war” and murderous extermination in the Gaza Strip, which sparked an international mass protest movement, in a crisis that shook the Israeli establishment and the camp of Western imperialism, none of the stated goals of the war have been achieved.
As the Israeli ground invasion expands in southern Lebanon and warplanes sow death and destruction throughout Lebanon, Netanyahu sent a mafia-like message to the people of Lebanon (8 October) that they can expect “an abyss of a long war that will bring destruction and suffering similar to what we see in Gaza”, if they do not act against Hezbollah. He shed crocodile tears for Lebanon becoming “a place of chaos, a place of war”, declaring that “a gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed [it]”, and pointed to Tehran. But the force that bombed and killed more than 2,300 people, most of them in recent weeks — a scale of killing not seen in Lebanon since the Israeli invasion of 1982 — and which displaced some 1.2 million people from dozens of communities, is the most bloodthirsty terror gang in the region, in the form of the Netanyahu government.
The showcase bombings in Yemen on 29 September targeted sea and air ports, oil refining facilities and a power plant. In the West Bank, an Israeli warplane bombed a café along with all people in it in the Tulkarm refugee camp on 3 October, killing 18 of them. The chain of attacks continues in Syria, where dozens of civilians have been killed by Israeli bombings over the past year. And now, the world is on alert in anticipation of an Israeli showcase attack in Iran.
In the northern Gaza Strip, some 300,000 residents have been under a total medieval siege since the beginning of October, apparently in accordance with former Israeli general Giora Eiland’s “Generals’ Plan”, which promotes ethnic cleansing of the area for an unknown period of time. A large population, even under the pressure of starvation and bombing, is unable or unwilling to be uprooted and driven south under threat of extermination, knowing that there is no certainty that they will survive or that the occupation regime will ever allow their return.
In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the occupation forces once again attacked a hospital, Shuhada al-Aqsa, and once again set in flames the tents of displaced people along with their dwellers. Thus, the Israeli Government of Death continues its murderous attacks on the besieged Palestinian population, while tens of thousands have perished and 2 million have been displaced. This is what Israeli war propaganda sometimes calls “collateral damage”, to describe a “collateral genocide”. Meanwhile, the testimonies of sadistic abuse, including sexual abuse of Palestinians by occupation forces, are added by further testimonies about the use of detainees as human shields.
The far-right wing of the Israeli government fantasizes about returning colonial settlements to Gaza to complete ethnic cleansing. Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are expected to participate alongside Likud’s minister and members of parliament in an event titled “Preparing for Settlement in Gaza”. The question of resettlement in Gaza is perceived by the Israeli ruling class as a dangerous gamble, and Netanyahu is also ostensibly reluctant to support this. However, there is a continued marked trend of preparations to impose a direct military occupation on at least parts of the Gaza Strip for a period of years, in the absence of alternative forces to the de-facto Hamas administration that can serve as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation.
“The boss has gone mad”
The regional whirlwind of bloodshed continues to expand, and Israeli war propaganda continues to glorify the catastrophe as a recipe for a more peaceful and secure future for millions of Israelis. From the very first moment on 7 October 2023, there was a systematic exploitation of the mass shock among Israelis at the horrific reactionary acts of massacre and of ordinary people — Jews, Arab-Palestinians, and others — in the surprise attack led by Hamas. The ruling classes always wrap their wars in propaganda designed to acquire mass political support by obscuring the interests for which the destruction and killing are carried out, as well as obscuring the true extent of the extreme harm to ordinary people. US President Truman also knew how to lie, when he said that dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 was intended to save the lives of masses and involved an effort to minimize civilian deaths.
With the deliberate escalation of the offensive in Lebanon through methods of state terrorism, including the toppling of residential buildings, the minority government of Netanyahu and the far-right has consciously dragged more and more of the population in Israel into firing range and closer to an all-out regional conflagration. This was done under the false excuse that its intention was to pursue circumstances of calm that would allow the return of 50,000–60,000 residents who were displaced from their homes in the Galilee [north of Israel]. Many others in the Galilee, among the working class, and especially among the Arab-Palestinian population, are now coming under more fire, with an acute shortage of shelters and other protective measures. In September, the number of launches targeting unevacuated communities within more than 5 kilometers of the border in Israel jumped by 255%, and more parts of the western Galilee were declared a “closed military zone”.
