Israel/Palestine: Oppression feeds resistance! No to further ethnic cleansing! Free Palestine!

Hamas’ attack on Israel was certainly not ‘unprovoked’. The systematic and racist oppression of the Palestinians by the colonialist state of Israel has massively worsened with the introduction of the blockade 15 years ago and, more recently, with the state-sponsored extension of illegal settlements and pogroms on Palestinian land. These actions have created the horrific conditions which have led to this dramatic act of resistance. The aim of the Israeli state is simple: to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population. It does not exploit the Palestinian people, as the apartheid regime in South Africa did – it simply wants to get rid of them. As a major ally of US-led imperialism in the otherwise unstable Middle East, Israel is supported politically, financially and militarily in this campaign by most ‘Western’ governments and receives more than 3 billion dollars a year from the US alone (over 150 billion since its foundation).

This attack however will be a long-awaited opportunity for the Israeli government to distract from its own problems, rally the divided population behind it, move to the right politically and expand its programme of ethnic cleansing. The US government on the other hand might well use this attack as a precursor to heat up its conflict with Iran.

The results for the Palestinian population remain the same: Further Israeli repression, particularly in the Gaza strip, is inevitable. Israel has no interest in getting rid of Hamas, otherwise it would have to govern Gaza directly, at great cost politically and financially. But they will want to destroy as much of Gaza as possible, in front of the TV cameras, before declaring ‘revenge’ has been served.

The attack has naturally been described as “anti-Semitic” – that is, after all, what the smear campaign in the Labour movement was all about, to prepare for a moment like this. Getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn was just a convenient side effect and it remains true that the failure of the official Left to stand up to the witch-hunt has helped to prepare the current ground. Any opposition to the programme of brutal ethnic cleansing and the coming expansion of military and financial support for the Israeli government is likely to be branded ‘racist’ and anti-Jewish.

All the more important that socialists continue to fight:

for an end to the occupation of Palestine
against the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
against any political, financial or military support for Israel
against war on Iran

Public discussion meeting Wednesday October 11, 7pm, Zoom
Israel-Palestine: Are we at a turning point?

Join us for this open discussion forum introduced by Tony Greenstein and jointly sponsored by the Labour Left Alliance and the Republican Labour Education Forum.

We want to discuss a number of issues, including: Was Hamas’ attack on Israel justified? Should we support Hamas, despite it not being a socialist organisation and even though the Israeli government will use this opportunity to distract from its own problems, rally the divided population behind it and expand its programme of ethnic cleansing? Is there a solution to the situation in the Middle East? And how is it linked to the campaign to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism?