This article was originally published in 3 parts, under the title “Gaza: two years of horror”
“Horror without end”[1] are words that can only partially describe what is happening today in Gaza. Despite the massive outcry from movements, workers and youth all over the world, the Israeli regime is continuing the slaughter of Palestinians and pursuing its broader aims in the region. This is only possible because of the support of the West, i.e., the US and the main European powers, who every now and then may utter a few words of “protest” at the atrocities, but never waver in their support for the Israeli government.
At the same time the world has seen one of the most significant movements against the war, in country after country. Importantly the movement inside Israel, also, has reached new levels, especially since the summer of this year. The war on Gaza can be described as a turning point for consciousness and political developments internationally. Marxists, and the anticapitalist Left in general, need to respond and show a way forward.
The following article attempts to draw a balance sheet of the war since its onset on October 7, 2023.
Part I.
Genocide and ethnic cleansing live on cameras
The war on Gaza has been going on unabated for two years since October 2023. It remains an open question how and why Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, one of the most effective ones on the planet, failed to find out the plans of Hamas and its allies who during their attack into Israel killed about 1200 civilians, mostly youth, and took as hostages around 250. It also seems, although there are no accurate figures, that at least 1000 Hamas militants also died on October 7th, making it the single most bloody day since the founding of the state of Israel.
The Israeli army (IDF) responded with brutal force, bombing absolutely everything: houses, schools, hospitals, press offices, infrastructure – all were razed to the ground. Tens of thousands of Palestinians died in the bombings or were shot/executed in cold blood, not only by the IDF but also by settlers in the West Bank. According to the UN, in the first 6 weeks of the war more Palestinian civilians were killed than in the first two years of the war in Ukraine.
At the time of writing (end of September 2025) the number of Palestinian deaths is over 65,000, about 1/3 of which are children, with an unidentified number buried under the rubble. It is estimated that 80% of casualties are civilian – while 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings were women and children.
Journalists of international media (Al Jazeera, Reuters, etc.) were specifically targeted and shot – around 250 in total! This is part of the efforts of the Israeli state to hide the truth about what is actually happening in Gaza (and the West Bank). UN reports that the number of aid workers killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 rose to 540! This shows the cynicism of the Israeli regime. The Palestinian people are starved to death, through a conscious policy that aims to destroy their morale and drive them out.
The United Nations (UN), an organisation that as a rule does not disobey the directives of the Western powers, have officially referred to “famine” and to a “humanitarian catastrophe”. The distribution of aid is in the hands of the Israeli state (via the so called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”) which refuses to allow the UN or any western NGOs to carry out this task. As a result, more than 1,150 Palestinians have been shot dead while queuing up and after travelling long distances on foot in order to reach the distribution points!
UN commissions/officials now speak openly of genocide. In addition, Netanyahu has been declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court and an arrest warrant was issued on 21 November 2024.
The West – hypocrisy at its utmost
Israel is able to behave in such a way only because of the support it enjoys from the Western powers – especially the US.
The fact that a number of European countries are beginning to become critical of Netanyahu does not change the substance of their policies. And It’s very important to remember that this taking place only because of the huge pressure of the anti-war movement and the shifting mass consciousness against the genocide; as well as the fact, of course, that Netanyahu has really gone too far even for its most dedicated supporters like Germany and the UK. His most recent provocation was the air attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar, a close ally of the West, on September 9.
As a result, some European countries have been forced to start criticising Israel.
The decision by a number of key Western powers, like France, Britain, Australia, Canada, Portugal, Belgium, etc., to recognize a Palestinian state in the course of September is the most important recent example. The full number of states that now recognize Palestine as a state stands at 157 – which is more than 80% of UN’s 193 member states. This will obviously be greeted as a positive development by the Palestinian people and the anti-war movement internationally. But there should be no illusions. The move is symbolic – the Western powers need to show their “public opinion” that they are “doing something”. But they are not showing any intention of seriously pressurizing Israel.
At the same time as supposedly “defending” the right of the Palestinian people to have their own national state, some of the “great democracies” of the West continue to attack, arrest, prosecute and suppress anti-war protests with the pretext of “antisemitism” (and even “terrorism” – in the case of “Palestine Action” in Britain).
Before the war began, 147 out of 193 member states of the United Nations, had already recognized a Palestinian state. This did not make any difference to the daily lives of the Palestinian people. The 147 countries recognizing Palestine were completely ignored by Israel and the US – and until the recent developments by all major powers in Europe.
