May 12, 2025 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French.
“We have decided to intensify the operation in Gaza,” Netanyahu said on May 5. “The operation includes a large-scale attack and the displacement of most of Gaza’s population,” added the Israeli army spokesperson.
Intensify the operation? Make things worse than the 52,000 Gazans already killed and the near-total destruction of Gaza’s buildings? By trying to expel two million people and killing those who can’t be expelled?
In Gaza, humanity is being murdered
Before our eyes, people in Gaza are dying—not only from bombs, but also from hunger. Humanitarian aid has been blocked for over two months by Israeli leaders, who are proudly using starvation as a weapon against the population. There is no childhood left in Gaza. Childhood and youth represent dreams and hope for the future—things so deeply rooted in humanity that they usually survive the worst.
However, they have not survived in Gaza. Children, when not killed by bombs or sniper bullets, have no hope, no future. They are like the elderly—without ever having lived. In Gaza, humanity itself is being murdered.
The complicity of Western leaders
European leaders felt compelled to respond—with words only: “Gaza is on the brink of collapse, chaos, and famine,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to the National Assembly. “It is time for the European Union and the entire international community to wake up.” “What we are witnessing is an absolute disgrace,” said his Belgian counterpart.
Wake up to do what? To say, “This is bad,” while letting Netanyahu unleash the full firepower of an over-armed military on a starving, defenseless population? What more will it take for Western leaders to move beyond words—and stop supplying bombs to the Israeli army?
Repression targets those who denounce what is happening in Gaza!
Of course, the French government has not been idle! Instead of acting against the Israeli government, Home Minister Retailleau is targeting those who speak out: under the pretext of combating anti-Semitism, he is trying to ban the association Urgence Palestine (the Palestine Emergency Collective in France), one of the main organizers of demonstrations supporting the people of Gaza.
If he truly wanted to fight anti-Semitism, then it’s Netanyahu he should be targeting! Because of executioners like him, true anti-racists – those who oppose all forms of racism – are forced to constantly remind people not to confuse Jews with Zionists, and not to let outrage at the Israeli government spill over into anti-Semitism.
When has Darmanin (France’s Minister of Justice) ever fought racism?
By harassing veiled women? By fueling Islamophobia with anti-migrant rhetoric and by challenging birthright citizenship? This government, by echoing far-right narratives, is itself one of the leading sources of today’s racism. And now Darmanin wants to lecture us on anti-racism?
The massacre of the Palestinian people must end!
May 15 marks the anniversary of the Nakba—the forced expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. For 77 years, Palestinians have been driven from their land by the violence of the Zionist far right. Three generations have grown up in refugee camps, and now the far-right Israeli regime seeks to wipe them out completely.
Let us show up in force on May 17, especially in Paris, to demonstrate our solidarity with Palestine – and to oppose the repression of those who speak out against this genocide and colonization by the State of Israel.
Now more than ever, it’s vital to organize massive demonstrations against the ongoing massacre in Gaza!