The Israeli Government of Blood, which in early September faced mass demonstrations and a general labor strike in the Israeli economy demanding a “deal now” in Gaza, simultaneously torpedoed a deal in Gaza and the indirect Israeli-Lebanese negotiations conducted under the auspices of Washington and Paris on settling the land border. Netanyahu withdrew at the last minute from agreeing to Biden and Macron’s call on 26 September for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon. He assassinated Nasrallah the next day, in another leap in the dynamics of war at the regional level.
Netanyahu’s office’s report that he and Biden spoke immediately after Sinwar was killed and “agreed that there is an opportunity to advance the release of the hostages”, echoes Netanyahu’s messages even after Nasrallah’s assassination. Will the Government of Death of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich really want to stop the regional blitz, withdraw forces from the Philadelphi Route in Gaza, control over which Netanyahu sanctifies, and just before the US elections? It still has an interest in continuing its military rampage in the spirit of “the boss has gone mad”, with the overwhelming backing of the US-led Western imperialism bloc, striving to create a picture of victory in the military campaign as a whole.
The trumpets that before 7 October 2023 praised the “normalization” agreements between Israeli capitalism and Arab oligarchies as measures that promote stability and regional peace are now propelling mass killing and massive destruction. The process of “normalization” and the current military campaign are fundamentally aimed at the same objective: firstly, stabilizing and deepening the regime of occupation, oppression and dispossession — the root of the historic bloody crisis — imposed on millions of Palestinians. Secondly, the consolidation of a regional alliance under the auspices of Washington (which Netanyahu calls the “axis of blessing”) to change the regional balance of forces at the expense of the “axis of resistance” led by Tehran. In the present crisis, this is supplemented by attempts to restore military prestige, to negate an image of weakness via rivers of blood.
Over the past year, the Tehran regime has acted in a restrained manner, for fear of a conflagration that it would not be able to overpower militarily and could complicate its political and economic crises. But the large-scale Israeli offensive in Lebanon and Nasrallah’s assassination, following Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on 31 July, increased pressure on the Iranian regime for a direct military response, which finally came with the ballistic missile attack on Israel on 1 October. It was especially aimed at Israeli military targets, but also caused the most extensive damage to Israeli civilian infrastructure in a missile attack during the current war crisis, directly killing a Palestinian civilian in Jericho and, indirectly, an Israeli civilian. The hits, which were initially censored, were on a higher scale than the April barrage. As part of the dynamics of a regional war of increasing intensity, Netanyahu was quick to mark the attack as an opportunity to bomb strategic targets in Iran.
The targets of the planned Israeli attack on Iran remain a source of speculation. The Israeli government’s threat to strike nuclear and oil facilities has not been lifted, despite pleas from the Biden administration and assurances from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. Netanyahu, who thwarted Gallant’s separate trip to Washington, has already openly broken promises to the White House. The fact that Trump may retake the US presidency only spurs the Netanyahu government and the far-right on, and Trump calls for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. An Israeli bombing of Iran could not only trigger an escalating exchange of blows, but would also reinforce a growing trend in recent months of voices in the regime in Tehran calling for a response to Israeli aggression by advancing a military nuclear program. It should be recalled that the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 initially pushed the Saddam Hussein regime to pursue a military nuclear program.
The deployment of the THAAD anti-missile interceptor system (along with operating troops) by the US military in Israel as part of the expanding intervention in the regional war — including an escalation of US and UK bombings against the Houthis in Yemen — may in itself spur the Israeli regime to bet on a more provocative strategic attack on Iran, especially if it finds a pretext for a “second strike”. Tehran has threatened retaliatory attacks on oil facilities belonging to the Arab states’ coalition, which would spark a shock to the global fossil fuels market. Oil prices jumped 5% on 3 October after Biden said his administration was discussing whether to back an Israeli strike on Iranian oil facilities. Thus, the regional conflict, whose center of gravity remains the attack on Gaza, threatens to continue to expand and send more destabilizing shockwaves globally.
