Detroit/Seattle
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October 22, 2023
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
The small but densely-populated Gaza Strip is being pulverized by thousands of bombs. Neighborhoods and infrastructure are being destroyed. The death toll is mounting, over 4,000 Gazans have been killed, and whatever statistics are given in this article, the reality will be much worse by the time it is read. No one in Gaza is safe, no matter what type of building they are in, residences, hospitals, or refugee camps, and even 15 UN aid workers have been killed by the bombardment. (1) Human Rights Watch reports that Israel has also resorted to using white phosphorus (a napalm-like chemical) in some of its strikes. Meanwhile there is a blockade against water, food, fuel and electricity getting to Gaza, which puts people into an extremely desperate condition. Only a tiny trickle of aid is finally being let in after two weeks of bombardment. A horrible catastrophe is taking place in Gaza, threatening to eclipse the numerous previous Israeli attacks on Gaza. (2)
The bombing displaced an eighth of the population of Gaza in a few days, but the Israeli military has gone further and demanded that everyone north of Wadi Gaza, or about 1.1 million people, half the population of Gaza, should immediately leave what’s left of their homes in northern Gaza and evacuate to the equally-blockaded and attacked south. This suggests that the Israeli government may be considering a permanent displacement of the population. What it has declared is that that it will carry out a major punitive incursion into Gaza in the name of destroying Hamas, but in which much of Gaza will itself be destroyed. This will be collective punishment of an entire people, leaving them with little if anything to live with.
The fighting isn’t just in Gaza, but clashes are also taking place in the West Bank. Even before October 7, over 200 Palestinians were killed earlier this year by armed extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Israeli soldiers. It has now gotten worse. The Israeli army has imposed a lockdown on the West Bank, making it hard to enter or leave Palestinian towns and cities. This applies, of course, only to Palestinians, and the army not only attacks Palestinians itself but gives a free hand to armed Israeli settlers, who have stepped up actions against Palestinian villages. It is reported that Israeli police are set to supply the settlers with M-16 rifles. There are also clashes on the border between Lebanon and Israel, and Israel has bombed two Syrian airports.
The current increase in fighting began on October 7, when the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, attacked across the fortified border wall into Israel in “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” (also translated as Al-Alqsa Deluge). Hamas surprised the Israeli troops, crossed the heavily fortified border walls, and successfully attacked a number of Israeli military bases, but also made a point of attacking civilian areas, taking hostages, and slaughtering a number of civilians, including 260 people at a music festival. And day after day, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately throughout Israel. Thus the civilian carnage was not an accident, but an integral part of Hamas’s offensive; this atrocity says a lot about the nature of the leadership of Hamas. It does not justify the barbaric Israeli devastation of Gaza, or discredit Palestinian resistance as a whole, and the Israeli revenge kills far more than Hamas ever did. Nevertheless it is both a crime against its victims, and a betrayal of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
This fighting is not an accident, but one of a series of wars that have taken place ever since the state of Israel was established. The problem is that the Israel has been an apartheid state, based on the expulsion of the majority of Arabs (the Nakba) when it was founded in 1948, and preserved by being a Jewish theocracy, a state of Jewish supremacy. Following the 1967 war, Israel also controlled the Occupied Territories, including the West Bank and Gaza. Within Israel’s official borders, 20% of the population is Palestinians, but are not allowed equal rights, while Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are subject to horrendous conditions by the Israeli government which dreams of expelling the Palestinians from all the occupied territories.
Just before the present fighting, an activist of an Arab-Jewish
organization active in the occupied territories, David Shulman, wrote
an article entitled “Heading Toward a Second Nakba”. (3)
It pointed out that “Over the past several years the human rights
situation in the occupied territories has continually worsened, under
the present extreme-right government in Israel, state violence against
Palestinians has escalated dramatically. In the first half of this year
alone, at least thirty-four Palestinian children were killed by Israeli
fire.”
Shulman describes how all the Palestinians were forced to leave the village of Ein Samiya, and this was happening to a number of other villages as well. He describes this as “the Gazafication of what is left of the Palestinian West Bank. ... In effect, the second Nakba is already underway.” Israel is already being, in effect, expanded with a new expulsion of Palestinians.
Meanwhile the Gaza Strip had been blockaded by Israel on and off since the early 2000s. Only certain goods are allowed through. Once Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007, Israel, with the cooperation of Egypt, blockaded Gaza continuously.
In effect, the war against the Palestinians has been going on for
year after year. The US government has helped supply and finance this
war, and now Biden has sent two aircraft carriers to the region to back
up Israel, as well as sending weapons to the Israeli army. He did not
send aircraft carriers, or even a condolence card, when Ein Samiya was
emptied of Palestinians.
Hamas’s slaughter of civilians in the al-Aqsa Flood is also not an accident. It is because Hamas is part of a fundamentalist trend which fights in this way. For years the Palestinian movement was led by groups with a secular program, but the rise of Hamas meant that Islamic fundamentalism was gaining influence. It takes part in the just resistance to Israeli oppression, but, both in its goals and its methods, it also represents a danger to the liberation movement.
