Oscar Parry, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
Residents across Gaza were thrown into chaos and terror last week as the Israeli state launched a surprise bombing campaign that killed 400 people in one night, 200 of which were children, and wounding hundreds more. The death toll for the conflict is now at least 50,000. Even before the renewed attacks, Gaza was in ruins.
Netanyahu has shattered the fragile two-month ‘ceasefire’ that limited the worst of the attacks on Gaza. Even during this period all aid was blocked, Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks continued, and violent repression on Palestinians in the West Bank stepped up.
Trump says he fully supports Israel’s renewed attacks, and Netanyahu is set to establish a government agency that would oversee the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. This follows Trump’s monstrous proposal that the whole population of Gaza could be “cleaned out” and Gaza turned into a US-owned “riviera” as a playground for the rich.
Various capitalist powers around the world have condemned the renewed attacks, but their moral outrage is only skin deep. It reflects a view of the capitalist ruling classes that Netanyahu and Trump are simply going ‘too far’ in trampling over the norms of ‘international law’ and capitalist relations, and are increasing the risk of new popular uprisings worldwide.
Britain’s Labour foreign secretary David Lammy initially condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza as a “breach of international law,” before being rebuked by Keir Starmer to say that Israel was only ‘at risk’ of breaching international law. Starmer is attempting to cosy up to the Trump regime to avoid tariffs and preserve the ‘special relationship’ between US and British capitalism.
This sickening jockeying for position while mass slaughter is being carried out, is in stark contrast to the genuine outrage felt by workers and the poor worldwide.
In Britain, thousands continue to attend protests at short notice. The Socialist Party is calling for the trade unions to play a central role in the anti-war protests, including by linking the fight against more military funding to the fight against brutal attacks on disabled people and other austerity policies.
The working class in Britain developing its own new mass political force – fighting against the capitalist bosses and for a socialist alternative to war and austerity – would strengthen the struggle of the Palestinian masses and all struggles of the oppressed worldwide. The presence of five MPs in the UK parliament, elected in opposition to the war on Gaza, could be a potential step forward on the road towards such a new party.
The actions of Netanyahu and the Israeli state are fuelling a profound rage – the huge protests rocking the cities of Israel itself are an indicator.
This rage of the masses in the region will, at a certain stage, erupt in volcanic lava flows, shaking the Israeli capitalists, the elites in neighbouring Arab states, and the imperialist powers across the world.
The Socialist Party fights for:
- End the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all the Palestinian territories. For the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from those areas
- For a mass struggle of the Palestinians, under their own democratic control, to fight for liberation
- For the building of independent workers’ parties in Palestine and Israel and links between them
- For an independent, socialist Palestinian state, alongside a socialist Israel, with guaranteed democratic rights for all minorities, as part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East
- No trust in capitalist politicians internationally. Fight to build workers’ parties that stand for socialism and internationalism
