The resumption of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza on 18 March was inevitable. The Zionist state received the green light it was looking for to break the ceasefire from the US administration the previous day. Within days, the IDF had murdered 700 Palestinians, including over 200 children. The Western imperialist powers have shed only crocodile tears for the Palestinian people; their support for the Israeli state remains unconditional. The Arab states collude with this: they are terrified that the Palestinian resistance could detonate mass movements of opposition. It is the same with the Palestinian Authority, an imperialist Trojan horse whose purpose is to ensure the security of the Zionist state in the West Bank.
Divisions among the Western imperialist powers exist on many issues, especially now with Ukraine. Yet on Palestine they remain united: they cannot allow the Zionist monster they have created to suffer defeat. Uncontrollable social explosions across North Africa and the Middle East; the Suez Canal and Red Sea completely blockaded; loss of access to Gulf states’ oil – these are among the possible consequences they fear. It means they have to countenance the genocidal intent of the Zionist state’s war on the Palestinian people however much the extent of the bloodshed embarrasses them. It effectively means abolishing the internationally recognised right of the Palestinians to armed self-defence and criminalising anyone who upholds that right. Yet despite all efforts, the Israeli state is now a pariah, with the International Criminal Court issuing a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, and the International Court of Justice ruling that there is prima facie evidence of genocide.
Domestically, imperialism has to justify its defence of unrestrained savagery while proclaiming its allegiance to democratic norms. It can only manage this by conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism as an ideological prop for increasing repression. This is most apparent in the US where the mainstream media has constantly vilified pro-Palestinian sentiment and state forces are routinely deployed against protests. Under President Trump, repression has reached a new level: overseas students involved in pro-Palestine protests will be deported and ‘agitators’ imprisoned. Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the militant Columbia University encampment last summer, was arrested in New York and flown to a gaol in Louisiana. A second Palestinian, Leqaa Kordia, was also arrested; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made the bogus claim that they were both Hamas supporters. The DHS has searched the university campus for allegedly harbouring ‘illegal aliens’ and the federal government has withdrawn $400m funding from the university.
In Britain the Labour government is escalating repression against Palestine activists. The Filton 18 have been held on remand, some since August 2024, with little expectation of a trial before the end of 2025, by which time they will have served 15 months in prison. The use of anti-terrorism legislation to arrest them was so egregious that four UN Special Rapporteurs wrote to the government complaining that it ‘risks chilling the exercise of freedom of expression and opinion and the right to participate in public life, as well as political and public discourse’. Meanwhile, the continued denial of bail to the defendants is intended to intimidate others from taking direct action for Palestine. The Crown Prosecution Service’s decision after a delay of over a year to charge the first of two FRFI supporters, the SOAS 2, with terrorism-related offences followed the decision by the Metropolitan police to arrest 77 people at the January national Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration on bogus grounds of breaching conditions placed on the march. Other FRFI supporters, arrested on charges of incitement to racial hatred more than a year ago, have yet to be charged. Labour-run councils in London like Camden are cancelling pro-Palestine meetings: behind this lies Labour’s adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in 2018 under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. As we go to press, on 27 March, dozens of police broke into a Youth Demand event at Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrested six attendees in the meeting, then raided and arrested a further three people the following day.
The Zionist onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank demands a much more determined anti-imperialist response here in Britain. Despite a few legal quibbles over who can judge breaches of international law, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signalled that the Labour government will take no action to oppose even the most extreme Zionist barbarity. The corollary of this is that the government must intensify repression. The movement must therefore make the fight against state repression and defence of political prisoners a central part of its platform; the defence of democratic rights is inseparable from solidarity with Palestine. More than 100 demonstrated in support of the SOAS 2 outside the court hearing in March, and 300 protested outside the Old Bailey at a Filton 18 hearing three days later. The lessons of the Starmer 2 campaign in Glasgow are clear: an uncompromisingly political defence campaign is the best way to defend those facing state repression. Defend free speech on Palestine! Defend the SOAS 2 and the Filton 18!
Robert Clough
