Yarmouk and Gaza, Palestinians Under Continuous Attack
The trigger for the latest Zionist barbarity in Gaza was Trump’s change of position on Jerusalem, which was a clear signal that the U.S. is not interested in a Palestine solution. The U.S. has junked the UN resolutions on getting a settlement before arriving at a solution for Jerusalem. That caused a massive- and angry Arab response which fueled the mass Gaza protest. It licensed Netanyahu to go after Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria. Netanyahu got the green light to ramp up the rivalry between Israel and Iran and he repaid Trump in kind with ‘evidence’ of WMDs in Iran as a pretext to break the nuclear deal and impose more draconian sanctions. This forces the EU powers to make a decision either to stick with the U.S. bloc or risk the loss of U.S. markets by moving towards Russia and China. That dilemma faces them now, (e.g.) as Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany nears completion.
Gaza is a pawn in the growing inter-imperialist rivalry between the declining U.S. and the rise of Russia and China, a pawn where Israel and Iran are the main regional proxies. As the focal point of the only post WW2 colonial settler conquest in the Middle East, Palestine remains at the center of the Arab revolution against the imperialist counter-revolution.
As Russia gains over the U.S. in Syria and draws Turkey, Iran and Qatar into its Eurasian bloc, the U.S. is devoid of even a Kurdistan protectorate. Trump wants out of Syria and wants to keep his promise to “let Russia handle Syria.” But U.S. troops are still in Syria and Assad wants them gone now (there are oil fields there) and is willing to attack. The U.S./Russia “Bromance” agreement to put their differences to one side and collaborate in a “war on terrorism” was always just this problematic in practice. But assuming no large scale Assad attacks on Deraa, the agreement now looks more likely, as Russia grumbles about its ally Iran’s intentions in Syria and across the Levant. The U.S./Russia agreement is to smash the Arab revolution. As the military defeat of the Syrian revolution looms the prospects for revolution in Iran are growing, which has to make Putin contemplate his cost projections! For now we can expect Russia’s Astana plan for a new constitution and the likely partition of Syria to embed the Russia/China bloc.
We nevertheless foresee a widening of the inter-imperialist conflict and more possibilities for full-on proxy wars developing. These conflicts are driven by bigger economic frictions that cannot be put aside. In this light, the success of el Sadr in the Iraqi elections could mean that the U.S. and Russia/China might clash over Iraqi oil, where both imperialist blocs have about equal stakes. It is possible that Iraq will once more become the focal point of their “Great Game” for the whole of Eurasia, throwing the Iraqi masses once more into the crucible.
“Moscow did not condemn Israel’s strikes, as it had in the past, instead calling on Israel and Iran to resolve their differences diplomatically.” NYT (May 10)
Russia has been making a play to neutralize Israel for several years and has an agreement to develop offshore gas fields near Haifa. If for the moment Netanyahu plays blood brother to Trump after the embassy move, he is nevertheless seeking ways to inveigle the U.S. into war with Iran, a strategy the Zionist regime has pursued since 1990. A former Mossad general has revealed to Eliot Engel on MSNBC (5/25/18) that Israel now is engaged in a “rolling escalation” of attacks on Iranian forces in a war with Iran that “already exists,” with the aim of making it impossible for the U.S. to stay out of this war. Like Trump, Netanyahu wants to break Russia out of its alliance with China, so as to permit this war with Iran without world war. But Trump has not taken the bait yet and has only given the green light to use up some U.S. furnished military supplies on Iranians in Syria.
And just because we of the Communist Workers Group (CWG) oppose Iranian and Russian intervention in Syria, don’t think for a minute that we condone or refuse to condemn the Israeli escalation. Without support from Russian bombers, Iranian “Revolutionary Guards” and the Hezbollah, the people of Syria would have toasted the overthrow of Assad years ago. While Assad bombs Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp Israel guns down peaceful protests in Gaza. Israel is not bombing Iranian positions in Syria to support the Syrian masses. Rather, taking the cue from Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement with Iran, Israel is showing it knows when it is obliged to use up stockpiles of “equipment” which U.S. taxpayers (the most generous people in the world) will be required to replenish. On both sides of the aisle Democrats and Republican legislators are preparing to sell us World War 3 in hopes of securing new sales orders to keep their benefactors, the military industrial capitalists in the black. As a reward for its great death-dealing customer, the U.S. administration picks exactly this moment to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the colonial settler state! As long as they can deceive the U.S. masses they do not care that the world knows the U.S. has no more interest in Middle East peace than its pet monsters Netanyahu and Assad.
Lest anyone do any critical/historical thinking on the subject of Middle East imperialist criminality, Senator Schumer of New York introduced a bill to make advocacy of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement a crime and to explicitly outlaw criticism of Israel, with staggering financial and jail penalties! This proposed law follows the enactment of a similar South Carolina statute. And if some in the Knesset right get their way, it will be illegal to even photograph the Israeli troops, since photos are used to shame them!
While branding Palestinians as aggressors, the U.S. regime simultaneously cut off aid funds for humanitarian organizations in Syria. Far from the fake left’s alternative facts mantra that the U.S. is trying to overthrow Assad, the funds cut slashes the budget of the White Helmets (Syrian Civil Defense) by one third!
For decades liberal Zionism has argued that there is no one on the Palestinian side to negotiate with as they are all terrorists. Holding high the banner of Israeli “democracy” they admonish the Palestinians and the left to use non-violent civil-disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Gandhi to address their concerns, just as their latest allies in the USA, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) do. This ruse is again being exposed this spring in Gaza, just as when Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Zionist home demolition with a Caterpillar backhoe. In 2018 Gazans bravely face gradual extinction due to contaminated water, limited electricity, brutally restricted access to the world, limited food and medical supplies. Today, when peaceful protests are launched at the barbed wire, IDF snipers are given orders to shoot to kill unarmed civilians. The true program of Zionism is to eliminate the Arab presence inside the green line and ultimately across the West Bank, and by making Gaza unlivable, to ethnically cleanse the refugee camps just as Assad is doing in Yarmouk.
Learn and remember that despite the apparent animosity between Israel and Iran they are both undemocratic counterrevolutionary capitalist theocratic regimes. Pragmatically and strategically they are united with Putin, Trump and Assad in their opposition to the resurgent Arab National Revolution going permanent as it runs up against the limitations of imperialism/capitalism and seeks a socialist solution. Victory to Palestine! Long live the Syrian revolution!We call on the international working class to rise to the defense of the Palestinian people, of the Syrian people and the working masses of the Middle East.
U.S./NATO and Russian/Chinese imperialists out of the Middle East now!
Down with the proxy regimes that divide and rule their masses!
For non-sectarian unity of all popular Arab, Iranian and Kurdish forces for national self-determination!
For an international communist movement that can intervene militarily for the Permanent Revolution throughout the Middle East!
For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!
