Israel & Palestine

We have received this interesting comment from a Marxist in Israel, who looks at the logic behind the Israeli attack on Gaza, how it is being used for domestic political interests in Israel, the chauvinism whipped up by the mainstream media, but also the voices of protest from within Israel, which although relatively small at this stage can grow later. He also looks at the role of Hamas and its inability to solve any of the problems facing the Palestinian masses.

Two years after the Israeli ‘Defence’ Forces indiscriminately slaughtered over a thousand Lebanese civilians in the quaintly-titled Operation Just Reward, Israel has turned its attention to Gaza, in the form of Operation Cast Lead. Stripped of its innocuous-sounding name, this operation becomes a lot less palatable: according to Palestinian medical sources, nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed, including numerous women and children. Israel’s targets have included police stations (which are unsurprisingly situated in densely-populated areas), the headquarters of a Hamas-owned satellite television channel, and the Islamic University,...

The recent municipal elections in Tel Aviv, although won by the right wing, produced a massive swing to the Israeli Communist Party (ICP), which gained 35% of the vote. Jewish and Arab workers, Jewish and Arab youth, voted massively for the ICP. In the commercial, industrial and financial centre of Israel, in the biggest city in the country a radical left mood is brewing among the workers and youth.

Three years have passed since Israel's disengagement from Gaza. This article draws a critical  balance sheet of these events and  explains why the Israeli left and many others internationally were so wrong in regarding Sharon's decision as a step towards peace in the region. The choice to pull-out from Gaza, on the contrary, served the strategic interests of the Israeli ruling class.

Hamas has reached an agreement whereby they will cease rocket attacks across the border from Gaza and Israel will lift the economic blockade. Hamas however, must now police Gaza for the Israeli state, making sure no one carries out attacks. The Hamas leaders are going down the same road as the PLO leaders before them.

Israel has recently renewed "peace" talks with Syria. The problem is that on the crucial question of the return of the Golan Heights to Syria, Israel cannot afford to grant this demand and Asad cannot sign an agreement without such a concession. That explains the lack of enthusiasm of the Israeli masses.

Recently there was a protest in Tel Aviv - of both Jews and Arabs - against a reunion of Etzel, one of the terrorist Zionist groups used against the Arab population in the process of the formation of the state of Israel. In the "only democracy in the Middle East" these peaceful demonstrators were brutally manhandled by the police.

After the defeat of the Israeli army in Lebanon two years ago, the Israeli Defence Forces have been trying to win back their image as the only real defenders of the people in Israel. Now they are constantly provoking Syria in the hope that Syria will hit back, something it seems unwilling to do.

We received this interesting article from Israel that shows the contradictions piling up within the very foundations of the Israeli state: the Israeli Defence Force.

The recent dramatic events in the Gaza strip are a clear indication that the Zionist ruling class that governs Israel will never concede genuine national self-determination to the Palestinian masses. These events also confirm that on a capitalist basis there is no solution to the problem. On the Palestinian side neither Hamas nor Fatah offer a solution. We must base ourselves on the perspective of renewed class struggle across the whole of the Middle East.

The events in Gaza underline more than ever the barbarism that can emerge from the national conflict in Palestine. Israeli imperialism backed by the US is responsible for this bloody mess. So long as there is no genuine independent voice of the workers on both sides of the divide, we can expect nothing but more bloodshed.

George W. Bush has been visiting the Middle East. He is presently in Israel to try and promote his latest solution to the conflict: two capitalist states! These are all words, as US imperialism collaborates with the Israeli ruling class, as well as the rotten Arab regime, to hold down the masses throughout the Middle East.

The mountain has laboured and borne a mouse. That would be a fitting epitaph for the Annapolis conference on Palestine. After four months of endless talks about talks Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, failed to obtain what Washington and Abbas desperately need: an agreement on at least the main points of a deal that would ultimately create a Palestinian state alongside Israel.