The events in Gaza and Israel have driven home lessons that should have been learned long ago.
The role of the United States and western imperialism, including the EU in joining the suffocation of the Palestinians, has again come to the fore. Some on the left, who have defended imperialist intervention in Ukraine suddenly find themselves opposed to its role now; but they cannot both support and oppose it at the same time. Imperialism is not being inconsistent, but this left certainly is, for it cannot will the defeat of imperialism in the Mediterranean while willing its victory in the Black Sea. Were their actions to have the least practical impact this would be obvious.
One prominent spokesperson has paraded their confusion, writing that:
‘No less unbearable is the precipitation with which Western governments (and a Ukrainian government that ought to know better about the legitimate fight against foreign occupation) have expressed their solidarity with Israel, very much in contrast with their muted reactions to Israel’s brutal onslaughts on the Palestinian population.’
Why, among all the supporters of the Western imperialist alliance and one that formally wants to join NATO – effectively fighting on its behalf, should Ukraine “know better” than supporting Israel? Both countries are effectively tools of the United States, receiving massive amounts of military aid and political support, which is reciprocated. Why would these capitalist allies of the US not see their interests as not only compatible but convergent? After all, the President of Ukraine has said he wishes to model Ukraine on Israel!
Of course it is possible to take one’s cue from the barbarity of the conflicts but, given the censorship of Ukrainian atrocities and highlighting of those of Hamas, we can take our cue from accepting what is presented to us in the West or reject both. Either way we fail to get to grips with the nature of either.
Of course, in the case of the Palestinians there is a context which these leftists employ to explain support for them, even when their struggle is carried out by religious fundamentalists, but this leads to two obvious problems. First, all the moralistic rhetoric about civilian deaths as illustrative of the nature of the war in Ukraine, and justifying support for it, can hardly be sustained given the killing of civilians by Hamas. And second, the context of the Russian invasion has to be explained, and not just by the credulous notion that selective ideas of Vladimir Putin are sufficient explanation. The idea that Ukraine’s potential membership of NATO and growing military cooperation with the US might have had something to do with the invasion has been dismissed by the supporters of Ukraine as if in this particular war western imperialism doesn’t count!
The Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk City has parallels with the Israeli shelling of Gaza City as does the political influence of the far right in both Ukrainian and Israeli politics, despite the ignorant argument that because Zelensky is Jewish he couldn’t possibly entertain and celebrate fascists in the Ukrainian armed forces. This ignores both Israeli criticism of Zelensky’s whitewash of Ukrainian nationalist participation in the killing of Jews in World War II and the participation of far right/fascist parties in the Israeli government. The celebration of the fascist Stepan Bandera and his Ukrainian nationalist heroes with a national holiday, street names and iconography, unmissable in Ukraine itself and in photographs of the conflict, are ignored by this à la carte left. ‘Creeping fascism’ is presented as a threat across Europe apart from the country that has armed its fascists to the teeth.
The simple-minded parallel they claim is that both Ukraine and Palestine are oppressed peoples that we should support. Except Ukraine is an independent capitalist state supported by imperialism; the Palestinians don’t have a state and getting one through a two-state solution is a delusion; many Ukrainians support Russia, including the majority in Crimea–do they not deserve ‘self-determination’? and a solution to the problems facing the Palestinian people must also be a solution for the Jewish people, raising all sorts of questions about ‘self-determination’ as their go-to solution.
If the two situations are so simply similar, why doesn’t the pro-Ukrainian left call on imperialism to arm Hamas? (After all, Israel itself gave it a helping hand in order to combat the PLO.) Why doesn’t it call on the Palestinians to show solidarity with Ukraine? Or do such suggestions seem incredible and thus illustrate the difference?
Does it not show that their support for western imperialism is a betrayal of the struggle of the Palestinians? More importantly, does it not show the incoherence of these social-imperialists – proclaiming socialism in words but unable to coherently oppose imperialism in practice – going so far as to actually support it in Ukraine?
Only a class analysis, and not a moralistic melange that cannot withstand the test of reality, provides a compass through which to orientate through the major events that have carried us through the first decades of the 21st century. The rotten and degenerated left that supports Ukraine simply doesn’t notice that its ‘socialism’ is irrelevant. In Ukraine it supports the capitalist Ukrainian state and imperialist support for it under the flag of self-determination, with no role required for an independent working class position. In Palestine its supports for the Palestinian demand for its own state has again no role for a socialist programme and begs the question why they do not support Hamas like they support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with its fascist units – the real Red-Brown alliance they continually complain about in others.
