STATEMENT of IWL(FI)
Written by SI of the IWL-FI
Friday, 29 August 2014 15:22
At long last, an agreement between the Palestinian organisation Hamas and the Israeli administration has been signed putting an end to the so-called “Gaza war”; actually a new and bloodthirsty attack of Israeli armed forces against the Palestinian people.
Once again, facts have made it evident for the entire world to see that Israel is the permanent aggressor in the region and that its character is deeply Nazi-fascist. The aggression is another manifestation of the strategy of ethnic cleansing as an outcome of the fact that Israel is a military enclave in the service of imperialism, based on the usurpation of the historic territory of the Palestinian people. If the cold numbers resulting from this new aggression of the Zionist state on Gaza (2138 Palestinians killed and 10,300 injured and an entire section of Gaza destroyed) it seems hardly understandable why Palestinians rejoice while the atmosphere in Israel is gloomy. Yet this is what is happening. Palestinians are rejoicing in the streets; political crisis is encroaching in Israel.
The truth is that Palestinians are conquering a heroic even if partial victory; something similar to the defeat of Israel in Lebanon in 2006.
A political balance sheet
Israel carried out this latest attack motivated by several reasons. Firstly, they wanted to take advantage of the relative ebb of the revolution in the Arab world. The election of Marshall Sisi in Egypt, the military headway of Assad in Syria and the strengthening of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are expressions of an unfavourable downturn for the masses in the region even if all this does not stand for a definite re-stabilisation and let alone the “end of the Arab revolution” as several sectors on the left insist on upholding. It is momentary ebb that Israel took advantage of to mount a military offensive against Gaza in order to try and show imperialism and particularly the U.S. that in this vacuum there is a faithful and strong military guardian to keep the order.
Secondly, Israel was against the unity established between Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA). With this attack, the Nethanyahu’s administration envisaged the possibility of destabilizing this unity and boycotting the negotiations brokered by American imperialism.
Israel meant to destroy Hamas’ military structure and the tunnels by means of which Palestinians broke the blockade on Gaza. This aim was achieved only partially. The heroic resistance of the Palestinians was much greater than expected. In spite of the air raids and land invasion, Israeli offensive did not manage to destroy the tunnels completely or to hit Hamas’s military structure hard enough. With guerrilla tactics, the Palestinians managed not only to resist but also to ambush Israeli troops and even managed to destroy their tanks. The number of Israeli casualties (more than 60 killed) is the highest ever since the failure of the invasion of Lebanon, in 2006.
In the meantime, the Palestinians from both the West Bank and other localities within Israel performed highly radicalised demonstrations where the youth threatened to turn into a new Intifada. Even the collaborationist Abbas was finally compelled to stand up and expose Israel and defend Gaza rhetorically.
At the same time, the Israeli offensive aroused the strongest reactions in many years worldwide against the genocide. In spite of all the media support to Israel, it was impossible to conceal the murder of Palestinian children and the bombing of school and hospitals. Israeli goal of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians has never been made so clear. The demonstrations of repudiation were the greatest in the word and pressed governments allied to Israel to express their disagreement with the situation.
Intellectuals, famous artists, human rights champions reacted as never before, outraged at such tremendous destruction. The Nazi-fascist target of ethnic cleansing boosted by Israel has never been so visible. Even the UN was compelled to make a report exposing Zionist war crimes. This reality drove the Israeli offensive into crisis and forced it to stop and accept negotiations.
It is within this framework that Israel winds up with no political benefit because, in spite of all casualties and the destruction they produced and some blows to the military structure, Hamas has strengthened its political prestige. At the same time, the international isolation of the Zionist state and the awareness of who is the real aggressor in the region have grown exponentially and this was expressed in a gigantic international campaign of repudiation of Zionism and solidarity with Palestinians all over the world.
The end of the blockade is the most urgent claim of the population of Gaza and, even if it has not been abolished, it dwindled due to the direct pressure of the military resistance of Palestinians. That is why the population celebrates the agreement in Gaza streets.
That is to say, a political and military defeat of Israel has been the outcome of its action. And we are not the only ones who say so. One of the analysts of a Zionist newspaper, the liberal Haaretz, rates the balance of the war in a very clear headline inspired in football, “Hamas 1 x Israel 0”. While other political commentator, Ari Shavit, asserts that the secret weapon of Hamas is that they managed to undermine the bases of support of Israel on five continents. It is no coincidence that the crisis that was being incubated in the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu (the extreme right, represented by the Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, of Russian origin, and the most recalcitrant ultra religious parties such as Shas, regarded this agreement as “unacceptable”), is now getting deeper, says Haaretz.
The victory of the Palestinians should be regarded as a stage of a long struggle for the destruction of the Nazi-fascist state of Israel that must be continued.
We need a revolutionary programme in order to continue with this struggle up to the final victory
It is necessary to vindicate fully the resistance and celebrate the defeat of the State of Israel. That is why, regardless all our disagreements we admit that it was Hamas who led this resistance and that is why they grew in strength by the side of the masses. For that very same reason we defend it unconditionally facing the Israeli aggression as well as their right of defense before such aggression. We stand in their “military camp” against Zionism and we shall stand there again in case of any new aggression. Simultaneously, we believe it necessary to warn programmatic issues that may cause this victory to be lost and even to turn this victory into defeat.
First of all, we must warn against the Hamas policy of reconciliation with Al Fatah and the PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, (traitors of the Palestinian cause and agents of imperialism and Israel) which includes the acceptation of the policy of the “two states” that they had been trying to put in practice even before the Israeli invasion. Further, they accept that Mahmoud Abbas remains heading the PA, which should be in charge of negotiations of security agreements with Israel. It would be Abbas who would deal with security issues, including the control of the border between Gaza and Egypt. Actually, this would also mean the acceptation of the policy of the two states proposed by the U.S. and it also means a Hamas’ capitulation, which has earned prestige precisely for opposing the acceptation of the Zionist state and their control over Palestine.
The second one is our thorough difference with their programmatic proposal of building an Islamic or theocratic state in Palestine, (now it could be merely in a small part of it), a state that persecutes and excludes other religions, repressive and oppressive especially against women and homosexuals. Let us make it clear that we respect the Muslim religion and their culture that is practiced by hundreds of millions of people, and have been showing attitudes of tolerance towards people of other religions and cultures for a long time, such as Jews and Christians. What we do say is that these theocratic states, based on the extreme application of Koran lead us inevitably to oppression and repression. On the other hand, by excluding a series of non-Muslim sectors, it divides even the Palestinians against each other in the necessary struggle against the racist state of Israel.
Apart from that, we insist on the only proposal that aims at the unity of all the Palestinians and points to the end of the murderer and usurper state of Israel; the struggle for a single, secular, democratic and non-racist Palestinian state throughout the historic Palestinian territory.
Lastly, it is fundamental for this Palestinian victory to be continuous in the struggle against the state of Israel. Particularly, this means the continuity of the campaign for the split of diplomatic and commercial relations of the different governments with the Nazi-fascist state of Israel and the boycott of their products and services.