Hamas doesn’t seek a democratic state, but an Islamic state. It has
been limited in how far it could implement this in Gaza because the
masses wouldn’t accept it. It has ruled Gaza since 2007, but it hasn’t
held elections in those 16 years. (4)
As for its military methods, the massacres the Al-Aqsa Flood were not an accident, nor the result of a few undisciplined fighters. It was planned by experienced leaders. They didn’t launch the operation in order to hold more territory; that would have been unrealistic. Instead it aimed to take hostages and show how much damage it could do. This wasn’t something new. Hamas has always fired rockets to hit targets indiscriminately in Israel, as well as sought hostages.
Still, Hamas has not killed anywhere near as many people as the Israeli government has. So, some have asked, why be so concerned about it? For one thing, it is a crime against working people. For another, it is a sign of what the fundamentalist trend would do on a larger scale if it had more power. And as well, it’s because Hamas’s actions damage the Palestinian movement in a way that Israeli raids alone cannot. Hamas’s actions drive a wedge between the Palestinian cause and the mass of working people around the world. They also hold back Palestinians from dealing with the political crisis among them, which has existed ever since the Oslo Agreements of 1993. And Hamas’s rule in Gaza has set forward a model of governing by suppression which is meeting with resistance from many Palestinians. All this doesn’t negate that Israeli apartheid is the vicious oppressor of the Palestinians, and the just struggle of the Palestinian people deserves the utmost support. But Hamas’s actions can’t be ignored without harming the interests of the working people, Palestinian, Jewish, or others.
The savage Israeli attacks on Gaza have shocked many people, and
there has been demonstrations not just in Arab countries, but in a
number of other countries. These have taken place in a difficult
atmosphere. There have also been a number of anti-semitic attacks, as
well as a rise of Islamophobia, in many countries. All this makes
the situation complicated, especially for masses of people who aren’t
familiar with the situation facing the Palestinians.
As well, the supporters of Israeli apartheid have sought for years
to present support for the Palestinian people as anti-semitism, and
they have been passing laws against peaceful methods of solidarity such
as boycotts of Israel. In the US, since October 7 there is a new surge
of efforts to suppress all expressions of support, whether from Arabs
or Jews or others, for the Palestinian people. (5)
This is a reflection of what exists in Israel itself, where there is
fierce suppression of any expression of sympathy for Gaza from Israeli
Arabs, who may face losing their jobs or even be arrested. (6)
But this vilification campaign can’t be effectively fought by pooh-poohing Hamas’s atrocities. Instead it is important that vigorous support for the Palestinian cause goes hand-in-hand with opposing the path set forward by Hamas. This isn’t for the sake of a futile attempt to placate imperialism, but for the sake of building the unity of working people everywhere for the Palestinian cause.
(1) There have been many of Israeli attacks on health care facilities in Gaza since Oct. 7, and Israel has demanded that 20 hospitals evacuate. No matter who turns out to be responsible for the horrendous bombing of the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, the overall ravaging of health facilities is a result of Israeli devastation of Gaza. (For the overall damage, see https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142472.)
(2) Israel has maintained a
continuous partial blockade of Gaza ever since Hamas took over Gaza in
2007, restricting what can or cannot be brought into Gaza, strangling
the economy year after year, leaving the infrastructure to decay, and
restricting contact with the outside world.
As well, it has carried out repeated military strikes at Gaza and shooting into Gaza. Among the continual clashes are the following major episodes:
(3) David Shulman, “Heading Toward a Second Nakba”, The New York Review of Books, October 19, 2023. (Despite the October 19th date, the issue actually appeared before the October 7 outbreak of the Gaza war.)
(4) Hamas won the 2006 elections in the Palestinian National Assembly, with over 40% of the popular vote and a clear majority of elected delegates. The resulting struggle between Fatah, which had dominated the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, led to the separation of Gaza from the PNA on the West Bank, with both Fatah and Hamas using force against each other. Since then, there were only elections in the West Bank in 2017, and these were only local elections, not presidential or legislative elections, and no elections at all in Gaza.
(5) Chris McGreal “Pro-Palestinian views face suppression in US amid Israel-Hamas war/Conference have been abruptly cancelled, media appearances suppressed and demands made to fire critics of Israeli policies”, October 21, 2023, The Guardian. Also see Robert Tait, “Hundreds arrested as US Jews protest against Israel’s Gaza assult/Protesters in Washingtron demand ceasefire, marking rift in community as anti-Defamation League condemns demonstration" , October 19, 2023, The Guardian.
(6) Yumna Patel, “In ‘witch hunt,’ Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, Jerusalem IDs, face harassment, persecution amid Gaza war”, October 21, 2023, Mondoweiss.
It writes that “In the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7th,
Palestinian Citizens of Israel and residents of occupied Jerusalem are
being targeted over their social media activity. Any expressions of
Palestinian identity, or support for Gaza, is getting people fired from
their jobs, expelled from universities, arrested, and doxxed online by
right-wing Israeli groups.” <>
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