Decisive military backing from Washington amid arms embargo games
Fearing instability and under pressure from public opinion, Western governments have been working to distance themselves politically from the atrocities in Gaza and, to a lesser extent, in Lebanon, through rhetoric and symbolic diplomatic and legal moves. Recently, the question of an arms embargo has also been on the agenda of the main powers in the West. So far, steps have been taken in this direction mainly for appearance, including slight delays in arms shipments from the United States, and on a low profile from Germany as well, as well as vague declarations issued by government representatives in Britain and France following the elections in those countries. This was added to by a new warning in a letter sent by the US administration that if the food supply in northern Gaza does not improve — within a month, that is, if the starvation continues until after the US elections — the supply of weapons will be reviewed, in accordance with the Israeli government’s alleged commitment last March to allow supplies to the bombed population.
Netanyahu chastised Macron for a statement that was exaggeratedly portrayed in the media as an arms embargo on the State of Israel. Military imports to Israel come from the United States (69%), Germany (30%), Italy (0.9%), and on a small scale from other countries (0.1%), including France and the UK, according to SIPRI data (2019–2023). Macron did not even declare a halt to military exports to Israel, but rather a reservation about transferring “arms for fighting in Gaza”. The Elysee Palace is manipulating public opinion, but French imperialism, which has historically provided the Israeli regime with nuclear weapons, is effectively siding with military aggression on Lebanon.
A real US arms embargo on the Israeli war machine would be a dramatic development, but it is not really on the agenda without a struggle and mass pressure on the issue in the US itself. As the Biden administration’s Middle East humanitarian affairs envoy to aid organizations in Gaza argued in late August, “Israel is too close an ally for us to impose an arms embargo or halt arms shipments to it”. When Harris was asked about the new letter, “Are you supporting calling off military aid if the situation in Gaza does not improve?”, she replied, “I don’t believe that’s what the letter said” (16.10). At the end of the day, still, Israeli capitalism does not face substantive international isolation but relies on overwhelming support from Western powers and cooperation from the Saudi-led coalition of pro-US Arab states.
Netanyahu knew at every stage of the past year that he was guaranteed strong backing militarily, economically and politically from the Washington camp, based on the geostrategic interests of US imperialism in the region, and therefore he has had no problem humiliating the lame duck in the White House time and time again, including crossing Biden’s declared “red lines”, withdrawing from agreed understandings, rejecting public calls for a ceasefire, and a lack of advance warning or coordination of escalatory moves.
Regional power struggle
On the eve of Sinwar’s killing, the Biden–Harris administration gave up on the possibility of a ceasefire deal before the elections and settled for lobbying, to curb the scale of the expected Israeli attack on Iran, hoping to prevent events from spiraling out of control. Now the administration is trying to paint a picture that Sinwar was the obstacle that was removed on the way to a deal in Gaza. The obstacle remains the occupying government, which refuses to withdraw the military from Gaza.
The mass extermination in the Gaza Strip, the bombings throughout Lebanon, and the drive for a strategic military offensive in Iran rely on the military leeway provided to the regime, overwhelmingly by US imperialism in what Biden calls the “ironclad support” for Israeli capitalism. US imperialism is not merely captive to the caprices of the Israeli regime in the current crisis, but relies on a division of labor with Netanyahu, whereby Tehran’s “axis of resistance”, and indirectly the Beijing and Moscow camp, suffer blows with US weapons and under threat of intervention by US military forces deployed in the region. Accordingly, the Biden administration zigzagged from calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon to openly supporting the ground invasion.
