En Gaza y en el Líbano: ¡Apoyemos a la Resistencia – ¡Derrotemos a 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, 07.06.2024, https://the-isleague.com/ and www.thecommunists.net
1. Israel is close to a strategic defeat. After nearly eight months of genocidal war, Israel has still not succeeded in defeating the heroic Palestinian resistance in Gaza. While they could slaughter more than 36,000 people – mostly women, children and elderly – and displace most of the population, the so-called fourth strongest army in the world has clearly failed to achieve its goals of freeing the Israeli prisoners in Gaza and to smash Hamas.
2. At the same time, international and domestic pressure on the Netanyahu government has dramatically increased. The global pro-Palestine solidarity movement is continuing to grow and has put massive pressure on Western governments which are the key allies of the Zionist Apartheid state without which support it would collapse. This includes even the Biden Administration which has every reason to fear losing the Presidential elections in November this year because of its unconditional support for Israel’s genocide. Another result of the global condemnation of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people is the increasing support for South Africa’s Gaza genocide case against Israel at the ICJ as well as the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant by the ICC prosecutor. Faced with such global outrage and fears that the Gaza War might become a major regional war, most countries in the world – including a number of European governments – want the war to end as soon as possible. Even Washington hopes to bring the war to a close – at least until the elections are over.
3. Likewise, the ultra-right Zionist government faces huge pressure at home because its genocidal war has resulted only in the killing of its own prisoners in Gaza instead of freeing them as Netanyahu promised. While the anti-government demonstrations express no sympathy for the Palestinians, they put the government objectively under massive pressure to do whatever is necessary to free the Israeli prisoners by meeting the demands of the Palestinian resistance – ending the war and the occupation of Gaza and freeing the thousands of Palestinian prisoners who face torture and humiliation in Israel’s dungeons.
4. As a result of all these developments Israel’s right-wing coalition government is on the verge of collapse. Netanyahu knows that as soon as the war ends, his government will be history, and he could finally face his trial for corruption which has been looming for years. Hence, Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister is strongly interested to lengthen the war by any means necessary. However, for the reason mentioned above, pressure to end the Gaza War has become extremely strong as indicated in Biden’s recent speech.
5. In such a situation, the semi-fascist forces in the government and ostensibly also Netanyahu himself want to provoke a war in the north against Hezbollah. If they start another war, they could concede to the demands for a ceasefire in Gaza but nevertheless continue its existence. However, it is widely known that Hezbollah is a much stronger military force than Hamas and it is very difficult to believe that if the Israeli army failed to defeat the Palestinian resistance how on earth should they be victorious in Lebanon?! Tellingly, several ex-generals have already warned that the Israeli army is not prepared for a war against Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s flirt with war in Lebanon is even more hazardous as Hezbollah is the most important regional ally of Iran – the most powerful Muslim country in the Middle East and an arch-enemy of the Zionist state.
6. Faced with failure in Gaza against the military inferior Palestinian factions and with an undeterred opponent in the North, Israel is in danger to suffer a strategic defeat. Since Israel is not a “normal” capitalist state but a settler state with a highly privileged population – compared to the rest of the region –, its whole existence is based on absolute military superiority against the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims in the region. Failure in the current war could result in a collapse of its power of deterrence, an unprecedented domestic crisis and the resettlement of some Israelis to Europe and North America (about 10% of Israelis have a second passports of such countries or could easily resettle there).
7. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and its section in Israel/Occupied Palestine – the Internationalist Socialist League – reiterate their unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance. We stand for the military victory of the resistance factions and the defeat of the Zionist monster without lending political support for Hamas and other petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist organisations.
8. Likewise, we side with Hezbollah and other Lebanese resistance forces in any confrontation with Israel. We do so even though we strongly condemn the reactionary policy of Hezbollah’s leadership – in particular its shameful support for the Assad tyranny in Syria and the capitalist Mullah dictatorship in Iran. However, we side with Hezbollah in any confrontation with Israel since a defeat for the latter would weaken the illegitimate settler state and aid the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people. For the same reason we would side with Iran in any conflict with the Zionist state while, at the same time, continuing to support the struggles of workers and oppressed against the Mullah regime.
9. The RCIT calls the international workers and popular movement to double its support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. It is decisive to boycott the Zionist state 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 need to 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. 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.
10. We reiterate 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!