A rebellion of Palestinian youth, and expressions of solidarity between Jews and Arabs workers, in parallel with clashes, riots, far-right arson attacks and repression of protests.
The man-made gates of hell were opened in a new phase of military escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the worst since 2014. Socialist Struggle Movement (ISA in Israel and Palestine) stands in solidarity with millions who experience the terror of barbaric bombardments and rocket barrages, on both sides of the fence, and calls to join in the struggle to stop the hostilities.
At least 140 Palestinians, no less than 40 of which are children (!), have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and entire buildings have been reduced to rubble – as if the destruction, despair, poverty, and pandemic under the siege and endless aggression of the Israeli right wing capitalist regime wasn’t enough. A Palestinian extended family, including eight children, was massacred by Israeli warplanes that hit their home in Shati refugee camp. On the other side of the fence, rockets and anti-tank missiles have claimed the lives of 7 men and 5 women, including a five year old child in Sderot. In Ashkelon, an 80 year old Jewish woman and her caretaker, an immigrant worker from India, and a father and his 16 years old daughter, both Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, have perished in the “unrecognized” village of Dahamsh, near Lydda, where the Israeli government previously refused to allow residents to build bomb shelters.
The Netanyahu regime, the main culprit responsible for fanning the lethal flames during the month of Ramadan, has played a central role in deepening the national schisms, now erupting also in the streets within Israel, with elements of a civil war. Riots and violent nationalist clashes between civilians reached a peak in Lydda, where a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship was shot to death. Severe clashes with many injured, Arabs and Jews, happened also in Acre, Bat-Yam, Haifa, Tiberias, Jaffa, and other towns. Human garbage in the form of Kahanist Neo-Fascists gangs, some of them coming from the heart of the settlements, raided cities with the aim of carrying out pogroms against the Arabs. The police, which have in recent weeks brutally suppressed Palestinian protests, mostly stood by.
But the reactionary wave led by the Netanyahu regime with help from the heads of the capitalist opposition parties in Israel, masquerading as a “block of change” and an alternative, and with the aid of Israeli nationalistic media, is also faced with the beginning of a proper response. There is an important trend of ongoing and expanding rebellion of Palestinian youth in solidarity against the policy of “Judaization” (crawling ethnic cleansing) in Shiekh Jarrah and East Jerusalem, against deployment of armed forces inside the Al-Aqsa compound, and against the occupation, even under heavy police repression. In parallel, there is the impressive displays of solidarity between Jews and Arabs developing in workplaces and campuses – among medical staff, bus drivers, and college teachers. In Tiberias, as a response to the nationalistic riots, drivers of the bus company “superbus,” who are organized within the “power to the workers” union, have parked their busses, and Jewish drivers used their private cars to escort Arab drivers safely back to their homes. In Bezalel college in Jerusalem, a protest strike by Palestinian students was answered with a solidarity statements from the teachers. The social workers union published a statement where it clarified that “[The Union] represents all social workers in Israel, of all nationalities and religions, and with a variety of world views. The union strives, acts, and calls for peace and the cessation of violence.”
Deliberate expansion of the bloodshed
The interim capitalist right wing government of Netanyahu and Gantz has consciously refused a cease fire and announced the “expansion of the operation” in the Gaza strip – a deliberate expansion of the bloodshed. This demonstrates yet again the indifference to human life expressed by a regime that also carries responsibility for thousands of dead in the recent pandemic, and the disaster on Mt. Meron that did not even lead to any ministerial resignations.
The political crisis and the weakness of Netanyahu, fighting for his political survival, sharpens and intensifies the dynamic of escalation of the national conflict. MK Ben-Gvir, the Kahanist pogromist, has openly called for a military operation, to make sure Netanyahu is able to form a new government. Though he claims Netanyahu pressured him to get out of Sheikh Jarrah, the reality is that Netanyahu himself strengthened the far-right filth in the last elections.