The reasons for the West’s stand on the Israel-Palestine issue should be clear: there is no other country in the region that serves the interests of Western imperialism in the way Israel does. The region, rich in energy resources but unstable socially and politically, and inhabited by hundreds of millions of Arab and Moslem populations with a tradition of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles and feelings, is of key importance to the West. Israel is a stable watch dog for the interests of Western imperialism. So, however much the Israeli ruling class goes over the limits, the West will not abandon them – and Netanyahu and his gang know that.
The Geopolitical aspect
The declared aim of sections of the Israeli ruling class, represented by the far-right parties, is to push the population of Gaza out and to expand the settlements in the West Bank, leaving no room for the Palestinian people to live. This is in accordance with some of Trump’s previous statements, who was the first to speak of turning Gaza into a riviera and it is clear that Netanyahu flirted with the idea.
But the Israeli ruling class’s plans, in general, do not stop at the expulsion of sections of the Palestinian population and the further take-over of lands in the occupied territories. They expand into the broader region.
Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon and was able to inflict serious blows against it killing many of its core leaders. Just when the war with Hezbollah began, thousands of pagers and walkie talkies exploded in the hands of Hezbollah leading cadres (having been booby-trapped with explosives by Mossad) killing tens and injuring thousands.
The weakening of Hezbollah, coupled with the fact that Russia was preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, played a major role in the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria in December 2024. The regime fell in a number of days, indicating its complete isolation from the Syrian society and the fact that it was only able to survive because it was based on Hezbollah’s militias and the support of Russia.
This led to the severe weaking of the so called “axis of resistance”, which had Iran at its center and included Asad’s regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and other forces in the region, like the Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.
Then came the attack on Iran, on June 13.
It is a fact that Israel was not able to achieve 100% of its aims in all these military confrontations. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah have been completely eradicated and Iran still stands as the main opponent of Israel (and western interests) in the region. But it is also a fact that the clear winner has been Israel. It has had limited casualties and has seriously weakened its opponents in the region.
The confrontation of course is not over. All sides will be preparing for another round in the future.
Immediately after the fall of the Assad regime Israel expanded its military intervention in Syria. It captured the whole of the Golan heights and moved in the direction of Damascus – now at a distance of 20 or even 10 km, according to different reports, from its outskirts. Israel has openly stated that the Golan heights will never be returned to Syria.
At the same it is developing close relations with the Druze minority in South-West Syria, actually intervening militarily to defend them against attacks by the Bedouins and the new Syrian regime under HTS and Ahmed al-Sharaa. It went as far as to use fighter planes against targets in Damascus, in its defense of the Druze, in a 10-day armed confrontation that started on June 27.
Establishing such a “protectorate” within Syria is an important development for Israel, particularly as it links to the Kurdish forces which dominate the South-East and the East of Syria.
Israel presents itself as the protector of Kurdish interests and the national rights of the Kurdish people. The Kurds enjoy extensive autonomy in Syria and they resist the attempts of the new regime to bring their areas under its control in the name of unifying Syria.
These new forces in alliance with Israel, i.e., the Druze and the Kurds, are of a different kind from the agreements and compromises made with neighboring Arab states in the past. The “peace agreements” with countries like Egypt, Jordan, etc., are by definition unstable. The “Abraham Accords” agreed between Israel and a number of Arab states (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, with Saudi Arabia also indicating interest) in 2020, are for now meaningless though not entirely broken.
The new alliances build through the present war by Israel, mean the creation of a “zone” that starts from Israel, passes through the occupied Palestinian territories, assimilates a section of Syrian territory around the Golan heights and close to Damascus, and expands from the south west areas of the Druze, to the East which is under the control of the Kurds. This brings Israel to the borders of Iran, its main enemy in the region.
This of course is a process still under development, but there must be no doubt that Israel will pursue these aims in the most determined manner – despite the moaning and groaning of some of its European allies. It has a unique opportunity for its expansion in the region and it will be using the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, as the justification for it, to its full advantage.
Can there be a Palestinian state?
In theory, a future Palestinian state cannot be excluded under capitalism, under the pressure of events. But if and when such a development takes place, there should be no illusions that this will be a real and independent state. It will be a puppet state, under the tight control of Israel and its imperialist patrons.
