On October 7th 2023, Palestinian Resistance fighters broke down the walls of the Gaza concentration camp and exposed to the world the fragility of the “israeli” occupation. The result has been twofold: an overwhlemingly violent and genocidal reaction by the zionist entity, and a rapid growth of the global anti-zionist movement.
Hundreds of thousands in Gaza are dead or displaced, southern Lebanon continues to be bombed by the zionist entity, the people of Iran and Yemen face continued aggression by the American and “israeli” powers, and the people of the Occupied West Bank face escalating settler violence.
Following on from October 7th, Resistance activity in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran has shaken the very foundations of the zionist entity and of broader imperial hegemony across the region. It is clear now that the pre-October 7th status quo in the region cannot return.
Across the world workers have tried to disrupt the zionist entity’s supply chain by blockading arms factories and ports. They have marched and protested in huge numbers against the complicity of their governments. People who barely knew anything about the Palestinian struggle before October 7th are now aware, educated and actively engaging in the solidarity movement.
The Palestinian Resistance forces set a spark on October 7th that has lit the fire of a regional war, one which continues to burn and spread. The “israeli” state’s strategy is to normalise its existence through continuous terror bombing campaigns against the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians and Yemenis, supported by the American and British militaries. Lashing out like a rabid dog, it attacks any opponent it finds. The “israelis” have discovered that the Americans are no longer interested in restraining them. War with Iran was the inevitable result.
For their part, the Iranians and their regional allies have proven that they can inflict severe military, commercial and political losses on the American empire. This year began with the question of whether the Iranian state could survive, and it now ends with the question of if the American empire can even continue to project power in the region.
The British response has been to support the zionist entity’s attempts to destroy all Resistance even as the war continues to escalate. It has flown spy planes over Gaza to provide information for the “israeli” Occupation Forces, allowed American bombers to attack Iran from British air bases and taken every opportunity to launder “israel’s” reputation both abroad and at home. Recently, in an attempt to save face domestically and to give its policies a veneer of “peaceful” intent, the Burnham government has introduced a series of sanctions against the most fascistic elements of “israeli” society: its settlers in the Occupied West Bank.
Settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become so frequent and so indefensible over the post-October 7th period that they constitute a real threat to the zionist entity’s international image. Western governments desperately hope that by restraining some of these more fascistic elements of “israeli” society they can rescue the zionist entity’s deteriorating reputation. By specifically sanctioning only these “israeli” settlers and artifically separating them out from the zionist entity itself, the government is actually trying to protect and normalise the occupation.
This arbitrary distinction between “illegal” settler violence and the supposely “legal” zionist entity does not hold up to any scrutiny however. In reality these two groups work in concert: settlers depend in IOF protection to conduct their attacks, and settler attacks serve the zionist entity’s goal of terrorising the Palestinian population and stealing their land. No matter what dividing lines the British State draws, it matters little to Palestinians if they’re forced out of their homes and murdered in their beds by “legitimate” soldiers or by “illegal” settlers.
These measures, which amount to blocking less than 1% of British trade with the zionist entity, will not significantly damage or restrain “israel”. They are not really intended to. The Burnham government has explicitly stated that they are largely symbolic and that they are merely a “reset” in British-”israeli” relations, not a major change. The government still opposes the BDS campaign, still arms and supports the forces of occupation, and still refuses to call what “israel” is doing in Gaza a genocide, thereby avoiding the legal obligations this would impose on them. This is because they are stil at their core supporters of the zionist entity and its so-called “right to exist”.
No token measures will distract us. Nothing the British State can do will ever turn back the clock of history on Palestine because they cannot make the world forget “israel’s” genocide, nor are they willing do what it would take to restrain the rabid dog now it has ben let off its leash. There is no going back to the pre-October 7th state of affairs.
Zionism operates on an obviously racist logic and cannot do otherwise. Its whole basis is in the oppression of Palestinians. Without its mass explusions, mass imprisonments, mass land thefts, mass murders and apartheid racial system the zionist entity would not be able to maintain its existence and could not have come into being in the first place. From its very beginning, the zionist entity has been a settler-colonial outpost of the American Empire and its partners in Europe. Its purpose is to steal Palestinian land, “civilise” it with settlements and use it as a base from which imperialists can project power into the rest of the Middle East. In the infamous words of Joe Biden “if there were not an Israel, America would have to invent one”.
Now the genocidal actions and warmongering that the zionist entity have engaged in during this post-October 7th crisis, as well as the near-unanimous support those crimes enjoy in “israeli” society, have revealled to the whole world the fundamental nature of the zionist project. Liberal attempts to defend the honour of “the only democracy in the Middle East” and so-called “liberal zionism” are failing because the zionist entity’s own actions have shattered that myth. Protestations that a non-racist zionism can be found ring more hollow every day, eagerly disproven by the “israelis” themselves.
Many British political parties and politicians are also complicit in legitimising the “israeli” occupation of Palestine. We have seen this with the political establishment’s enraged reaction to the Green Party’s recently passed “Zionism is Racism” motion. In Wales, senior politicians from the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and even many amongst the Greens themselves have come out to condemn this motion. That leaders of the Green Party are willing to leave or sabotage their own party over this is telling. Multiple Labour MPs, meanwhile have announced that they have reported the Green Party to the police.
That such a motion passed despite strong rejection by leading Green Party figures is an encouraging sign of how the emergency in Palestine and the strength of the global response to it are pushing internationalist and anti-colonial opinions into the mainstream. That is something that the ruling capitalist class cannot abide. This is why the reaction has been so extreme and immediate.
The successes of the Iranians in closing the Strait of Hormuz, followed by the recent military victories of the Ansar Allah Movement in Yemen threatening fuel shipments across the Red Sea have shown that far from there being American-”israeli” hegemony in the region, these imperialist powers are in fact totally unable to dislodge their enemies.
The looming fuel crisis facing Britain and much of Europe neccesitates a “de-escalatory” response for the Middle East, but these sanctions will not have that effect. Already we are seeing dramatic increases in the price of energy and fuel that stem directly from the success of the Iranian and Yemeni Resistance in controlling the straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab and forcing out American military presence.
It is baked into the fabric of “israeli” society that it must keep escalating a campaign of terror in order to secure its existence. Sanctions by the British state against “israeli” settlers cannot transform this reality; it is fundamentally a settler state predicated on genocide and thus will always rely on settler violence and land theft to secure its existence so long as there are Palestinians. It will burn the whole region down in an attempt to maintain itself.
October 7th proved that the zionist entity is more vulnerable than it would like to appear. In response it is lashing out violently, seeking to terrorise its regional opponents into accepting its existence. It knows that at present it cannot survive without European and American support, and that its only hope for long-term survival is destroying all its adversaries as soon as possible. The success that the Iranian and Yemeni people have seen in their war against “israel” and America prove that these attempts to normalise the occupation through force and terror will not be successful. The plan being concocted in the UK, Canada and much of Europe to save “israel” from itself is doomed to failure also.
It is more and more clear that the zionist entity’s occupation of Palestine is a weak link in the chain of imperialism. Communists around the world are rallying around attempts to end the Nakba, the catastophe of zionism which destroys the lives and freedom of the Palestinian people, because this is the front line in the war against imperialism. Every member of the working class must join this effort.
Zionism will end. Imperialism will fall. Palestine will be free.
