Tel Aviv: Jews and Arabs Unite for a Common Future here ♦ Genocide and Imperialist War in Gaza here ♦ Answer Imperialism, Nationalism, and Genocide in Israel/Palestine Organizing Internationally for Communist Revolution here ♦ .
“Please Come Back! Immediate Cease Fire!” in Hebrew and Arabic
Tel Aviv: Jews and Arabs Unite for a Common Future
Jews and Arabs met on October 25 in Tel Aviv to talk about the injuries and crimes, the expectations, and about the Jewish-Arab partnership in the fight for the future of this place, despite all its challenges.
At the end of the conversation, we went out to the street together, to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Our hearts are with all the families of the murdered, the kidnapped, the countless victims of both nations.
We will march into the protest and bring with us the call to end the occupation and apartheid and drive a real democracy, as it has never been here before.
Our slogan should be the venerable slogan: “No War but the Class War!”
“Neither Bibi nor Hamas but a Communist Revolution!”
—Red Flag Reader in Palestine/Israel
Red Flag responds: This is inspiring! We applaud your unity and courage in confronting the fascist government. The future that we all need is to eliminate capitalism and replace it with a share-and-share-alike communist society. Forward, comrades! We are with you!
Genocide and Imperialist War in Gaza: Masses Need Communist Revolution
October 25—We condemn the fascist Israeli rulers for their continuing genocidal bombing of the civilians, hospitals, and schools in Gaza. For telling Gazans to move south and bombing them when they did. For arresting Jews who show solidarity with Palestinians.
We condemn the fascist Israeli rulers for their ongoing genocidal siege that cuts off food, water, medicine, fuel, and power. Over six thousand have been killed—likely many more. At least 40% are children!
Condemnation is not enough. We—the international working class—must answer this genocidal attack on our family in Gaza by building ICWP everywhere. By organizing revolution worldwide to bury capitalism and its horrors forever!
All Capitalists and Imperialists are Guilty of War Crimes!
US and UK imperialists firebombed German cities during World War II. They reduced 126 cities to rubble and killed over 800,000 civilians. The US firebombed Tokyo and 60 other Japanese cities, killing over 900,000 civilians. That was before they dropped two atomic bombs.
German and Japanese fascists committed hideous crimes. The Nazis killed over 6 million Jews, over 28 million Russian civilians and soldiers, and many others. Japanese imperialists slaughtered 35 million Chinese workers.
Since then, US imperialist bombs have killed millions of civilians from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan.
In the 1990s, Russian imperialism massacred 144,000 Chechnyan civilians, mostly Muslims. They leveled its capital Grozny. The Russian proxy Assad devastated Syria.
The Chinese imperialist proxy Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia conducted a war in the Tigray region in 2020-2022. Hundreds of thousands died from famine and war-related violence.
Only communist revolution can end this.
Capitalists and Imperialists Threaten World War III
The Israel-Hamas conflict can inflame the Middle East and the whole world. US carrier strike groups are offshore to warn the rulers of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah (Lebanon) against intervening. Undeterred, Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, has shelled Israeli military targets and has 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel ready to fire if Israel launches a ground invasion of Gaza. The US might then decide to go after Iran.
French president Macron calls for the anti-ISIS coalition (US, Canada, Europe) to go to Israel to fight Hamas. Like Ukraine, this is still a proxy war of US-NATO vs. Russia-China-Iran. But that can change quickly.
They are fighting over which imperialist will rule the world. US imperialism has held this position since 1945, based on its control of Middle Eastern oil.
In 1973, US rulers got Saudi Arabia to sell their oil only in dollars. The whole world followed. The dollar became the world’s primary reserve currency, further securing US world domination.
US imperialists armed Israel and the Shah of Iran to protect this oil. But they soon started to lose their grip on it. They lost Iran in 1979, when the Shah was overthrown.
Now Saudi Arabia is allying with Russia and China. Saudi oil is on the market in Chinese yuan. This is the death knell of the petrodollar and US world domination.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Fundamentalism: No solution for Arab Workers
A wave of nationalism, anti-monarchism, anti-imperialism, and socialism gripped the Arab masses in 1952. Egypt’s king was overthrown, and a republic declared.
Arab monarchs and Western imperialists saw this as a threat. They responded by spreading Wahhabism, a form of Islamic fundamentalism, through hundreds of Saudi-funded Madrassas (schools). US imperialists supported these schools. They produced the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Osama bin Laden.
The Saudi rulers funded Hamas in the 1980s, with US and Israeli support. Their goal was to divide the secular nationalist movement fighting for a Palestinian state. But Hamas betrayed its sponsors. It became an Iranian client.
Communism, Not Nationalism, Will Liberate Us
Zionist forces “ethnically cleansed” villages in southern Palestine in 1948. They corralled Palestinians into the Gaza strip prison camp. For 75 years, Gaza has been carved into ever-shrinking parcels of bombarded and besieged land.