When the acting Lebanese Prime Minister, the tycoon Najib Mikati (supported by Hezbollah’s March 8 Alliance), told Biden’s representative, Amos Hochstein, around the beginning of October that the Lebanese government was interested in moving forward with the outline of the agreement formulated back in June regarding the land border with the State of Israel, it was made clear to him that the deal was not currently on the agenda. The priority for the US administration was in fact not a ceasefire, but intervention to appoint a president in Lebanon and establish a new government.
The office of president, designated for a Christian representative, has not been filled for two years since the end of the term of General Michel Aoun (Free Patriotic Movement, March 8 Alliance). Hezbollah has so far obstructed candidates favored by Washington and Riyadh, who now hope to take advantage of Hezbollah’s blows to crown their loyal candidate, Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Joseph Aoun, who underwent military training in the US. However, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have warned the Biden administration that since it is clear that the Israeli army is incapable of eradicating Hezbollah, and it will remain a significant (political and military) force in Lebanon even after the war ends, any attempt at a political settlement will in practice require its consent.
The approach of the “Saudi axis” to the war machine of Israeli capitalism teeters on a dilemma, with a clear interest in weakening the “Iranian axis” despite Riyadh’s fear of undermining its détente with Tehran and of a backlash at home as well. Given the anticipation of the new Israeli attack, and while Tehran threatens a potential attack on oil facilities of the Arab Gulf states, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi included stops in Riyadh (9 October) and Cairo (17 October) on his tour across the region this month, demanding that the “Saudi axis” refrain from cooperating with the Israeli attack plan. In between, bin Salman (Saudi ruler) arrived in Cairo (15 October) to announce with the Egyptian ruler el-Sisi the establishment of a Saudi–Egyptian strategic coordination council against the backdrop of regional developments, alongside which well-worn slogans about stability and alleged support for the establishment of a Palestinian state were thrown into the air.
The Saudi monarchy hopes that the regional war crisis will create opportunities for them to reassert influence over the regional order after a series of failed interventions in the previous decade, particularly in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. They collaborated in one way or another in intercepting Iranian barrages into Israel in April and October, and bin Salman finds it difficult to hide his desire to promote “normalization” with Israeli capitalism alongside a formal “defense pact” with US imperialism, the most powerful superpower on the global and regional levels. This plan was derailed on 7 October 2023. Hamas’ surprise attack, which had been prepared for two years, was aimed at changing the regional agenda and undermining the process of “normalization”.
In recent months, there have been reports that a military alliance agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia could be signed that would leave Israel aside, but this would require two-thirds ratification in the US Senate, which is less likely without a larger regional deal.
In an article in The Atlantic (25 September) reviewing Washington’s attempts to promote a stabilizing deal in Gaza and the region as part of their exit strategy, the denied quotes attributed to bin Salman, during a visit by Secretary of State Blinken, illustrated the biggest obstacle to formalizing relations with the Israeli regime: the solidarity of the masses in Saudi Arabia with the Palestinians who are attacked under occupation. “70% of my population is younger than me”, most of them “are being introduced [to the Palestinian issue] for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do”. He made it clear that he needed calm in Gaza for reasons of public opinion, and he doesn’t oppose the Israeli military attacking again “after six months, a year”. According to a survey conducted in Saudi Arabia in December, 96% of respondents opposed ties between Arab countries and Israel. Against this backdrop, Riyadh is demanding lip service to a readiness to recognize a Palestinian state in the future — a rhetorical trick Netanyahu has played in the past but is now blocked, due to the composition of his current coalition.
Superficial picture of military successes
The widespread offensive in Lebanon and the escalation of aggression throughout the region created the impression that the Israeli right-wing regime could easily impose its will as the neighborhood bully unscathed. However, despite the boast of military successes, in the overall picture, they are nowhere near a strategic victory.
The assassinations campaign against leaders and military commanders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and forces of the Iranian regime plays a central propaganda role in creating a political impression of military success. But as has happened in the past with political murders committed by Israeli governments against members of leadership of these and other movements — including the assassinations of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992 and Ahmed Yassin in 2004 — this has no structural effect on organizational and military capabilities, certainly not in the long run, and the executions even encourage the mass political sympathy these movements generate.
