Letter from Gaza Comrade here ♦ Intensifying War, Growing Revolutionary Potential here ♦ Main Contradiction Affects All workers here ♦ Comrades in Israel say: Seize the Moment” here ♦
Letter from an ICWP Comrade in Gaza
Dear comrade,
Amid mass genocide and mayhem, I am actively organizing for communism and our party, ICWP. It has been more than a year of imperialist genocide. My determination to organize for the communist revolution has been unshakable for as long as I have been alive.
I can give you millions of examples of what has shaped my unwavering desire to smash capitalism; when I was in Khan Yunis, a missile struck a school where people were sheltering. I was just a few meters away. We estimated over 40 people perished, and some of those who survived died in agonizing pain.
I was hit by a shrapnel on my right hand. I did not know how bad the injury was. Everyone was rushing to save lives. The doctors, the ambulance staff, and nurses were working frantically to those injured severely. I ended up in the corridor of the hospital where the doctors were triaging. They had run out of emergency supplies, and patients with head injuries were treated with vinegar.
I can never forget the screams and wailing when someone died. And I will never forget to this day, a young girl, perhaps six years old, was so severely burned that her flash was coming off. The doctors had no way to save her, and very reluctantly, she was left in the corridor to die with others. Her screams haunt me. But this was just the beginning of thousands of stories like her.
But it was also the beginning of my attempt to organize for communism, where the working people would have no nation, no borders, and no money. That communist society will create a new foundation where wars for profit will end.
My basic survival could be more stable. I have been displaced more than 20 times. But I am still trying to be with many friends. I made the Red Flag English, and Google translated it into Arabic. I then distribute it to people around me. Most of the time we go trying to find food and water, sometimes for more than 12 hours. But in the long lines, waiting for food, we talk about what communism would look like.
Many people have asked about the party group in Israel. That brings people to life. To imagine ICWP in Israel is absolutely amazing. We also read accounts of some holocaust survivors who have denounced Israel’s genocide. Then, we talk about the history of the Palestinian movement and how it was shaped by nationalism. The early history of the communist party encouraged nationalism. Most of the Hamas leadership was born in the refugee camps.
Our party has rejected this nationalism. When we talk about this in big and small meetings, people around us want to know more. They know how corrupt Hamas became even though it started as a relief agency to help poor people. Nationalism made Hamas into a small group of capitalists trying to exploit the masses.
I don’t want to see the future generations of survivors of the Gaza genocide be the reincarnation of Hamas. I want them to be communists and change the world. I am talking to young people about communism, some as young as two years old. Everyone can learn to be communist. They are so resilient. Some of them have lost their parents. The war has created a desire in them to be without a war. This gives us a tremendous opportunity to explain to them how to build our party for communism.
These young people are the future of our party. I have met hundreds of them and talked to them about the history of communism. I play football with them, I take care of their needs. They in turn find cell towers and charge stations for me. They are an absolute pleasure to work with; what we do today is going to build a robust foundation for the party. They lovingly call me ‘aleamu alshuyueiu alahmir’ (red communist uncle). We have managed to find a red piece of cloth that we use in our informal meetings. I will send you a photo when possible.
I have also made contact with a young university student who was enrolled in a nursing program. When all our universities were destroyed, he managed to enroll in an online Hebron University, where he met people from the West Bank. This was possible because you gave me access to the Internet. He is very appreciative of it and gladly distributes RF to the people he meets online.
Communism is the future, comrade; the Gaza survivors amplify it loudly and clearly.
Genocide in Palestine, Lebanon Invasion: Intensifying Imperialist War and Growing Revolutionary Potential
October 1— We see the future now in Palestine.
Tens of thousands of civilians murdered in Gaza. Homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure destroyed. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners tortured by the Israeli state. Fascist attacks on West Bank Palestinian communities by settlers and the Israeli military. The extension of this mass murder and destruction to Lebanon.
US imperialism and its allies pay for the Zionist state’s genocidal war. Its main purpose is to control energy resources in the region, especially oil and gas reserves in the Mediterranean off the Gaza coast.