This is made clear, by the UN resolution of September 12, known as the “New York Declaration” in support of a Palestinian state, prepared by France and Saudi Arabia. The resolution supports an independent Palestinian state, but does not clarify what this state will mean, given that the Palestinian people have been and continue to be driven out of their land; it has nothing to say about the rights of Palestinian refugees; it does not explain how this will be forced upon Israel; and demands the disarming of Hamas and the establishment of full control in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (now in the hands of Mahmoud Abas, of Fatah, in the West Bank). In other words, it is completely unclear of what a “Palestinian state” means, and also this “new state” will have no real choice about who will be in government and no real option of, for example, arming itself.
This is also made clear by Trump’s most recent about turn – after proposing to turn Gaza into a riviera in February 2025. In the recent 21-point plan (revealed by the “Times of Israel” on 27.09.2025) which he presented for discussion to the two sides and a small number of countries (Arab and European) he proposes that: Gaza’s population will have to be “de-radicalized”; Gaza will be administered by a temporary transitional government of Palestinian technocrats: real power will lie with an international body established by the US, Arab and European partners (Tony Blair is being discussed as the head of this body); the Palestinian Authority has to go through a “reform program” and can take over control once this is completed; Hamas will be disarmed and will have no role in Gaza’s governance whatsoever; Security guarantees will be provided by the regional partners; stability will be guaranteed by an international stabilization force; and if all these, among other conditions are met, then “the conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood”.
It can be seen that there are scores of reasons why this plan may never be implemented. But if it is ever implemented, it is clear that this state will have no real independence. It will be run by a foreign government and by foreign armies. It will not mean the solution of the Palestinian national problem; it will only change its form.
[1] “Horror without end” is an expression used by Lenin to describe the conditions in the colonial countries in his times.
Part II.
The Anti-war movement and consciousness
The mass movements that erupted against the genocide took the ruling classes in the imperialist countries by surprise given the massive state propaganda in support of Israel.
In the industrially developed countries we had the mass of occupations of universities in the USA and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands, in Australia, Britain, Italy and elsewhere. In the ex-colonial countries, especially in countries with predominantly Moslem populations, millions protested.
The ruling classes in the industrial countries tried to prohibit pro-Palestine demonstrations, characterizing them as manifestations of “antisemitism” but this failed to check the movement. Countries like Germany, that claim to be the epitomes of democracy, would arrest people for even just wearing a Palestinian scarf. These policies however actually backfired and exposed the “democracies” of Europe and the US. “Public opinion” shifted heavily against their governments, against Israel’s war and the genocide.
The vast majority of the people globally reject the narrative of Israel and the Western powers. Even in the major powers of Europe and in the US, the majority stand against their government’s policies and against Israel’s war.
The Economist, on September 18, 2025, summarized the picture as follows, describing it as “striking and sobering”:
“Our polling shows the mood is shifting sharply in America, not just among Democrats but also Republicans. A recent YouGov/Economist poll finds that 43% of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In the past three years unfavorable views of Israel among Democrats over 50, rose by 23 percentage points. Among Republicans under 50, support is evenly divided, compared with 63% for Israel in 2022. If this loss of popular American support continues it will be catastrophic for a small country of 10m people in a hostile neighborhood. Right now, America is all that stands between Israel and pariah status. Optimists will call all of this scaremongering. We believe that view is dangerously complacent.” [Our emphasis.]
The war in Gaza has a major impact on consciousness internationally. It reminds people of the attitude of the old colonial powers in the ex-colonies in the past centuries. It reminds of Apartheid in South Africa. It exposes the Israeli ruling class to an extent that has not been seen for decades. It exposes the Western imperialists for being indifferent to the massacre, for continuing economic and military relations and trade with Israel, and for suppressing democratic rights in the name of fighting “antisemitism”. It exposes their double standards when compared to their stance on Russia and the war in Ukraine. Palestine is one of the most important factors shaping the consciousness of a new generation in this period.
This is bound to be reflected (as an additional factor among many others, like inequality and poverty) on the political plane, sooner or later. In some cases, we see it happening already, for example in Britain and the US. Corbyn’s and Sultana’s new “Your Party” in Britain (if it is indeed successfully created in the end) has a lot to do with their support to the Palestinian cause. And the rise of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) to nearly 100,000 members coupled with a new surge of support for Bernie Sanders in the US, are also linked to the positions they have taken in defense of Palestinian rights. We say this, at the same time as being aware of the severe political limitations revealed both by “Your Party” in Britain and by the DSA and Sanders in the US.