In a world increasingly polarised and drifting more and more into conflict these ‘socialists’ will pick and choose which capitalist state or nationalist movement to follow but have lost the ability to distinguish separate working class interests. Its socialism is an ideal that, while perfect in their own heads, has no grip on reality.
Sráid Marx 
My main point, however badly presented would be that an objective analysis would have to profess some account of capitalist-imperialism. Yet there is a sort of conjuction here, the relationship of one term to the other term, capitalism being symbolically related to imperialism, or capitalism being the acyually cause of imperialism. Do developments within capitalism, an objective process that some think people can be described with scientific tools, or with a method, is what brings into being the structural changes associated with political and military imperialism? The answer should be yes capitalism does make for revivals of imperialism.
However I am not in a position to say with scientific integreity how this process is currently happening. I see State induced changes taking place that are hastening more bellicose acts, there are not just the two big ones heavily focused on my the bougeois media Ukraine and now Palestine, serious belicose events are breaking out in both West and East Africa, Turkey has just launched a major attack on the Kurdish part of Iraq with a view to its destruction, Armenian civilians are being forced out of Nagorno Karabakh , the Saudi regime continue to destroy their next door neighbour, civil war rages in Mayanmar , the Serbs are threatening to invade kosova, there is talk of civil war in Pakistan and a likely war with Afghanistan over disputed territory. To round things off there is the threat of war between the United States and China over Taiwan.
One thing the conflicts appear to have in common is quarrels over the ownership of disputed Real Estate, who owns this or that piece of land or water real estate. During the cold war it was ideology that led up to the threat and reality of war. Today, ideology is less prominent and ‘territorial claims’ is what provokes the most. I don’t know how to explain this in terms of capitalism as I understand it, current events could vindicate Joseph Schumpeter’s contention that imperialism is not an authentic characteristic of captialism , rather war like imperialism is more often a return to a pre- capitalist state of mind, a sort of fuedal primitivism about the ownership of Real Estate and territory. I believe this account is mistaken but I don’t have an alternate explanation right now, the imperialist theories of Lenin and Trotsky are not convining to me, their respective accounts seem to depend too much on the export of capital thesis. When you read Marxist accounts based on the degree of capital export, countires like the Netherlands come out as one of the worst offender. How bellicose is the Netherlands right now? So I am stuck with only offering my subjective impressions of the bad actors.
During the cold war one could persuade one- self that there were at least some ‘good guys’ involded in at least some of the international conflicts. I can’t say this about today, all sides in these actual wars and threatened wars seem to be unworthy and some even down right reactionary, I certainly won’t be pleading for solidarity with Hamas at the next big rally in support of Palestine. I hope the Celtic ultras don’t decide to unurl their pro Palestine flags this weekend. This may be OK in normal times , but to do it this weekend after the massacre of so many Jewish civilians would be most unthoughtful.
Trotsky’s account in The program of Peace, of the basis of imperialism and imperialist war is better than Lenin’s set out in “Imperialism”. It enabled Trotsky to have a better position on the question of The United States of Europe, which Lenin only came to later. The real basis is not the question of ownership of territory, which was the basis of the old European Colonial Empires that served the financial interests of the old landed aristocracy (rent), and commercial bourgeoisie (commercial profit and interest) but the question of the need for ever larger single markets, and so of a common currency etc., and so state, i.e. the reason for the EU, NAFTA, Mercosur, and so on.
But, even these are not big enough in a globalised world, and each of these blocs seeks to assert its standards, and so its economic interests on as wider scale as possible. Hence the current conflicts with China over technology standards, which can be partly considered in similar terms to those of the battle between Betamax and VHS in the 1980’s. China has different standards, just as in the past Europe, North America and Britain had different standards for things like electric plugs and sockets. From a globalisation, efficiency/standardisation perspective, these differences are irrational, but each bloc seeks advantage by trying to have its technology standards accepted on as wide a basis as possible. Western imperialism thought – as they also thought in relation to Japan in the 1960’s and 70’s – that China could only copy and mass produce technologies developed in the west and using those western standards. They were wrong, and China has stolen a march in the way, therefore it has shaped technology markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa/Middle East. Now US imperialism with EU imperialism in tow is trying to catch up, and hold back further Chinese advantage, hence the trade restrictions both import controls, and technology exports.
