The hypocrisy and cynicism of Western imperialism is nauseating. Biden, Sunak, Macron and Scholtz, not to mention von der Leyen all visited Israel to express their solidarity with the Zionist regime that over the last few decades has made it clear that the political solution these politicians claim to support is dead. The seizure of land on the West Bank by settlers and killing of those getting in their way destroys any illusions that a two-state solution is remotely being considered. This, and the increasing Zionist violence inflicted on the Palestinian population, is part of the explanation for the armed action of Hamas.
This was roundly condemned by these leaders whilst Israel had already begun to commit mass murder and destruction in Gaza. The rest of the world is supposed to be brow-beaten into acceptance of this ethic cleansing through demands that they accept Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, a right never invoked on behalf of the Palestinians.
As they became aware of mounting horror and opposition to the Zionist regime’s exercise of this ‘self-defence’, they called for humanitarian relief for the imprisoned population in Gaza, with Biden claiming he had won such a concession, before he cleared off back to the US to announce proposals for a $105 billion package of support for Ukraine’s war against Russia and Israel’s mass murder.
The cheque given to Israel, to ensure it could afford its mass killing, was underwritten by endorsement of its murderous siege, with the fig leaf of the opening of the border to Egypt of some relief from the blockade of food, medicine, water and fuel. The population of the north of Gaza was told to move south, as if this was a move to safety and access to humanitarian aid.
Moving south, they were bombed and have met with such pitiful amounts of help it is cynicism of extraordinary proportions. The promise of relief by Biden was as much a part of the war on the Palestinians as the endorsement of ethnic cleansing. The sending of aircraft carriers and other battleships by the US and Britain is a signal that the pogrom being carried out by Israel will receive their protection. The mass protests, despite the propaganda of the capitalist media and threats of prohibition, demonstrate that in many imperialist countries working class people do not swallow the cynical policies of their leaders.
This demonstrates that the Zionist regime is increasingly no longer regarded as an innocent victim and that many want to express their support for a people subject to unimaginable oppression. Opposition to the Zionist state is growing in the West but even this short resume of what has happened in the last few weeks reveals a bigger picture.
While the focus of many has understandably been on the immediate death and destruction meted out by the Zionist state, the actions and words of Western imperialism reminds us that the question of Palestine is not only about Palestine. Israel is a settler colonial state sponsored by western imperialism, although also supported upon its creation by the Soviet Union, a testament to the reactionary nature of Stalinism.
The tyrannical Arab regimes are likewise creations of Western imperialism, which determined the borders of their countries for its own purposes. Having just read some Marxist analysis of the Palestinian struggle from the early seventies, I was reminded that one such regime turned on the Palestinian movement and crushed it within its borders, in Jordan in 1970. The recent recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain, demonstrates again that these regimes are utterly reactionary. Just before the latest events Israel was in negotiations to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, which no doubt would have had some empty and worthless gestures towards the Palestinian ‘problem’ as part of the deal.
From the point of view of these regimes the Palestinian people are indeed a problem – that their populations are bitterly opposed to its oppression while they seek to advance their state interests, including through improved relations with the Zionist state.
In the past these Arab states were so weak, venal and corrupt that their subordination to Western imperialism was abject. Their support for the Palestinians involved sponsoring their organisations as mirror images of themselves, cut down as in Jordan in 1970 when they became too big and powerful. While these regimes have grown stronger and US imperialism has declined, so increasing their room for manoeuvre in protecting their own interests, these interests do not involve saving the Palestinians.
It is not a coincidence that the major opposition to Israel and immediate potential support to the Palestinians comes from a non-Arab regime–Iran–which is opposed by US imperialism and the Zionist state because it has asserted its own interests against them. US imperialism has attempted to reverse its decline by provoking conflict, including marshalling its subordinate allies across the world in economic and military conflict with the enemies that might benefit most from its eclipse.
This has involved the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, further expansion of its military alliance in Europe, and expanding economic sanctions against China. The assertion of US authority in the Middle East through full commitment to Israel is part of the attempt to protect its imperial role in the region. The opposition of Iran, the more muted opposition of the Arab regimes, and the increasing role attempted by China are all regional aspects of the ratcheting up of imperialist competition and conflict across the world. The Palestinians in Gaza are currently in the maelstrom of all this, symbolised and made vital by Biden’s proposal for a $105 billion package to support Ukraine’s war and Israel’s mass murder.
Forward to part 2
Sráid Marx 
Pingback: Attack on the weak civilians and abusing Judaism – Worldviewer
Pingback: The enemies and friends of Palestinian Liberation (2) – 🚩 CommunistNews.net
I was about to write something along these lines, today. I was prompted by watching the TV, yesterday, and having read the latest missive from Paul Mason. The latter has no value as far as any Marxist understanding – of pretty much anything – but does, however, have some value as a weather vane of where the imperialist drive is heading, as he acts as its front runner.
