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| Taken from: https://www.socialistworld.net/2025/04/14/palestinians-bombed-and-starved-netanyahu-plans-to-ethnically-cleanse-gaza/ |
The situation in Gaza as I write today (15 April 2025) is a living hell.
Netanyahu has unilaterally ended the always tenuous ceasefire agreement and pushed ahead with his plans to try and entirely drive out the Palestinian population from Gaza – with the support of the Trump, who has crassly stated that it could then be rebuilt as a Mediterranean beach resort!
After all, the existence of Israel has always met a key strategic and military need for US Imperialism in the Middle East, particularly when faced with the growth of Arab nationalism under Nasser in Egypt - and their fear that the region could then come under greater Soviet influence – and now as part of its battle for global influence with China. But their real interests have always been disguised as coming to the defence of oppressed Jews after centuries of antisemitism – but carried out through a ‘divide-and-rule’ policy that relied on the oppression of the Palestinian masses instead.
Now, with the official death toll already over 50,000, Israel has again imposed a complete blockade of food, power and medical supplies. In the last few days, Gaza’s last working hospital has been bombed. The video evidence found on a murdered Palestinian paramedic has revealed the kind of shoot-to-kill tactics that the Israeli army is using – a small breach in their attempt to prevent any reporting of their atrocities by targeting local journalists and keeping foreign press out altogether.
In short this is a genocidal attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza. After all, Netanyahu had already made clear that this was his aim well before the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 – making clear in a speech to the UN of his plans for a “New Middle East” in which Israel annexes Gaza and the West Bank entirely – all in the name of “peace” of course!
Given cover by those Hamas’ attacks, Netanyahu seized the opportunity to try and bloodily enforce a new ‘Nakba’, invading Gaza to try and enforce Palestinians having to flee to refugee camps in Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere. But Trump and Netanyahu’s plans aren’t going to be so easily agreed to by the governments of those neighbouring states – not because they in any way retain any semblance of the anti-imperialist elements of Nasserism – but because they fear that an influx of radicalised and angry Palestinian refugees could threaten their repressive regimes from below.
Under pressure from mass opposition and the anti-war movement, other imperialist states – like Britain – have had to sometimes voice at least limited criticisms to Israel’s actions – but continue to sell weapons and export components for the fighter jets being used by Israel – including those of Croppers in Cumbria – making them complicit in the mass murder.
The question for all of us who defend the rights of Palestinians to self-determination and for a genuine independent state, and who oppose this ethnic cleansing, is ‘how can the Gaza slaughter be stopped?’.
Some on the left argue that socialists in Britain have no right to offer advice to Palestinians on the tactics they should employ. I disagree. Marxists who have learned from the history of past defeats, and who are in constant discussion with socialists and trade unionists internationally have a responsibility to suggest ways forward that we think can best succeed.
The Palestinians have tried the tactics of Fatah and the PLO who turned to a strategy of individual terrorism. However, realising it could not defeat the might of the Israeli state – especially after it was forced out of Jordan and then Lebanon – the PLO looked towards a negotiated settlement instead – which led to the 1993 ‘Oslo accord’.
However, the longed for genuine national rights for the Palestinians were never going to be genuinely conceded by imperialism. The Palestinian Authority was always based on impoverished parcels of lands, surrounded by Jewish settlements that have since expanded into Palestinian territory. Its ex-PLO leaders have been seen by many ordinary Palestinians as corrupt, working with the Israeli authorities to put down opposition to defend their privileges, while the masses live in poverty.
It was this disappointment that led to the growth of Hamas, a party based on right-wing political Islam rather than the secularism of Fatah. Understandably, desperate Palestinian youth joined the ranks of their militias who were seen as continuing the struggle for genuine Palestinian self-determination unlike what was seen as Fatah collaborationism.
Hamas’ development even had some backing from Netanyahu and the Israeli right – in part as a counterweight to the PLO, but also because they realised that Hamas’ outright hostility to Israel could actually help the Israeli right win backing for their hardline plans for a ‘greater Israel’.
