No respite in Gaza genocide

Recent headlines have been dominated by the cast of misfits and bunglers that Trump has assembled for his Cabinet and other leadership positions. These antics have replaced Palestine on the front pages. However, the situation in Palestine is extremely grave and needs to be carefully examined. The purpose of this article is to contribute to that examination.

International context

Three international events form the backdrop. The first is Trump’s electoral victory. It’s well known that Trump wants Israel to “finish the job”. Whatever half-hearted admonitions and calls for moderation that the Biden administration made are now gone. Netanyahu correctly believes that Trump will give him the green light for whatever actions he takes against the Palestinians.

It’s possible to speculate about the ins and outs of Trump’s exact tactics towards Iran. But there’s no ambiguity about Trump’s views on Palestine: full steam ahead with ethnic cleansing. This can be seen by Trump’s nomination of Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee’s views are crystal clear. He said, “I’ve never been willing to use the term West Bank. There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no occupation.” During his presidential run he repeated the famous line,“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

Steve Witkoff will be Trump’s Middle East envoy. Witkoff has absolutely no foreign policy or diplomatic experience. The closest he has come has been some real estate deals with the Gulf States! His appointment is a perfect example of the new administration’s policy of using political appointments as booty to reward loyal lieutenants.

The second international event is the November 21 decision of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes. Using its own legal language, the Court made its opinion clear:

With regard to the crimes, the Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu, born on 21 October 1949, Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the relevant conduct, and Mr. Gallant, born on 8 November 1958, Minister of Defense of Israel at the time of the alleged conduct, each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.

What’s important here is that an important legal institution of the international bourgeoisie is willing to speak in such strong terms. Of course, there’s no possibility whatsoever of the arrest warrants ever actually being served. Netanyahu and Gallant are not going to be cuffed and Mirandized. It’s purely symbolic. But it’s an important symbol of disunity in the international ruling class and a testament to the strength of the international Palestine solidarity movement that the Court felt obliged to speak in such terms.

The third international event is the mid-November riot by supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team in Amsterdam. The team was in Holland to play the Dutch team Ajax. Maccabi “ultras” surged through the Dutch capital attacking Middle Eastern looking cab drivers and passers-by. They chanted, “Why are there no schools in Gaza? Because there are no children!” What adds insult to injury about this incident is that it has been portrayed by the world press as an antisemitic pogrom by supporters of Palestine. A careful look at the video evidence completely disproves this allegation. It was an anti-Middle Eastern rampage by organized Israeli supporters. It’s a real sign of the “scoundrel times” we live in that not only do these thugs feel emboldened to act the way they did, but the international press wins a Pulitzer for Orwellian doublespeak by picturing the riot as aggression by our side. It shows the real power of the international public relations operation run by the Israeli state. These three events form the international canvass on which the latest events in Palestine take place.

The “General’s Plan” is at full speed

It’s now clear that the “General’s Plan” of depopulating northern Gaza is not a possible policy operation but is being vigorously implemented in real life. The Plan’s objective is to clear an area north of the Netzarim corridor, a horizontal line across Gaza just south of Gaza City, of all Palestinians. It’s estimated that 400,000 Palestinians will be affected. They will be either deported or left to die of starvation. This is not a temporary evacuation but is aimed to be a permanent measure. It is fundamentally the destruction of northern Gaza.

The latest Palestinian Ministry of Health figures are that 43,972 people have been killed, 104,008 injured, and that there are more than 11,000 missing. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has done an extraordinary job attempting to keep track of the casualty figures. They have shown the resilience of Palestinian civil society as it attempts to keep a historical record of the genocide. However, by now, it’s impossible for any medical authority to keep track of the number of people killed. The carnage is just too vast and the social breakdown too extreme. The often-quoted Lancet figure of 186,000 deaths attributed to the Israeli offensive was calculated in July. By now the figure must be thousands more.

Aljazeera tabulated the following figures for all of Gaza. “According to the latest data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization and the Palestinian government as of November 10, Israeli attacks have damaged:

More than half of Gaza’s homes (damaged or destroyed)
80 percent of commercial facilities
87 percent of school buildings
Healthcare facilities – 17 of 36 hospitals are partially functional
68 percent of road networks
68 percent of cropland.”

