World relations between imperialist and capitalist powers are in an unprecedented state of flux and turmoil. The unipolar world dominated by US imperialism that briefly existed following the collapse of the former USSR in 1991 has definitively ended. A new chapter in world history is being written. A struggle between contending imperial powers, in particular the US, and China together with Russia, is mirrored by regional power struggles.
Globally the trend towards the emergence of two tentative, unstable blocs is present. One grouped around western imperialism – the US, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada. The second involving China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and others but with tensions and conflicts within both blocs. There is also the increasing trend for the strengthening of the expanded BRICS, including Russia and China, as a bloc, shown at the recent summit in Kazan, Russia.
The summit, involving over thirty countries, was a success for Putin. The BRICS is assuming more importance than previously. It is an unstable emerging bloc reflecting the new world situation and geo-political situation which is developing. Putin’s proposal of allowing no US$ trading between them, although not agreed at this summit, may emerge at some stage as these countries attempt to weaken the domination of the US$.
The new era of world relations has inevitably brought with it a clash of economic and strategical interests. This is now reflected in two major wars currently taking place – in Ukraine and the Middle East. Both have assumed features of a global character including the involvement of the main imperialist powers and unstable blocs.
Western imperialism, capitalism and the ultra-right nationalist regime of Netanyahu in Israel have opened the gates of hell in the Middle East. Mass carnage and slaughter is raining down on the masses in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, as a regional war is in the throes of unfolding. In many respects a regional war is already being fought, with fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and now open bombing raids of a tit for tat character between Israel and Iran. Although it is not yet an all-out war between Israel and Iran, further developments could draw in other countries including the US in direct military engagements and possibly longer conflicts.
The Palestinian people for over a year have suffered the brutal onslaught of the genocidal war unleashed by the Israeli regime. This followed the bloody attacks by Hamas in Israel on October 7th, 2023. The official death toll of over 42,000 masks the scale of the dystopian nightmare which is taking place. Tens of thousands more lie beneath the rubble in Gaza and a staggering one million nine hundred thousand Palestinians have been displace.
Dogs of war unleashed
The Israeli regime has unleashed the dogs of war. An unending onslaught of missiles, bombs, tanks, enforced starvation, famine, beatings, physical and sexual abuse, and torture is being suffered by the Palestinian people. This torment has been even more horrific since October 7th, 2024, when, to mark the anniversary of the attacks launched by Hamas, a renewed onslaught and a new ground offensive was launched in Northern Gaza. There the people are being offered two choices as ethnic cleansing in being enacted. The so-called “Generals plan” which included a “leave, surrender or starve” clause, is being executed. It involves a choice of ethnic cleansing, driven out to an equally unsafe heap of rubble, or death by starvation, the bullet, or both. It has now included the kidnapping of medical staff at the Jabalia hospital. This onslaught has been mirrored by increased repression and murder in the West Bank where recent settlers along with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have attacked Palestinians, increasingly driving them from their land and homes. The implementation of the Knesset decision to ban and declare the UN aid agency, UNWAR, a “terrorist” organisation will have a devastating effect on cutting aid to the Palestinians. This was backed by most of the opposition parties in the Knesset.
The CWI has argued from the outset that this war is not a mere repetition of previous conflicts or simply a ratcheting up of the repression against the Palestinian people. This war is of a qualitatively different character that is having devastating consequences in the region and a major impact globally. The effect will be felt for generations.
Character of the Israeli regime
This war reflects a fundamental change in the character of the Israeli regime within a changed international environment. The Netanyahu regime is an extreme right-wing nationalist coalition which includes a minority of fascistic parties from the Religious Zionist Coalition, such as Jewish Power, headed by Ben-Gvir. To grasp what is currently being enacted it is essential that the real character of the current Israeli regime is recognised. It sees a chance to dramatically shift the balance of forces in its favour by displacing large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza, doing likewise in the West Bank by further expansion of the so-called settlements, and weakening its opponents in the Middle East, starting with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
This does not mean that most of the Israeli population support all the Israel government’s war aims. This is not the case. However, the current regime at this stage has state power, it has a significant social base and is setting the pace in this most bloody of war against the Palestinian people.