Hamas leaders are capitalists, not revolutionaries. The “Free Palestine” they fight for is a capitalist Palestine. The Palestinian masses are, and will still be, racistly exploited. Hamas will participate in making them wage slaves of the capitalists-imperialists in the China-Russia-Iran bloc.
Our working class is one class. Arab and Jewish workers have united in the past, even in the face of attacks from Zionists and Palestinian nationalists.
We see some of that unity today when thousands in Israel, Jewish and Palestinian, march against the Israeli government’s war crimes. Women are in the lead.
Many thousands are marching in Egypt, Turkey, the UK, the USA, and around the world against Israeli government genocide. We find many open to communism and our party. Our International Communist Workers’ Party has taken small initial steps toward building a collective of Arab and Jewish comrades in the region.
Arab and Jewish workers, who are all exploited, will unite again. Workers worldwide will unite. This time, for communism.
Answer Imperialism, Nationalism, and Genocide in Israel/Palestine: Organize Internationally for Communist Revolution
October 24— “Here in Israel/Palestine we have the horrible price of nationalism and its failure to offer anything positive to workers,” said a comrade in Israel. Four of his relatives died in the Hamas assault. “Nationalism leads to slaughter.”
The well-coordinated Hamas attack on twelve Israeli villages took Israel’s intelligence agency by surprise. Hamas soldiers captured sophisticated tanks and paralyzed Israel’s panicked army. Most Hamas forces retreated with hostages for negotiations.
Hamas is no friend of any workers. Iran, Turkey, and Qatar finance its militia, which terrorizes the Gaza working class. Only a small part of the money goes to Gaza’s most impoverished workers. Hamas invited massive retaliation from the fascist Israeli government — and got it.
The Israeli air force is conducting genocide, bombing buildings to ruins, and killing terrified adults and children. The Israeli rulers have not spared hospitals. They completely cut off food, fuel, electricity, and water. They ordered the northern half of Gaza to move south and then bombed them when they did. These are war crimes! The Israeli rulers have massacred close to six thousand civilians, forty percent of them children.
Hamas is willing to sacrifice two million Gazans to draw the Israeli army, already demoralized, into bloody urban war. It wants to draw Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Hezbollah in Lebanon into war against Israel. Its main purpose is to neutralize US influence and weaken the Israeli army that serves as the US police force in the region. That would change the imperialist balance of power.
Iran, China, Russia Benefit from Genocidal War
Saudi Arabia recently joined the China-led BRICS bloc, another sign of the diminished US role. The US proposed to build a rail system linking Europe to India via Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was supposed to be an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Hamas has destroyed that dream. Meanwhile, Iran has signed a huge oil deal with China. Qatar has a lucrative natural gas deal with China.
“I hope this isn’t the start of World War III,” said an Israeli activist in the US. Garment workers in El Salvador say the same. It may well be.
The US imperialists are fighting Russia, China, and their proxies on many fronts. They are using Ukraine in eastern Europe as they use the Israeli rulers in the Middle East. The formidable Chinese military is challenging them in Taiwan.
The main section of the US ruling class wants to step up its support for its Israeli and Ukrainian clients. It’s limited, though, by its unprecedented political disarray. Meanwhile the $$billions spent on growing wars hit US workers, as inflation rises quickly there as well as in Israel.
The desperate, isolated US imperialists are as murderous as Israeli capitalists. They aren’t giving up the fight to regain their former global dominance. But “the Israel-Hamas war is tilting the global power balance in favor of Russia, China,” lamented the Wall Street Journal. From Ukraine to Israel to the Sahel in Africa, Taiwan, and beyond, all imperialists will slaughter endlessly for profit.
“Communism Now”
The alternative is to turn the bosses’ wars on the world’s workers into communist revolution to end the profit system. The International Communist Workers’ Party is in the beginning of the protracted process to recruit masses, especially industrial workers and soldiers, for this fight.
“There are hundreds of thousands of hungry people on the other side of the Gaza border,” said a comrade in Egypt. “They are willing to fight.” We must transform their anger into class war to end capitalism.
“People are sick and tired of this nationalism,” said a comrade in Pakistan. “What we need is communism now.”
“Nobody trusts the Israeli army,” said a comrade in Israel. “That’s why many self-defense groups are formed.” It was obvious when thousands of reservists refused duty. Anti -fascist groups must learn to defend the international working class by fighting for communism.
Comrades in Iran want us to produce Red Flag in Farsi.
These comrades have been reading and discussing Red Flag for years. Other comrades have patiently struggled to help them overcome their former nationalist outlook. We must build more and stronger communist relationships internationally. We must answer the shock and awe of genocide with communist commitment and hope.
Communism: No borders, no nations, no imperialist wars. No wage slavery, profits, or even money. Workers everywhere will produce, share, and distribute what the masses need. That will create a lasting foundation for unity.
Comrades in South Africa are turning their outrage over the genocide in Palestine into more forceful recruiting to ICWP. We must do that everywhere.