The Israeli ‘War Cabinet’ unanimously decided to begin the first phase of the Israeli right-wing regime’s catastrophic invasion of Rafah, where the majority of the Palestinian population surviving in the inferno of the Gaza Strip are currently located.
Shahar Ben Horin, Yasha Marmer, Socialist Struggle, Israel-Palestine
The Israeli ‘War Cabinet’ unanimously decided to begin the first phase of the Israeli right-wing regime’s catastrophic invasion of Rafah, where the majority of the Palestinian population surviving in the inferno of the Gaza Strip are currently located.
On the night between Monday and Tuesday, Israeli military forces raided the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing. The day before, the occupying army shelled and bombed homes in eastern Rafah, killing 22 Palestinians, including 8 children and babies. The killing of the families fit in with the message that the military conveyed the next morning to those living in neighborhoods in eastern Rafah as part of a process to expel 100,000 residents: Those who do not flee take their lives into their own hands. Mass of Palestinian families, including many displaced and seeking refuge in Rafah, have now been displaced once again and have begun moving towards the destroyed city of Khan Younis and the Al Mawasi area adjacent to the coast. In both areas, there is no basic infrastructure to absorb masses of displaced persons, not even running water. The fleeing families fear they will not be able to find even a minimal space for a tent in these areas. Yet, adopting truly Orwellian terminology, the Israeli right-wing regime calls al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone”. This is a zone of extreme ‘humanitarian’ disaster, where additionally the closure of the Rafah crossing alongside the closure of the Karem Abu Salem/Kerem Shalom crossing once again exacerbates the suffocating siege and starvation in all areas of the Gaza Strip.
The nighttime military invasion came after a series of conflicting reports as a rollercoaster of revolving expectations about the possibility of a ceasefire deal and the exchange of hostages and prisoners. The current round of negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas came to the brink of collapse on Monday, but then the Hamas leadership announced that it accepted the terms of the “Egyptian offer” for the deal. Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a committee established by the families of the abductees, said in response: “We welcome Hamas’ announcement to promote the ceasefire, which promotes the return of the 132 abductees who have been held captive by Hamas for seven months”. The committee called on the right-wing Israeli government to “prove by deeds its commitment to its citizens — the cabinet must take Hamas’ consent and turn it into a deal for the return of everyone.” That same evening, however, Netanyahu’s bureau stressed, in defiance of the pressures for a ceasefire at both the international and regional levels as well as from within Israeli society, that the War Cabinet had unanimously determined that “Hamas’ proposal is very far from Israel’s necessary demands”. However, alongside the decision to begin the Rafah invasion, the cabinet also decided to send an Israeli delegation to Cairo, albeit at an intermediate level and apparently without a real mandate to advance in the negotiations. For its part, the Hamas leadership made it clear that it regarded the occupation forces’ takeover of the Rafah crossing as a step intended to torpedo negotiations.
Indeed, Netanyahu was the most provocative element against signing a deal at this stage among the members of the narrow war cabinet — which also includes Galant and Gantz, alongside the “observers” Eisenkot, Der`i and Dermer — while other elements in the Israeli regime were pushed to tactical flexibility, including the possibility of avoiding an invasion. Netanyahu, largely to ensure his political survival, is competing with the heads of the far-right parties who warn that they will dismantle his coalition and calling for an “immediate order to occupy Rafah” (Ben-Gvir), as well as: “Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat — total annihilation. Wipe out the memory of Amalek under heaven” (Smotrich) (in the Bible Amalek was an enemy of the Jews).
However, the main reason for torpedoing the rounds of negotiations so far is that the position of the war cabinet — on behalf of the government occupying and destroying the Gaza Strip — remains an official rejection of a ceasefire deal that would include an end to the bloody military offensive and a full withdrawal of the occupation forces in the near term.
The more entrenched the cabinet is in its position, the greater the clash between it and some of the families of the abductees. On Tuesday, in a statement given to the media from the center of the families’ protest in Tel Aviv in front of the military base housing the Israeli Ministry of Security, Einav Tsengawkar, mother of abducted Matan Tsengawker, said the following: “We heard from sources involved in the negotiations that what really prevents the deal, what separates us from our loved ones, was and remains an Israeli commitment to end the war. We say here clearly to Netanyahu and the Israeli government — if the only way to return the hostages is through an Israeli commitment to end the war — end the war, bring them back and save lives”.
On the military level, the full plan of invasion to Rafah is marked as a strategic move to defeat the “last stronghold” of Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which has about four battalions numbering some 3,000 fighters, to delay the reorganization of the military wing, and to increase Israeli control over the Rafah crossing and the ‘Philadelphi Route’ along the border with Egypt. On the political level, the move is intended to show who dictates events. Symbolically it serves to build a false image of “victory” of the occupying power and of Netanyahu and his government in particular.
Nevertheless, the right-wing Israeli government is under heavy pressure to refrain from implementing the full plan for the invasion of Rafah. Chief of Staff Halevi has already approved several times plans to displace the population and invade the occupation forces, but the Israeli war cabinet has so far refrained from deciding on full implementation of the invasion plan, under the influence of Israeli public pressure on the issue of abductees and international pressures from ally governments in their strive to restrain destabilization.
After the dramatic exchange of blows between the Israeli regime and its Iranian counterpart illustrated the danger of a regional conflagration, and after reports of a targeted Israeli attack on Iranian territory on 19 April, which was formally denied by both sides in order to “close the event”, the focus immediately returned to the atrocities unfolding in Gaza. The very next day, horrifying reports were published about the discovery of mass graves in the compound of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in which more than 300 bodies, including those of women and children, were discovered. Some bodies were found bound, with signs of torture and no clothing, and some of the victims may have been executed on the spot. After the historic Khan Younis massacre by Israeli occupation forces during the 1956 war, a mass grave was discovered in the city where the bodies of some 40 handcuffed Palestinians shot in the head from behind were buried — an event that now pales in comparison to the scale of the catastrophe in Khan Yunis and the Gaza Strip at large.
The news coming from the hospital compound did not delay even for a blink of an eye a renewed escalation of Israeli bombings in Rafah. According to conservative official figures, over 35,000 people have perished so far in the genocidal offensive of Israeli capitalism on the Gaza Strip, including 14,500 babies, children and adolescents and 9,500 women. About 75% of the reported 77,000 injuries are women. Over 8,000 people are reported missing or known to be trapped under the rubble of collapsed structures. The most basic infrastructure for sustaining life has been destroyed, and the conscious use of starvation as a weapon has sparked a severe famine crisis in northern Gaza. Now, following a limited and cynical expansion of supplies, the closure of crossings in southern Gaza is liable to spark similar crises in other areas.
From protest to strike measures
On a global level, the wave of demonstrations, campus occupations and protest encampments by students provided a renewed boost to the international movement to stop the bloodbath. In Israeli society, the fact that many October 7 hostages were also killed in the regime’s campaign of mass killings, starvation and destruction exposed the lie that “military pressure” is in the interest of the abductees themselves. The section more critical towards the Israeli government among the families of the abductees turned to organizing independently from the official Hostages and Missing Families Forum and escalating the struggle, going as far as calling on the Histadrut to lead a general strike in the Israeli economy in order to force the right-wing regime to agree to a deal for the exchange of abductees and prisoners.
At the same time, representatives of the Palestinian trade unions in Gaza, who have so far survived the hellscape, called for protest and strike initiatives by labor unions and trade unions around the world, in particular around 1 May, International Workers’ Day, and 15 May, Nakba Day. The latter commemorates the mass ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli forces during the 1948 war, including the destruction of hundreds of communities, the displacement of most of the Palestinian population within the Green Line, as well as the continuation of dispossession processes, erasing memory from the public sphere and denying the reconstruction of communities. The High Follow-Up Committee of the Arab Public in Israel also marked 15 May as a possible day of protest. Meanwhile, another protest strike was organized in the West Bank on 21 April, involving the teachers’ union, following a raid by occupation forces on the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm.
From Washington to Riyadh, the ruling classes fear entanglement in regional military escalation and the ongoing fueling of mass rage and radicalization with more horrific images from Gaza. The Biden administration may be willing to accept a “limited” invasion of Rafah, but has made clear its opposition to a large-scale invasion, even stalling a specific weapons delivery to Israel, as a limited pressure leverage. Simultaneously, it has been pressuring the Qatari regime — which, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’ exiled leadership since 2012 — to expel Hamas representatives if they do not agree to a “phased” deal that will not officially end the offensive.