This is another step in an unfolding third world war. It shows what is in store for all of us as competing imperialists fight for world dominance.
We have also seen the potential for a new world. Masses worldwide are horrified by this genocide. They unite to protest, build solidarity, learn how to organize, and exchange ideas.
Comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) are in this struggle to win over our class siblings to organize for the communist revolution that, alone, can end imperialist war. We are in it to build ICWP into a mass working-class force that can take power.
Zionism and Inter-imperialist Rivalry
Zionism was an imperialist project under the British Mandate (1922-1948) and since then as a US outpost in oil-rich southwest Asia. The US government pays for Israel’s weapons and backs Israel’s crimes unconditionally. It recently sent Israel another $8.7 billion in military aid. US imperialism blocks every UN Security Council resolution against Israeli occupation and apartheid.
But the global declining rate of profit, while intensifying the exploitation of workers worldwide, has also accelerated the decline of US imperialist power.
Meanwhile, China’s rise is transforming the world. The Chinese government is not a force for liberation but a rival exploiter fighting to replace US domination with its own (see pages 7 and 8).
China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have developed an anti-US economic and strategic partnership. Proxy wars between that bloc and the US and its allies have already killed thousands and displaced millions in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. A million have been killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine, now in its third year and teetering on the brink of nuclear confrontation.
Nowhere has the devastation been more complete than in Gaza.
There Israel confronts Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”: Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. But let’s have no illusions about their intentions. The new Iranian president, visiting the UN, made it clear that his main goal is to sell more oil, especially to Europe. Iran is not a force for liberating anyone.
Peril and Opportunity
Netanyahu has abandoned Israeli hostages in Gaza for an ever-expanding genocidal war. He is riding high in Israel for the moment. But he, the Zionist state itself, and US imperialism, are also in peril. Some US allies, like rats on a sinking ship, are trying to distance themselves from the US-sponsored genocide. Only a handful voted with the US against a recent UN General Assembly resolution condemning Israel.
The movement towards a direct inter-imperialist confrontation has accelerated with the Israeli “Defense” Force invasion of Lebanon. The US is adding more troops to the 40,000 already in the region. Israel’s war is potentially a second front in a global war. As the US commits to Israel, China will be free to aggress further in the South China Sea and Taiwan.
Workers, Students, Soldiers: Let’s Fight for a Communist World Without Exploitation, Borders, or Imperialist War
Hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—worldwide will mark the anniversary of this round of genocide and resistance in Palestine and Lebanon. Many demand a permanent ceasefire, a US arms embargo to Israel, that Israel stop the genocide.
We do not make demands of the class enemy. We understand that capitalism can never bring peace. Instead, we organize to stop imperialist war by overthrowing the capitalist state and building a communist society.
Many call for a free, independent Palestine within the framework of capitalist states in southwest Asia. But every state is an oppressive capitalist dictatorship within an imperialist world order.
The future we see in Palestine, in contrast, is the growth of new ICWP collectives in Gaza and Tel Aviv. They, like ICWP collectives worldwide, are preparing to fight for communist liberated zones defended by a Red Army.
Our comrades are in the streets and universities in Delhi (India). Mexico City, and southern California (USA). But industrial workers and soldiers are key to victory.
ICWP organizes industrial workers in San Salvador, Gqeberha (South Africa), and Seattle (USA), and among soldiers in Johannesburg (South Africa). This groundwork will create a revolutionary force that can transform world war into an armed fight for communism everywhere.
We ask you, dear reader, to join us. Read, distribute, and contribute to this newspaper. Help bring it to factories and barracks. Call us or send an email. Visit our website.
We need you. And, if you want to end this genocidal system, you need us.
The Main Contradiction is Affecting Every Worker in the World
October 2024— US and its NATO allies provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine by pushing NATO and its missiles closer and closer to Russia. For Russian imperialism, US missiles near Moscow are an existential threat. Russia invaded Ukraine. US-NATO are increasing their attacks on Russia. The China-Russia-Iran axis has responded by keeping the US and Israel rulers bogged down in the genocidal war in Gaza.