While masquerading as “Abu-Yair” to appeal to some Arab voters, Netanyahu forged an alliance with the far right, including the neo-fascist, Kahanist faction, and as result provided them with tailwind to incite and promote violent rampage through the streets to inflame the national schism. Netanyahu’s camp does have some interest in continuing the escalation, which puts pressure on the coalition negotiations of the “block for change” parties who seek to replace him with an alternative right-wing capitalist coalition, headed by Naftali Bennet. But the bloody deterioration is not just a result of Netanyahu and his attempts to hold on to power. The roots of the escalating crisis lie with a systematic and orchestrated policy. The military maneuvers of Netanyahu and the interim government were not meant to protect the Israeli public. Any claim to the contrary is either naive or an outright scam. The military maneuvers are meant to protect a capitalist status quo of occupation, siege, national discrimination, “divide and rule,” and poverty, which stands at the root of the military escalation. War is the continuation of politics by other means, as explained by the founder of modern military theory, Carl von Clausewitz.
Socialist struggle movement has warned that the fake peace propaganda that surrounded the normalization agreements promoted by Netanyahu, Trump, and the Arab oligarchies is a spin and that the agreements do not reduce the potential for further bloodshed, but are rather meant to serve geo-political conflicts and business interests, to cover up and normalize the dangerous reality of the occupation and the oppression of millions of Palestinians. Unfortunately, the scale of the rocket barrages fired at centers of population in Israel by armed Islamist organisations in an attempt to by-pass the “Iron Dome” defense system, serves as a stark reminder of the futility of “rebuilding deterrence” lie, and the policy of “managing the conflict” by means of military rounds, walls, and anti-rocket defense systems, on the basis of occupation and extreme inequalities.
The criminalization of Palestinian housing construction, demolitions of Palestinian homes – a new record for which was set during the pandemic! – and the uprooting of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, together with heavy policing, nationalistic provocations and incitement of a religious war around the Al-Aqsa mosque, racist rabble-rousing, forced poverty and distress, and trampling over national rights of the Palestinians, and the rights of working people and the poor in general, to the occupation, settlements, and siege of two million people locked in the most densely populated region of the world – all of these have exploded in the current escalation. This is the context in which protests, riots, and clashes erupted. When Hamas and the Islamic Jihad decided to take the initiative and intervene with full force, from a right-wing trajectory, in the events, launching indiscriminate rocket fire at civilian populations, the Israeli right-wing regime seized the opportunity to try and regain control of the developments by a show of military force.
Protest and Riots
As already mentioned, preceding the military escalation was an awakening of protests led by Palestinian youth, first in East Jerusalem, and then in other places. These forced the Israeli police to dismantle the provocative fences and gates set up at the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, led to alteration of the planned route for the far right “flags march” that was supposed to pass through the area, and urged the supreme court to postpone an explosive hearing regarding the displacement of Palestinian families from Shiekh Jarrah (that is after, in previous rulings, the Israeli court system outrageously validated the demand of the settlers organizations to evict the families based on a cynical claim of private ownership that dates back to the 19th century). In the post-Trump era, and given the ongoing governmental crisis in Israel, a new generation of Palestinians is overcoming barriers to display increased audacity in the confrontation with the Israeli establishment. This is at its core a nucleus of an uprising for liberation from national oppression and expropriation, poverty, and distress. It carries a general ideological expression of Palestinian nationalism, but it’s developing without a clear political leadership, or central organizations.
“Riot is the language of the unheard” exclaimed MLK. The deterioration of some of the Palestinian protests, especially in Lydda and Acre, into riots that include physical assaults of Jewish civilians, is an upsetting and dangerous phase, which followed incidents of individual Palestinian youth resorting to violent attacks of civilians in Jerusalem and Jaffa. These actions served to incite against every Palestinian protest and label all of them as “terrorism.” But the riots did not erupt in a vacuum. They also represent, albeit in a destructive form, a reaction to systematic attacks by the government, authorities, and police in alliance with the far right: the arrogant abuse from the government, economic and municipal suffocation, crushing of basic rights and the freedom to protest, go hand in hand with actions of the religious Zionists, kernels of settlements in the heart of Palestinian communities, and with assaults by Kahanist gangs such as Lehava. The picture painted in the mainstream Israeli media is one sided and inciting. Now the right-wing regime that is responsible for the crisis is demanding the restoration of “law and order” using Magav (border police that act as a lethal riot police within the borders). This is a dangerous turn by itself, not meant to solve social problems and bridge the national divide, but to again enforce order of inequality and distress. Netanyahu gave a permit to kill when he said during a visit in Lydda on Thursday (May 13) to Magav: “you have full backup, do not worry about investigations.”.