Prior to the war a mass movement erupted against the Netanyahu regime in 2023. It endured for nine months and included a general strike (some of the biggest demonstrations since the foundation of Israel in 1948). This significant movement against the Netanyahu government seeking to over-ride the judiciary. However, it lacked sufficient organisation by the working class and a programme to remove the government or to change society. Since then, Netanyahu’s regime has been held responsible by most Israelis for the security failings exposed by the October 7th attacks and a failure the prioritise the return of the hostages. Since the war was launched large protests eventually came to take place centred on the failure to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas.
Yet despite opposition to the regime by a part or most ruling class and most of the Israeli population the protests have been unable to remove it from power so far. Sections of the capitalist class were compelled to turn to the masses and support the one day general strike called by the Histadrut leader. This event was extremely significant and illustrated the potential power of the working class. However, it was a multiclass action with the support of a layer of the employers. Some businesses closed or told their workforce not to come to work. It had an element of a multi-class Hartel which have been called in India in the past. This action in Israel was significant, but it was not organised by the right wing Histadrut trade union leaders as independent class action by the working class. It was a joint action with most of the ruling class. It opposed Netanyahu’s conduct of the war, demanding the release of the hostages but big sections were not necessarily against the war itself, especially waging war against Hezbollah and Hamas.
The apparent Israeli successes of the attacks on Hezbollah however have boosted some support for Netanyahu whose government is now relatively more stable than it was in the recent period. How long this continues remains to be seen. Fear of being driven out of Isreal is ingrained in the population of Israeli society. Hezbollah, on Israel’s northern border, is seen as one of the main threats. Thus, Netanyahu has temporarily been able to capitalise on the blows inflicted on Hezbollah.
War in Lebanon
From September 2nd Netanyahu’s regime has dramatically expanded the war into Lebanon. He has warned the Lebanese people that if they do not remove Hezbollah, then “Lebanon will face destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza”. Prior to bombs raining down the IDF sends what it euphemistically terms “evacuation orders” (an alleged warning to leave the area before bombing). Often the message is sent in the middle of the night to mobile phones sometimes with 30 minutes notification. The message sent from the Israeli military Arabic spokesperson is blunt. “Leave or die”.
Already more than a million Lebanese have been driven from their homes, in addition to nearly two million Palestinians. More misery and suffering are certain to follow as the crisis continues to escalate.
The invasion of Lebanon has been planned and refined to precision over almost two decades by the Israeli regime following the war against Hezbollah in 2006. Israeli intelligence services have succeeded in infiltrating Hezbollah. The planned co-ordinated explosion of pagers and walkie talkies used by Hezbollah fighters and supporters, which has had a devastating effect on communications, was an operation planned years in advance.
The current offensive followed the last major confrontation with Hezbollah in 2006 which was inconclusive. A renewed confrontation was inevitable at some stage.
Western imperialism, led by Biden, has shed crocodile tears, and urged Netanyahu to “show restraint” and called for a cessation of the conflict. They fear a full-blown regional war involving Iran and Israel that could drag in Arab states and even others like Turkey. The regional and global consequences of such a battleground would be catastrophic. Yet behind the crocodile tears shed by US imperialism is the fact that in the last year alone it has supplied Israel with US$18 billion in military aid. It has also sent thousands more US troops to the Middle East long with squadrons of F-15E, F-16 and F-22 fighter jets, and an additional aircraft carrier to the area.
The killing of the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and of the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, dramatically escalated the crisis to a new level, as Netanyahu intended. Both were seen by many in the Arab world and in some areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America as “heroic” fighters against Israel. This however is not uniform.