Many activists in the pro-Palestine movement find it difficult to understand why and how in view of the great pressure of the movement internationally, Israel continues with its ethnic cleansing and the West continues to turn a blind eye to it. The answer to this is that war cannot be stopped just by demonstrations. It cannot be stopped by initiatives like the “March to Gaza” or the “Global Sumud Flotilla” that aim to break the blockade of Gaza. These are important moves, but mainly of a symbolic character, because it is not possible to break the blockade (never mind stopping the war) applied by a mighty military machine, by peaceful means and social pressure.
Only mass strike activity can bring a war to its end. This holds for war in general, and for the present one in Gaza in particular. This is what is missing in the present conjuncture.
Some successful strikes of dock workers in France, Spain, Italy and Greece have blocked some ships carrying ammunitions to Israel. That is to be greeted. But it is far from enough. What is required is complete boycott, especially of arms and ammunitions, at every port; it is mass strikes of whole sectors, including general strikes, against the genocide.
For this reason the general strikes by Italian workers on September 19 and 21 are of particular importance, as is the call by Italian dockworkers to dockworkers in other European countries to meet to discuss coordinating their efforts. These, were followed by a general strike in Italy on October 3, that brought out hundreds of thousands in different cities, overall, more than 1,000,000 workers and youth on the streets. It has been the biggest mobilization of workers in 20 years.
It would of course be too much to expect the current leaders of the trade unions internationally to call for general strikes against the genocide. In our epoch, the trade union leaderships are faithfully and obediently tail-ending the capitalists and their political representatives. But pressure must continue and under certain conditions can bring results. Sectoral strikes, like of the dockworkers or transport workers, are of course possible and need to be pursued vigorously.
This passivity (not to say sell out) by the official trade union movement, is of course linked to the political “weakness” of the Left internationally. The reformist, but also the anticapitalist and revolutionary Left – not to mention of course the ex-reformists who capitulated entirely to the ruling class but try to present a “progressive” face– are facing a major crisis internationally. They are unable to show a way forward, and this is reflected, among other things, in the capitulation of the trade unions to the pressures of the ruling class.
The developments around Palestine, however, are radicalizing people on a big scale. And in this way are creating more favorable conditions for the strengthening of the forces of Marxism or, at least, of the “anticapitalist left” (a broader description of radical left currents, not necessarily revolutionary) in the first instance. This, can prepare the ground for the emergence of powerful revolutionary Marxist currents at a later stage.
The movement inside Israel
The last two years have seen a gradual strengthening of the anti-war mood in Israel. Initially it was the Jews of the diaspora that began to mobilize against the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians. One of the most well-known protests was in the US where thousands protested, many occupied the capitol and hundreds were arrested. Inside Israel the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, initially played the role of rallying the Israeli population behind the Netanyahu government, as would have been expected, but gradually opposition to the war began to be built. The number of conscientious objectors has been rising and becoming more prominent in social media, while demonstrations against the war have been attracting bigger and bigger numbers. These reached a climax in the recent months.
In the second part of July, when it was established that the Palestinian people were facing famine while the plans of expelling the Palestinian people and turning Gaza into a riviera had already been made public, splits began to emerge in the Israeli ruling class, as numerous important figures came out openly against their government. These included the ex-attorney general and the ex-president of the Israeli parliament, who together with others went ahead with the unprecedented step of calling upon the “international community to impose severe sanctions on Israel” until its atrocious military campaign comes to an end and a permanent ceasefire is imposed.
Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert accused Netanyahu of war crimes and of planning to create a concentration camp in Gaza, which he equated with ethnic cleansing. Yair Golan, leader of the main opposition party, accused the government of killing “babies as a hobby”. Nineteen ex-military chiefs publicly demanded an end to the war. Two well-known humanitarian organisations in Israel, B’Tselem and PHRI, on July 28, presented multi page reports in which they claimed that what Israel was doing in Gaza was genocide, demanding “an immediate stoppage to this crime”.
These processes at the tops were inevitably a reflection of processes taking place in society. A small but very bold minority of conscientious objectors refused to enlist, despite facing prison sentences. The film director Michael Ben Yiair produced the documentary “Νo other land” which won an Oscar in March 2025. More and more workers and youth have been coming out in demonstrations and protests. On August 17 Israel was shaken by a day of protest which in many cases took the form of a general strike. According to the Guardian there were hundreds of thousands in Tel Aviv alone, according to “Democracy Now” there were a total of 1,000,000 on the protests nationally. These, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, were a clear warning to Netanyahu.