Despite the military and espionage-related superiority of the strongest military power in the region, backed by the strongest military power in the world, after a year of this war crisis, the “military pressure” of the Government of Blood was exposed in its incapability to secure the release of the hostages, to stop the shooting of missiles deep into Israeli territory, to allow tens of thousands to return to their homes, as well as its incapability to subdue Hamas’ military wing, let alone Hezbollah’s more developed militia.
The Israeli military claims that Hamas’ military wing was “overpowered militarily” after the collapse of its central command and that it became a decentralized “guerrilla and terrorist organization”. The claim of that organization being “military overpowered” is exaggerated and in contradiction with the recognition that even in territories already under concentrated attacks by the occupation forces, partisan warfare against the invasion continues to be organized, and still rockets are fired across the Green Line [pre-1967 border of Israel] from time to time. In Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, the war machine of Israeli capitalism is nowhere near defeating the relevant political and military forces.
The “Dahieh Doctrine”, formulated in 2008 after the destruction of the center of the Dahieh in the 2006 war, and now being implemented in Lebanon, is a campaign of terror bombings designed to cause rapid and colossal annihilation. Its purpose is to scorch consciousness, in order to bring about rapid surrender, local mass rage against the attacked militia, and long-term deterrence against a military confrontation with the State of Israel. Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo criticizes the Israeli government for not officially declaring war on the state of Lebanon itself, ostensibly to bring about rapid surrender by pressing into direct negotiations, while Israeli capitalism “now has an amazing opportunity to shape the Middle East”.
However, despite the differentiation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state, and even though this time the airport has only been threatened and not yet been bombed, the damage to infrastructure and civilian population is massive. The killing and destruction in Lebanon have already exceeded the dimensions of 2006, exacerbating the severe economic crisis and fears of rising sectarian tensions. But the destruction of millions of lives by the Netanyahu and Uncle Sam gang does not achieve the political goals of the “Dahieh Doctrine”. There is no rapid defeat here. The population of Lebanon knows full well that the massive killing and destruction is being carried out by the Israeli government, and the Hezbollah militias and other forces are perceived by many as the only military defensive force against the murderous aggression — while the Lebanese army remains neutralized and UNIFIL (United Nations “peacekeepers corps”) remains an ornament.
Clearly, Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, under the influence of a deep infiltration by Israeli espionage, has suffered serious blows since the assassination of military wing commander Fuad Shukr on 30 July, the Israeli “preemptive offensive” on 25 August, and even more so in the wave of attacks that began with the pager bombings on 17 September. Within weeks, the Israeli government assassinated much of the top military command, in addition to Nasrallah, and may have killed his intended successor, Hashem Safieddine, in a bombing of the Dahieh on 3 October.
The extent of the destruction and killing caused by Hezbollah in Israeli territory meanwhile has been on a far smaller scale than most scenarios predicted until recently. Against the backdrop of the massive killing, displacement and destruction wrought by the Israeli government throughout Lebanon, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem in his speech on 8 October expressed rhetorical support for the efforts of Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon Nabih Berri (of the Shi`ite Amal party, March 8 Alliance) to promote a ceasefire, apparently without explicitly making this conditional on stopping the Israeli offensive in Gaza. On the same day, however, the heaviest barrage of missiles up to that point was fired at the city of Haifa [in northern Israel], and its suburbs. As illustrated by the 2 October battle at `Odaisseh [in southern Lebanon] in which 8 Israeli soldiers from elite units were killed, and the explosive drone that hit the Golani Brigade training base in north Israel on 13 October, killing 4 soldiers and wounding dozens, Hezbollah’s military capabilities remain significant. In ground warfare in particular, Hezbollah poses a significant challenge to the military occupation in southern Lebanon.
Socialists take part in the struggle for the full and immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces from Lebanon and for a complete and unconditional halt to any military aggression by the right-wing Israeli regime, under the auspices of Washington, against Lebanon and its population, against the Palestinians, and against other nations and the masses in the region. Israel’s offensive on Lebanon and other fronts is not intended to achieve personal security for millions of Israelis. In fact, it drives an opposite trend in expanding the war, and even fueling support among broad layers in the region for reactionary acts of revenge against civilian population, such as indiscriminate missile fire or terror acts that target civilians.
