By Robert Cosgrave
While attention has been drawn to Israel’s attack on Iran, which, alongside attacks on Lebanon and the expanding occupation of Syrian territory, threatens even further escalation towards regional war, the genocide against the Palestinian people continues the process of a second ‘Nakba’ so deeply desired by Zionism. Horrifying massacres of desperate, starving Palestinians are being committed daily.
Cities which have been reduced to rubble continue to suffer relentless bombing from the IDF as if to destroy even a trace of human society. As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights commented in April “the Office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza.”
Starvation tactics
As well as its relentless bombings and shootings, Israel is attempting to starve Palestinians within Gaza into submission via blockade and occupation. As early as February it was observed that Gaza was seeing a level of urban starvation not seen since the siege of Leningrad and the Hunger Winter in the German-occupied Netherlands during the Second World War. Since then the situation has degenerated even further. If once Israel could claim that they only wished to “put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger” they have all but abandoned even that cruel pretense.
The UN recently described Gaza as “the hungriest place on Earth” following the decision by Israel in March to enforce a stop in aid entering Gaza, effectively putting over two million Palestinians at risk of starvation. Rather than meaningfully act to alleviate the real and horrific threat of starvation, the Israeli response is to attempt to hide from the world these atrocities through the imposition of periodic communication blackouts. Israel is well aware that its campaign is being called “the first live-streamed genocide in history”, and its response is not to stop the genocide but to try and cut the livestream. Naturally, these communications blackouts also place severe impediments in front of those attempting to provide aid to Gaza.
Under international pressure, even from quarters usually offering staunch support, Israel has said it will facilitate aid entry. It does this under the auspices of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a joint Israel-US organisation, staffed by many US mercenaries. Israel supporting humanitarianism in Gaza is like Harold Shipman supporting high-quality elderly care, and this GHF stunt is clearly part of a plan to entrench occupation in Gaza not only through direct military rule and terror but through control of aid and food supply.
However it is also the case that terror remains a key pillar of the sham “aid” networks set up by Israel, with dozens murdered by the IDF trying to access this aid. In a similar manner, there has been an attempt to string together local quislings in Gaza mostly recruited from gangster and Salafi jihadist elements who have been involved in armed attacks on aid trucks entering the Strip.
West Bank colonisation
The escalation of genocide and colonisation is not limited to Gaza – although it is undoubtedly where the most atrocious behaviour by Israel is concentrated. In the West Bank, the Israeli government has given the green light for the largest expansion of Zionist settlements since the Oslo Accords. For Palestinians there this means an even greater intensification of expulsion from their homes to make way for settlers, with pogrom-style attacks from far-right settler mobs, further repression from the military and the increased entrenchment of apartheid in all aspects of their lives. All the while the Palestinian Authority does nothing to defend them from these attacks. Indeed, following IDF attacks on Iran the entire West Bank has been placed under de facto lockdown by the Israeli military. This means even further restrictions on rights for Palestinians under occupation. Of course no such restrictions exist for settlers.
On top of those facing direct expulsion and demolitions, the Israeli NGO B’Tselem has reported the forced transfer of nearly 200 families across more isolated parts of the West Bank. Within the “Green Line”, in the Naqab / Negev desert, Bedouin villages have been demolished to make way for Israeli towns at a rate which has increased by 400% in the last 20 months. Zionism is increasingly emboldened and feels that it is closer than ever to its fantasy of total Israeli control between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.
Pressure in the West
In the face of the innumerable crimes of Israel against the Palestinians, and particularly in its intensification in recent months, as well as the continuing global Palestine solidarity movement, some Western governments have felt pressure to at least in words change tack and put forward some milquetoast criticisms of the genocidal conduct of Israel, usually to the effect of “everything up to now was fair game, but you’re going a bit far with the killing now” – ignoring that the course of the last 20 months, as well as the logic of Zionism and the entire history of the Israeli state has led to this moment. A joint statement last month by the French, British and Canadian leaders threatened “targeted sanctions” if Israel continued to withhold aid in Gaza. Even in Germany, the most powerful citadel of uncritical support for Zionism in Europe, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Israel’s conduct in Gaza “could no longer be justified”.
More far-sighted capitalist press such as the Financial Times have printed opinion pieces calling for Europe to impose sanctions on Israel similar to Russia. From most quarters, however, Israel’s attacks on Iran have provided them with what they hope is an effective alibi to return to their usual course of uncritical support for whatever Israel sees fit.
Closer to home, Micheál Martin finally noticed that a genocide was taking place. This of course has not been accompanied by any meaningful action that would even remotely impede the capacity of Israel to conduct this genocide, as all the major imperialists continue to arm the war machine to the teeth. The Irish government continues to allow the Central Bank to facilitate the sale of Israeli bonds which finance the genocide, and refuse to place any effective stops on trade with Israel as they want to keep sweet the big tech companies who make big money from trade with Israeli companies – giving Ireland the shameful title of Israel’s second largest trading partner after the US. Weapons destined for the IDF continue to fly through Irish airspace and US warplanes continue to land and refuel at Shannon Airport.
Step up the solidarity actions!
Working-class and oppressed people across the planet have been rightfully disgusted by the genocide they see unfolding before them. For 20 months, millions have been involved in a Palestine solidarity movement which has sought to put pressure on their governments to act. Similarly, there have been the inspiring efforts of those such as the participants in the Madleen freedom flotilla and the Global March to Gaza, which hoped to break Israel’s siege of Gaza and provide desperately needed aid. The shameful response of the el-Sisi dictatorship in Egypt, which despite lip service to the Palestinian struggle aids the Zionist siege of Gaza in return for US support for repression at home, in arresting many activists involved in the march to Gaza, including People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, must be categorically condemned. However, we should not mince words in our criticisms of all the other capitalist governments who offer Palestine nothing but crocodile tears in the face of genocide.
To show the most solidarity with Palestine, in a way that is both symbolically and materially effective, working-class people should take their cue from the actions of dockworkers in the port of Marseilles who brilliantly refused to load military cargo that was being shipped to Israel. Across every airport, seaport, factory or any workplace where the employers are involved in facilitating Israel’s genocide, workers’ action against this could put a serious dent in Israel’s genocidal efforts and provide a spur for further workers to follow suit.
The struggle to end this genocide is also bound up with the necessity to tear down the Israeli apartheid state, capitalism and imperialism. This system has created a prisonhouse of exploitation and oppression for the working class and poor of the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. It must be replaced with a democratic socialist society based on the rule of the masses, where its wealth is democratically and collectively owned and controlled in the interests of all, where there is freedom and justice for all, and oppression for none.