This picture is also reflected in the armed forces. The real figures, of course, are not given out by the Israeli government. These are not only related to the conscientious objectors among the new recruits who refuse to join the army and face (repeated) prison sentences, it is also related to the reserves. According to the Israeli publication 972mag.com, “The Israeli army is facing its biggest refusal crisis in decades”, with up to 50% of reservists refusing to show up:
“At the start of the war, the army stated that it had recruited around 295,000 reservists on top of the roughly 100,000 soldiers in regular service. If reports about 50-60 percent attendance in the reserves are accurate, that means over 100,000 people have stopped showing up for reserve duty”.
1,000,000 people on the streets, a mass refusal of up to 50% of reserves to show up, and key political and other figures that represent a section of the ruling class, in opposition to Netanyahu’s war – these are indications of a society in crisis while at war. This shows the potential for a class approach to the national question.
Part III.
The class approach
In Palestine we have national oppression of the most brutal character, suppression of democratic and human rights, clear practices of colonization and strong similarities to Apartheid. But like every national question, the Israel-Palestine one has a clear class character as well. Whenever a national problem is based on the existence of a serious conflict of capitalist interests, as a general rule the problem cannot be solved under capitalism.
If we have a quick look at the broader region (Middle East and Balkans) we will see many examples, that verify this position: in Syria divisions of decisive importance are drawn on national lines (Israel, Turkey, Druze, Kurds, Alevites, etc) and block attempts at a unitary state; the Turkish ruling class will not accept the existence of a Kurdish state so the Kurdish national problem remains unresolved for over a century; the over a century’s old conflict of interests between the Greek and the Turkish ruling classes remains unresolved and the antagonisms actually deepen, raising (again) the danger of military confrontation in the future; the Cyprus problem has ended up in a quagmire and a permanent partition is the nearly certain outcome; in the Balkans, despite (but also because of) the many wars, the national problems continue to play a central role – between Greece and North Macedonia, between Bulgaria and N. Macedonia, between Albania and Serbia, etc., etc. If we look at the international plane, the picture is similar across the planet. The list is actually endless: Russia and Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia, India and Pakistan, India and China, China and Japan, to mention only a few. Even national problems which the ruling classes declared resolved in the past decades, for example in Ireland, are still alive and can lead to new conflicts in the future.
The experience of decades, or centuries in some cases, of the existence of such problems should make it clear that capitalism is not in a position to find solutions to them. As Trotsky’s Theory of the Permanent Revolution enables us to understand, and as we have developed in numerous articles, only the working classes of countries facing serious national antagonisms can solve such problems, by coming together and fighting against nationalism and against their “own” ruling classes.
In the case of Israel-Palestine the main responsibility for taking the initiative for a political programme and the practical steps for the class collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian workers, would be expected to lie with the working class of the suppressor nation, i.e., the Israeli working class. But this is an abstraction, a theoretical assumption – in practice this possibility is related to the consciousness of the working class, which is determined by a multitude of factors, and crucially by the leadership of the working-class organisations. So, the fact that no such initiative has been taken in the past decades is linked to the fact that the leaders of the political, trade union and other organizations of the Israeli working class, have capitulated to the pressures of the ruling class and in their majority act as its agents.
Having said this, we should note that a mass movement from below, under certain conditions, could help speed up events, in the direction of new mass workers’ organisations and at the same time in the creation of sizeable anticapitalist/Marxist forces. We should also note that in Israel there is a small minority, such as the left party Hadash and some social movements, that although they do not raise the perspective of revolutionary change, they do raise the need for a united struggle between Israeli and Palestinian workers. We should also remember that in past decades the forces of the Left were dominant in Palestine and the Middle East – but they failed to show a way forward due to their pro-Soviet Union or pro-Chinese character, and this played a key role in the rise of Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism (see https://www.internationaliststandpoint.org/positions-of-isp-on-palestine/, paragraph 34).
The responsibility of searching for a way forward based on the class approach of the Palestinian and Israeli workers also lies with the Palestinian workers and youth – for no other reason but in order to serve their own interests! Because, otherwise, no solution is possible. We need to elaborate a bit on this because it is an issue of controversy inside the Left.
Revolutionary socialists have a duty to defend and support the rights of oppressed nations – that goes without saying. But this does not mean that they should offer support to the leaderships and ruling classes of such oppressed nations. Marxists’ support goes wholeheartedly and unconditionally to the Palestinian masses. But they do not have any obligation to support the leaderships of the Palestinian organizations which are in government, either in the West Bank (Fatah) or in Gaza (Hamas). The same is true for the people of Iran. The same for the people of Syria and so on.