As part of the struggle necessary to stop the inferno, it is the right of the population in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, to defend itself in the face of invasion and military aggression. Democratic control, through elected popular committees over the activities of armed forces could lead to cross-community defense efforts that will be integrated into a broader struggle to stop the war and change the face of the region, against wars of occupation, national oppression, imperialist aggression, and against the oligarchies and poverty.
From such a struggle, organizations of political struggle could also emerge around the cross-community interests of the masses, against the ruling classes and around a program for socialist change. This, as an alternative to capitalist parties that act as pawns of Western imperialism, as well as to the pro-capitalist and sectarian political agenda of Hezbollah and right-wing Islamist forces, which ultimately rely on capitalism and regional and global imperialist powers, while being unable to offer a genuine way to overcome an order of national and social subjugation.
Israeli capitalist “opposition” in the service of the Government of Death
The Israeli offensive in Lebanon is accompanied by a particularly blatant intoxication of power in the Israeli ruling class. Netanyahu’s Government of Blood has been aided by the Israeli capitalist “opposition” bloc, whose parties, including the remnants of Meretz (a former left party) in ‘The Democrats’ headed by general Yair Golan, are competing to outflank Netanyahu from the right with chauvinistic battle howls in favor of bombing Iran and Lebanon, while fostering reactionary mass illusions in the minority government’s military aggression.
In fact, the entire Israeli ruling class has once again rallied around the government’s military moves, as it did at every juncture in the bloody crisis when it saw an opportunity for a show of military force and the advancement of its geostrategic interests. However, over time, the limitations of military power of the occupying power will be exposed in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Lebanon, and it will become clear once again that no political issue underlying the bloody crisis has been resolved.
Therefore, it is important to insist also within the Green Line, as part of building the struggle to stop the war and topple the government, on putting forward a left, internationalist, class-based political alternative vis-à-vis the establishment parties, which will express a struggle, cross-national communities, to uproot an order based on occupation, oppression and the rule of capital, and for social justice and regional peace, based on socialist change.
The renewed wave of nationalist reaction fueled by the regional military escalation has drastically cut across the “Deal Now” movement in Israeli society, and has propelled demoralization among masses throughout the region and the world who oppose the military aggression of the Israeli right-wing regime. It also seems to have weakened the momentum of the Palestinian protest strike announced by the Arab High Follow-Up Committee on 1 October. Nonetheless, masses around the world — most notably in Morocco and Spain — went out to demonstrate, strike and continue to build a struggle to stop the bloodbath wrought by the Israeli Government of Death. The continuation of the demonstrations at the international level can also provide a tailwind for organizing demonstrations on both sides of the Green Line against military aggression and the occupation.
The Israeli demonstrations for “Deal Now” have shrunk but not dissipated: the more militant and critical wing of the families of the abductees, led by Einav Zangauker and others (‘We Are All Hostages’), called with determination to continue building a struggle despite the Home Front Command’s restrictions and despite opposing calls by the pro-establishment ‘Hostages and Missing Families Forum’. Zangauker, a single mother from Ofakim [an Israeli working-class town] who supported Likud and Netanyahu, has also called from time to time in recent months for an end to the war, even though this message is inconsistent. In an interview with The New York Times this month, she expressed empathy for the fact that “the Palestinian people are also paying a very heavy price. Children, families, women, the elderly. These are images that I, as a human being, don’t want to see.” Unfortunately, the prevailing voices in the “Deal Now” movement tend toward a total chauvinistic erasure of the bereavement and destruction of the Palestinian and Lebanese masses, if not implicit or explicit support for military aggression.
