On Tuesday morning, May 9, the Israeli army deployed 40 aircraft, several tanks and bombed the Gaza Strip, which is a true open-air Palestinian refugee camp, killing 13 people, including women and four children. Since there was a Palestinian response, Israeli forces killed 12 more people the following day. Since the beginning of the year, the State of Israel has murdered 132 Palestinians.
By Martin Carcione
This new brutal Israeli attack comes just days before the 75th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe, in Arabic) on May 15, the massacre of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of some 500 villages and the theft of their ancestral lands committed by Zionism while founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
In addition to the current Israeli military operation, called “Shield and Arrow,” there is also a declaration of emergency in the surrounding cities and a blockade of the activities of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, who are prevented from moving and going to their places of work or study.
Naturally, the Zionist offensive – which Netanyahu’s ultra-right-wing government and religious parties have stepped up – is being increasingly repudiated. The Palestinian response includes rocket fire, but compared to the might of Israel, one of the world’s most militarized states, it small in scale. For example, the Palestinian action in response to the death of Jader Adnan – an Islamic Jihad leader who was imprisoned and on hunger strike – caused only three injuries, while the Zionist bombings have already claimed 25 lives in two days.
This huge disparity is the general tone of this historical conflict, which has its origin in the violent occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by the Zionist state against the Palestinian people. Israel, a pro-imperialist enclave, pursues a permanent policy of expulsion of the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in violation of multiple UN resolutions.
The Israeli state calls its military operations “defensive” and usually counts on the complicit silence of its imperialist partners of the great powers. It also encourages the adoption in all countries of the false definition of the Zionist entity IHRA, which equates anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism with the totalitarian aim of silencing all voices critical of the genocidal and racist character of the State of Israel, which is the real terrorist.
On the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the International Socialist League and all our national sections reaffirm our support for the heroic Palestinian cause. We demand the immediate termination of Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories. At the same time, we continue to demand the need for a free and sovereign Palestine in its original territory, where all peoples and religions can coexist in peace, dismantling the theocratic Zionist state as part of the socialist revolution throughout the Middle East.