The war of Israel

Italian translation

The events in Jenin show that the extreme right-wing Netanyahu-led government is an act of declared war against the Palestinian people. Which, alas, is more directionless than ever. The so-called Palestinian Authority, which has long been incorporated into the Zionist occupation, has been largely put aside by Netanyahu's new course of giving the Israeli settlers a free hand. Its only claim, is to be able to carry out its policing functions in the territories as in the past to guarantee Israel's order. Just think that the last elections in the West Bank were held in 2006. Hamas recites words of fire against the Israeli government but its real concern is to maintain its control over Gaza on a reactionary and pan-Islamist basis. Anti-Zionist rhetoric is just ideological cover for its own self-preservation.

But under the blanket of the old beurocracy, the young generation is seething. In the West Bank live, so to speak, three million Palestinians. In Gaza, two million. In Israel live two million Arabs out of a population of nine million. To this must be added the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, those huddled in despair in refugee camps throughout the Middle East.. The average age of Palestinians is 21, 38% are under 15.

These figures describe the enormous mass base and energy potential of a Palestinian revolution. Without a proper direction or with compromised directions Palestinian anger inevitably fuels terrorism against Jewish civilians within Israel itself. It is the unequal and suicidal response to Zionist terrorism, that of the army and settlers, incomparably superior because it is state-based, The desperate terrorism of a thirteen-year-old boy can do nothing against the terrorism of the Zionist occupation forces. It actually ends up reinforcing it. And yet it reveals in its spontaneous primitivism the unwillingness of the young Palestinian generation to submit to Israel's iron heel. When the heroism of the young Palestinians finds a revolutionary political direction, capable of uniting the oppressed and giving them a project, the Zionist state will tremble. And it will be the beginning of a new history in the Middle East.

The subaltern illusion of 'two peoples, two states', nurtured for half a century by international reformism has now and long since crumbled. Only the revolutionary dissolution of the Zionist state, only a free, secular, socialist Palestine, can guarantee the peaceful coexistence of the Arab majority and the Jewish minority. A prospect in turn inseparable from the socialist revolution in the Arab and Middle Eastern region.

Over the past 13 years, great masses have spoken out, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan and finally Iran, demonstrating their strength and courage everywhere. But they have not found a leadership to match that courage. Hence the repeated overthrows (Algeria, Iraq), the subordination to old or new imperialist influences (Egypt, Libya, Syria), the betrayal of hopes (Tunisia), the maintenance of despotic tyrannies (Iran).

There will be new uprisings. The main problem remains their direction. Building it is the task of revolutionary Marxists. And not only in the Middle East.




(Traduzione a cura di Scipione e Banchetti)