One thing I would like to add concerns the subjective factor. As Marx upturned the political philosophy of Hegel he parted company with an understanding that bargained deftly with the subjective, objective and absolute spirit as factors. The absolute spirit was semi religious or idealist so that needed to be dropped. Marx steadily became less interested in Hegel’s subjective factor, the perspective of consciousness, instead he emphasised the objective factor, that what ‘rules’ behind the back of the conscious subjects, though he thought the objective factor operated in bourgeois society, mainly the economy being the secret of the changes occurring behind the back of consciousness, Hegel had located the objective factor more with Political Right, law and State.
By brining up the subjective factor I may be accused of reverting to a pre Marxist understanding, but so be it.
When I look at recent events I see something resembling the Falkland conflict,
a war that saved Thatcher from certain political humiliation on the Home front. It should be remembered that the Military Junta in Argentina intended the ‘invasion’ of the island as a boost to its own flagging national ego. In respect to the disputed Falkland Islands the Two opponents offered some ‘legitimate reasons’ for their resort to war to finally sort things out. Yet the territorial dispute was not a new issue, a thing recently discovered, it was longstanding, so the legitimate reasons for war today hardly stood up to critical thought. The truth is that both parties to the dispute perceived a political advantage to going to war at that point in time on the Home front. The conscious subjects saw a opportunity to gain better reputation at Home by going to war. The fact that the Junta gambled and lost the most is less the point.
This is what I see happening both in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. While the legitimate reasons for potential conflict are ready standing, the legitimate reasons have been around for sometime. This is obvious with the case of Israel/Palestine. In respect of Russia, it is often repeated that the Russian State had a legitimate reason for resorting to military action against Ukraine in 2022, namely, a genuine threat coming from Nato and fear of Ukraine becoming a part of Nato. Yet the fact is Ukraine is not yet a member of Ukraine and the attack on the country only hastened the day that it became a part of Ukraine, also Finland and Sweden with substantial military equipment producing industries have rushed to join Nato. So the decision by the Russian Government to opt for war has worsened the objective situation facing Russia. The Russian government therefore opted for war to make the objective situation worse than it already was before.
The subjective factor concerns the social consciousness of the politicians and advisers making the decisions to resort to war. The subjective reason for war is drastic social failures and decline on the Home front. Not only are we aware that the right-wing government of Israel has staggered from one crisis to the next, and is generally thought to be a corrupt failure, the same logic applies to the role of Hamas, it has totally failed to improve the social conditions of the mass of the people living in Gaza and in widely known to be corrupt. Both war parties are acting ‘viciously’ because they see a potential ‘redemption’ in war as a better alternative to the failures they have brought in peace time. So whatever the longstanding ‘legitimate reasons’ the contending political organisations can drag out form history, both recent and ancient, they are not deserving any legitimate support, from socialists and just them, from about anyone with even a spark of political understanding. The same goes for the Russia/Ukraine war parties. To hell with the lot of them!
What is interesting about these debates and disputes on the Left is they instantly return to arguing over the same old longstanding ‘legitimate reasons’ for continuing with the animosity, reasons like self-determination or social justice, rather than explain to the workers the monstrous political consciousness of those who purport to represent their interest.
I don’t wholly agree with your evaluation of the causes of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza but in respect of the role of objective factors your articulation of the questions invokes objective factors as good as any Marxist would. Much more could be said about these factors that would illuminate the actions of the various participants and I have set these out at length in the numerous posts on the war in Ukraine but leave it to others regarding Palestine.
Regarding the motivations of Russia and Hamas; they have not taken the decision to go to war based solely on the circumstances they faced–threatened in the former by NATO and desperate and increasingly isolated in the case of Hamas. The calculations are based not only on the results they hope to achieve but their views of what would be their circumstances if they did nothing. The ideologies of both play their part, including nationalism and religious fundamentalism, which can legitimise and motivate their supporters but on their own cannot be primary explanations.
My main purpose has been to assert a Marxist approach against the capitulation of many calling themselves Marxist who employ the type of approach you mention, principles such as ‘self-determination’ and ‘social justice’ that are not based on the working class and the class struggle, and because they are not based on reality are reactionary for this reason as well.
