The events of the past decade and a half, much like the two world wars, have once again demonstrated that even in the most advanced societies, the foundations of capitalist order and civilization are neither absolute nor permanent. In times of crisis, these societies can rapidly descend into fragmentation, chaos, and conflict. Meanwhile, the condition of underdeveloped or so-called developing societies, already plagued by poverty, backwardness, and instability, continues to deteriorate.
It is of outmost importance that these social processes from below can generate politics. These social processes should engage people who seek for a political expression and revitalize the political scene by shifting it to a radical left direction. We have past experience of such a process in Greece.
There are two conspicuous myths about the Gaza ceasefire that went into effect last Sunday: that it was due to Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu, and that it was a victory achieved by Hamas.
It’s easy to see why this agreement has been greeted with a very cautious optimism by the Palestinians. Any respite from the horrors of the past year is welcome. It’s an extraordinary tribute to the legendary resilience of the Palestinian people that they have survived this holocaust at all.
In its desire to convince the United States and Israel of its ability to quell the Palestinian people, which necessarily implies an imitation of what the Zionist state does, the Ramallah PA has gone so far, while waging war on the Jenin camp at the same time that the Zionist forces were waging war on the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip, as to decide to ban the Al Jazeera TV network on its territory, similar to Israel’s ban of the same a few months ago.
The regime was saturated with corruption, patronage, and inefficiency. It had almost no support outside of the Alawite community, the grouping which the Assads belonged to. Even there, the support was often motivated by fear of the alternatives and being blamed by guilt by association for Assad’s crimes.
The plain fact is that once external support dried up, the regime collapsed like any “puppet regime” that is abandoned by the power that used to hold its strings. The latest striking example of such a collapse was what happened to the puppet regime in Kabul in the face of the Taliban’s advance, after US forces gave up propping it in 2021.
Women and children, situated at the lowest rungs of this hierarchy, are subject to intensified forms of physical, psychological and sexual violence that are products of the system. As the system’s crisis deepens, systematic violence escalates, until violence becomes the sole means of its survival.
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.
Students have the capacity to spark a political upheaval within the working class, but to advance effectively, the leading role of the latter is essential. Although the working class did eventually join the movement to some degree, their involvement has largely been as a mass rather than as a class and an organized political force.
Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian assistance and repeated attacks on aid convoys have sparked catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave.
Even though serious bourgeois newspapers have gone into hysterical overdrive about Sinwar’s killing, it’s not going to fundamentally change the situation. Of course, the killing of a central leader is a serious blow to Hamas. But Hamas is a mass organization; other leaders will be selected.
Capitalism has transformed the vast wealth of petroleum and minerals in the Middle East into a curse for its people. The existence of Israel is akin to a cancer on the body of the region, grafted to ensure the continuation of imperialist yoke and dominance. The entire Arab ruling elite is complicit in this imperialist project. The Palestinians have no friends, no sympathizers except for the oppressed and exploited people of the world.
Recent days have made it clear that Hezbollah’s perception of “mutual deterrence” between it and the Zionist state did not sufficiently take into account the unequal nature of this deterrence (a miscalculation similar to Hamas’s, albeit much less serious), and that its perception of the commitment of its sponsor in Tehran to defending it was also illusory, as Iran responded to the repeated attacks that Israel has been launching directly against it only once, last April, and in a manner that was almost more symbolic than harmful.
If Israel is to be successful in its historic aim of removing all Palestinians “from the river to the sea”, it needs a new shot in the arm. The dynamism that followed October 7 has run its course. A reboot is needed. This is the number one reason for the recent attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon.
