Workers’ Action Needed to End War and Imperialism
Over the past year and 9 months, the people of Gaza have faced a war of extermination at the hands of the Israeli state, backed to the hilt by US and European imperialist powers, including Britain. This historic crime is the most defining example of the depravity of the rotten capitalist system seen this century.
Official estimates report over 57,000 people killed in Gaza, although the actual death toll is likely several times higher than this. 93% of buildings in Gaza are destroyed, with up to 10,000 people thought to lie dead beneath the rubble. A study presented in Nature says 84,000 died between October 2023 and January 2025. The entire population of 1.9 million have been displaced, repeatedly forced to evacuate temporary housing and sheltering — at best — in tents, under extreme hardship. With no end in sight, Netanyahu’s government is pushing the genocide further and aims for ethnic cleansing, forcing Palestinians out of Gaza, in a second ‘Nakba’ (meaning ‘catastrophe’, in reference to the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and towns).
Over the last few months, since early March, the war of extermination has escalated in horrifying ways. Since the launch of “operation Gideon’s chariots” in May, in order to take full control of Gaza, Israeli state forces have taken full control of over 65% or more of the strip. The population has been forced further south.
While the people of Gaza live in or close to famine, with aid cut off in recent months, the Israeli state has used this as an opportunity to ramp up the slaughter. Through the sickeningly misnamed ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ four ‘aid sites’ have been set up. In reality, these are death traps. At these sites, the Israeli army has routinely fired into crowds, systematically murdering hundreds of civilians. Those who still live face an impossible choice: on the one hand, starvation; on the other, risking their lives for severely limited aid supplies at these facilities.
The Israeli state has no intention of stopping its genocidal campaign. Despite recent talks around a temporary ceasefire, Netanyahu’s government is still open about its plans to “take control of the entire Gaza Strip.” A 60-day reprieve would only be an excuse for Israeli forces to regroup and prepare the ground for the next stage of ethnic cleansing. Currently, this includes plans for the forced displacement of the entire population into concentration camps on the border, or out of the area entirely — although it is far from guaranteed that they will be able to succeed in these plans.
Meanwhile, the US-backed Israeli state is emboldened by its military strength in the region, reinforced by the collapse of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance.” The Israeli army has increased its attacks on the West Bank and regularly attacks targets in Syria and Lebanon.
Step up the international solidarity movement
In response to the escalation of recent months — or more to the point, the huge outrage from workers and young people and international mass movement — some Western governments have shed crocodile tears, making mealy-mouthed calls for a ceasefire. But the “12-day war” with Iran revealed the falsity of these statements.
The governments of Britain, France and Canada, who had just a week before begun to criticise Israel’s actions, quickly fell into line, backing the Israeli attacks on Iran and returning to the mantra of ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’. Keir Starmer’s government in Britain has even proscribed the protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation — with supporters risking up to 14 years in prison. Their crime was to spray paint UK air force fighter jets. Meanwhile, the UK government has no problem continuing its arms deliveries to aid Israeli state terror.
Mass struggle points the way forward to stop the slaughter. The historic mass solidarity movement has shown the enormous scale of solidarity among the international working class for the people of Palestine.
However, 20 months of mass demonstrations have, as of yet, been unable to stop the extermination of the Palestinians. US imperialism, with Trump at the helm, has been dragged back into the Middle East to defend its foothold in the region, represented by its own military forces alongside the Israeli regime. Despite their words of condemnation, the priority for governments as in Britain and France remains strengthening the NATO military bloc, securing trade with the US, as well as defending their own profits in the region.
It is only the working class that can bring an end to the bloodshed. With workers’ actions and strikes, not a single weapon could be produced or transported. We saw a glimpse of this in the action of dock workers in a number of European ports last month, who refused to load weapons onto ships destined for Israel. This needs to be taken up widely, as part of an internationally-coordinated workers’ boycott of Israeli arms, which would have the power to stop the war machine in its tracks.
To finally end the oppression of the Palestinian people, to guarantee peace in the Middle East and the national and democratic rights of all groups in the region, we need to fight the capitalist and imperialist system that fundamentally drives the world toward more and more war, as part of a struggle for international socialist change.
