Editorial of Socialism Today issue 282
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Faced with the works of twenty-first century capitalism, in particular the nightmare being suffered by the Palestinian masses, despair is an understandable reaction. This famous line by the 19th century poet Shelley, however, does not point towards despair, but to revolution. He describes it inscribed on the pedestal of a broken old statue, once erected to an Egyptian dictator, long since dethroned and his monument abandoned in the desert.
Thirteen years ago, in the ‘Arab Spring’ – the revolutionary movement which swept North Africa and parts of the Middle East – more than one modern day Ozymandias was overthrown. However, because the working class and poor masses did not succeed in taking and consolidating power, the old order came surging back. Current events show beyond all doubt how rotten that order is, and the necessity of bringing it to an end.
Israel’s October 26 strikes on Iran may mark the end of the latest round of direct military confrontation between the two states, although that is not certain. Whatever the short-term developments, escalation between Iran and Israel remains inherent in the situation. Even without that, the region is increasingly engulfed in flames.
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is tightening a medieval siege around northern Gaza, implemented with modern weaponry. Aid is almost entirely blocked from entering, while hospitals and schools are bombed and fleeing civilians – men, women and children – shot down, to try to force Palestinians to permanently abandon the area. The new depths of unimaginable horror being meted out on Gazans is taking place alongside the IDF invasion and bombing of Lebanon, which is suffering the biggest scale of killings since the 1982 Israeli invasion. At the same time, military strikes on Syria and the Yemen have been stepped up.
There seems no end to the Israeli government’s intensification of its bloody warmongering. For Netanyahu, escalating the war is a means to try and remain in power as long as possible, and to attempt to reshape the region in Israel’s interests, by brutally further repressing the Palestinians, and weakening Israel’s strongest opponent in the region: Iran. The claimed justification, however, is the drive to destroy Hamas, supposedly in order to bring peace to the Israeli Jewish population. The horror has lasted over a year, but this has not been achieved. Nor will it be. On the contrary, IDF brutality will inevitably have the opposite effect. Nowhere in the world has military action succeeded in eradicating national aspirations. Israel’s actions are fuelling a profound rage, which at a certain stage will erupt in volcanic lava flows throughout the region, shaking Israel, the neighbouring Arab states, and the imperialist powers across the world.
This is understood by a large section of the Israeli capitalist class, probably the majority, who want to see Netanyahu gone and replaced by a less reckless representative of their interests. However, no section of the Israeli ruling elite has any lasting solution to the deeply intractable problems facing Israel. Israeli capitalism can never accept the existence of a genuine independent Palestinian state with control over its own borders and resources because it would raise the expectations of the Palestinian masses but, on a capitalist basis, be totally unable to meet them. It would therefore be a continuation in a new form of constant regional instability and conflict with Israel.
So while at some stage – particularly if Kamala Harris wins the US presidency – an Israeli government could again participate in some form of ‘peace process’; holding out the hope of a two-state solution to the Palestinian masses in order to try and cut across a new movement, whatever Palestinian entity was put forward would inevitably prove to be a new form of prison camp, probably worse than what existed before the current war. That in turn would lead to a new struggle by the Palestinian workers and poor.
And while sections of the Israeli capitalist class are undoubtedly concerned about the consequences of the war – including fears of an all-out regional war – the growing economic fall-out as growth stalls and foreign money leaves the country, and the growing domestic divisions, at the same time, the whole Israeli elite wants to see Iran and its allies militarily weakened. And their only concern for the Palestinians is the blowback Israel will inevitably suffer for Netanyahu’s murderous assault. They judge, however, that Netanyahu has so far ‘got away with’ the carnage it has inflicted on the Palestinians.
This is not the outcome that key leaders of Hamas, not least Yahya Sinwar – the recently killed orchestrator of the October 7 attack – were expecting a year ago. Sinwar predicted that following the attack on Israel Hamas would be backed by a strong and united ‘axis of resistance’ and that Israel’s inevitable invasion of Gaza would inflame and mobilise the region.
