Internal and external political unrest grows with Netanyahu. Solidarity with Palestine is indispensable to stop the ongoing genocide. Socialism proposes an alternative solution for the Middle East, opposed to Zionism and imperialism.
By Rubén Tzanoff
Demonstrations against the policy of the government
Saturday, March 30, and Sunday, March 31, saw the largest protests against Benjamin Netanyahu since the start of the war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israelis demanded an immediate agreement to free the hostages and the call for early elections. Several families of hostages, leaders of the Yesh Atid party, the Labor Party and the Histadrut also marched in front of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem). The organizers announced a “national week of protest” which will culminate on Saturday, April 6, in the “Square of the Hostages” in Tel Aviv. In another action carried out in the Mea Sharim neighborhood, Brothers and Sisters in Arms (retired Zionist army reservists and officers) protested against the military exemption for Talmudic students, in another act of defiance to Netanyahu since his continuity in government depends to a large extent on the support given to him by the ultra-Orthodox.
Answering machine
Before undergoing a hernia operation, Netanyahu answered the questionings on television, repeating that he will do everything possible to “bring the hostages home”, that he will not call elections and that he will not suspend the ground offensive on Rafah. These were the usual responses of a reactionary murderer who cares little for the lives of Israeli hostages, much less for the lives of Palestinians. The questioned Israeli government flees forward with more internal authoritarianism and external violence; to maintain the cohesion of the far right that maintains it in power agglutinated around the continued occupation of Gaza, ethnic cleansing and the subsequent installation of settlers. Although divisions have once again been expressed with intensity, the majority of society continues to support the war and does not question the genocidal state. It is worth noting that Netanyahu’s main “opponent” is Benny Gantz, who is a member of the war Cabinet and who is a champion of many of Netanyahu’s major policies.
Israel destroyed the Iranian consulate in Syria
In line with the war announcements, there was an Israeli strike with six missiles that hit a building next to the Iranian consulate, located in the Mezzeh district of Damascus, resulting in eleven deaths. Among them were seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including one of its leaders for Syria and Lebanon, Brigadier General Mohamed Reda al-Zahedi. This is the largest attack against Iranian representations abroad, for which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assured that there will be revenge: “The evil regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men”. Simultaneously, Israeli aircraft again attacked southern Lebanon, allegedly Hezbollah targets, and in another criminal action in Gaza “unintentionally” killed seven humanitarian workers of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by the Spanish chef José Andrés, who were traveling in a convoy identified as they were leaving the warehouse where they had unloaded more than 100 tons of food.
More and more solidarity
The bombings, the massacres, the lack of water and essential supplies have not succeeded in breaking the resistance. On the contrary, they have unleashed unprecedented support for Palestine and the growing political isolation of the Israeli government. It is necessary to continue with the mobilized solidarity, the actions of economic boycott and to demand from the governments the breaking of diplomatic and commercial relations and the end of arms shipments to Israel. This was the case during the last weekend of March with demonstrations in the United Kingdom, where the organizers counted 200,000 people, in Berlin and in other capitals of the world. The workers and the Israeli people must not only break with the far-right government, but also confront the historic project of Zionist colonialism that binds them to the barbarism embodied by the State of Israel and take the side of the Palestinian people.
The day after, today’s debate
Netanyahu refuses to accept any post-war scenario that does not imply the occupation of Gaza and considers the existence of Palestine, even ignoring imperialist advice. It is not that the European Union and the US have become democratic or humanitarian, but that they fear the consequences of an action that would fuel the revolt of the Arab peoples and the questioning of pro-Israeli governments around the world. The EU has resumed the already failed “Two States” proposal that emerged from the betrayal of the PLO with the signing of the Oslo Accords. The Spanish President Pedro Sanchez stated that they are seriously considering the recognition of the Palestinian State and announced that in the coming weeks there will be news on the matter at the United Nations. Hamas and fundamentalists propose an Islamic religious state. There are organizations that defend a “Binational State” and other variants with which we do not agree either. History has shown that the Zionist State is colonialist, genocidal, expansive and acts as a gendarme of imperialism against the Arab peoples. As such, it cannot be reformed to coexist amicably with the native peoples, it must be destroyed so that the Palestinian majority can return to the lands and homes from which they were expelled by force; to achieve a just and lasting peace with the establishment of a single Palestine from the river to the sea, secular, democratic, non-racist and socialist. The basic problems can only be solved within the framework of the socialist revolution of the Arab peoples in the Middle East.