My first walk in Munich city centre from Sendlinger Tor U-Bahn station led me to the town hall in Marienplatz from which three banners hung, all upholding Western imperialism.

The first was the flag of Israel, the Zionist state carrying out the most visible genocide in history now promoted by the city authorities where the Nazi party was founded and where it maintained its headquarters until 1945.  Where Hitler launched his beer hall putsch in 1923 and the first concentration camp was created at Dachau.

The second was the flag of Ukraine, home to the most violent neo-Nazi movement in Europe, once recognised by the Western liberal media but now buried by that same media and celebrated as a leading section of the Ukrainian ‘resistance’ which Western liberalism now parades as the vanguard of the fight for democracy.  The banner of Ukraine hangs appropriately beside that of Israel as its President Zelensky has hailed the Zionist state as a model for Ukraine to emulate.

The middle banner was promotion of Mayors for Peace, which neatly parades the hypocrisy of Western imperialism and its liberal pieties.

Of course, Germany is not defined only by its Nazi past or the proclivity of the German state to sanction genocide.  A couple of recent opinion polls record that a majority of Germans oppose arms exports to Israel and oppose the genocide, with nearly 60 percent also opposed to supplying Ukraine with Taurus missiles.  Even Munich has a different history, having been home to a short-lived workers revolution in 1919.

There is more than one Germany and I was pleased when I later came across a Palestine solidarity stall on Sendlinger Straße on my way to Marienplatz again.  The Palestinian woman at the stall told me how difficult it was to carry out campaigning – “up in court” all the time – and that there was a demonstration later in the afternoon.

The rally had around 500 people, which isn’t large for a city the size of Munich, with a large number being what I took to be Palestinian.  A number of speeches were made, all in German except for one in English by a young man of Palestinian extraction who appeared German by his accent.

He gave a powerful speech condemning Western imperialist responsibility for the genocide and condemning the settler colonial Zionist state based on his own family’s story of dispossession.  He condemned the demand that the Palestinians resist along the approved lines of Western liberals and stated accurately that asking politely for their rights would make no difference.  He called for workers, their unions and students to take action.  He also declared that all types of resistance were justified.

Some people can speak powerfully with emotion without losing the ability to articulate their argument and he was such a speaker.  His anger was palpable but so was the feeling that he spoke with a degree of desperation. This is not a criticism, since the plight of the Palestinian people is desperate.  It is not possible to argue that what they are enduring is genocide with no sign of it ending soon, without acknowledging that their situation is urgent and tragic.

The most recent muffled admonishment of Israel by the likes of Starmer and Mertz is even more nauseous than their previous hypocrisy for it signals that not even the grudging and muted acceptance of the reality of genocide will see them take any relevant action.  The speaker’s knowledge that it is Western imperialism that is ultimately responsible makes such awareness unavoidable, which is why he called for an anti-imperialist struggle.

Unfortunately, no anti-imperialist struggle is currently taking place.  Some think one is being carried out by Russia (in Ukraine) and by China but their indifference to the suffering of the Palestinian people simply illustrates the reactionary character of these capitalist states.  That some fake socialists think Western imperialism can actually play an anti-imperialist role (in Ukraine!) demonstrates the bizarre and crooked character of their ’anti-imperialism’.

Liberals have criticised Netanyahu because he has not set out a plan for the day after – when his war aims have been achieved.  The problem is that the issue is not Netanyahu and what we are looking at is not a war but a genocide. The Zionist ‘solution’ is not what comes after genocide but is genocide. In this sense there is no ‘day after’, which will simply be expulsion of those who haven’t been killed, however arranged, however comprehensive and to whatever timeline adopted.

The speaker in Munich understood that the meaning of genocide was the end of any pretence to a two state solution.  Of course, this has never been a solution and has been employed by Western imperialism as an alibi for colonial aggression, but the genocide also signals the death of a one state solution i.e. an imperialist imposed bourgeois state encompassing both the Jewish and Palestinian people.

The speech, for all the truth it contained, left two nagging doubts.  The first was the criticism of the reactionary Arab regimes that have done less than nothing for the Palestinian people, where he called out three states.  This included Morocco and the UAE with one other that I can’t recall.  It did not include the biggest – Egypt – or Saudi Arabia or many others.  Yet liberation of the Palestinian people is inseparable from the liberation of the working classes of all these countries, through the destruction of all the rotten regimes and the capitalist states that they sit upon.

The second was the statement that all types of resistance are justified.  But justification is not effectiveness and approval of all is a sign that there has been no identification of which one is central, what strategy lies behind it and how it should be pursued.

Back in Ireland I returned to read about the latest pronouncement of the gobshite Bono who managed to make Israel the victim (of Netanyahu) while calling for peace.  Less gross, but in reality worse, is the hypocrisy of the Irish bourgeoisie promising yet again to take the miniscule action they have promised for years and which is now so obviously damning in its pathetic inadequacy.

The responsibility of Western imperialism for genocide with this support and its hypocrisy on display in Munich and also the opposition to it, drives home the international character of the struggle against imperialism.  Too often, however, this is not against all imperialism, is not against capitalism – which is often treated as something separate – and does not identify the force for change and the socialist politics that define it. The popular opposition to genocide among the population of Europe alongside the widespread complicity of European states shows that a struggle is required against these states and not just the war and genocide abroad that they are complicit in.