That has not happened. There have been sizeable protests in support of the Palestinians in some Arab countries, but none have posed enough of a threat to the continued rule of the capitalist-feudal elites to force any of the regimes to begin military action against Israel. So the Arab regimes have stood aside, limiting themselves to paying lip-service to Gaza to pacify the pressure from below. Egypt has taken action – not to stop the slaughter, but to prevent anyone fleeing the Strip into the Sinai desert, and building new prison camps to pen in any Gazans who might be forced through the Rafah crossing. Hezbollah in reality has spent a year taking relatively low-level action against Israel, fearful that doing otherwise would lead to an IDF onslaught of the kind that is now taking place. Iran, desperate to avoid an all-out regional war, has mainly limited itself to arming its proxies, so far only directly attacking Israel when Netanyahu’s provocations would make it a regime-endangering humiliation not to respond. Meanwhile the Arab leaders want to avoid regional war but are quietly not unhappy at the prospect of Iran being weakened.
The post post-cold war world
The way events have played out so far is a reflection of the period in which are living. The era of the cold war is long gone. That formed the backdrop to successive wars between Israel and Arab states in the decades after Israel was founded in 1948. World relations in that period were underpinned by the clash of systems between the capitalist countries of the West, dominated by US imperialism, and the non-capitalist Stalinist states of the East. That had clear consequences in the Middle East. Fifty-one years ago, in the Yom Kippur war for example, the Arab regimes, under pressure from the masses – including mass Communist Parties in many countries – went to war against Israel, with weapons and economic aid supplied by the Russian Stalinist bureaucracy.
But while the cold war is long gone, we are also not today any longer in the period that immediately followed the collapse of Stalinism, when US imperialism was the sole hyperpower, able to dictate terms to the world. The beginning of the end of absolute US dominance happened in the Middle East. Twenty-one years ago, on 20 March 2003, a ‘coalition of the willing’ invaded Iraq with 200,000 troops. Just 22 days after the invasion began Baghdad was captured. The ‘coalition’, which included Britain under Tony Blair’s New Labour government, was in reality no more than a fig leaf for the unbridled power of US imperialism.
As is now well-worn fact, however, the invasion of Iraq did not prove to be a confirmation of the might of US imperialism, but rather the beginning of its fall from hubris. An estimated 600,000 Iraqi civilians perished during the occupation, along with nearly 5,000 US and British troops. Far from bringing the stability, prosperity and democracy promised by George W Bush, Iraq and neighbouring Syria have since been riven by civil war, an ISIS insurgency, and social disintegration. Another unintended consequence was the strengthening of Iran as a regional power.
Nonetheless, two decades on, the US is still the strongest economic and military power on the planet. It is responsible for around 40% of global military spending. While the Middle East is no longer as vital for US imperialism as it once was, it still has huge economic and geo-political importance and can’t be ignored. It remains responsible for around a third of global crude oil production. From its inception Israel has acted as a bulwark of support in the region for Western imperialism, particularly the US, and that remains the case.
So while Biden has exerted pressure on Netanyahu to limit the scale of the IDF onslaught, the US has continued to provide Israel with the weaponry it needs to slaughter the Palestinians and others. At the same time, it has sent three of its eleven aircraft carriers to the region in order to make clear the consequences of attacking Israel, and to prevent escalation to an all-out regional war. Up until now that strategy has largely worked, but there are nonetheless real and growing limits to US imperialism’s ability to manoeuvre. The strength of China, and the resulting increasingly multi-polar character of world relations, plays out in the Middle East, as elsewhere. War in the Middle East is not in the interests of China but, for example, it is happy to buy Iranian oil (at bargain prices!), which somewhat lessens the effect of sanctions on Iran. At the same time, China is now Saudi Arabia’s biggest trading partner, inevitably lessening US leverage on the oil state.
Another vital factor that has enormously weakened US imperialism’s ability to intervene militarily worldwide is the outlook of working- and middle-class Americans. Biden has cynically armed Ukraine, in order for its fighters to degrade the military power of Russia. There is little enough appetite among Americans for that, but there would be none whatsoever for sending large numbers of US troops to fight, either in Ukraine or the Middle East. The failure for US imperialism of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan has fed the isolationist mood that Donald Trump taps into with his ‘America First’ propaganda.
At the same time, alongside the huge anger at working-class living standards being squeezed, another factor damaging the Democrats’ chances is anger at US backing for Israel’s wars. If Harris manages to scrape the presidency, she will attempt to continue acting as a reliable defender of the interests of US imperialism within a ‘rules-based’ system of international relations. But she will do so in extremely constrained circumstances and an increasingly conflict-ridden world. And to the other Western capitalist powers the real possibility of a Trump presidency is a clear indication that they can no longer rely on US imperialism to defend their interests. This is an important factor in the growing global arms race.