For example, the Ukraine that these renegades support has has banned Russian as an official language, banned all Russian speaking newspapers, pro-Russian political parties, teaching in Russian in schools, Russian books in libraries and the Russian Orthodox Church. Yet it wants the Ukrainian Armed Forces with its fascist units to occupy the whole of Ukraine including parts that have all these features and support Russian rule. While condemning a pogrom in Gaza they support one in Ukraine. No doubt they deny this, if it has even crossed their minds, but then that is a reflection of their political approach.
On Palestine, their support is very much motivated by the desperate plight of the Palestinian population but the approach which sees this as a single issue of Palestinian rights to their own state is mistaken precisely because of the desperate circumstances they face that can only be addressed by a much wider struggle across the Arab world and further afield. Again and again the concrete circumstances of particular struggles require a socialist programme of permanent revolution.
“This is what I see happening both in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. While the legitimate reasons for potential conflict are ready standing, the legitimate reasons have been around for sometime.”
Legitimate for who? Russia could claim legitimacy, based on a perceived threat. Ukraine could claim legitimacy resulting from an actual threat. But the terms “Russia” and “Ukraine” are simply abstract concepts that really mean the Russian ruling class and Ukrainian ruling class, and their respective states. What is “legitimate” for them is by no means legitimate for the working-class.
Legitimate for the working-class means some objective reason why we, as a class, would support any such war, as opposed to continuing our class war against our own ruling-class, which, indeed, may involve seeking to defend ourselves, militarily, against some other ruling class too, but does not at all involve us voluntarily fighting on behalf of our own ruling-class, rather than against it.
In WWI, as Trotsky notes, in his History of The Russian Revolution Russian troops, sent notes to the German soldiers declaring that they had overthrown the Tsar, and calling on German troops to go home and overthrow the Kaiser. They declared they had no intention of attacking, but would defend themselves against any German advance. The role of the Bolsheviks in that was to seek to organise the troops independently from the Tsarist and subsequently bourgeois military structures, which was facilitated by the workers’ peasants and soldiers soviets, and became the basis of undermining the bourgeois state, and creating the condition of dual power.
“The simple-minded parallel they claim is that both Ukraine and Palestine are oppressed peoples that we should support. ”
Here is the crux of their problem. Marxists do not give concrete support to abstract concepts, such as “people”, but to the working-class – indeed, not even to the working-class, in the abstract, but only to those actually representing the revolutionary, historical mission of the working-class. That is why Trotsky opposed the arming of the bourgeois-nationalists of the Kuomintang, and of the bourgeois-nationalists of the Spanish Popular Front, and instead called for the arming of the revolutionary workers in both those instances.
If the social-imperialists were consistent, then their complaints that the Palestinians have carried out terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians – which results not only from their reactionary, petty-bourgeois ideology, but also from their massive weakness and limitations compared to the Zionist state – would lead them, as they have done in Ukraine, to demand that the Palestinians be granted all of the same kinds of weapons they have demanded for Ukraine to defend itself, instead.
They would demand the installation of the latest “Iron Dome” technology in Gaza, or even, as some social-imperialists have demanded in Ukraine, the introduction of a “No Fly Zone”, over the whole of occupied Palestine, to prevent the use of the Zionist war machine to bomb Palestine into obscurity, especially given the publicly stated ambition of the Nazi Netanyahu and his Ministers to have a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem, by committing genocide against them. Where are the demands of the social-imperialists for the PLA to be given Stormshadow Cruise Missiles to defend itself, or its own F-16 fighters to counter the Zionist war planes? Where is the demand for them to be provided with Abrams or Leopard tanks, so that they can fight on equal conventional terms, and so not have to resort to the tactics of terrorism and asynchronous warfare. We wait for the world’s latest specialist on modern warfare, and the fight against “fascism” – Paul Mason – to rush into print making such demands on behalf of the oppressed and colonised Palestinians, as he has done for Ukraine. After all, Netanyahu is the Zionist clone of Trump, in the same way that Boris Johnson was the British variant, and we all know that Mason sees Trump as the manifestation of all evil when it comes to global fascism, and the fight against it. But, I’m not holding my breath waiting for any such campaign from Mason, which would ruin his chances of securing a Defence brief in a Starmer government, or a position for him within NATO HQ!