Sisi’s regime has threatened to freeze the peace treaty with Israel in a scenario of a full-invasion to Rafah. The bloody crisis in Gaza intensifies Egyptian public opposition to the strategic alliance between Sisi’s dictatorship and the Israeli dictatorship imposed over the Palestinians, while the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea cuts trade revenues, and a “full” invasion of Rafah would inject further instability, including a possible wave of Palestinian refugees into Sinai. Against this background, the Egyptian regime took the lead in brokering the latest round of negotiations from its Qatari counterpart. At the same time, under the auspices of US and French imperialism, there’s been an acceleration of negotiations over a possible deal — subject to a ceasefire scenario in Gaza — to halt the intensive war of attrition on the Israeli-Lebanese border and to settle the contentious border points.
Strategic impasse
Netanyahu has long declared with typical arrogance that an Israeli invasion of Rafah will be carried out even without Washington’s support. But that arrogance is matched by profound weakness: the murderous Israeli government is dealing with splits at the top in the face of a strategic impasse, with public anger at the local level, and with increasing pressures on the international level, decisively under the influence of mass anger and the protest movement around the world. In this context, the Israeli war cabinet is also concerned about a possible nuisance in the form of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Netanyahu, Galant, and Chief of Staff Halevi for war crimes and involvement in genocide in Gaza similar to the order against Putin. Indeed they asked that US imperialism intervene to wipe this off the table, threatening to topple the Palestinian Authority if the orders are issued.
Generally, Israeli capitalism has a clear backing from Washington. Governments of the “West” and the Arab regimes with which they are in alliance have demonstrated, especially in light of Iran’s retaliation, how despite the lip service paid to the heavy public pressures that have been expressing solidarity with the Palestinian masses in Gaza, for them, in essence, Israeli capitalism is currently a necessary factor for protecting their geostrategic interests in the region. This is reinforced by the inter-bloc rivalry between the camp of American imperialism and the camp of Russian and Chinese imperialism. Thus, the Biden administration passed the aid package to strengthen the war machines of the ruling classes in Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, and also spoke out against the student protests. Throughout April, it also worked intensively, ahead of the special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh (April 28–29), to formulate a draft regional deal that would include normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel and a “defense pact” treaty between the United States and Saudi Arabia. This should be accompanied with some vague agreement by the Israeli government to steps towards ostensibly formal recognition of a Palestinian state on paper — far less than the lip service of the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative. Blinken reportedly gave the Israeli government an ultimatum to accept the proposal in May before progress on the regional deal is considered even without Israeli involvement.
The Biden administration demonstrated how hostile US imperialism is to the idea of a right to national state self-determination for the Palestinians, even on a symbolic level, with the veto of a UN Security Council resolution (18 April) accepting the Palestinian Authority, formally as the State of Palestine, to a full membership in the UN. This move occurred while continuing the flow of US weapons to mass slaughter of Palestinians and continued economic strangling through UNRWA’s budgetary strangulation.
Despite this, the level of trust and coordination between the White House and Netanyahu’s government is eroding. More than two months have passed since the US administration stopped resisting calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and declared the Rafah invasion plan a “red line”. Biden himself assessed, back in February, that a deal was a matter of days. Over a month ago for the first time a US veto was not imposed on a UN Security Council resolution that “demanded” an immediate ceasefire.
After a phase that included a dilution in the scope of the occupation forces in the Gaza Strip, in the current round of negotiations, the right-wing Israeli regime has been pushed to be flexible on ambiguous formulas in the framework of the “Egyptian proposal”, and to slightly expand the provision of supplies to the starving and bombed population in Gaza, especially after the killing of the workers of the World Central Kitchen (1 April). From the outset, however, the Israeli regime seeks to tighten control of the Gaza Strip through the genocidal offensive, and has no clear “exit strategy” on how to stabilize mechanisms of control over the ruins and the population whose entire world has been destroyed. It has militarily weakened Hamas for the time being but is nowhere near eliminating it as an organized and armed political force. Nor does it have an organized local force at its fingertips to volunteer to serve as an “alternative administration” in coordination with the Israeli occupation. Even if the Palestinian Authority would have been interested, it barely enforces itself in the West Bank enclaves and has long been exposed in its role as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation.
