Extracts from an article by Judy Beishon, CWI International Secretariat, published on 6 October 2025 socialistworld.net
On the second anniversary of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent prolonged genocidal slaughter in Gaza, the fate of Trump’s latest proposals for an end to the war is still in the balance. The US plans to impose a transitional government of technocrats on the Palestinians in Gaza, backed up by outside armed forces – a form of naked colonialism.
Israeli military forces will be allowed to remain inside the perimeter of the Gaza Strip, maintaining control of its borders – a continued blockade, imprisoning the Palestinians and deciding what goods can enter and leave the strip. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has made clear that Israel has no intention of entirely withdrawing from Gaza and stressed that there will be no possibility of a Palestinian state.
Trump has been caught between US support for Israel and the increasing pressure from Arab states and from domestic opinion in the US, Europe and elsewhere for an end to the war. US representatives initially claimed that the plan had the support of the leaders of a number of Arab and Muslim countries. But when the final outline was released, those leaders could only express conditional support, as the dominating interests of US imperialism and the Israeli regime in it became clear.
Tony Blair
Incredibly, Tony Blair is to be part of the imposed authority’s governance, the same Blair whose hands were drenched in blood in the invasions he led the UK into in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Sky News commented: “Palestinians in general don’t see Blair as anything else than a war criminal and a mercenary, and do not expect anything positive coming out from his involvement in a region he has already damaged” (30 September).
The first stages of the plan could possibly go ahead, but with a high chance of collapse at any time and a resumption of full-blown war by Netanyahu’s government, with Trump’s backing.
So devastating and horrific have been the two years of war, that a ceasefire in much or all of the strip, whether now or later, will inevitably be a massive relief to its starving, traumatised and displaced population.
Recognising the relief that a ceasefire will bring, or even more so, an end to the war, doesn’t mean in any way supporting a deal imposed from above – over the heads of the Palestinians – by the imperialist and capitalist powers. Their intent is just a change in the form of occupation and rule, because the length and intensity of the war has collided more and more with their interests, due to the anger from below that is rebounding on them domestically. Also, the Western powers view their closest capitalist ally in the Middle East, the State of Israel, as damaging its own interests by continuing the war and therefore see it as in their mutual interests to intervene.
No element of their interventions has the interests of ordinary Palestinians at heart. A flow of countries has formally recognised a Palestinian state, including recently three Israel allies in the G7 group of capitalist powers, but the Israeli ruling class has no intention whatsoever of conceding a genuine Palestinian state and neither do the capitalist powers worldwide intend to try to force it to.
Socialist Party says
- End the war on Gaza, the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all the Palestinian territories. For the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from those areas
- The release of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli prisons and the Israeli captives held in Gaza
- A mass struggle of the Palestinians, under their own democratic control, to fight for liberation and the right to self-determination
- The building of independent workers’ parties in Palestine and Israel and links between them
- An independent, socialist Palestinian state, and socialist change in 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
