A new milestone on the Nakba road

“What is Israel trying to do?” “What is Netanyahu’s endgame?” These questions have been discussed and debated by thousands of Palestine solidarity marchers in recent weeks. The purpose of this article is to argue that these questions can only be answered by placing them in the context of long term Zionist strategy, the project of the complete expulsion of all Palestinians from the territory of Eretz Israel. (Eretz Israel is how Zionists describe the lands that they wish to eventually make into a greater Israeli state.)

The Zionist Project

Let’s begin at the beginning. Zionism was always different from other colonialist projects such as South African apartheid. Israel was what early Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky described as a “work colony.” This means that its founders did not primarily wish to exploit Palestinian labor. Their aim was not to build a society that needed Palestinian labor in the way that South African apartheid needed black labor. They instead wished to remove Palestinians from the area altogether. (For a superb discussion, based on full source material, of the ideas of Zionism’s founders, see the book by Moshe Machover, Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and Resolution.)

Such a major act of ethnic cleansing cannot be completed in one fell swoop. A vast project of removing millions of people from their homes requires a considerable amount of international and domestic support and military capacity. The long term goal has to be advanced in steps or stages as conditions permit.

Obviously, the formation of the state of Israel with the first Nakba in 1948 was a major step on the road. The Six Day War in 1967 which allowed Israel to conquer the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights was another important mile marker. Intense military campaigns are not the only way to force the Palestinians into exile. Daily repression and deprivation play an important role too. However, wars provide the momentum needed for rapid massive population displacements.

Netanyahu seizes the opportunity

The Hamas October 7 attack opened a new window of opportunity for the long-term project. The very real horrors of October 7 gave the Netanyahu government a chance to put off to one side its myriad political problems. The Israeli state now had great international and domestic political support. The military was galvanized. It was time to strike while the iron was hot.

The Israeli state wishes to use the current military campaign to make real progress in its long term project to remove all Palestinians from Gaza. It may well not succeed in immediately expelling every single current resident from Gaza; however, Tel Aviv could certainly make important strides towards that end. This might take the dramatic form of long columns of refugees making their way through Rafah and into Sinai. However, it could also play out over a longer time period as impossible living conditions in Gaza force future constant smaller scale emigration. Destroying the infrastructure needed for daily life is a sure means of making this happen.

Napoleon had a famous saying on military strategy, “on s’engage et puis on voit”. It means, “one gets started and then one sees”. Basically it means begin the combat and then see how far you can take it. This is exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza, creating the conditions for forcing as many Palestinians as possible out of the area. It will push the envelope as far as international and domestic political conditions permit. The end goal is the creation of as much of a new Nakba as possible.

Current situation

With this perspective, we can place the latest developments into an overall context. We can now turn to examining where things stand as of November 22, the day this article was written.

One, the situation in Gaza itself. Fighting around Gaza City continues following the Israeli capture of Al Shifa hospital. Over 13,000 people have been killed. The situation is catastrophic for the remaining population. The provision of food, water, electricity, health care, heating, and sanitation has basically stopped. Researchers estimate that between 40% to 50% of buildings in northern Gaza have been severely damaged.

There was a lot of attention given to Israel’s order to the population to move south to avoid conflict in the northern section of Gaza. Today, the southern section is under bombardment. Khan Younis, the main city in the south, has been attacked many times and about 10% of its buildings heavily damaged. Even Rafah, the border crossing with Egypt at the southern edge of Gaza, has been bombed.

Things that would be surreal in a sane world are now taking place. Today, Israel has called on the population of southern Gaza, both new refugee and permanent residents, to now go to Al Mawasi, a tiny coastal village, 5.4 square miles large. To give a sense of what that means, this is the same size as the small Chicago suburb of Wilmette. The Israeli government proposes that 2.2 million people should move there. We are witnessing a disaster for humanity.

(As this article is being written, news has come in of a possible temporary ceasefire. It’s far too early to say what the consequences of this might be.)

Two, the West Bank. This is a pressure cooker ready to explode. At least 218 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. Settler lynch mobs roam freely. The IDF is omnipresent. Raids on Palestinian homes are frequent. The pretense of an Israeli legal system has evaporated. Palestinian prisoners are “disappeared” into a bottomless void without habeas corpus or legal representation.