Various circles of the Israeli ruling class are playing with plans to shape the occupation of Gaza in the “day after”. While the Israeli far-right desire to restore permanent direct occupation, with ethnic cleansing and even more colossal extermination, to renew the colonial settlement project on the ground, the mainstream of the Israeli ruling class see this as a recipe for strategic entanglement. A section of the Israeli ruling class has been playing with the idea of mass expulsion into Sinai, but even that is obstructed by the opposition of the Egyptian and other regimes in the region that fear massive destabilization consequences. Renewing the colonial settlement enterprise in Gaza after it was terminated two decades ago due to its failure in altering the demographic balance, would only exacerbate the overall cost of a destabilized occupation regime. Attempts to fully eliminate the mass of the Palestinian population in Gaza, via mass expulsion, and certainly via a maximum-extermination program, would invoke a much more extremely profound multifaceted global and regional backlash, and most decisively mass radicalization and movements, including among the various Palestinian communities, as well as among sections of the Israeli Jewish working class and youth. Instead they toy with the notion of keeping direct occupation forces in parts of the Gaza Strip for the medium term, striving to cultivate a local collaborative force, and perhaps reimposing the Palestinian Authority under increased Israeli control, possibly with the help of a police force on behalf of the Arab regimes — and even then, it is clear to all strategists of the Israeli regime that the occupation and continued oppression of the Palestinians will provoke resistance in various forms, and that different factions in the national movement will organize for struggle, including by armed means.
The Strive to Deepen the Siege Policy
The occupation regime’s strategy for the “day after” is the recycling of the idea of tightening the brutal military blockade on the besieged population, ostensibly so that Palestinian militias will not technically be able to arm themselves. The occupying power wishes to reserve for itself alone the right to arm itself with the weapons it uses to carry out the horrific large-scale attacks on the Palestinian population, and this is done under the guise of security demagoguery, based on cynical exploitation of the 7 October massacre and generally indiscriminate Hamas-led attacks on ordinary Israeli civilians. However, the bulk of the weapons are by a huge margin in the hands of the occupying power, and the bulk of the victims, by a huge margin, are among the occupied population, which has a basic right to defend itself and fight attacks against it and for liberation from the barbaric oppression imposed on it.
However, after nearly two decades of tight closure of Gaza by the Israeli regime, with the help of its Egyptian counterpart, at a catastrophic price for Gaza residents, and with no prospect of a solution for ordinary residents beyond the fence in the western Negev/Naqab, the false security pretexts that underpinned the policy have been repeatedly shattered by military escalations and in extreme proportions in the current historic bloody crisis.
In 2005, as part of the ‘Disengagement Plan’, which was aimed at stabilizing the Israeli occupation, the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the agreement over deployment of Egyptian police forces along the Gaza–Egypt border were signed. Despite the end of the direct presence of the occupation forces at the Rafah crossing, the Israeli government maintained decisive control over the crossing, beginning with the prohibition on the transfer of goods, supervision of those passing through (including continued control of the Palestinian population registry, which is central to permit policy), and official authority to close the crossing as the Egyptian regime recognizes the border with Gaza as the border with the State of Israel. The crossing has been closed since Hamas won the elections for PA institutions in 2006, at which point the closure began to be tightened, (though it was briefly breached by Palestinian militia fighters in 2008), while the Israeli and Egyptian regimes have worked to destroy smuggling tunnels, a vital economic artery in the shadow of the brutal military closure. The Egyptian regime has been pushed to open the crossing from time to time, and under the pressure of the revolutionary wave of 2011 it was forced to grant more significant concessions. However, during the counterrevolution of the Sisi regime over the past decade, coordination with the Israeli regime and attacks on the tunnels increased. Now, in accordance with the plans formulated by the Israeli military under pressure from Washington — as an alternative to a large-scale invasion plan — a possibility is discussed of a combination of a limited Israeli military invasion of the ‘Philadelphi Route’ (the border area between Gaza and Egypt) with a new Israeli-Egyptian agreement to increase the means to crush the tunnel economy and deepen the occupation’s grip on the economic arteries of survivors in the Gaza Strip. This attempt to stabilize the occupation is also doomed to failure.
