The Algerian insurgent replies: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on unarmed villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims?”
Then he delivers the punchline: “Of course, if we had your fighter planes, it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our handbags and baskets.”
In the current conflict in Gaza, a role reversal would see Hamas armed with fighter planes, air-to-surface missiles and battle tanks, while the Israelis would be hitting back only with homemade rockets.
The Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. Modern war is waged by economic might, and Israel with its GDP of around $110 billion (in 2000), whereas the Palestinian territories have a GDP of $4.2 billion (in 2000): the former has the capacity to routinely outgun the latter. Israel uses terror on a much larger scale than Hamas, because it has much greater military capacity.
Israeli, the recipient of a 10-year, 30-billion-dollar U.S. military aid package, 2009 through 2018, has state-of-the-art equipment provided gratis – under so-called “Foreign Military Financing (FMF)” – by the United States. By 2015, these grants will account for about 55 percent of all U.S. disbursements worldwide, and represent about 23-25 percent of the annual Israeli military budget.
The largely homemade Qassam rockets launched by Hamas, their ineffectiveness is apparent in the statistical results: over 2,000 launched, with only two very unlucky civilians killed on the Israeli side. That is less than the eight Americans killed accidentally last year by celebratory rockets on the 4th of July.
According to the latest figures, the two-week long conflict has claimed the lives of more than 620 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including over 230 women and children, and over 3,700 wounded, while the Israeli death toll is 27 soldiers and two civilians.
The Israeli heavy handed approach will not end the problem. There is nothing exceptional or unique about the present crisis. For the Palestinian state-in-waiting, it is a familiar tale about conflict over land and resources between an "occupier" and a "subject people", an occupation deemed illegal by the United Nations under resolutions 242 and 338 which call upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories but sanctioned by the world's only superpower.
So where do socialists stand in all of this?
Socialists are always spontaneously on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular among the Palestinian people or their supporters.
When it comes to the nationalistic zeal of recent days, there is nothing at all with which we can identify. Nationalism has imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real interests. The labels Jew or Moslem, Palestinian or Israeli do not camouflage the bigger and more permanent label of "working class", a label most caught up in the present crisis could, if challenged, identify with. Both sides can only lose their lives and liberty, so long as they see their own interests lying in the suppression of each other, rather than in the destruction of the murderous armed elites that promote the war on both sides.
As socialists we will welcome even a fragile peace that temporarily halts the horrors of occupation and terror. That is partly because we sympathise with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. Our message to the workers who call themselves Israeli and the workers who call themselves Palestinian is to cease the slaughter. Socialists have no hesitation in stating that this violence is in no way, shape or form in the interest of the working class. Socialists are revolted by the violence of the Gaza conflict. We condemn both sides and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers throwing in their lot with nationalist or other political leaders of capitalism, whether they are well-funded like the Israeli state, or weaker like Hamas.
The slaughter in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a world without nations and nationalism. Peace is always better than war.
So where do socialists stand in all of this?
Socialists are always spontaneously on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular among the Palestinian people or their supporters.
When it comes to the nationalistic zeal of recent days, there is nothing at all with which we can identify. Nationalism has imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real interests. The labels Jew or Moslem, Palestinian or Israeli do not camouflage the bigger and more permanent label of "working class", a label most caught up in the present crisis could, if challenged, identify with. Both sides can only lose their lives and liberty, so long as they see their own interests lying in the suppression of each other, rather than in the destruction of the murderous armed elites that promote the war on both sides.
As socialists we will welcome even a fragile peace that temporarily halts the horrors of occupation and terror. That is partly because we sympathise with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. Our message to the workers who call themselves Israeli and the workers who call themselves Palestinian is to cease the slaughter. Socialists have no hesitation in stating that this violence is in no way, shape or form in the interest of the working class. Socialists are revolted by the violence of the Gaza conflict. We condemn both sides and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers throwing in their lot with nationalist or other political leaders of capitalism, whether they are well-funded like the Israeli state, or weaker like Hamas.
The slaughter in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a world without nations and nationalism. Peace is always better than war.
No comments:
Post a Comment