The leaderships of the Palestinian organizations, just like the Israeli ones, unfortunately, never attempted to approach the national problem on a class basis. On the contrary they followed policies and tactics that actually enable the Zionist governments to rally the Israeli masses around them. The terrorist tactics of Fatah and other Palestinian organisations in the past (e.g. the attack against Israel’s Olympic team in 1972) played this role. So did the October 7 offensive, led by Hamas. The trade union leaders of the Israeli workers and youth, just like the parliamentary opposition to Netanyahu used these mistaken methods of Palestinian organisations, to justify their capitulation to the Israeli ruling class and its nationalist/Zionist aspirations and policies.
Without mass (political and trade union) organisations that adopt a class approach to the solution of the Palestinian problem, it is not possible for the working-class masses to adopt such an approach spontaneously and on their own. And this is precisely what is missing on both sides of the border but also in the broader region: mass revolutionary socialist political forces, determined to fight for the common interests of Israeli and Palestinian workers, against the nationalism and the aggression of the Israeli ruling class, and for the overthrow of capitalism on both sides of the border. Under certain conditions, mass movements from below can speed up this process, which has a double character: building broad political and trade union organisations of the working class, independent from the ruling class, on the one hand and a revolutionary-socialist pole on the other.
Debates in the Left
If this was a problem only in Israel-Palestine it would have been easily overcome – international developments/processes would sooner or later be reflected there as well. But unfortunately, the crisis of the Left is an international phenomenon. The ex-reformist Left of various colors and shades have capitulated to the pressures of the ruling class. The anticapitalist organizations and those that have a reference to revolutionary Marxism are extremely weak and with very serious deficiencies in their vast majority. So, as a general rule, there is no significant pole of the revolutionary-socialist Left that can provide/propose a way forward.
Especially on the issue of Palestine there is very widespread confusion. In our debates with other left currents in the recent period we have come across views like the following:
- What we have in Palestine, as well as in Lebanon, Syria, etc., is a war between Israel and Western imperialism on the one hand and the Arab people on the other, who are suppressed and exploited and fighting against imperialist barbarism; therefore, our position is simple, we are on the side of the Arabs against the Israelis.
- It is impossible to have unity between the Palestinian people and the Israeli working class because the latter is part of the oppressor nation.
- The right of self-determination should not hold for the Israeli people.
- There should be no Israeli state, there should be only one Palestinian state in which the Jews could also live if they want.
- Israel cannot be described as a class society because the working class is fully associated with the Israeli ruling class and has been riddled by the Zionist poison.
- The reasons why Israeli workers and youth take to the streets is not because they respect the rights of the Palestinian people, it is because they want to save the hostages.
- Hamas should not be criticised for the October 7th, 23, attack because it represents the oppressed nation.
- Ideas about a socialist future for Israel and Palestine are good, but they belong to a distant future, so for now we should call for the victory of the “Palestinian resistance”.
The approach revealed by statements like the above may reflect the anger at Israel’s atrocities, but fails to grasp the substance of the problem and to show any way forward.
It is entirely wrong to equate all Arabs just because they were oppressed by the colonial powers in the past and by Israel and Western Imperialism in the decades that followed. All Arab societies are class societies, including the Palestinian one. It should be noted, for example, that Palestinian refugees leaving the cities and villages of Gaza to live in camps, cannot afford tents or lories to carry their belongings due to the astronomical prices of many hundreds of US dollars – that is why many families escape on foot. According to reports, the black market which has developed means that “a kilogram of sugar now costs $106, up from 89 cents pre-war; a 25-kilogram sack of flour is $305, up from $10; a kilogram of tomatoes costs $30, compared to 59 cents, etc.”.
The leaders/governments of the Arab as well as the non-Arab Moslem countries, in one way or another play a reactionary role, either by adhering to the imperialist countries, or by establishing dictatorial (and often non-secular) regimes, or both. The distinction between the classes is absolutely crucial.
Inside Israel
The Israeli masses do of course belong to the oppressor nation, but so did the Russian masses in 1917, and yet they carried through a mighty revolution establishing fraternal links with the workers (and peasantry) in the oppressed nationalities and nations of Russia and of the Czarist empire. Also, the English workers in the 19th century were undoubtedly influenced by the “poison” of the British Empire as well as by racism, particularly towards the Irish workers; but still Marx and Engels never lost faith in their revolutionary potential (criticizing at the same time the shortcomings in their consciousness).
