Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has sent shockwaves throughout the entire world. Israel’s allies across the Middle East have come under enormous pressure from their own populations to abandon their support for Zionism’s genocidal ambitions, while its long-standing allies such as Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have expressed their support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. Israel’s violent excesses will have long-term political and diplomatic repercussions. Wesam Khaled reports.
Axis of resistance
Israel’s assault on Gaza has intensified its war on multiple fronts. In what is described as the Middle East’s ‘axis of resistance’, allies of the Palestinian cause in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen have launched military and diplomatic attacks on Israel. Lebanon’s Hezbollah party has been exchanging rocket and artillery fire with Israel and claims to have killed at least 120 Israeli soldiers as of 1 November. Groups in Iraq and Syria have attacked US bases in those countries in response to the US’s unconditional support for Israel, and fighters allied with the Syrian government have fired rockets at Israeli positions in the occupied Golan Heights. Yemen’s Houthi fighters have launched a series of missile and drone attacks against Israel, and on 19 November seized a ship in the Red Sea owned by an Israeli businessman. Iranian officials have been meeting with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders to discuss a regional strategy for opposing Israel. Iran continues to provide material support to the
Palestinian resistance and its allies.
The United States is keenly aware of Israel’s increasingly precarious regional situation. It has issued strict warnings to Hezbollah and Iran not to get directly involved. In the days after Israel’s assault on Gaza began, the US deployed the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean Sea, as ‘a strong signal of deterrence should any actor hostile to Israel consider trying to escalate or widen this war’. In a memo to its embassy in the Netherlands that was leaked on 14 November, Israel itself admitted that its attacks on Gaza are deliberately designed to ‘showcase credible military force to show Iran and its proxies that they will stop at nothing’.
A divided Arab world
However, the wider response of the Arab world has been treacherous. The Arab League summit on 11 November expressed the contradictions that exist in the region. The summit agreed a resolution calling for ‘an international initiative to halt the war in Gaza and push for a genuine and serious political process’, but this tokenist solidarity statement did not commit participants to any more concrete course of action in solidarity with Palestine. The handful of proposals put forward for more serious action included the cutting of all diplomatic and economic relations with Israel; closing off airspace to Israeli flights and use oil sanctions as leverage to facilitate a ceasefire. All were blocked by several countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Morocco – none of them willing to jeopardise their relationship with US imperialism in favour of real solidarity with the Palestininians.
Indeed, many continue to allow US bases on their territory to support Israel’s genocide. In Jordan, US military personnel, warplanes, and missile systems have been deployed in preparation for the possibility of a broader regional war. In the words of one Gazan observer, ‘the scent of betrayal is a putrid odour wafting in every corner of the Arab world’.
Israel’s international isolation
Nonetheless, Israel finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage. Mass demonstrations across the Muslim world are putting real pressure on governments which might previously have sought to stabilise their relations with the Zionist state. Sectarian tensions along Sunni-Shia lines have become blurred in the face of a united, popular regional opposition to Israel and western imperialism. Regimes that disregard this popular support see the threat of revolt fomenting among their own people.
Similar trends are taking place across the world. The governments of Bahrain, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Jordan, and Turkey have all recalled their diplomats from Israel; Bolivia, Belize and South Africa have cut diplomatic ties completely. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who just last year was attempting to improve relations with Israel, is now calling for its leaders to be tried for war crimes; South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has done the same. Irish President Michael D Higgins has rejected the statement by the European Commission President of unconditional support for Israel, and even French President Emmanuel Macron, a stalwart ally of Israel, was forced to call for a ceasefire. Prospects for a planned economic corridor involving India, the Middle East and Europe, in which Israel would have played a role, is now in serious jeopardy as countries fear being seen to be dealing openly with a state whose brutality is on such blatant display.
Across the world, the working class has come out onto the streets in their millions in solidarity with the people of Gaza. This movement is continuing to grow in size and intensity as popular outrage builds. The people’s movements of the world are united in opposing the genocidal Zionist regime, isolating Israel and sowing the seeds of a movement that has the potential to threaten the imperialist system as a whole.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 297 December 2023/January 2024