The Answer to the Escalation
How long will the escalation continue? The Netanyahu regime is under international, regional, and local pressures from both sides of the fence to halt the escalation. But the decision to level multi-story buildings, an act of state terrorism, and the demonstrative refusal of a cease fire may prolong the crisis from a matter of days into even several weeks. The most crucial factor that can urge a halt to the fire is the developments of protests on the ground – of Palestinians, of Israeli, and International protests. Already in the beginning of May a protest in solidarity with the residents of Sheikh Jarrah was organized in Amman, Jordan, and now protests and vigils are held around the world. The fears of global capitalist powers and regimes of the region of an ongoing event that will send destabilizing shock waves, and will create mass anger and unrest, have already generated denunciations and are by themselves levers of pressure.
These circumstances emphasize the importance of building a struggle on the ground, to apply pressure and show the way out of the crisis. The fact that the heads of the “block for change” are currently siding with Netanyahu against the protesters who demand an end the war, must serve as a giant warning sign against an alternative right-wing capitalist government headed by Bennet, which is being promoted by elements in the anti-Bibi camp, including Meretz, Labour, and organizations associated with the Balfour protests. Opportunistically volunteering to serve as pawns for the setting up of a new right-wing government sows dangerous illusions and will pave the way towards more, and even worse, crises. What is the alternative? Resist, not support, a right-wing capitalist government headed by Netanyahu, Bennet, or anyone else. And fight for an alternative to nationalistic capitalistic politics – around a program for real change, a socialist program.
We all need to work to expand the examples of solidarity between Jews and Arabs in the workplaces, the unions, and schools, together with unequivocal denunciations of the war and the policy of the capitalist government. Among Palestinians in the occupied territories and in places where demonstrations are already organized regularly, on both sides of the fence, this can be an opportunity to promote setting up action committees that can strive to lead democratic organization for self-defense and expansion of the struggle. This is the answer to the escalation. This is the direction towards building a struggle against a dangerous regime, corrupted elites, and a whole system that once again led millions to a severe and bloody crisis.
Stop the war! Mobilize to the protests to seize the fire. There is no peace without struggle against the occupation, poverty and inequality, against corrupted elites, and for healthcare, livelihood, and welfare for everyone. Stop police and military repression of protests.
Refuse to be enemies. Promote solidarity in workplaces and campuses against nationalistic “divide and rule,” against the far right, and against escalation. Yes to acts of protest by workers and student unions.
Strengthen the demonstrations against the war, the government, and the occupation. No to attacks against civilians. Promote the setting up of action committees to lead a democratic organization for self-defense and the expansion of the struggle. Stop the religious settlements in the heart of Palestinian communities.
Solidarity with the residents of Sheikh Jarrah in their struggle against the barbaric attempts of religious settlers and the right-wing regime to take over their homes, and push out the Palestinians in East Jerusalem who live under the occupation of the Israeli regime.
An end to deployment of armed forces inside the Al-Aqsa compound – stop the nationalistic provocations, the crushing of the right to worship, and the promotion of religious wars. Stop the criminalization of Palestinian construction and house demolitions in East Jerusalem. Down with the occupation and settlements.
Only peace and equality will provide personal security to all residents. Down with the siege and the collective punishments against the two million people living in Gaza. Solidarity also with residents of both national communities who face indiscriminate rocket fire by right wing elements.
End the occupation, down with national oppression and the rejection of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Yes to an independent, socialist, Palestine, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Yes to a socialist change in Israel and in the region.