Hamas’ attacks, particularly given the way that Israeli national consciousness has been built on developing a ‘siege mentality’ against external threats, have been used by the Israeli right to win backing for their nationalist and racist propaganda against the Palestinian people.
This was, of course, never greater than after the Hamas attacks of 2023. Yes, they may have struck a temporary blow to the prestige of the Israeli political and military leaders, but only provoked and enabled Israel’s military machine to move onto a greater offensive than it could risk before.
But, in turn, years of Israeli military attempts to crush Hamas – and the Palestinian struggle in general – have also failed. And so will the latest war. Because military attacks cannot destroy a determination to win an end to poverty and oppression – in fact, of course, they strengthen it.
I certainly don’t mean that Palestinians have no right to armed resistance against the brutality they are up against. But, to succeed, I believe that their resistance needs to take the form of democratically organised mass struggle, and to be directed against the occupation, not Israeli civilians.
Targeting the forces and infrastructure of the occupation would be the most effective means of struggle, and one that is better able to appeal to Israeli workers to oppose the military slaughter and to gain the ear of those who are already questioning Netanyahu’s real agenda.
After all, the main pressure on the US and Israeli leaders to reach a settlement in the first place came from the Palestinian masses themselves – through the mass uprising of the first “intifada” that erupted in 1987, with demonstrations, strikes and protests held right across the occupied territories.
These are the kind of tactics that I believe can provide the strongest pressure today too. For example, some protest strikes have recently taken place across the Middle East, particularly in the West Bank, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Of course, this is also a demand that should be taken up internationally as well. Global workers’ solidarity and industrial action can stop the production and transport of weapons to the Israeli state. Trade unionists are also best placed to impose a successful boycott on Israeli big business and Israeli state bodies that are involved in the occupation and repression – as well as to use their organisation to build the strength of the ongoing demonstrations and protests.
The Palestinian working class and poor also need to take democratic control of their struggle, building a socialist intifada through the establishment of grassroots committees to organise defence and a mass struggle against the occupation – and to build their own independent party.
Hamas is based on right wing, clerical, repressive, anti-women’s equality, anti-working class, pro-capitalist politics. Under its leadership, Palestinians will not succeed in their struggle for national liberation, nor will the necessary socialist revolutions be waged by the masses across the Middle East to overthrow their despotic regimes.
I don’t believe that the struggle for national liberation can be won separately to a struggle for a socialist Middle East. The region as a whole is run by pro-capitalist regimes who enrich themselves while millions live in poverty. The only way that a genuine Palestinian state could be built, with the resources to genuinely rebuild Gaza – not as Trump’s tourist complex but as a place that Palestinians, and all others in the region, can live in comfort, is through the sharing of the wealth of the region through a socialist confederation of planned and democratically managed economies.
Through such a socialist transformation on democratic lines, the Palestinian and Israeli populations could agree their future relations in a free and democratic manner – in two socialist states (for example, an independent socialist Palestinian state, alongside a socialist Israel with two capitals in Jerusalem) or in some other arrangement, should they wish, on a voluntary basis, with guaranteed rights for all minorities.
Some would say that the Israeli population will never agree to giving up their privileges and support such a socialist change. But that ignores the class divide and inequality that exists in Israel, as in any other capitalist state, even those that might be seen to be ‘well-off’ – as we know ourselves from campaigning here in Britain.
Already inside Israel, Netanyahu’s position is vulnerable. He is facing court charges and allegations of corruption. Protests have taken place against the renewed war on Gaza. Relatives of hostages have accused him of putting the lives of their loved ones at stake.
Of course, at the same time, many Israelis are inevitably instilled with a right wing Zionist outlook which will only be overcome through experience – not least the realisation that genuine security and peace will never be secured on the basis of war and oppression.
But, for the Palestinian struggle to succeed, tactics need to be adopted that widen that class divide and peel working-class Israelis away from their right-wing politicians, not drive them into their arms. Those are the tactics of mass struggle while, at the same time, seeking to build direct links between workers and poor on both sides of the national divide.
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