Gaza: The Day after the Cease Fire
Statement of the Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 14.11.2018, http://www.the-isleague.com
Following Hamas’ statement that it will fire rockets at Israeli towns of Beersheba and Ashdod if raids on civilian buildings in Gaza don’t stop, Israel’s security cabinet agreed on a ceasefire in Gaza.
Nevertheless in the meeting four ministers in the cabinet reportedly opposed resuming the ceasefire negotiations according to Israel’s Channel 10.
These four are: Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin, and Education Minister Naftali Bennet. They represent the most right wing forces in Israel.
Yesterday the Palestinian organizations in Gaza declared that the resistance will respect this cease fire as long as the Zionist enemy respects it. The announcement set off celebrations in Gaza City with hundreds of Palestinians taking to the streets to declare victory.
In opposition to a cease fire pushing for a full scale war, residents of Gaza border settlements burned tires and blocked roads in Sderot and Nir Am on Tuesday night, protesting the ceasefire agreed to by Israel and Hamas.
The cease fire was attacked by the Zionist so-called liberal and left opposition that see this cease fire as a victory for the Palestinians and criticize Netanyahu from the right. “Netanyahu abandoned the residents of the South and Israeli deterrence,” Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid lamented. “The IDF has the tools, including targeted assassinations.” Opposition leader Tzipi Livni called the situation “a colossal security failure…and a fatal hit to our deterrence capabilities.”
For their delight Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced that he would hold a special press conference today following Tuesday’s security cabinet’s decision to reach a cease-fire with Hamas. He already told his party that he will resign from his post. This may push for new elections.
It just proves the class nature of Israel as an apartheid state. In 1922 white workers organized strikes over the conditions of labor and the possibility that black workers will enter semi-skilled jobs, with the result that mine owners had agreed to reserve some semi-skilled work for whites only.
The left and the right Zionists are united in their wish to break the resistance to the oppression of the Palestinians. They all agree to blockade Gaza – the largest Ghetto in the history. The difference is that at this time Netanyahu wants to focus on Iran and Hezbollah and not face three fronts, while the left and the liberal Zionists want to remove Hamas and force the rule of Mahmoud Abbas as a collaborator on Gaza.
Clearly Israel is moving openly to the same kind of model like South Africa during the Apartheid. Gaza is in the process of becoming a kind of Bantustan that will provide daily cheap labor to the Israeli capitalists.
The Bantustans or homelands, established by the Apartheid Government, were areas to which the majority of the Blacks population was moved to prevent them from living in the urban areas of South Africa. The Bantustans were a major administrative mechanism for the removal of Blacks from the South African political system under the many laws and policies created by Apartheid. The idea was to separate Blacks from the Whites, and give Blacks the responsibility of running their own independent governments, thus denying them protection and any remaining rights a Black could have in South Africa. In other words, Bantustans were established for the permanent removal of the Black population in White South Africa. (1)
The Zionist opposition to the most right wing government of Israel brings to mind another historical event in South Africa. The sympathies of the Transkei Bantustan military ruler, Bantu Holomisa, towards the African National Congress (ANC) during the late 1980s preceded the unbanning of the ANC by the South African government, and created a regional stronghold for the ANC and for its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.
During the years 1988-94, an extensive counterinsurgency campaign mounted by South African Defence Forces Military Intelligence to weaken MK. This campaign included an attempt to topple Holomisa by a coup which was thwarted by MK forces several months after negotiations between the ANC and the South African government began in February 1990. (2)
Ironically if corrupted Netanyahu will be removed from power; the next government will be worse. That does not mean we should support him as the lesser evil but rather fight for a real solution.
While the Internationalist Socialist League is calling for the total end to the siege on Gaza, the only solution is a political solution that will create a one democratic red Palestine with equality to the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews, from the river to the sea; that will include the right of the Palestinians refugees and their families to return to this new state.
Footnotes
(1) https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands
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Yossi Schwartz: Gaza: Israel is Responsible for the New Deaths! 13.11.2018, http://the-isleague.com/gaza-israel-is-responsible-for-the-new-deaths/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/israel-is-responsible-for-the-new-deaths-in-gaza/
We refer reader for more information on the ISL’s and the RCIT’s stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people to our websites http://www.the-isleague.com and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/.
The ISL’s program can be read here: http://www.the-isleague.com/our-platform/ andhttps://www.thecommunists.net/theory/summary-of-isl-program/
See also Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s War of 1948 and the Degeneration of the Fourth International, http://the-isleague.com/1948-war-5-2013/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/israel-s-war-of-1948/
Michael Pröbsting: On some Questions of the Zionist Oppression and the Permanent Revolution in Palestine, http://the-isleague.com/zionist-oppression-and-permanent-revolution/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/permanent-revolution-in-palestine/