CEASEFIRE IS NOT A PERMANENT SOLUTION
THE GENOCIDE
On 8 October 2023 Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel government started an assault on Palestine after a Hamas-led militant group launched a surprise attack on Israel. The world witnessed one of the brutal and catastrophic human genocides in modern times. More than 46 876 Palestinians, including women, children and men alike, were assassinated by Israel’s heavily armed military. More than 110 642 have been wounded.
This led to international community outcry. Protests and demonstrations across the globe were organised and held against apartheid Israel. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more than 7283 protests took place against Israel between 7 October 2023 and 24 November 2023 in 118 countries. The protest demands were calling on the Israel government to cease fire and release Palestinian political activists and civilians. We saw South Africa taking Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right government to International Court of Justice (ICJ) and applying for a ceasefire on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the outcry, Israel continued to murder, maim, rape and displace Palestinians for well over 400 days.
CEASEFIRE IS NOT A PERMANENT SOLUTION
The Israel coalition government which constitutes of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and far right Jewish Power Party and the Religious Zionist Party were immediately up in arms demanding Israel not to ceasefire. Both the Jewish Power Party and Religious Zionist Party are threatening to leave the coalition government should ceasefire agreement be reached.
A cabinet meeting was postponed that was expected to ratify the ceasefire. Israel used the four days between the deal’s announcement and the start of the ceasefire to pound both Gaza and Lebanon, killing more than 100 Gazans in the days directly after the announcement.
We have seen since the beginning of the invasion how Israel disregarded ceasefire agreements and continuously launches attacks on Gaza.
Even if the ceasefire holds this time, the agreement doesn’t address the fact that the land needs to be given back to the Palestinian people and that Israel should not be regarded as a legitimate sovereign state.
THE OCCUPATION ROOT CAUSE
The war on Palestine by Israel started in 1948 with the formation of the state of Israel, when the Zionists, who had already been terrorising Arabs in Palestine, struck a deal with imperialist Britain for a territory in the heart of Palestine.
Intensified massacres and other violence drove Palestinians out of their homes and off their land in series of encroachments.
When Egypt closed its border to Palestinians, many refugees were stuck in the tiny Gaza strip. Israel controlled Gaza even after the Oslo agreements in the 90s proposed tiny Palestinian states in Gaza and the West Bank while legitimising Israel’s theft of the rest of Palestine.
When Hamas won Gaza’s first elections with about a third of the votes, Israel immediately blockaded and resumed the state-organised terror.
One reason behind the continued invasion is the oil and gas reserves that sit under and around Palestine territory. It is estimated that more than a billion barrels of oil exist off the coast and beneath Palestine lands. The Levant Basin, which sits in the Mediterranean, is estimated to have some 1.7 billion barrels of oil while more than 1.5 billion barrels are estimated to lie beneath the occupied West Bank area.
The USA, as an ally and military supporter of Israel, consumes an average of 20.25 million barrels daily, and the USA is the number one consumer of oil in the world. The USA cannot produce their domestic demand for oil as cheaply as oil from the Arabian Peninsula and Levant region. They are heavily dependent on the Middle East to sustain and maintain their industries’ need for oil.
Israel’s military sophistication depends heavily on the USA government’s bottomless support, which is given so freely because, in addition to the oil and gas under Gaza, Israel is a watchdog for the US over the nearby Arab states, whose control of oil gives them a greater capacity to jump out of the US’s pockets.
Therefore the USA interest in the Middle East is driven by maximisation and sustainability of profit. Hence they support Israel with funds for weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover. The USA and other imperialist governments want the status quo to remain intact because it benefits them and their interests. That is why, over the years, the USA has treated Israel’s barbaric acts on Palestine with white soft gloves.
WHAT IS THE PERMANENT SOLUTION?
The solution to Palestinian oppression and massacre should be about the defeat of imperialism and the colonial occupation. But the extreme imbalance between Palestinians and Israel’s well-funded, brainwashed and brutal army makes it particularly difficult for Palestinians to achieve their liberation alone.
A strategy to defeat imperialism and the imperialist watch dog in the Middle East (Israel) lies, crucially, on the Middle Eastern working class in surrounding countries. (Another key pressure point is in the USA itself. Pressure here has to confront that country’s slide towards fascism – see forthcoming article).
The Arab working class is a force to be reckoned with. Arab working class’s labour power is sold across the region in manufacturing, services, docks, textiles, oil production, food production and a range of other sectors. They have some proud history of struggle.
In 2010-2011, with the Arab Spring they showed that they have capacity to challenge and transform the region. The 2011 Revolution was derailed, but they showed the world the possibilities of challenging the status quo.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary to link the struggle for improved economic conditions of workers in the workplace, with the struggle against Arab bosses and corrupt leaders in each of the Arab states, with the anti-imperial struggle that has Palestine at its heart.
A socialist solution to freedom of Palestine lies with the control of social and political power of the Arab working class in their opposition of local bourgeois class, corrupt politicians and the interference of imperialists in the Arab world. The solution to Palestine national liberation is in the hands of unified Arab working class movement.
