Following the dramatic blow inflicted on the racist Zionist state by the Palestinian resistance in the 7 October al-Aqsa Flood operation, the Israeli ruling class has reacted with characteristic barbarity against the people of Gaza, killing thousands and systematically flattening entire neighbourhoods. On 9 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden: ‘We have to go in [to Gaza]. We can’t negotiate now.’ A politician of the Israeli ruling Likud party, Ariel Kallner, spoke plainly of Israel’s intentions: ‘Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48.’ The death toll in Gaza has already surpassed that of the 2014 bloodbath unleashed by Israel (Operation Protective Edge). The Israeli military is now preparing for a ground invasion. The racist Israeli cabinet minister Gideon Sa’ar has said Gaza must be ‘smaller’ by the end of operation, and that losing land ‘is the price that the Arabs understand’.
By 13 October, the Zionist regime had warned all Palestinians north of Wadi Gaza, southern Gaza city, to flee south or face ‘eradication.’ This threat has become a death sentence for those in city hospital wards, many injured by the bombing, many on life support. In all, the demand meant around 1.2 million Palestinians would be forced to move without food, electricity or water, their homes and workplaces razed to the ground, and those who remained killed. The Zionists know that mass displacement on this scale is impossible and appear set on an extensive genocide. By noon on 16 October, the 10th day of Zionist war, 2,808 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza and 10,850 wounded. 42% of Gaza’s population are children, and 853 of those killed were children, with many babies and pregnant women among the dead. In the occupied West Bank, 54 Palestinians have been killed, with over 300 wounded.
Zionist massacre
War crimes committed by the colonisers in this short period would fill an encyclopaedia. On 7 October alone, Reliefweb documented 18 separate Israeli attacks on healthcare workers and facilities, with hospitals, ambulances and medics hit. The numbers of displaced Palestinians stood at over 400,000 by the morning of 13 October. The already inhuman blockade of Gaza was tightened severely following the 9 October announcement by Zionist ‘defence’ minister Yoav Gallant that, ‘Extracting a heavy price from the enemy is a necessary condition for our existence in the region.’ Labelling Palestinians as ‘human animals,’ Gallant ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, cutting off electricity, water, fuel and food supplies. The Rafah crossing has been closed since 10 October when it was bombed following an Egyptian attempt to deliver aid, with all food or medical supplies blocked.
On 9 October, a warning was given to residents in Jabaliya to leave their homes. As they headed out through the souk, they were bombed by Zionist planes, killing 50. Overnight, the Rimal district, seen as Gaza’s city centre, was totally decimated, with residential blocks flattened from the skies. Among the targets were the offices of national and international media organisations. By morning, damage to three water sanitation sites had cut off services for around 400,000 people. 47 entire families have been wiped out. Many more families have been near-eradicated: 17 members of the Baroud family are dead, with three family homes destroyed with their children inside. The 13 October air raids on Shati’ refugee camp killed 25 civilians from the al-Masri and al-Hasani families. The war crimes continue: metal-melting white phosphorus has been rained down upon the people of Gaza and southern Lebanon. By 13 October, according to Hamas at least 13 Israeli hostages in Gaza had been killed by the Israelis themselves in their unrelenting bombing campaign.
Ambulances, hospitals, medicine stores, fleeing children and entire families are the targets of this futile war to crush the spirit of resistance among the Palestinian masses. Amidst the murderous slaughter, the politicians, media outlets and liberal racists of the imperialist West are pledging to ‘stand with Israel.’ The ground invasion will find the same shameful backing, but Palestinian resistance will be unceasing.
Imperialists defend the bloodshed
On 9 October a joint statement by the US, British, French, German and Italian governments pledged to ‘ensure Israel is able to defend itself’ over the coming days. The Zionist state is a nuclear-armed power and the world’s second biggest per capita military spender. It spent $23.4bn on its military in 2022 alone, double the size of the Palestinian economy, and receives $3.8bn in US military ‘aid’ annually, nearing $264bn since 1948. On 8 October, the US imperialists sent a fleet of military ships to the Mediterranean coast of occupied Palestine, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford. Showing its own willingness to ‘defend’ the Zionists and ‘bolster security,’ Britain has sent its own warships.
Whether or not the Zionist state requires assistance, this movement of military vessels is a sign of the importance of the Palestinian example of resistance. The imperialists are desperate to bolster the settler-colonial entity, as their hired gun against the occupied and oppressed people across the region. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has toured through six Arab states since 8 October, seeking to ensure there is no serious diplomatic or political intervention (let alone military assistance) on behalf of the Palestinians by those states; he described his meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has now put normalisation with Israel on hold, as ‘very productive’.
