La Liga Árabe pide “fuerzas de paz de la ONU” en Cisjordania y Gaza: ¡una trampa peligrosa!
아랍연맹이 가자지구와 서안지구에 “평화유지군” 투입을 요구하다: 위험한 덫!
La Ligue arabe demande des “casques bleus” en Cisjordanie et à Gaza : un piège dangereux !
Arabische Liga fordert „UN-Friedenstruppen“ im Westjordanland und im Gaza: Eine gefährliche Falle!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), jointly issued by the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) and the International Bureau of the RCIT, 17.05.2024, https://the-isleague.com/ and www.thecommunists.net
1. The 33rd summit of the Arab League – a regional organization with 22 member states – concluded on 16 May. The Arab monarchs and tyrants – among them Mohamed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia), Egypt’s dictator al-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Bashar al-Assad (the butcher of the Syrian people) and others – agreed a statement including the usual rhetoric which they have used in the past months. It condemns Israel’s ongoing offensive and calls for the “immediate” withdrawal of Israeli forces from all areas in the Gaza Strip and an end of the siege imposed on the enclave. Likewise, it repeats the rulers so-called “firm position for a just and comprehensive peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue” as well as their support for an international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2. These are all well-known demands which are serving as cover for the shameful failure of the Arab rulers to help the Palestinian brothers and sisters not only in words but also in deeds. As a matter of fact, those states which have official relations with Israel – United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and Jordan – have failed to cut these despite the horrible genocide in Gaza. Likewise, they have refused to send any military aid to the Palestinian resistance organizations which are heroically fighting the Zionist invaders in Gaza under the most difficult conditions. Nor did they join the Houthis in blocking trade with Isarel. At the same time, these tyrants are suppressing the popular masses who fume with rage about the genocide and who want to come to the aid of the Palestinian resistance.
3. However, the Arab League’s statement contains an important new demand: “We call for the deployment of international protection and peacekeeping forces affiliated with the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territory until the two-state solution is implemented.” The background of this call is that the U.S. has recently asked Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco to join such a “peacekeeping” force.
4. Naturally, the Arab rulers will claim that such troops should protect the Palestinians against Israeli aggression. However, this is a silly lie. In fact, the demand for UN “peacekeeping” forces is a dangerous trap! It is no accident that the initiative comes from U.S. imperialism – Israel’s most important backer. Neither is it a coincidence that the states in questions are exactly those traitors who have “normalized” relations with Israel. How could such “peacekeepers” fight against the Zionist aggressor if they are not even prepared to rupture their relations with Israel when it is committing one of the worst genocides in recent history?!
5. The real target of such a UN “peacekeeping” force would not be the Israeli killing machine but the Palestinian resistance. The task of such a force would be to disarm and to suppress the Palestinian people and to make sure that Israel – a settler state and regional imperialist power – does not face any danger by the Palestinian people. Such repression should pave the way for a so-called “two-state solution” which would mean the creation of an impoverished and disarmed “independent” Palestinian state which would be a kind of Bantustan, a colonial enclave, in the backyard of imperialist Israel. Furthermore, such a “solution” would make it impossible for the millions of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in “Israel”.
6. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and its section in Israel/Occupied Palestine – the Internationalist Socialist League – strongly oppose any call for “peacekeeping” forces in the Westbank and Gaza. Such forces – irrespective if they are from the UN or a coalition of states – would act as servants of the Israeli settler state and as occupying forces in order to suppress the Palestinian resistance. They would act as enemies of the Palestinian people and would have to be treated as such.
7. We call for unconditional support for the heroic struggle of the Palestinian resistance, without lending support to the politics of Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, DFLP and others. The Arab masses must force their rulers to rupture all relations with Israel, to blockade any trade with the settler state and to send weapons and humanitarian aid to the resistance. Egypt must break the siege, confront the Israeli army and help the brothers and sisters. The strategic task is to overthrow all these reactionary servants of Israel and the imperialist powers and to replace them with authentic workers and fellahin governments, based on popular councils and militias.
8. The global pro-Palestine solidarity movement – a powerful movement of young workers and migrants which has recently been joined by an impressive wave of protests by university students – must intensify its efforts to blockade and sabotage all forms of support for the Zionist monster. This is particularly important in the belly of the beast – the U.S. and Western Europe – where Israel receives its most vital support and where the efforts to rupture such criminal aid for genocide is crucial. A central task in the coming weeks and months is to win the trade unions and the labour movement in these countries for such a policy of total boycott against Israel. Given the fact that the labour bureaucracy – loyal servants of the ruling class – is dominated by pro-Zionist lackeys, such a campaign will have to go hand in hand with the intransigent struggle to drive out these “understander of the genocide” from the workers movement.
9. We take note that the unprecedented global mass movement is increasingly forcing university, local institutions and even governments in the U.S. and Europe to distance oneself from the Israel resp. its government. This is reflected e.g. in agreements of some university administrations to cut relations with Israeli institutions or companies. It has also resulted in growing public criticism of Western governments against the most outrageous crimes of the Zionist gangsters. These mass protests – combined with the pressure from many semi-colonial countries of the Global South as well as from the Eastern imperialist rivals China and Russia – are exerting leverage on international institutions like the United Nations or the International Criminal Court to impose sanctions against Israel.
10. The RCIT and the ISL warn that the UN resp. the ICC are imperialist-dominated institutions which, by their very nature, can never serve as an instrument of the liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples. Given the fact that the Western imperialist powers play a very strong role in these institutions, it is also very doubtful that the UNSC or the ICC would seriously act against its most important ally in the Middle East. Nevertheless, we note that the formal passing and failure to enforce would help to expose the Western powers as liars. In fact, the mere considerations of those calls shows the strength of the global pro-Palestine solidarity movement – it is clear that those sanctions, if passed, would be passed against the will of the Western powers. For all these reasons, we do not advocate calls for sanctions to such imperialist institutions, but, at the same time, we neither would actively oppose such measures since these would be directed against a deadly enemy of the Palestinian and Arab masses.
11. The only way forward is the revolutionary destruction of the Israeli Apartheid state and the creation of a free and red Palestine from the River to the Sea. Such a single secular and democratic Palestinian state would enable all refugees to return to their homes. At the same time, it would guarantee equal cultural and religious rights for the Jewish minority. It would be a workers and fellahin republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East. As part of a revolutionary upheaval of the Arab masses, it will be possible to break a progressive section of the Israeli-Jewish workers and youth away from Zionism. The RCIT calls all socialists to join us in building a Revolutionary World Party committed to the cause of the liberation of the Palestinian peoples and all other oppressed peoples!