Defend Lebanon and Gaza – Defeat Israel!

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, 29.07.2024, https://the-isleague.com/ and www.thecommunists.net

1.           Within the next days, if not hours, Israel will most likely launch a massive military offensive against Lebanon. It will be another barbaric war by the Zionist terror state, and it is the duty of the popular masses to stand with Lebanon and its resistance.

2.           The Netanyahu government tries to justify its aggression by the tragic event in Majdal Sham in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights area where parts of a rocket killed 12 people (mostly children). This is an outrageous hypocrisy – even by Zionist standards! First, Hezbollah has strongly denied responsibility for the rocket attack. And indeed, why should they have targeted a football game of Syrian Druze children?! Since the beginning of the military conflict, Hezbollah has not done any such attacks. Of course, it can not be excluded that a rocket was deflected from its course because of Israeli air defense activities. Furthermore, Majdal Sham is located on the Golan Heights and this tragic incident would not have happened if Israel would not have occupied and annexed this territory in 1967 resp. 1981! And in any case, who on earth is Israel to lecture anyone about war crimes?! Israel is serial killer which commits the worst genocide of the 21st century and which deliberately targets and kills Palestinian children every single day in Gaza! About 16,000 children have already been slaughtered by the Zionist monster in the last 9 months!

3.           In fact, the Netanyahu government is only looking for a cheap excuse to wage a full-blown war against Lebanon. This extreme right-wing government, facing a huge domestic crisis, desperately tries to prolong its existence by continuing the genocide in Gaza and by provoking war with Lebanon. The Zionist state faces a gigantic crisis as it has lost its prestige and deterrence in the region after 7 October, by the failure of the so-called fourth-strongest army in the world to defeat the heroic Palestinian resistance in the small Gaza Strip, by its inability to stop pro-Palestinian forces in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq to launch armed solidarity actions, by its unprecedented international discrediting and isolation, by its tremendous domestic political crisis, etc.

4.           In such a desperate situation, Israel acts like a monstrous Munchausen which tries to escape downfall by pulling itself out by its hair. It wages one war after the other and hopes to reestablish itself as the dominating power in the region as its whole existence is based on absolute military superiority against the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims in the region. Of course, Israel’s political elite is fully aware that Israel cannot succeed in this by its own resources. Hence, the Zionists try to pull U.S. imperialism into a regional war against Israel’s enemies. However, while Munchausen succeeded in his fairy story, in the real world, Israel cannot escape its decline. It is hated and despised by hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims and all righteous people around the world and its existence as a reactionary settler state and bridgehead of the declining Western imperialist camp becomes more and more precarious. It is telling that even the imperialist-created ICJ and the ICC courts ruled against the Zionist state under the global pressure of the masses – rulings which we welcome without giving any support to these institutions.

5.           It is evident that a full-blown war of the Zionist state against Lebanon could trigger war in the whole Middle East, involving actors in several countries including Iran itself – the most important regional power behind Hezbollah. Surely, no imperialist power – except Israel – wishes such a scenario, including the U.S. which faces Presidential elections in a few months and where all major actors (Biden, Harris and Trump) want Israel to avoid such an escalation and to bring the war to an end. However, it cannot be excluded that the Zionist fanatics might succeed in provoking such a full-blown regional war which could pull Washington, against its intentions, into such a major confrontation.

6.           Interestingly, even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that its country might take military actions against Israel. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them. There is no reason why we cannot do this … We must be strong so that we can take these steps.” Of course, this is demagogic rhetoric as Erdoğan has kept trade relations with Israel for many years and stopped these only a few months ago under huge pressure from his popular base. In fact, such threats also reflect the outrage of the masses against the Zionist terror state.

7.           Supporters of the Palestinian liberation struggle must take the Turkish President at his word and demand from him that he transforms his words into action, i.e. that he takes real actions against Israel and provides the Palestinian resistance with effective support – from aid to arms! An important first step would be that Erdoğan halts the oil and gas flowing Azerbaijan to Israel via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline resp. the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline. Without such oil and gas, Israel could hardly continue its war for long.

8.           The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and its section in Israel/Occupied Palestine – the Internationalist Socialist League – call for the military defence of Lebanon and the defeat of the Zionist monster. Likewise, we reiterate our unconditional support for the heroic struggle of the Palestinian resistance. At the same time, we don’t lend political support for Hamas and other petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist organisations. This is even more true in the case of Hezbollah whose leadership has played a shameful role in supporting the reactionary tyranny of Assad in Syria and the capitalist Mullah dictatorship in Iran. However, in any military confrontation with Israel – an imperialist Apartheid and settler state – we side with the Arab and Muslim countries (including Iran and Türkiye) which are all capitalist semi-colonies.

9.           Faced with another barbarous aggression of the Zionist state, it is particularly crucial that the international workers and popular movement double its support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. Global activities to boycott the Zionist state must be intensified by any means necessary – from blocking any arms deliveries, economic and financial boycott to the rupture of any ties of universities with Israel. Likewise, we must strengthen the struggle against any pro-Zionist leaders within the workers movement. In Arab countries, the masses need to force an end of any attempt for “normalization” with the Zionist monster. Egypt must break the siege, confront the Israeli army and help the brothers and sisters in Gaza.

10.         The RCIT reiterates that 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 all citizens (including the Jewish minority). It should 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!

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