Against the carnage in the Middle East, 

beyond nationalism to class war against the ruling class!

On 7 October, Hamas attacked Israel with thousands of missiles. The Hamas raid killed around 1,200 people, and more than 100 were kidnapped and held hostage. In response, Netanyahu's government declared a "long and difficult war" and launched airstrikes on Gaza, killing more than 2,300 Palestinians. By 14 October, the number of refugees in Gaza reached one million, half of the total population (around 2.2 million). Most of the victims in this massacre were civilians.

Netanyahu cut off electricity, fuel, and other basic supplies to Gaza, where more than two million people live, and demanded that Palestinians leave the territory, saying the Israeli army would reduce it to a "pile of rubble." The Israeli military says the new phase of the offensive will include new, more lethal attacks, and that it is committing ground troops to Gaza. In response, the "Shiite belt"(Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Syria) collectively said they would "intervene (in the war)" if Israel sent ground forces against them. Prior to this, the United States decided to provide additional military assistance to Israel, which has one of the highest military capabilities in the world.

Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel is intricately linked to the conditions of the domestic ruling class, as well as to the interests of the ruling class in the Middle East and the global imperialist powers. The actions of Hamas in ruling Gaza are not in the interests of its own proletariat oppressed by Israel. Domestically, it aims to remove the influence of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from the Palestinian people and to assume an exclusive position in the fight against the State of Israel.

During the Cold War, Israel helped create Hamas, which espouses an Islamic ideology, to undermine the radical Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In 1987, an intifada broke out in Palestine, and in 1993, the Oslo Accords, which called for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, were signed, only to become scraps of paper. The Palestine Liberation Organisation then formed a shadowy self-government in the West Bank, while Hamas, which rejected Israel, established itself in Gaza. Later, corruption and bureaucracy in the Palestinian Authority led to the growth of Hamas, which used radical rhetoric. The current Palestinian National Authority (PNA) under Mahmoud Abbas has long been in crisis due to corruption and incompetence, and its collaboration with the Israeli occupation has further compounded its predicament. In response, Hamas, along with other resistance groups, has taken to armed action to expand its influence under the pretext of reacting to Israeli repression and increased provocations. It was supported by opponents of Israel, but it is a far cry from the life of the proletariat in Gaza, who not long ago were protesting against the Hamas regime, protesting power cuts, food shortages and the regime's extreme repression.

Externally, to shake up the Abrahamic Accords, which seek to create a new order in the Middle East centred on the détente between Israel and Saudi Arabia in a logic of conflict between imperialisms, and to build solidarity with forces that support Hamas or oppose Israel.

The Abrahamic Accords, named after Abraham, the common ancestor of Jews and Arabs, were an attempt by US imperialism to create a new order in the Middle East by fully normalising relations between Israel and the Arab states. It is also a policy that isolates the Iranian imperialism of the ayatollahs who support Hamas.

In response, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said in a broadcast after the October 7 attack on Israel, "An entity that cannot protect itself in the face of resistance cannot provide any security guarantees. All the agreements to normalise relations that you (Arab states) have signed with them will not resolve the (Palestinian) conflict." Hamas showed its presence by criticizing the normalisation of relations with Israel through Israeli attacks.

The Hamas attacks and Israel's declaration of war have largely complicated Israel's agreement with the Saudi royal family. Iran, a major power in the region opposing Saudi Arabia and Israel, has said it supports Hamas's latest operation, as has Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Iran has supported the Assad regime, which belongs to the Alawite sect, as well as the Shiite sect of Hezbollah, Iran has been working on solidarity with Middle Eastern countries opposed to Israel in the region to weaken its enemy, Israel.

Israel's declaration of war and escalation of conflict in the Middle East following the Hamas attack means a prolongation of the war in Ukraine and an escalation of imperialist and military tensions around the world. This shows how capitalism is on the march towards generalised war.

All of this carnage is nothing new. It is the result of a decades-long bloody conflict between the capitalist ruling classes in Israel and Palestine, which has brought nothing but harsh suffering and sacrifice to the workers and poor proletariat on both sides.

While the inhuman oppression, discrimination and violence perpetrated by the Israeli government against Palestinians over the past decades has led to popular resistance, terrorism and murder carried out in the service of its own ruling class, such as the actions of Hamas, this is just the logic of bourgeois war and, like all such wars is a crime against the working clsss. Similarly, the barbaric retaliation of the Israeli government, which wages a war of ruthless repression and massacre in response to Palestinian resistance and terrorism, is the war logic of a reactionary and violent ruling class and a grave crime against humanity.

Nationalist propaganda has been flowing for decades on both sides, and the ruling classes have fuelled the issue relentlessly. The logic that justifies supporting a war described as a "holy war" between "good" and "evil" in the so-called "Israeli-Palestinian" territories is now widespread not only within the ruling class but also within the working class. This nationalism is one of the most harmful bourgeois ideologies, and ethnic/racial hatred is a product of the capitalist social system. The bourgeoisie of the world is forcing the same proletarian class to attack and kill for the "their" ruling class, always saying to choose one side through nationalist ideology in these barbaric conflicts. Whether in Israel or Palestine, the working class should not have to make any sacrifices for the ruling class that exploits them.

In Gaza this summer, thousands demonstrated in protest over living standards, and before that staged strikes against the Hamas government. In Israel, an airport strike shut down airports this year, and public sector strikes have shut down airports, ports, and government offices before. Although the working class on both sides is currently trapped in nationalist, capitalist and imperialist logic, preventing it from fronting the struggle against its "own" ruling class, it must begin to take class action to prevent further carnage.

The working class must refuse to be recruited into the wars of the ruling class and fight against the exploiters on both sides. There is only one way for the Israeli and Palestinian working class to escape the pain of war and the threat of carnage. It is the rejection of all ruling ideologies on both sides, including nationalism, and the struggle beyond nations and borders for common working-class interests. It rejects the sacrifices workers are forced to make by the capitalist crisis and war, and wage class war against the ruling class. Only an international class struggle to overthrow the capitalist system can end the carnage and wars.

Workers have no homeland!

Oppose nationalism! Overthrow the genocidal system!

Refuse to sacrifice workers and go to class war!

Let's stop the war through international class struggle to overthrow the capitalist system!

16 October 2023

No War but the Class War (NWBCW) Korea Committee

Internationalist Communist Perspective (ICP)