The assassinations and the military bombardments, which have eliminated other key leaders of both organisations have undoubtedly inflicted big blows on both. The IDF has claimed it has also killed the next leader of Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine, the head of its highest executive council and reportedly agreed as Nasrallah’s successor some years ago. The IDF also claims it has killed Ali Hussein Hazima, the head of the group’s intelligence branch. These executions combined with the massive aerial bombardment have undoubtedly hit Hezbollah hard.
Matrix warfare
In this war the IDF have deployed the use of AI and modern technology, as has also been the case in the war in Ukraine. The IDF however has taken it to a higher level. The exploding walkie talkies and pagers on September 17th illustrated the spectacular hight-tech methods that the IDF has developed.
Amongst other things it is using algorithmically generated kill lists. The use of algorithmic warfare has transformed Israel’s military operations. It has numerous AI-assisted systems. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the daily newspaper, the former Chief of Staff of the IDF, Aviv Kochavi, each army brigade has a “sophisticated intelligence apparatus akin to the movie ‘The Matrix.”.
Three tools have been particularly deployed in the Gaza – Lavender, Gospel and Where’s Daddy. Lavender provides a list of people approved for assassination. Gospel determines where they live, allegedly store arms or plan military operations. Where’s Daddy sends alerts when the target enters their home and informs the military where to strike. All three trawl masses of data from drones, satellite reconnaissance, location monitoring, social media, telephone calls, text messages and encrypted messaging applications.
Unit 8200 of the IDF twenty years ago was inconsequential. Now the unit is largest in the IDF and has specialised in the development of these methods. Within it, some of its operatives spend the mornings working in their tech jobs in Tel-Aviv and their afternoons in 8200 Command Centres operating assassination equipment. This is Matrix warfare being applied in 2024! The use of these methods and AI is a warning to the working class internationally. They can be deployed in other wars. They are also warning to the working class that the ruling class. in any country, that faces a serious threat to its rule by the working class could resort to such repressive means. In the 1970s, the various military regimes in Latin America, together with US imperialism, co-ordinated their repression throughout the continent against workers and left-wing activists in ‘Operation Condor’. Had they had access to AI, the repression and execution of activists would have been even more brutal and clinically effective. The only way to defeat such methods of repression is by a mass movement so powerful that it could overwhelm a state apparatus deploying them. However, the initial success of October 7, 2023, attacks against many IDF bases also shows no system is foolproof.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the US secretary of state Lloyd Austen swiftly celebrated the death of Nasrallah. They, like Netanyahu, see these assassinations as a welcome part of the struggle to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah. However, as the 18th century British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole said, “They now ring the bells, but they will soon wring their hands”.
Although weakened both Hamas and Hezbollah organisations still exist. The revival of heavy fighting in northern Gaza shows that the IDF’s ‘successes’ will not prevent future resistance. Experience has shown the defeat of such organisations will not be lasting. Capitalism and imperialism are incapable of solving the underlying national and social contradictions which gave rise to Hamas and Hezbollah and this war. This, especially following the level of carnage that is being inflicted by the IDF, will only give rise to their resurgence or rebirth in a stronger and more extreme form. This may take the form of the revival of existing organisations or the development of new ones, an example of which can be seen in the development of the Provisional IRA in the north of Ireland in the early 1970s. A military victory, even, if possible, cannot resolve the underlying social and political roots of the conflict which breed such organisations that have a social base of support.
The Netanyahu led regime reflects a feature that is present in the world situation today in varying degrees. This is a combination of the dominant section of the ruling class losing control of the political and state infrastructure and often accompanied by deep policy divisions within the ruling class. This currently affects many countries in varying degrees. Israel illustrates this in an extreme form. The enormous political vacuum which exists in most countries, where the traditional parties of capitalism have lost their social base has allowed political parties and individuals to fill it which do not always represent the best interests of capitalism.