The US imperialists continue sending weapons and billions of dollars to the fascist Israeli government for its genocide. The US, German, and French imperialists are supporting Israeli fascists to get control of the oil and gas off Gaza’s coast and maintain control of the Mediterranean Sea to also control access to oil and gas in northern Africa.
The rising China-Russia-Iran axis supports Iran’s proxies Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah to an extent: to keep the US bogged down in Israel and to expand their influence in the whole area. They pretend to be champions of the Palestinian masses. But they only care about world domination—just like their declining US/NATO rivals.
In Niger, when masses cheered in the streets and kicked out the French imperialists, they were replaced by the Russian imperialists. Workers need communism, not changing imperialists.
In Nigeria there have been mass protests against galloping inflation. Workers cannot buy food. They are attacking the greedy Prime Minister, who has close ties with China. US imperialists are encouraging the rebellion to have “regime change” to put a pro-US ruler in power. But the masses yearn for a system that meets their needs. That is communism. They need ICWP.
The same struggle is playing out in Venezuela between Maduro and Edmundo Gonzales, his US-supported opponent. The US seized Maduro’s plane and took it to Florida. Lula of Brazil has switched imperialist masters and is attacking Maduro, who is supported by Russia and China.
All over the world, the imperialists are fighting over the bodies of the masses of workers who are being attacked by the capitalist crisis. . Each one is fighting to control resources, markets, and workers’ labor power. We need to build ICWP and spread Red Flag everywhere to mobilize for communist workers’ power to end the deadly rule of capitalism and imperialism forever.
“Seize the Moment” : Comrades in Israel Discuss War and Revolution
“I believe we are in the beginning stage of a world war,” said Comrade M. “The conflict between rising China and declining US imperialism is driving every aspect of workers’ lives everywhere. It is ironic that China’s trade relations with Israel have not been affected.
“Some sections of the ruling class in Israel might have wanted a truce with Hezbollah to kick the US out. In that case, so many things are possible. On the other hand, if the main section of the Israeli ruling class does everything that the neocons in the US want, the war of attrition has a limit, and it can turn sooner into a major conflict.
“In both these cases,” M concluded, “war is on the horizon, and the working class has nothing to gain from it. It is in the interest of the working class to end capitalism once and for all and establish communism. That is where the Red Flag can be the building block of communism. Our struggle to organize in the military with the industrial working class can defeat all the imperialists.”
“Exactly,” Comrade N agreed. “And waving around nationalist flags, Palestinian flag included, will not help workers – only the Red Flag can lead us to a different future.”
“There are already a number of IDF [Israeli “Defense” Forces] soldiers resisting the Gaza genocide,” said Comrade X. “Their resistance can be converted into revolutionary struggle to win the soldiers on the side of the Palestinian and Israeli workers.”
Comrade O agreed. “Lots of US revisionists wade into the murky water of Palestinian nationalism, and even express support for reactionary gangsters such as Hamas as they are ‘resisting Imperialism.’ That is, serving the Chinese bosses rather than the US ones.
“I agree with you that most Israeli bosses are subservient to US interests,” O went on. “That’s where they get most investments from. Same with right-wing think tanks, they all get US funding (usually from Evangelists and other reactionaries).
“However, if Trump will do to Israel what he did to his Kurdish allies, the bosses will soon be in bed with Chinese interests. That is, he will abandon his faithful servants to their fate to cut his losses. That’s what he did to the Kurds.”
“We have to seize the moment,” urged Comrade X. “The comrade in Tel Aviv who is organizing at UCLA in the US has the vision to change the world. Let us recruit him and many people like him. When there is a communist unity of the Palestinian workers with the Israeli workers, the world will join us in organizing for a communist revolution.”
—Comrades in Tel Aviv (Israel)
BARCELONA (Spain), September 27—One-day nationwide general strike of students and workers against genocide in Gaza
Read our Pamphlet:
Genocide in Gaza Demands Communist Revolution: here