Palestinian armed struggle has taken on an increasingly organised and coordinated form in recent months. The Netanyahu-led coalition government has attempted to crush this resistance, unleashing fascist settlers and carrying out a brutal wave of attacks in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Zionists opposed to the Netanyahu government have taken to the streets to defend the privileges of their ‘democracy’. Liberation will not come from a liberal section of racists in Palestine, but from Palestinian resistance.
By 4 March, Zionist forces had already killed 65 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2023, including at least 12 children. On 26 January, Zionist forces killed nine Palestinians in Jenin refugee camp. On 22 February, they massacred 11 Palestinians in Nablus and wounded over 100, following which Palestinians declared a solidarity strike in occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
On 26 February more than 400 racist settlers launched a night-time attack on the village of Huwara, killing a Palestinian aid worker, injuring over 390, torching dozens of cars and burning the village. Israeli soldiers danced arm in arm with the attackers. This was a response to a Palestinian attack earlier in the day which killed two settlers. Justifying the pogrom, racist Knesset member Zvika Fogel said that ‘A terrorist came out of Huwara – and Huwara was closed and burned… This is what I want to see. That’s the only way we’ll achieve deterrence.’ On 1 March, the Zionist finance minister Bazalel Smotrich declared on live TV: ‘I think the village of Huwara should be wiped out.’ Under pressure from Israel’s imperialist sponsors, Smotrich had to apologise for his language.
On 7 March, Zionist forces carried out another murderous attack on Jenin, killing at least six. Though Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas condemned these ‘acts of war’, PA forces fired on the 8 March funeral march organised for freedom fighter Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh, assassinated in the Zionist attack. Abbas had announced an end to security coordination with the Zionists following the 26 January Jenin massacre. As ever, this meant nothing: a month later on 26 February he participated in a summit sponsored by the US Biden administration to normalise relations with the Zionist occupying forces. The Netanyahu government has meanwhile announced that it will build 10,000 new settlement buildings in the West Bank, while retroactively legalising other illegal blocks. Palestinian political prisoners have started a campaign of mass disobedience, which entered its third consecutive week on 6 March. A new Zionist law plans to legalise their execution.
Zionism in crisis
Since the Netanyahu-led coalition came to office in December 2022, liberal Zionists have built a massive protest movement under the slogan ‘Defend Israeli Democracy’ – a democracy which of course excludes the Palestinian people. In their sights are the government’s planned reforms to the legal and judicial system, particularly over its right to appoint a Supreme Court and overrule its judgements by parliamentary decree. Featuring a sea of Israeli flags, mobilisations have taken place in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem numbering hundreds of thousands. Though there has been a tiny ‘anti-occupation’ section, the protests support Zionist ambitions and have been led by notorious former government leaders Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid, all guilty of war crimes against the Palestinians.
The movement represents a disaffected section of middle class Zionists, worried about threats to their own security and deeper international isolation. ‘Solidarity’ mobilisations have taken place internationally. Speakers to a crowd in London included virulent Labour Zionist Margaret Hodge and former Tory Party chair Mick Davis who said: ‘This Israeli government is putting the democratic foundations of the state of Israel in existential danger. This is a crisis for Jews and friends of Israel everywhere.’
The US administration is uncomfortable with the Netanyahu coalition government and with its openly fascistic members. It had to condemn National Security Minister Ben-Gvir’s provocative visit to al-Aqsa on 3 January while US State Department spokesman Ned Price labelled Smotrich’s call for a massacre at Huwara ‘irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting’. On 23 February British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly followed suit, saying that Britain had ‘no current plans’ to deal directly with Ben-Gvir and called on all parties ‘to refrain from inflammatory language and demonstrate tolerance and respect for minority groups.’ US military figures are worried that the Zionist state may strike Iran without prior coordination. Netanyahu claims the Israelis are ‘obviously permitted’ to attack.
British support for Zionism includes the imperialist Labour Party. Interviewed following the February 2022 release of an Amnesty report labelling Israel as an apartheid state, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said ‘that is not the position of the Labour party.’ After repeating the Amnesty description on 1 February this year, Labour MP Kim Johnson was ordered to apologise to parliament. She did so immediately and in a completely craven way:
‘I was wrong to use the term “fascist” in relation to the Israeli government and understand why this was particularly insensitive given the history of the State of Israel… I would also like to apologise for the use of the term “apartheid state”. While I was quoting accurately Amnesty’s description, I recognise this as insensitive and I’d like to withdraw it.’
The resistance of the Palestinian people remains in the vanguard of revolutionary politics. It requires anti-imperialists in Britain to step up solidarity and boycott actions.
This must mean confronting the treachery of pro-Zionist Labourism.
Louis Brehony
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 293 April/May 2023