The potential superpower
So, against the background of a capitalist system in growing crisis, epitomised by the weakening and sclerotic character of its first power – US imperialism – what force offers a way forward? Socialism Today has an unequivocal answer to this question: the working class and poor masses worldwide, not least in the Middle East itself. In 2011 the region was shaken to its foundations by the ‘Arab Spring’, as the mass uprising in Tunisia spread like wildfire from country to country. Both US imperialism and the Arab dictatorships were completely taken aback by the outbreak of revolution. Faced with the power of the masses military intervention was impossible. Only later, in Libya, were they able to find a lever to intervene.
A decade after the events, with the revolutions long since defeated, surveys across the region unsurprisingly found a majority thought their lives had worsened since, but they also found – except in those countries engulfed in civil war – that a majority did not regret the uprisings. And even in the years since the defeat of the ‘Arab Spring’, countries in the region have experienced multiple mass movements, including in the two major protagonists in the current conflict, Israel and Iran. The theocratic dictatorship in Iran was shaken by mass protests in 2022 and early 2023. Now repressed, enormous discontent nonetheless remains.
Meanwhile, in 2023 Israel was rocked by a nine-month long mass anti-government movement, including a general strike, which was only cut across by the 7 October attack. It is understandable that for some Palestinians Sinwar, who fought the IDF until his last breath, will be seen as a hero. However, the brutal killings and kidnappings of Israeli civilians by unaccountable, minority-based militias could never resonate with the masses of the region in the way of the mass elemental uprisings of the Arab Spring, or the mass resistance by the Palestinians in the first Intifada. And of course, 7 October temporarily bound the overwhelming majority of the Israeli population into support for Netanyahu’s murderous onslaught.
That will not endure indefinitely, however. Prior to the invasion of Lebanon, on 2 September, Israel was again brought to a halt by an anti-government general strike, this time calling for a ceasefire in order to return the hostages. This had elements of a cross-class movement, with support from sections of the capitalist class, but still pointed to workers’ potential power. While Netanyahu was able to use the invasion of Lebanon – claiming it would end the bombing of northern Israel – to again bolster his support, the deep class divisions in Israeli society are clearly present, pointing to the possibility of the working class beginning to play an independent role in opposition to the brutal warmongering Israeli capitalist class.
Socialist programme
The potential capacity of the working class and poor in the region to take power in their hands has been demonstrated again and again, but in order to realise that potential the working class will need to forge its own mass democratic parties, able to generalise its experience in a programme for the overthrow of capitalism and the development of a socialist confederation of the region.
What form such a socialist confederation would take cannot be decided now, ahead of time, but would have to be negotiated by future workers’ governments. It cannot be excluded that a desire would then exist for one socialist state encompassing Palestinians, Israeli Jews and other minorities. Unsurprisingly given the current horrific war, however, that is certainly not the current outlook on either side. Polls from within the occupied territories are unreliable, but it is nonetheless significant that one of the most recent, from September, put support for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders at 60%, compared to only 10% backing a single state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews.
On the other side, Israel has now existed for three quarters of a century and there is a strong Israeli national consciousness, which is even stronger post-October 7. Israel came into being on the repression of the Palestinians and the present capitalist state of Israel, with its Zionist-capitalist foundations, is incompatible with a genuine Palestinian state. But to successfully drive a political wedge between the Israeli Jewish working class and the Israeli capitalist class requires recognising the consciousness of the Israeli Jewish population and calling for a socialist Israel, alongside a socialist Palestine, with guaranteed rights for minorities in both states.
The collapse of Stalinism over three decades ago was a major turning point and a defeat for the working class and oppressed worldwide. It temporarily breathed life into world capitalism via the driving down of the share of wealth taken by the working class, and led to a weakening – organisationally and ideologically – of the mass organisations of the working class.
Those who expected that events of the last year would have inexorably led to the Arab elites being forced to go to war against Israel were living in the ‘cold war’ past. Marxists, however, have an objective balance sheet of that long gone era. Stalinism, based on a very distorted form of a planned economy, was a counterweight to capitalism. But nothing frightened the Stalinist dictators more than the prospect of the working class taking power and beginning to build a new society based on workers’ democracy. Ultimately, Stalinism was a counter-revolutionary force.
Today, we are in a world of turmoil and increasing barbarism, but the working class internationally has begun to re-enter the scene of history. We can see the early glimpses of how capitalism could be ended once and for all – by the independent action of the working class and poor – and a new world of peace and plenty, able to meet the national rights of all peoples, begin to be built.
