by Yossi Schwartz,
Internationalist Socialist League
(RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine)
25.12.2013
www.thecommunists.net
www.the-isleague.com
The current Israeli attack on the Palestinians in Gaza began on last Friday, December 20, when Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian and injured four others, who – according to the Israeli army famous for telling lies – were planning terrorist attacks. As a matter of fact, according to Haaretz, the Israeli army shot last Friday people who demonstrated against Israel killing of Palestinians in the West Bank. “Gaza’s Hamas-run government usually maintains a large police force in the area whose sole purpose is to prevent Palestinians from coming too near the Israeli border and to thwart rocket launches from the Strip. This time, however, it permitted the demonstrations, apparently out of a desire to allow Gaza residents to let off steam in light of the worsening situation in the Strip.“ (1)
On Tuesday a Palestinian sniper who belongs to the Popular Resistance Committees shot and killed a civilian employed by the Israeli army to repair the fence that is used to put a siege on Gaza. Israel “responded” with air strikes that killed two Palestinians, one of them a 3-year-old girl.
According to New York Times: “An Israeli laborer who was repairing the security fence along the border with Gaza was fatally shot on Tuesday by a Palestinian sniper, according to the Israeli military, and Israel immediately responded with airstrikes and tank and infantry fire against targets it associated with militant groups in the Palestinian coastal territory. A Palestinian girl, Hala Abu Sbeikha, 3, was killed and at least four of her relatives were wounded when a shell landed in front of their home in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central part of Gaza, local hospital officials said.” (2)
Israel’s siege of Gaza is assisted by the counter revolutionary Egyptian generals in power: “The decision by the generals now running Egypt to shut down the tunnels from Sinai into Gaza seriously disrupted daily life in the Strip. With the smuggling of fuel from Egypt halted, fuel prices have doubled, forcing Gaza’s government to institute electricity rationing. As a result, residents have suffered planned blackouts that last for about half of every day for many weeks now”. (3)
This suffering according to Haaretz is the reason Hamas allowed demonstrations near the fence: “It’s important to Hamas to demonstrate its sovereignty over the Strip, and it organized impressively to deal with the damage caused by the enormous storm two weeks ago, using both cars and boats to rescue people trapped in flooded houses. But the worsening conditions in Gaza have sparked anger, and some of this anger has been released – with Hamas’ consent, if not its encouragement – in demonstrations along the Israeli border.” (4)
While it is possible that Hamas allowed demonstrations near the fence, it does not explain why the Israeli army is shooting to kill Palestinians including young children. Israel’s killings of Palestinians in the last months are certainly connected to the US “peace plans”. “Violence in the West Bank has increased in recent months. At least 19 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed in the occupied territory since the U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood resumed in July after a three-year break”. (5)
Netanyahu’s government wants to show their American friend that it is impossible to reach an agreement with the Palestinians and for this it needs to provoke a small Intifada that at the same time will be used to inflict serious pain on the Palestinians in order to prevent a strong massive Intifada.
Thus the reformists and the Liberals who have supported the new America imitative have encouraged the deadly illusion that the repression of the Palestinians by Israel can be ended by pressure by American imperialism. In reality, as long as the Israeli Apartheid state will continue to exist the Palestinians will suffer from the brutality of the Israeli army.
The Internationalist Socialist League (ISL, RCIT-Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) calls for an end of the horrible siege of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The international workers movement and the popular masses must mobilize their forces to break the Zionist blockade which is supported by the reactionary military regime of General Sisi in Egypt and backed by the imperialist Great Powers. We stand for the unconditional defense of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the defeat of the Zionist aggressors! We support the calls of militant Palestinian youth for a Third Mass Intifada against the Zionist oppression.
In case of a war, the ISL and the RCIT will stand for the military victory of the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli army without giving political support to political forces like Hamas, Fatah or PFLP. This position is rooted in our principles and program which we applied already in all the past wars against the Palestinian and Lebanese people (e.g. the two Intifadas, the wars in Lebanon as well as in Gaza in 2009 and 2012). (6)
The only way to end the repression of the Palestinians and at the same time secure the safety of the ordinary Israelis is by the victory of the democratic revolutionary struggle aiming at a democratic state from the river to the sea. This state can be created only by a workers-led revolution and the one state will be a workers state. Thus we call for a RED FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA!
Footnotes:
(3) Amos Harel: Escalation on two fronts…
(4) Amos Harel: Escalation on two fronts…
(6) See on this various articles from the ISL. For example The ISL Position on Wars, August 2009. ISL: The Zionist State Tries to Break Gaza Again – and Fails Again. The RCIT respective its predecessor organization (MRCI/LRCI/LFI) expressed the same position e.g. in MRCI: Theses on Zionism, Israel, Palestine and Arab nationalism (1989), in: Trotskyist International No. 2; RCIT: New Wave of Israeli Terror against Gaza: Support the Palestinian Resistance! Defeat the Zionist killing machine! Statement from 15.11.2012.
We have elaborated our historic analysis of Israel as a Zionist Apartheid state and the revolutionary programme for the Palestinian liberation struggle in numerous documents and articles. See e.g. Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s War of 1948 and the Degeneration of the Fourth International, in: Revolutionary Communism, Special Issue on Palestine, No. 10, June 2013; Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s Six-Day War of 1967. On the Character of the War, the Marxist Analysis and the Position of the Israeli Left, in: Revolutionary Communism, No. 12, July/august 2013; Michael Pröbsting: On some Questions of the Zionist Oppression and the Permanent Revolution in Palestine, in: Revolutionary Communism, Special Issue on Palestine, No. 10, June 2013, pp. 26-28.