Much of the Israeli ruling class are opposed to Netanyahu, whose regime has destabilised the entire region. They see that the Netanyahu ultra-right nationalist regime is a threat to their interests. That does not mean they are opposed to war being waged against Hezbollah or Hamas or that they support the national and democratic rights of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu wants a ‘Greater Israel’
The war that is being prosecuted by Netanyahu’s government is also driven ideologically. In effect Netanyahu and his regime want to establish a “Greater Israel” (“Eretz Israel”). As the 1977 founding platform of his party, Likud, puts it, “between the Sea and Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty”. They are now attempting to drive forward on a series of fronts with the aim of re-configurating the Middle East and establishing its own hegemony in the region. This includes regime change in Tehran, the smashing of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iranian proxy forces, the “axis of resistance” in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
The confrontation between Israel and Iran has qualitatively changed during the current crisis. For years clashes have taken place. Up until now they have involved, spies, assassinations, and some raids by Israel which they have never admitted to. Now the clashes have escalated and are conducted openly and, in general, are increasing.
A majority of the Iranian regime is desperate to avoid the conflict escalating into an all-out war. Thus far it has been restrained in its retaliation against Israeli attacks. Yet the recent bombardments signify a significant incremental increase in what had gone previously. Israel in its latest attack limited its response and only hit military targets. Yet it was a heightened response. It appears that the Biden administration has had some rare success in restraining Netanyahu on this occasion. Iran appears reluctant to retaliate at this stage but will probably do so in some form.
Yet it is also feared that the Netanyahu regime is replaying what it has done in Lebanon.
A series of incremental heightened attacks as a prelude to a more deadly onslaught. The recent unprecedented bombing raid, code named ‘Operation Days of Repentance,’ have targeted Iranian missile production capacity and significantly included air defence systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries. These attacks point to the possibility of further attacks at a later stage on oil and gas refineries.
There are many hawks in the Israeli regime who favour seizing what they regard as a once in a generation opportunity to remove the Iranian regime when its “axis of resistance” has been weakened and disorientated, Iranian military capability has been weakened and Iran is hit by economic and social turmoil domestically (the latter of which also applies to Israel). At the same time, in Iran, there are hardliners who favour a war with Israel now rather than postpone it to when Iran could be in an even weaker position.
In this situation, especially should Israeli attacks continue it is not excluded that the Iranian regime would take the steps it has avoided so far to develop its nuclear weapons programme. This would also have crucial consequences on the calculations of the Israeli regime, which already has nuclear weapons and could be tempted into a “first strike.” US and western imperialism would try to prevent such an horrific nightmare. If they could succeed in such a situation remains to be seen especially should Trump of a similar figure be in the White House. The use of some form of N-weapons or ‘super-bombs’ in the Middle East would have enormous regional and global effects. It would provoke massive protests. It also could encourage other countries like Saudi Arabia to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
The limited retaliation by both Israel and Iran in the recent military exchanges does not mean the conflict between them has been resolved. A further escalation is inherent in the situation especially as the war in Gaza and Lebanon continue.
The outcome of the US Presidential election can have a decisive impact on how this conflict develops in the short term.
The change in the character of the Israeli regime, reflecting a change in Israeli society over recent years, has been underestimated by western imperialism, including the US, and Iran and Hezbollah.
Iran and Hezbollah
Nasrallah, along with the Iranian regime have not wanted a full regional war because of the consequences it meant and threat it would pose to them given Israeli superiority militarily. The peoples of Lebanon and Iran have no appetite for war. The horrific attack on October 7th, 2023, gave the Israeli regime the pretext to launch its brutal onslaught in Gaza and now Lebanon. Nasralla gambled that by hitting military and defence infrastructure and avoiding civilian attacks, he could demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people and hope Israel could be persuaded to agree a ceasefire and reach some agreement with Hamas.
Both the Iranian regime and Hezbollah have stressed that they do not see this as a final apocalyptic battle with Israel. Iran also has sought to avoid Hezbollah being crippled as a fighting force and wanted to preserve it for future conflicts with Israel. They both have miscalculated and misjudged the character of the Israeli regime.