Meanwhile, the dynamics of regional war expansion continue and a ceasefire deal is nowhere in sight. But as the mass outburst of anger in early September underscored, the pendulum in Israeli society will swing in anger against the Government of Death. The economic crisis developing under the burden of financing the machine of war and occupation will deepen mass resentment over a dead-end crisis. The insistence on building demonstrations against the government which wishes for the silence of a cemetery marks a necessary path for struggle, for many who will wake up to struggle at a later point. The forces of socialists and others, Palestinians and Israelis, who consistently struggle against the war and the occupation as part of an international struggle, insist on the need to resolve the problems underlying the crisis from its roots. In Israeli society, in the face of the Government of Death of Netanyahu and the far-right, only a struggle that adopts firm demands for an immediate halt to the war, an exchange deal, the withdrawal of all military forces attacking the Palestinian and Lebanese populations, against the economic attacks of the government, and against the occupation and the rule of capital, can begin to mark a real way out of the bloody crisis.
Socialist Struggle (ISA in Israel/Palestine) Demands:
Stop the war, yes to an exchange deal, overthrow the Government of Death. Struggle for reconstruction and a socialist root solution
- Build demonstrations and cross-community protests and strikes to stop the war and overthrow the Government of Death. No to an attack on Iran, stop the offensive and occupation in Lebanon! Stop the genocidal onslaught on Gaza — remove all military forces! Stop the aggression of the army and settlers in the West Bank. No to the assassinations policy and to show bombings. Yes to a deal now for hostage/prisoner exchange, return “All for All”! Stop the austerity measures that are intended to finance the war machine and benefit the capitalists! Yes to an organized protest refusal among the Israeli public against any participation in the war of occupation and extermination.
- Strengthening the international struggle to stop the inferno. An end to the flow of arms, money and soldiers of imperialist powers for mass killing, occupation and destructive wars in the Middle East. Support for the call of Palestinian labor unions for solidarity actions and organizational measures to help stop the bloodbath in Gaza. Yes to Palestinian demonstrations and protest strikes, such as the Dignity Strike of May ‘21, on both sides of the Green Line, as part of a mass struggle that will be democratically organized through elected action committees, including aspects of organized self-defense, for national and social liberation.
- An end to the political persecution and aggression of the Ben-Gvir police aimed at silencing the struggles against the Israeli government and perpetuating national oppression and ‘divide and rule’. Reinforce preparations for taking independent security measures and organizing for self-defense, and for maintaining the peace of demonstrators against the Government of Blood.
- Allocate all the necessary resources for the massive reconstruction of communities. Expropriation of the enormous resources held by capitalists for reconstruction efforts in all the affected communities and the transfer of extensive reparations to ordinary residents of Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and in Israel to residents of the north and of the western Negev. Massive transfer of food, clean water, basic goods and medical equipment at no cost to residents of the Gaza Strip to any extent required.
- Struggle for a root solution. Peace requires struggle — for socialist change. An end to the war waged to perpetuate the dictatorship of the siege, occupation, colonial settlements, poverty and national oppression imposed on millions of Palestinians. An end to the rule of capital and imperialist aggression. An end to national oppression, equal rights to existence, self-determination and a life of dignity, welfare and personal security for all. Yes to the struggle for the establishment of an independent, democratic, socialist, and equal Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, and to the struggle for democracy and socialist change in Israel and the region.
- International solidarity in the struggles of ordinary people throughout the region, as part of the struggle for socialist change and peace, including the aspiration to establish a confederative, democratic and socialist regional framework of cooperation on a voluntary and equal basis, which will promote democracy and personal security and harness the key resources, under democratic public ownership, for the benefit of all, while guaranteeing equal rights for all nations and all minorities. Realization of a just solution to the refugee question through an agreed outline that would include recognition of the historical injustice and the right of those who wish to return, while guaranteeing a life of welfare and equality for all residents.
- Promote steps to build a class-based, internationalist and militant political alternative on the left, in the form of broad parties of struggle on both sides of the Green Line, which will strive to cooperate with each other in the struggle against the Israeli rule of capital and occupation and for socialist change, in the face of nationalist capitalist politics and imperialist aggression that defend oppressive regimes as part of a capitalist system of inequality and multiple crises, which gave rise to the current historic bloodbath.
