October 28, 2024 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French.
Israel is expanding its war in the Middle East: after the destruction of Gaza, the bombing and invasion of Lebanon, tens of thousands of dead, wounded and hundreds of thousands displaced, it has attacked military bases in Iran, under the pretext of retaliating after Iranian missile launches. [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s warmongering threatens to set the whole region ablaze.
Netanyahu’s wars and their targets
The State of Israel claims to defend itself against what it considers a threat: Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah or the mullah dictatorship in Iran. Yet it has often accommodated those it now calls enemies. Successive Israeli governments initially supported Hamas as a means of dividing the Palestinians, and then let it reign over the imprisoned Gazans. They were satisfied when Hezbollah suppressed popular protest in Lebanon in 2019, and stood by when the Iranian regime crushed the people revolting in 2022 against the oppression of women and misery.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition maintains the state of war for its own interests and pushes its colonialist Greater Israel project, i.e. the annexation of new territories by expelling the Arab populations living there. The victims of Israel’s wars are first and foremost the poor populations of ravaged Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
This Israeli state terrorism is a vast operation of “ethnic cleansing,” using modern military technology: massive bombardments, military occupation, the forced and interminable exile of almost two million Gazans who are unable to leave their cramped territory, the targeting of hospitals and schools turned into shelters, the famine caused by the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid and supplies. The 45,000 dead and 100,000 wounded in Gaza are not military targets. And what about the Lebanese who see their buildings or neighborhoods reduced to ashes by the Israeli air force?
The hypocrisy of the major powers
Netanyahu’s wars are only made possible by the support of the major powers, led by the United States. They probably didn’t decide it, but let it happen, because the U.S. administration needs Israel as a solid ally in this strategic region. And today, both Biden and Trump may be hoping to take advantage of Iran’s weakening to strengthen their domination of the Middle East.
The U.S. president and European leaders half-heartedly criticize Netanyahu for the massacres in Gaza and the risk of destabilizing the region – and their interests. Yet they do nothing to stop Netanyahu, for starters by ceasing to supply military equipment to the State of Israel.
Macron plays the colonial godfather of Lebanon, and talks of rebuilding what the Israeli army has destroyed, to defend French influence. The great imperialist powers only defend their economic and strategic positions. Just like the Arab countries, which claim to be on the side of the Palestinians but don’t care about the fate of the poor – like [Egyptian President] Marshal el-Sisi, who prevents the hundreds of thousands of Gazans crammed into Rafah from entering Egypt.
The Palestinians and Lebanese crushed under the bombs can only count on the solidarity of peoples revolted by these massacres and by their own social condition. And on the solidarity we can show here, against our complicit governments. By refusing to allow these wars to be waged in our name, we can encourage all those who are protesting in the Middle East.