Denying Israeli workers their revolutionary potential becomes even more bizarre, when up to one million of these same workers, in a population of just over 10 million, are ready to demonstrate and strike against their government, as was shown on August 17. Also, when up to 50% of the reservists refuse to enlist!
How can these factors be underestimated – one has to be blind not to see the importance of these developments, whatever the reasons that initially pushed the masses to the streets (such as the issue of the hostages for many of them) and against their government. And, of course, there is no such thing as a movement with a clear political consciousness in history – consciousness is always in a process of development and so is the mass movement itself. There are always, contradictory factors and confusion. But, given this objective reality, the issue is if and how Marxists can build on such movements.
Numerous accounts of the way consciousness developed over the past couple of years, coming from inside Israel, indicate that in the initial phase of the war the masses rallied behind the government – this, actually, is the rule of what happens in the initial phases of any war, irrespective of the reasons that sparked it. The mood inside Israel began to change when they realized that Netanyahu was actually responsible for not reaching a ceasefire and that his aims in the war were not at all defensive, but offensive. And this turned into greater anger when reports about the Palestinians being starved to death became daily news and official (by the UN, among others), when the IDF shot unarmed Palestinians queuing for food, and when the latest attack on Gaza city began in September.
The rage that many activists feel internationally against the genocide in Palestine often pushes them to extreme positions, like denying the right of Israel to exist as a state. This is understandable, but politically it is non-sensical and wrong, in fact it undermines the right of the Palestinian masses themselves to have their own state!
Generations upon generations of Jews have been living in Israel and any attempt to deny them the right to have a state will make them fight like “one fist” against those who want to destroy their state, it will send them directly into the arms of the most far-right nationalist wing of the ruling class. The intervention of Marxists should aim at breaking this kind of inter-class alliance, by driving a wedge, widening and deepening the class divisions between the ruling class and the working class.
In the same way as it would be naïve (not to say outrageous) to expect a solution to the conflict, by denying the right of the Palestinian people to exercise their Right of Self Determination and have their own state, in exactly the same way it would be naïve to expect a solution while denying the Jewish population of Israel the right to have a national state.
Who wants to destroy Israel?
Any plans, short term or long term, by any force/s, to destroy the present state of Israel, would mean war, actually a series of wars, between Israel and its opponents.
The question raised is how can anyone seriously defend such a position and at the same time miss the fact that, historically, Israel has won all the military confrontations with its opponents in the M. East?
The current one is the fourth major war, since the creation of the Israeli state, that has been won by Israel on the military level, with minimal losses (politically and diplomatically, of course, Israel has been seriously weakened, and this is very, very important, but it’s a different matter for discussion). The question therefore is, what do the proponents of the position that the Israeli people do not have the right to their own state actually propose? Endless wars that will be paid with rivers of blood by the Palestinian and other Arab people?
As regards the argument that “a socialist approach is good but it belongs to the distant future, now we must support the victory of the Palestinian resistance” the answer is that this, above all, is an illusion. The “Palestinian resistance”, which in the present conjuncture means, essentially, Hamas, cannot win, precisely because of its political character and tactics/practices.
Historical experience has one simple and valuable lesson: Israel cannot be defeated by guerilla tactics or by acts of terrorism; and it cannot be defeated militarily by its neighboring Arab states or Iran, because it has the support of the US and European imperialist allies.
If “Palestinian resistance” however took the form of mass protests, strikes and demonstrations, as was manifested in the First Indifada, with a class appeal for solidarity to the Israeli and the international working class, it would be an entirely different matter. The Israeli masses have in fact good reason to support the creation of a Palestinian state, if the two states could have peaceful relations and respect between them, because that would mean an end to the endless wars and militarization that they are living through.
The power of socialist ideas
Some on the “radical” Left argue that they don’t agree with Hamas’ programme, but the choice is between Hamas on the one hand and Israel and Western Imperialism on the other. Therefore, according to this logic, we should choose to support Hamas.
Apart from the fact that Hamas cannot win, as developed above, there is another factor of major importance. The role of the anticapitalist/Marxist Left ought to be to have an internationalist perspective – capitalism cannot be fought and defeated on a long-term basis on a national basis. The aim of the anticapitalist-internationalist Left, internationally, should be to build sizeable forces in the Middle East, with the aim of uniting the working classes against imperialism and national oppression, which in practice means against capitalism and for a socialist society. Supporting Hamas puts a full stop to any attempt to unite the working classes in the area – isolating first and foremost the Israeli working class, but not just that. Supporting Hamas, therefore means, in the end, abandoning the internationalist perspective. The logic of this, inevitably, leads to ideas of the kind “there is no working class in Israel”, “Israel is not a class society” and we shouldn’t bother. This approach is a dead end.