The British media is attempting to drown us in a hysterical chorus of lies and hypocrisy designed to mislead, misinform, dupe and distract the British working class from condemning Zionism and its long history of terrorism, from the Stern Gang’s assassination of the UN’s first peace mediator in 1948 up to the 290 Palestinians already killed this year before the al-Aqsa Flood action. For the pro-Zionist Guardian, the ground invasion represented an Israeli ‘counteroffensive’; likewise for the BBC, it appears as if history began on 7 October 2023. Biden, Sunak, Starmer, Macron and all of the leading imperialist zealots based their pro-Zionist warmongering on rumours of atrocities committed by the Palestinian resistance: that Hamas fighters had raped women (an unsubstantiated claim originating in interviews by a right-wing Israeli columnist Liel Leibovitz, reproduced by the Los Angeles Times and later withdrawn); and that Israeli babies had been decapitated (a rumour spread by Israeli soldiers, which IDF officers declined to endorse when interviewed). On 13 October, The Times front page screamed, ‘Israel shows mutilated babies,’ as ‘proof of atrocities.’ Those in the front-page photograph, however, were wounded Palestinian children. Like the false Nayirah testimony used to justify the first Gulf War in 1990, the propaganda had already served its purpose before its veracity could be challenged.
The response of the imperialist politicians and their media cheerleaders has been a sickening study in racism and exceptionalism. Any expression of support for Palestine is treated as suspect, to be conflated with anti-Semitism. Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak promised ‘steadfast and united support’ for Israel, while foreign secretary James Cleverly spoke of Israel’s ‘unique status’ with as many as 60,000 British Zionists residing on the occupied land. All of Britain’s government buildings have been ordered to fly the Israeli flag; the Scottish and Welsh parliaments refused, and in Sheffield, activists tore it down and replaced it with the Palestinian flag.
True to its character, the British Labour Party stands staunchly on the pro-Zionist barricades, in defence of British imperialism’s interests. Claiming that ‘Israel is the victim of terrorism,’ with ‘the absolute right to defend itself’, Labour spokesperson Emily Thornberry was asked three times in a TV interview whether cutting off water and power to Gaza was against international law. She ignored the question and said that ‘Israel needs to find all the terrorists.’ Having repeated the same line that Israel has the ‘right’ to cut off water and power to Gaza, Labour leader Keir Starmer brandished his pro-Israel credentials further by calling for the England-Australia football friendly to light up Wembley Stadium in the colours of the Israeli flag. Labour has explicitly banned MPs and CLP representatives from attending pro-Palestine protests and said that Labour members could face expulsion for attending such events. It is absolute hypocrisy for anyone who claims to support Palestine to remain a member of the Zionist Labour Party. Four Labour Councillors, one in Manchester, one in Stroud and two in Oxford, and Young Labour’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic officer resigned from the party in response to Starmer’s comments; they have more principles than Jeremy Corbyn, who is appallingly still held up as a champion of Palestinian rights by some on the left despite him remaining a party member.
Solidarity, repression and opportunism
Imperialist states have pre-emptively ramped up their censorship and repression of Palestine solidarity activity. France and Germany have outlawed pro-Palestine protests. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on 13 October that all public support for the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network would be banned. On 10 October British home secretary Suella Braverman wrote to police chiefs instructing them to clamp down on Palestinian flag waving, chanting and support for ‘terrorism.’
It is an urgent political necessity to oppose any and all attempts to repress the movement in solidarity with Palestine; actions and meetings must be organised in order to defend democratic rights and uphold the principles of unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. The RCG and FRFI supporter groups have mobilised in cities across Britain to demonstrate our unconditional support for the Palestinians. We have called our own protests and meetings and joined those organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and other groups. However, the PSC published a statement on its social media on 7 October, in the immediate aftermath of the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, stating that ‘if violence is to end, both that of the oppressor and the oppressed, then we must take action to end the root cause – Israel’s apartheid and oppression of Palestinians’ (our emphasis). At the subsequent emergency protests and marches organised by the PSC in London, under the pacifist slogan ‘end the violence’, many of the speakers on the official platform – including the ever-present Corbyn – made it their business to condemn the tactics used by the Palestinian resistance. It is not for the movement in Britain to dictate the strategy or tactics of liberation movements abroad, but to oppose British imperialism and defend the right of oppressed peoples to fight for self-determination by any means they consider necessary.
By calling for action to end the violence of the oppressed, the PSC self-appointed leadership bows supinely before the demands of British imperialism. It continues their opportunist trend of repeated concessions in the face of Zionist attacks over decades, done in order to preserve their links to the rotten imperialist Labour Party, which has predictably led to more intense censorship and repression. In Newcastle on 14 October, two supporters of FRFI were arrested following a demonstration for Palestine; one of the police’s questions at interview was, ‘did you use the chant, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free?’ They were among 15 arrested on the same day at pro-Palestine events around the country. Student societies have faced censorship, with the University College London Student Union banning a meeting on Palestine by Socialist Alternative and suspending Socialist Appeal’s Marxist Society for organising a similar meeting. All such repression must be resisted.
British, US and EU imperialist states are drenched in the blood of Palestinians. The Zionists’ invasion finds willing partners in the hypocrites governing the imperialist countries and those who follow them among the so-called left. For progressives, for socialists, for the future of humanity, the only solution is to fight until victory alongside the Palestinian people. We must make no concessions to liberal or pro-Zionist positions and refuse to be silenced by racist politicians and their police. Raise the Palestinian flag and say it clearly:
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