US imperialism has not wanted a wider conflict engulfing the region for fear of its global consequences on the world economy and geo-political rivalries particularly with Russia and China. Yet how events have unfolded and may develop in the coming weeks and months are not entirely in the hands of Hezbollah, the Iranian regime or even US imperialism.
The Israeli regime has had Hezbollah in its sights from the outset. After October 7th Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, reportedly wanted to strike Hezbollah first rather than Hamas. Although Netanyahu rejected this the issue of attacking Hezbollah has remained live. For eleven months Israel pounded southern Lebanon and Hezbollah responded within certain limits. Red lines were crossed however as there was an incremental heightening of the conflict on both sides (although 80% of the attacks along the border came from Israel).
At the same time, one of Netanyahu’s long cherished reactionary Zionist objectives is total control and annexation of the West Bank. This involves the possible prospect of driving the mass of Palestinians into Jordan or Egypt thereby destroying any hope in the prospect of a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu and his regime totally oppose. This forms a part of the objective of a “Greater Israel.” The Jordanian monarchy fear the annexation of the West Bank and Jordan being transformed into an alternative Palestinian state in exile as it partly became in the 1960s. This objective has been part of the programme of Netanyahu’s Likud party since its formation when it declared, “the establishment of a ‘Palestinian State,’ jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel, and frustrates prospects of peace”. Netanyahu’s regime is now attempting to make it a reality. It is openly discussed in his government and probably in Mar-a-Lago as well. Should Trump win the US Presidential election it is possible he could support Netanyahu’s attempts at achieving this goal.
If this objective is realisable remains to be seen and depends how events unfold on the battlefield and politically. There are massive obstacles to be overcome to achieve this reactionary nightmarish scenario. If achieved far from bringing “peace” and security to the Jewish population in Israel, as its advocates claim, a further era of conflict, confrontation and another blood bath would develop with a massive backlash from the Arab world, in particular. Whatever the outcome the Zionist regime, imperialism and capitalism will not destroy the national aspirations of the Palestinian masses.
The Israeli peoples’ fear of losing a future war and being “pushed into the sea” would not have evaporated with a renewed expulsion of the Palestinians – another Nakba.
Even if Israel temporally crippled Hezbollah and others in the “axis of resistance,” it would be confronted with the emergence of another Hydras head of an even more ferocious kind.
Hezbollah was established in 1982, with the assistance of the Iranian regime following that year’s Israeli invasion of Lebanon. A ceasefire with the PLO had been in existence since 1981. Like the other national liberation movements at the time, the PLO was more radical, arguing it was carrying out an anti-imperialist struggle for a secular Palestine, albeit by using wrong methods of individual terrorism. However, the PLO increasingly offered no way forward, became mired in corruption and saw its mass support decline. An assassination attempt on Israel’s London Ambassador in June 1982 was used as a pretext by the then Israeli defence secretary, Ariel Sharon, to invade Lebanon and declare war on the PLO, which soon moved its headquarters to Tunisia. Israel’s invasion eventually provoked big opposition and revolt amongst the Shia youth in Lebanon.
Nasrallah was amongst them. He was from a working-class suburb in Beirut, which was largely ethnic Armenian, until they were driven out by a Christian militia at the beginning of Lebanon’s sectarian civil war in 1975. Hezbollah was formed as a wing of reactionary sectarian political Islam. Politically it and Hamas are entirely different to the national liberation movements that existed in the past. It has a populist appeal to the oppressed and poor which make up much of its social base. Nasrallah admired the Iranian born cleric Musa al-Sadr’s ‘Movement of the Deprived’ that promoted the oppressed Shia in Lebanon. In 1982, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sent 1500 fighters to Lebanon to begin to organise Hezbollah as a militia. It developed into a ‘state within a state’ with a powerful social infrastructure and political base as well as building a powerful military wing.