The destruction of Gaza

This gives us some feeling for the scale of the Israeli operation in Gaza. It makes it apparent that its objectives are nothing to do with freeing the hostages or defeating Hamas. The Israeli aim is the total pulverization of the Palestinian people as a prelude to their complete displacement from the area.

As the Israeli attack has destroyed normal social functioning in Gaza, organized crime has inevitably stepped in. This has taken the form of the hijacking of aid trucks, the theft of their cargo, and then selling the supplies at astronomical prices on the black market. It’s clear that this takes place with the full connivance of the Israeli authorities. In an excellent piece of investigative journalism, the Financial Times reported, “While some theft occurs on the road itself, in other cases trucks are forced into the gangs’ bases. In such instances, one transport broker said, “the driver is led under the threat of weapons to the eastern border areas within the eye line and earshot of the Israeli military”. Multiple senior UN officials argue that such brazen theft could not happen without the assent of Israeli forces. ‘These guys are probably the only people in Gaza who can get 100 yards from an Israeli tank or Israeli soldiers without being shot,’ one said.”

The war spreads to Lebanon

Gaza is of course not the only front in the Israeli offensive. The IDF attack on Lebanon is also continuing. This attack indicates that Israel is not just using the October 7/Trump election victory situation to advance the destruction of the Palestinian people. It also wishes to create a new situation in the whole Middle East. Severely weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon helps accomplish this goal in a number of ways: it downgrades Hezbollah’s capacity to respond to a new escalation of the Nakba to the West Bank, it weakens Iran’s most important international ally, creates a more favorable military situation on the northern border, and helps restore Netanyahu’s domestic standing. The Israeli campaign has led to over 3,500 dead. A quarter of Lebanese are now refugees. Bombing has been increasing over the past weeks. It’s not clear if Tel Aviv’s final strategic objective is an Israeli controlled buffer zone in southern Lebanon or simply drastically weakening Hezbollah. What is clear is that the campaign is being conducted in the Israeli military’s classic sledgehammer style with frequent attacks on civilian targets.

The West Bank is in danger

There is a bright red light flashing over the future of the West Bank. The historic Zionist project of an “Eretz Israel” cannot be completed as long as large numbers of Palestinians live on the West Bank. At some time, the Zionist juggernaut will have to turn on the West Bank and initiate the removal of the Palestinians who live there. The question becomes when? Significant forces inside Israel think that Trump’s victory, the destruction of Gaza, and the military campaign in southern Lebanon have created a situation where their dream can be turned into reality. Rightwing leaders Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir now frequently call for the annexation of the West Bank. Already, there are around 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Their military provocations increase every day. Their theft of Palestinian goods is constant. The situation is at crisis point. It may not be today or tomorrow, but a major Israeli attack on the West Bank is coming.

If you want to fight the right, build the Palestinian solidarity movement

To conclude, Trump’s election victory has left many radicals feeling overwhelmed and demoralized. The rightwing attack is proceeding on many fronts at once, anti-immigrant and reactionary ideas seem to have widespread support, and “The Resistance” is nowhere to be seen. The left-wing movement seems to have a crisis of perspective.

What should we do about this situation? This is where the centrality of the Palestine solidarity movement comes in. Lenin said that revolutionaries should find the “weak link in the chain” of a political situation. This means finding the point where the overall conjuncture has created an opening for revolutionaries to concentrate their forces and find a way to make their presence felt on the national and international stage. Today, Palestine is precisely that weak link.

Thousands of young people are already in motion on this issue. We don’t need to create a movement; it is already there. The stronger this movement and its demonstrations are, the more the participants become emboldened and see a way out of our movement’s isolation. Larger Palestinian demonstrations show activists in the immigrant rights, women’s, and LGBTQ+ movements that there can still be a vigorous opposition movement during Trump’s second term. They are the best antidote to demoralization in the radical movement.

We don’t just say, following Trump’s victory, “Don’t mourn, organize!” We say specifically, “Don’t mourn. Go to the next Palestinian demonstration in your city!”