ICWP Grows in Israel here ♦ Letter from Israeli Activist here ♦ A Call for Communist solidarity here ♦
TEL AVIV (ISRAEL) September 2024
ICWP Grows in Israel: Defeat Fascism, Zionism, and Genocide with Revolutionary Communist Internationalism
TEL AVIV (Israel), September 9— “We are marching for a total victory,” said M. “A total victory is the end of capitalism,” he quickly added. “When we the working class from Gaza to Israel unite and create a fertile ground for a communist revolution around the world.”
Comrade M was among six comrades who had gathered in a Tel Aviv apartment the night before Israel would witness the largest demonstration in Israeli history.
Comrade L agreed to this sentiment but added, “Horrific pogroms are going on in the West Bank. We know some sympathetic Israelis who have befriended Palestinian workers in Jenin and Nablus.”
The meeting lasted several hours. Some comrades were skeptical about us joining in the demonstrations. They said it would just be a show of anti-Netanyahu Zionists who would not challenge the genocide in Gaza. Others said that some people there would be open to our ideas.
Some comrades reread the ICWP Gaza pamphlet. They said what they got from letters in that pamphlet from comrade Hamza in Gaza is that he sees tremendous hope in many Israeli workers’ desire to fight Zionism.
A bilingual teacher who speaks Arabic and Hebrew urged us to go to the demonstration and distribute Red Flag clandestinely. Many of her students come from Zionist families, but she said they are Gen Z who have rejected their parents’ Zionist worldview. They see the genocide in Gaza and are in shock, disbelief, utterly disgusted with endless cruelty. She says they are open to communism.
Amid Ultranationalism, Many Open to Communism
On the day of the mass demonstration, we were able to gather more of our friends and supporters. As more and more people joined the rally, we were getting drone updates. We tried to reach Histadrut, the Zionist labor union whose workers had joined in a nationwide strike. After about four hours we found them. The workers were demanding the return of the hostages in Gaza.
We quickly distributed our copies of Red Flag and the Gaza pamphlets. We only brought 50 RFs but after that, we shared our website link via a wireless link.
We had amazing conversations with a student who attends UCLA in Los Angeles (USA). He participated in the encampment there and raised his fist when he saw our literature. He said he knows lots of friends at UCLA who he said were ‘radicalized’ by the genocide in Gaza. He gave us his contact information and promised to keep in touch with us when he is back.
We also met a group of teachers who were glad to talk to our bilingual teacher comrade. They said that the Gaza war has had a profound effect on the students. The two years of covid and the Gaza war have created many psychological problems. However, the Israeli school system is collapsing due to a lack of funds that are diverted for war. Thousands of soldiers are coming back with severe PTSD and have no counseling resources.
We thought the rally was full of ultra-nationalism, but in the middle of this ideology that the capitalists spread, we were able to bring about two dozen people. Many of them will read Red Flag and the Gaza pamphlet now. We will keep up with the contacts we made.
In our next meeting, we are going to make sure to include some of the Israeli workers who are in touch with workers in the West Bank.
And finally, we heard that comrade Hamza in Gaza is still alive. Hopefully, he will write soon.
Solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Gaza, West Bank, and all over the world! We will break the chains of wage slavery. Communism is the future.
Israeli Workers and Youth Becoming Disillusioned with Fascism
I will soon be 49. I read your newspaper Red Flag. The situation is awful here. We are all the time in a struggle to save lives – mostly Palestinian. My children are on the way to Tayibe to demonstrate against the war today. They would like to read your newspaper and the pamphlet on Gaza.
You won’t believe, the people here are outraged by the daily killings in Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu won a huge number of Israeli workers to open fascism. That’s why the US ruling class lets him keep his power despite his seeming “insolence” towards the US government. But the longer the war drags on, especially if it spreads to Lebanon, the more likely it is that workers will be disillusioned with fascism.
—Israeli activist
A Call for Communist Solidarity with the Palestinian Masses
GQEBERHA (South Africa), September 12— In October, all the ICWP collectives in South Africa will be marching in support of the Palestinian masses. That will mark a year since the unjust war on them began. We call upon all ICWP collectives around the world to join us and inspire the masses to end all capitalist and imperialist wars, occupations, and genocides through a communist revolution.
The genocidal war in Gaza is now escalating and spreading to the West Bank. And yet we are told that there is no Hamas in the West Bank, that they are only in Gaza. So, it now becomes clear that this is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against the Palestinian masses.
“In my lifetime, I haven’t seen the level of devastation that there is now in Gaza anywhere else in the world,” said a comrade here.
Schools, hospitals, churches have all been bombed. Civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. There’s no water; no power. There’s no food. Hundreds of thousands have been killed (directly or indirectly) by the US-backed Israeli assaults.
“A friend showed me another picture of a Palestinian family,” the comrade continued. “They were eating soup made of grass. This shows the level of devastation and desperation among the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, the bosses have ignored the Palestinians.
“We have seen that the Netanyahu leadership of Israel has no interest in peace,” he continued. “They are trying to kill as many Palestinians as possible, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank. The number of Palestinian prisoners abused in Israeli jails grows at a great rate. It reminds me of Apartheid South Africa.”
We Need to Do More
It’s easy for some people to become numb to this kind of violence when it has been happening for some time now. But we need to draw peoples’ attention to this.
We need to not only talk about the Israeli government’s atrocities, but to do something about this. What is happening in Gaza has a direct impact on us, because these are our class brothers and sisters.
Therefore, the comrades in South Africa are planning a Toyi-toyi march in solidarity with the Palestinian masses, with our banners and literature.
In preparation, our collective will be distributing the Red Flag and the ICWP Gaza pamphlet in Muslim areas near us and in another area where there are many immigrants from the Middle East. We want to recruit them to join ICWP so that we can fight together for an end to this genocide.
We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli government and its US imperialist enablers who are directly aiding these atrocities by supplying weapons and diplomatic cover.
This crisis shows the need to mobilize for our communist ideas. What we do matters and also what we do not do matters. Until we defeat capitalism, there’s no way we can end these atrocities. The only way is to fight for communism. Only then will the Palestinian people be free. Not with a two-state (capitalist) solution.
The only solution is communism.
GQEBERHA (SOUTH AFRICA) November 2023—Protest against genocide in Gaza