The populist appeal to the oppressed should not mask the politically reactionary programme and role Hezbollah has played. Nasrallah was rumoured in the 1980s to be involved in the assassination of Lebanese communists. In 2012 Hezbollah fighters, under the leadership of Nasrallah, went into Syria in support of the Assad dictatorship and attacked Sunni villages. They intervened partly because had the Assad regime fallen it would have been more difficult for arms to be shipped from Iran to Lebanon. Hezbollah also opposed, from a sectarian standpoint, the Sunni militias that were developing. In Lebanon itself, Hezbollah has fostered sectarian division despite opportunistically using the sectarian infrastructure to strengthen its own political position and influence.
The Israeli attacks on Lebanon have partly been directed at those who have fled Shia areas and been given shelter in predominantly Christian and Sunni areas, and other districts. This is a conscious policy to try and provoke an eruption of renewed sectarian conflict in Lebanon.
Middle East geo-politics in flux
The events of the last 12 months have transformed the political situation in the region. How this will now unfold is currently uncertain. A state of flux exists. Twelve months ago, the other main contender as a regional power, the Sunni regime in Saudia Arabia, was preparing to recognise Israel in a ‘normalisation’ deal that would potentially have transformed the geo-political position. It would further isolate its rival, Shia dominated Iran, whilst casting to one side the interests of the Palestinian people.
However, the ferocity of the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people has been a crucial factor in forcing a change of tack by the Saudi regime. Mohammed bin Salman, the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, told Anthony Blinken, shortly after October 7th “Do I personally care about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.” The very youthful population in Saudi Arabia, with a majority under the age of twenty-nine, have felt overwhelming sympathy for the Palestinian people and opposition to Israel. Even the theocratic feudal monarchy in Saudi Arabia has been forced to take this mood into account. Other important changes have also been taking place. The Saudi regime, whose main trading partner is now China, has felt more confident not to simply follow the dictates of US imperialism.
There are tentative, unstable but important developments in the geo-political alignments in the region. Despite historical sectarian antagonisms and rivalries between Sunni states and Shia Iran, significantly the foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf states met as a group with their Iranian counterparts. This was followed by visits to Iraq, Oman and then Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey by the Iranian regime. Such a development is highly tentative yet is indicative of a possible emerging trend and change that are underway in the region. An approximation with the Sunni and Shia regimes is however beset with massive problems. For example, the Iranian backing for the Houthis in Yemen which have attacked Saudi Arabia. Yet it reflects what one Saudi businessman described as any association with Israel now, since Gaza is “toxic.”
At the same time, the Saudi regime and its allies will want to try and use the situation for their own advantage and strengthen their position against Iran and the “axis of resistance.” How these two trends unfold is uncertain in such a volatile, explosive situation. Within it are not only the regional geo-political factors but also the geo-political struggle between US imperialism and China (together with Russia). They are all players in this modern-day re-enactment of the ‘Great Game’ of the 19th century, which played out between the Russian and British colonial powers for influence and control in Central Asia.
The tragedy of the nightmare taking place is the absence of an independent organised mass movement of those who are suffering the consequences of what imperialism, capitalism and the Zionist state have bequeathed. That is to say, the Palestinian working class and masses alongside the Lebanese peoples, Arab masses, and the Israeli working class.
Although some large protests have taken place in the Arab world there has not yet been a mass explosion of anger onto the streets. The prospect of mass protests terrifies the Arab rulers. Hamas enjoys support and sympathy amongst an important layer of Palestinians and in the Arab world although this is not uniform. Hezbollah has support and sympathy amongst the Shia population in Lebanon and both Hezbollah and Hamas are undoubtedly seen as those prepared to fight the Israeli. However, they defend a programme of reactionary political Islam, which does not oppose capitalism and offers no way forward for the masses.