Three, the north. The ongoing conflict with Hezbollah on the northern border with Lebanon has continued. Rocket attacks are a regular occurrence. However, Hezbollah’s main backer is Iran. Iran has signaled that it does not want a broader conflict throughout the entire Middle East. Most observers speculate that this makes a full scale invasion of Israel from the north unlikely at this time.

Four, international bourgeois politics. The United States and most European powers are fundamentally on the side of Israel. That’s their core approach. However, they would like to rein in what they see as Israel’s “excesses”. Therefore, there’s been a fair amount of talk of humanitarian aid, more selective targeting, avoiding attacks on hospitals, etc. But the key point is that, when all is said and done, Washington and its European allies are on Israel’s side in this war. That’s far more important than appeals for tactical prudence and restraint.

Five, the internal situation in Israel. There are a lot of moving parts involved here. Netanyahu is in a coalition government with the far right and therefore has to watch his right flank. There was obviously a groundswell of nationalist unity after October 7. However, the intelligence failures and slow military deployment that day may catch up with him. The hostage families have been arguing that Netanyahu has been ignoring their relatives’ plight to focus on his military objectives.

There are two fundamental questions. First, will the Israeli ruling class see Netanyahu as a stable “war leader” or is he too tainted by his past and his alliances to fulfill that role? Secondly, will the course of the war weaken the government’s post October 7 support among wide sections of the Israeli population?

Six, the international solidarity movement. A previous article on this site has discussed this magnificent new movement. As the movement continues and deepens, it’s possible to flesh out our assessment. Totally scuttling Islamophobic stereotypes, young Palestinian women play a leadership role in the movement. They are often the most visible speakers, organizers, and marshals.

The demonstrations are not solely anti-war actions. They are clearly in solidarity with the Palestinian people. They wish the Palestinians to prevail. This makes it the strongest international solidarity movement in the west since the highpoint of the Vietnam movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Young people participating in this movement face much greater risks than activists in other recent social movements did. Being known as a Palestine solidarity activist is not like being known as a campaigner against global warming or gun violence. Palestinian solidarity activists have been denounced as anti-Semites, called pro-terrorist, and seen their student organizations banned on a number of campuses. These young militants have been denied job opportunities, witch hunted personally, and attacked violently. Yet still, thousands of young people continue to come to the demonstrations. This shows a serious level of commitment.

Finally, most forms of youth radicalization in recent years have had great illusions in Bernie Sanders, AOC, the Squad, etc. Today’s Palestine movement is openly hostile to the Democratic Party. Of course, there are illusions in certain individuals such as Rossana Rodriguez and Rashida Tlaib. But in general the movement is frontally opposed to Biden and Democratic Party policies. This is a real political advance.

United Socialist Middle East

Revolutionary socialists face two tasks. The first, obviously, is to throw ourselves into the Palestine solidarity movement. The second is a longer term one. It is to explain how the Palestinians could eventually win. This means resurrecting the perspectives of Matzpen, the Israeli revolutionary organization of the late 1960s. Matzpen argued that the basic framework for social change in the Middle East was the Arab nation. The Arab nation, divided by imperialism, was the fundamental social, economic, and cultural unit. The revolution would not take place separately in individual Arab nations such as Lebanon or Jordan. It would be a pan-Arab revolution.

This revolution would be a socialist one, a permanent revolution. The Arab ruling classes would be the enemies, not the allies, in this revolution. This perspective meant seeing the Palestinian struggle as a component of something larger, the Arab socialist revolution. This regional and class perspective shows the Palestinians their potential allies: the Egyptian working class, the Arab masses, and the Israeli proletariat. Only the combined power of these forces would be strong enough to defeat the Israeli state and Arab reaction.

We are a very long way from such a revolution today, especially winning the Israeli workers to the side of the Palestinians. We certainly have “miles to go before we sleep.” However, a united socialist Middle East, granting self-determination to the nations inside of it, is the only way the Palestinians can finally win victory and have the freedom that history has tried to deny them.