Volcano of instability
The attempt by Washington and the Arab regimes to harness Israeli capitalism to expand normalization as a stabilizing exit strategy has encountered obstacles from the Israeli regime itself. The deep systemic crisis processes of capitalism and the campaign to perpetuate the colonial occupation that have led the Israeli regime to this point have undermined its political stability and created its dependence on the narrow set of considerations of Netanyahu and ultra-nationalist forces. Even if Trump, as an agent of chaos in the global system, does not return to the White House in January, there is no horizon for a long-term renewed equilibrium for the occupation regime in the foreseeable future.
The righteous upheaval and outrage among millions of Palestinians and around the world over the widespread ruin of the Gaza Strip will not be replaced by a desire to see a political wedding between the occupying power and Bin Salman on the White House lawn. The imperialist camp of the Western states, the main contributor to the bloodbath in Gaza, will be forced to pay more lip service to mass solidarity with the Palestinians, including soft sanctions against the occupation and settlements. More European states are likely to declare formal recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a state, following the Swedish government’s decision a decade ago. But symbolic declarations will not realize the Palestinians’ right to liberation from oppression and to actual national state independence, nor will they ease the global mass anger over the Israeli occupation.
Despite the police trampling of the protest at University of Columbia in the US, the unrest continues and the wave of protests has spread from elite universities in the US to campuses around the world — including among Palestinian students in the West Bank and students in Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, France, Britain, Italy, Australia, Canada and other locations. From Gaza, pictures were posted of children thanking students in the United States for their solidarity. The wave of protests reminds Western governments and Arab regimes that making good on the now weeks-long threat of a Rafah invasion will create shockwaves regionally and globally.
The Israeli establishment media mobilized to typically slander the wave of protests on campuses around the world, as part of the propaganda machine to mobilize support for the military actions of the right-wing Israeli government and the mass killing of Palestinians. The blatant incitement against the protest encampments on campuses, which attempts to portray them as strongholds of anti-Semitism of the type of Germany in 1930s (!) demonstrates that the international movement against the genocidal offensive in Gaza is indeed not just “background noise” but causes real concern amongst sections of the Israeli ruling class. The official propaganda of the right-wing regime in Israel attempts to obscure not only the fact that anti-Semitic voices are marginal elements in the protests, but also that at the heart of the protest tents in the United States there are quite a few students of Jewish origin.
In another step to conceal reality, in the spirit of the Putin regime, but on a much weaker and more undermined basis, the Netanyahu–Gantz government decided to shut down the activity of the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel in Israel in order to further quash the space for journalism that is not mobilized for government war propaganda.
The aggressive fanning of nationalist reaction in Israeli society — relying upon security demagoguery — continues to foster general support for the military offensive in Gaza especially among the Jewish population. However, attitudes toward the government remain super-contradictory, with mass suspicion and outrage. Indeed, only a minority sides with the line of the Israeli far-right opposing a ceasefire. 54% of the general public (cross-national communities) favor a “hostage deal” over an Israeli invasion of Rafah (Maariv survey, 3 May). The resignation of the head of Military Intelligence Directorate, and before that the departure of Gideon Sa’ar’s faction from the government, reflect the expansion of the depth and scope of Israeli demonstrations demanding a deal and calls against Netanyahu and the government. But they also illustrate the weakness of the government and much broader public anger. 58% of the general public supports the immediate resignation of Netanyahu, whose party has returned to a little over a half the share of votes it received in the ’22 elections, and the Netanyahu bloc is swinging around 50 seats (News 12 poll, 30 April). Added to the rage at Netanyahu and the far-right, including to some extent at settler violence in the West Bank, is anger at police brutality and class anger at the wave of price increases led by giant food and marketing corporations.
The points of optimism amidst a wave of reaction and horrific images are the persistent struggles around the world and at the local level against the agenda of the Israeli regime. Following a global trend, the idea of the strike weapon is, once again, also being raised more centrally, with the understanding that demonstrations alone are not enough, that it is necessary to mobilize the decisive power of the working class to the struggle.
In Israeli society, Histadrut Chairman Bar-David has made it clear that he has no intention of leading a strike, but things should not depend on him in the first place. The same call for a strike must be promoted extensively in demonstrations and in all the unions and the workers’ committees (shop stewards), and a complete end to the offensive in Gaza should be demanded, not a temporary ceasefire — on this basis a link up can also be advanced to the call of the Arab Follow-Up Committee and the Palestinian unions for protest strikes to end the genocidal onslaught.