Need for working class mass movement
The building of a mass movement of the Palestinian working class and poor is essential. The formation of elected committees of struggle to democratically organise and lead such a movement is desperately needed. Such a movement would need to build an armed mass militia to defend the Palestinian people. A mass movement of this character would need to appeal to the Arab masses to join a struggle, overthrow the reactionary ruling regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which have stood by and done nothing to support or defend the Palestinian people. There is significant domestic opposition to the regime in Iran which could also be won to support a mass movement of the Palestinian people. Such a movement throughout the region with a revolutionary socialist programme to break with landlordism and capitalism and offer a democratic alternative could lay the basis to establish a voluntary democratic socialist confederation of the Middle East and the formation of a Palestinian state.
Such a development would have a massive impact on Israeli society. The protests and strikes there have illustrated the potential to build an independent movement of the working class.
The Israeli Zionist state has one of the most sophisticated and powerful state machines that exist. Israeli society is gripped with a fear of being besieged and driven out. Israel has become the trap which Leon Trotsky, the co-leader of the 1917 Russian revolution and of Jewish heritage himself, warned about in the 1930s. Every decade since the state of Israel was founded the Israelis have faced war and violence. So far, the Israeli state has boasted that it has “won every war,” but all Israelis fear that should they lose one war what they have done to the Palestinians would be done to them.
Hence support for the brutality of not just the IDF attacks on Gaza and Lebanon but also in the West Bank. Should the Israeli regime conclude that it is threatened existentially from without it would lash out, using the full arsenal it has at its disposal, possibly including its nuclear stockpile. Moreover, US imperialism would come to its aid.
The only way to defeat such a power is to fracture what it rests on – the mass of the Israeli population. A revolutionary socialist programme of the Palestinian and Arab masses would need to include an appeal to the Israeli workers and youth and offer them the right to their own state. It would include an appeal to the Israeli working class to voluntarily join a democratic socialist confederation of the Middle East. It would then be possible to unite a movement of the Palestinian masses together with Israeli workers and youth in a struggle to transform society and end the nightmare that imperialism and capitalism have brought to the region. Such a movement, which would guarantee the right of both peoples to establish their own state, should they desire it, could offer a way out of the endless cycle of wars and conflict. On a capitalist basis no such solution is possible. A socialist transformation of society would offer the prospect of establishing the democratic and national right of all the peoples of the region.
For a socialist alternative to capitalism and imperialism
The war in the Middle East is one military conflict that capitalism and imperialism has plunged the world into. Another is in Ukraine. The oligarchical capitalist regime headed by Putin invaded Ukraine for his own interests to try and strengthen the geo-political position of Russia. Partly driven ideologically in refusing to recognise the right of Ukraine to exist, Putin aimed to conquer it and impose Russian rule. This massive miscalculation has resulted in the war being bogged down for nearly two years. Ukraine has managed to challenged Russia with the help of massive western backing. Western imperialism saw this opportunity to step in and arm Ukraine to check Putin who had become a threat to their interests. In effect, NATO is now fighting a proxy war against Russia using Ukrainian troops. However, the outcome is uncertain; compounded by the possibility of Trump winning the US election and his stated aim of wanting to make Zelensky’s regime do a deal with Russia to bring the war to an end, which Trump hopes would also weaken Russian ties with China. Currently Russian military forces are edging forward and expanding territorial gains in the east of Ukraine, at a huge cost in lives and hardware.
Both wars contain a global element. Other conflicts can also erupt especially in the south China sea. There is a marked tendency for both current major wars, Gaza and Ukraine, to mirror the two main unstable blocks which are developing. Russia’s involvement in Syria, the supplying of drones by Iran to Putin, North Korea’s deployment of troops to fight alongside the Russian forces and China’s increased presence in the Middle East, and other factors, illustrate this trend. In that respect, the expanded recent summit of the BRICS was significant. The contending blocks are unstable and include many contradictions however the trend is clearly present.
Yet these conflicts reflect the era that capitalism globally is now in. Capitalism is incapable of resolving any of the wars on a lasting basis. The task of building a mass revolutionary socialist alternative to capitalism and imperialism is more urgent than ever.