Its fairly clear to me that imperialism, or at least sections of it are driving towards war with Iran, and that is just the latest arena, following on from Ukraine, South China Sea, as the US tries to cling to its global empire, in conditions where its economic power, and reach, globally, is in relative decline. Mason, views this as follows.
“If you listen to the advocates of multipolarity, they describe it as a project of “nonalignment and peace” – a long, orderly process whereby geopolitics falls into line with the economic reality of rising Chinese power. Multilateralism and the rules-based order are replaced with formalised spheres of influence, in which all universal concepts – human rights, international law, the rule of law – are reduced to localised, culturally relative norms set by authoritarian elites. The West remains free to be universalist and follow the rules, but nobody else bothers. The only trouble that might arise is where America resists the inevitable.”
He doesn’t seem to understand that this end of US hegemony is not the result of some conscious plot, but the result of objective economic and social laws, just as when British hegemony ended in the 20th century! Analysing those changes in material conditions, and setting them out, is not at all the same as being a cheerleader for them, but is fundamental to an actual Marxist understanding, and precisely why it is driving towards a new global imperialist war.
The cheer leading seems to be entirely on his side, of the social-imperialists trying to Canute like resist that reality by holding on to the apron strings of nanny US imperialism, rather than recognising the opportunity and necessity of building an independent working-class pole. So, I was interested to see his further comment,
“In the case of Hamas and Iran, we should be in no doubt of what the desired outcome of the aggressor is. Mohammed Deif, the Hamas commander in Gaza, spelled it out on 7 October: the destruction of Israel by a region-wide war.
The presence of two American aircraft carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean is testimony to how seriously the USA takes that threat. The shoot-down of cruise missiles launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, by USS Carney, signals the kind of alert status the US Navy must be on.”
So, he proceeds on the basis that Hamas actions can only be explained on the basis of Iran pulling its strings, and, behind Iran stands Russia and China. The idea that Hamas acted, because of the continued and intensified actions of the Zionist state, of settlers, of the actions in the Al Aqsa Mosque, and so on, are discounted, and its all just part of a strategy dreamed up by Iran. In fact, of course, the CIA, having looked, found no evidence that Iran had been involved in promoting the Hamas attack on 7th October, and so we have Mason as led warmonger, even adopting a more hawkish stance than the CIA! Not surprisingly, however, later yesterday, we saw Lindsey Graham and other neo-con hawks in Israel saying something similar to Mason, and threatening that if Hezbollah responds to the Zionist attacks on its territory that too will be taken as being backed by Iran, and so justification for US military response.
In fact, from the start, the Zionist state has tried to expand the conflict, as I predicted they would. They have bombed and shelled the West Bank, they have done the same with Syrian airports, and Damascus, and Lebanon, and yesterday, they shelled and Egyptian position, though they claimed it was a mistake. An extension of the ar covers their actions in Gaza, and gives the pretext for a further annexation of Arab lands, but for the US gives the pretext for war with Iran, though they would, no doubt, as with Ukraine, use the Zionist state as its proxy, but providing background support via its fleet and air force.
Biden also needs that, because the war in Ukraine looks lost. Reports show that Ukraine is getting heavy casualties, nearly all from shrapnel rather than from bullets. That is because their progress has been so slow they are nowhere near getting close to Russian troops. They are just getting mashed in mine fields, and as they are tied down, getting shelled from distant entrenched Russian artillery position. As Autumn proceeds, they are going nowhere, and Russia will just harden its entrenched positions even further. So Biden needs a distraction from another military failure, and as US opinion is turning against him and the Zionist atrocities, a wider war with Iran, gives cover for that too.
There are indications here and in the previous post of reverting to an older orthodoxy. That is you prefer to say that Israel is a Zoninst State and a colonial settler society. Why not a typical capitalist society with maybe peculiarities? Incidently I have read accounts that argue that most of the disputed land was in fact sold to Jewish organisations by feudal Arab landowners and not stolen by conquest as is asserted by the colonial settler thesis. If these accounts are merely apologetic I can’t say but facts are worth checking. Whatever the history it seems to me that Israel is a capitalist society and should be understood on the basis of the class divide.
Israel is not a typical capitalist society, whatever that might be, and the conflict cannot be understood without knowing its origin and nature as a settler colonial state. The particular nature of the other capitalist states and regimes in the region is also necessary in order to understand their role. That all are capitalist states means that we look to their workers to overthrow these states and create workers’ states but they differ radically in the composition of their working classes and how it might reasonably be expected they would have the interest or capacity to do so. Traditionally it has been understood that only at the level of the Arab world as a whole is it possible to consider successful workers’ revolutions and the Israeli state posited within this wider struggle.
I am not an expert on the creation of the Zionist state although, like yourself, am aware that Zionist organisations and capitalists bought up much Arab land but this is secondary to the mass violent expulsion of the indigenous population. The settler colonial state did not set out to exploit the local population but to expel and destroy it. This is one important reason to be more specific about the nature of the Zionist state, of Zionism as an ideology and of the apologetics advanced on behalf of them.