The students’ encampments of tens of campuses in the US also gave an impulse to action in the region. In Tunisia, hundreds of students responded to a call from the country’s two main student unions, UGET and UGTE. Earlier significant protests took place in Jordan and Egypt. In the territories of ‘48, despite the police repression and persecution, more anti-war demonstrations and solidarity marches with the Palestinians in Gaza are being organized. The Nakba day should become a rallying point in the further building of international and local mobilization, including strike actions in the spirit of the all-Palestinian “Dignity Strike” of May 2021, that encompassed Palestinian communities across the Green Line and beyond.
In the Israeli demonstrations in favor of “Deal Now” and of “Elections Now”, the voices categorically opposing the Gaza offensive and the occupation are, of course, relatively isolated. However, there is growing scope for necessary intervention from the left, especially by socialist, working-class voices, which correspond with the anger at the bloody government and the far-right, and with the calls for mass struggle and strike measures, while strengthening opposition to nationalist incitement, and the offensive and the occupation., Developing links with the international protest movement is absolutely key to point a way out of the hellscape. War, crisis and catastrophe generally provoke painful but radical conclusions amongst the working class — about the horrors of the capitalist system but also our latent power to change the course of history. Already, important sections of workers and young people throughout the region and globally look to the methods of mass, working-class struggle as a means to strike a blow against the war machine and its imperialist enablers. Revolutionary socialists must seek to deepen and strengthen these elements internationally, raising the need for an independent struggle to fight the siege, the occupation, and the rule of capital.
We Call:
- To expand the protest measures of students, school-students and workers everywhere to stop the bloodbath. Promote discussion and protest meetings, and cross-community demonstrations of protest and solidarity. Yes to the call of the families of the abductees for a general strike in the Israeli economy demanding a ceasefire. Respond to calls by the Follow-Up Committee and the Palestinian unions to organize protests and strikes.
- Stop the Rafah invasion, end the bloodbath in Gaza — including withdrawing all Israeli military forces from Gaza. Yes to the return of hostages and prisoners, all for all. An end to the offensive by military forces and settlers in the West Bank, an end to the policy of assassinations, no to a regional war.
- Topple the bloody government of Netanyahu–Gantz–Ben Gvir, as part of a struggle against its entire agenda. There is no peace, equality and personal security in the region without a struggle against national oppression, siege, occupation, poverty and the rule of capital. Promote the establishment of mass struggle parties on both sides of the Green Line, to act in coordination.
- An end to the weapon of starvation against residents of the Gaza Strip, an end to the siege. Guarantee the immediate massive transfer of food, clean water and basic goods from all crossings at no cost to every household in the Gaza Strip, as part of a massive investment in reconstruction under democratic control of the residents of the Gaza Strip themselves, and at the expense of the capitalists in countries that financed the war. Expropriate the banks, large marketing chains and key infrastructures in the Israeli economy into public hands, under democratic control and management by the working class, for massive investment in compensation and reconstruction on both sides of the fence.
- No to the rolling back of democratic freedoms and to the growing political persecution under the cover of war. Oppose the enactment of emergency regulations, which in particular threaten to be used for political repression, including imprisonment of opponents of war. No to trampling on the right to protest and freedom of the press. Opposition to nationalist witch hunts in workplaces and on campuses designed to silence and deter Arab-Palestinians and generally voices opposed to the war and national oppression. An end to the persecution of Arabic speakers in the public sphere, including on social networks.
- An end to the occupation and the colonial settlement project. Yes to the struggle for the establishment of an independent, democratic, socialist, and equal rights Palestinian state, and to the struggle for democracy and socialist change in Israel and the region, while ensuring equal rights for all nations and all minorities.
- Peace demands full equality. Fight for the overthrow of oppressive regimes, capitalism and imperialism, and for socialist change, as the basis for regional peace. Struggle for a fundamental solution, based on an end to national oppression, equal rights to existence, self-determination and a life of dignity, welfare and personal security for all. This is part of the struggle for socialist change in the region, including the establishment of a regional socialist confederation, which would promote democracy and personal security and harness the key resources, under democratic public ownership, for the benefit of all.
