TEL AVIV (Occupied Palestine), July 10 — “I want a copy of Red Flag. My daughter is a reservist in Lebanon. We are extremely worried about her,” said Ethan. Samuel, who was distributing Red Flag, has known Ethan for a long time. Ethan was shaken when he saw the Red Flag with the picture of Iran’s national football team holding children’s backpacks to represent the killings of schoolgirls in Minab. He repeated, “My daughter,” as if he wanted her back.
“Ethan has occasionally gotten a copy of Red Flag, but I did not know his daughter was an IOF [Israeli Offensive Forces] reservist,” Samuel told our collective meeting. Comrades asked him to pay closer attention to Ethan because we are receiving reports that a large number of reservists are refusing orders to go to Lebanon.
Censorship in Israel prevents public reports of military casualties. But Israel’s mental health crisis is crippling its economy. More than 15% of IOF soldiers are reporting PTSD. Clinics and hospitals are refusing new patients. Many hospital support staff themselves are at a breaking point, unable to cope with depression.
During their duty, IOF soldiers receive compensation from the National Insurance Institute (NII) for lost wages. Many reservists work in IT and other skilled jobs. With the genocidal wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, NII is nearly bankrupt. NII passes its debt to Israeli residents.
“Israel as a capitalist society is finished. It can only survive by expanding its borders, creating genocide, and imposing low wages in the occupied areas. Effectively, it is creating an angry working class. It is our duty to win these workers to communism,” an ICWP member concluded our meeting.
Samuel suggested organizing a screening of the documentary film “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” In Israel, public screening of the film is banned, but many comrades have seen it on streaming platforms. In the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, some underground theaters are screening it. Sixteen of us participated in one of these private shows with our friends and coworkers. Samuel invited Ethan and his wife.
Some of us had already seen the film at home, but being part of a large movie theater was riveting. Here, just 70 Kms (44 miles) from Gaza, we were watching the desperate voices, crying for help, dying. The IOF’s Armored Battalion firing from close range on the Red Crescent.
Hind Rajab’s story was multiplied in Minab, where US precision-guided Tomahawk missiles killed over 150 people, mostly children, in an attack on a school.
Everyone in the audience of about 200 came because they wanted some change in society. It was a perfect time to distribute Red Flag. We brought enough copies, and no one in the audience refused them. We got into very detailed conversations about communism with these new friends. Some older participants told stories of their parents’ lives as communists in struggle. We collected names of many who want to meet us.
Our task now is to continue meeting with young people who are of draft age for IOF recruitment and introduce them to communist ideas. We will invite these young friends to the next screening of the documentary, followed by an ICWP forum.
Read Genocide in Palestine Demands Communist Revolution here
Read Zionism: A Fascist Imperialist Creation here
Read Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Critical to a Communist Workers’ Revolution here