For these reasons, the class approach and the socialist perspective, however distant they look, are actually the only realistic way to solve the national problem. The forces that can lead this struggle are not Islamic (like Hamas) or pro-capitalist (like Fatah), they are left, anticapitalist and internationalist. They don’t exist today on a mass basis, so they have to be built. But they can only be built on the basis of taking a clear distance and openly criticising Islamic forces, their ideas and their tactics, as well as pro-capitalist forces.
The fundamental reason why Marxists have a duty to criticise the tactics followed by Hamas is precisely this: they undermine the possibility of building unity on a class basis between the Israeli and Palestinian workers, and between workers in the region.
It is true that such tactics are the result of desperation after decades of occupation and national oppression. But this understanding should not blur the political and social repercussions of such policies and actions.
It is impossible to build Marxist revolutionary organisations in the region without clear positions against terrorist actions and mass murder of civilians.
Having said this, it should be stressed that Marxists need to be clearly in favour of the right of the Palestinian masses to armed self-defence and resistance. But this is different from attacking and killing civilians, like on October 7, 2023. At the same we need to remember that neither Hamas nor Fatah, governing Gaza and the W. Bank respectively, have a policy of arming the Palestinian masses and forming people’s militias.
Some on the Left raise the argument that it is better to have a fighting organisation like Hamas as opposed to the passivity of Fatah in the West Bank. But this is a wrong comparison. Hamas’ policies and tactics should not be compared to (pro-capitalist and corrupt) Fatah, but to what could be achieved if Hamas was not an Islamist organization but a socialist one, appealing to the Israeli workers for joint struggle, for peace and for a socialist future in the benefit of both.
We need to fight for:
The political programme that we propose for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict has been developed quite extensively in previous material as well[1]. The main points can be summarized as follows.
- Oppose the war by every possible means. Demonstrate, protest, boycott, use the social media, organise public meetings and rallies. Expose Israel’s brutal policies. Show support to the Palestinian masses.
- At the same time be aware that these are not enough to stop a war. What is required is strike action, in specific sectors but also general strikes, combined with refusal by transport workers (marine, rail etc) to transport materials to Israel.
- Defend the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state/homeland – i.e., the “right of self-determination”.
- Defend the right of the Palestinian people to arm themselves and to armed resistance. At the same time, take a clear position against terrorist actions and mass killing of civilians, as was the case with the attack of Hamas on 7.10.2023. Such actions in the end undermine the struggle of the Palestinian masses for liberation.
- Defend, at the same time, the right of the Israeli people to have their own state.
- Israeli Jews and Palestinians can live side by side in peace, either in a single workers’ state with full rights for minorities, or in a socialist federation/confederation of two separate entities. This is something for Jewish and Palestinian workers to decide in the future.
- Defend the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
- Reverse the policy of expanding Israeli settlements, now numbering 700,000, in the occupied territories (considered as a war crime by the Fourth Geneva Convention).
- Appeal to Israeli workers and youth to take the initiative to approach the Palestinian workers and youth on a class basis. Appeal to the Palestinian workers and youth to do the same in relation to Israeli workers.
- Encourage more Israeli citizens to refuse serving their mandatory military service. Defend the conscientious objectors and the reservists who refuse to show up.
- Fight against anti-Semitism wherever it is encountered.
- Expose the nauseating hypocrisy of the West and the attempts on their part to suppress the democratic right to protest against Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing, labelling all protests as “anti-Semitism”.
- Raise these ideas with workers and youth in the whole region of the Middle East which was, still is and will continue to be in flames.
- Raise the perspective of the socialist federation of the Middle East, as the only way for peace and prosperity in the region.
- Build powerful revolutionary socialist parties in the West. This will inevitably have an impact in Israel, Palestine and the Middle East as a whole. And it will speed up the creation of similar mass revolutionary parties in the region (at the same time as fighting to build broad mass organisations, political and trade union, independent of the ruling classes) which is the absolute condition for a socialist solution to the national problem, the lack of democratic rights, capitalist barbarism and imperialist intervention.
[1] See, for example:
https://www.internationaliststandpoint.org/positions-of-isp-on-palestine/
https://www.internationaliststandpoint.org/palestine-a-never-ending-nightmare-is-there-a-way-out/
