On August 10, after assassinating a top Hamas leader in Tehran and a Hezbollah commander in Beirut, the genocidal Israel regime targeted a Gaza school-turned-shelter during morning prayers, killing more than 90 people. Nazi Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep bombarding Gaza until Hamas is obliterated—which translates into the nonstop slaughter of women, men, and children with no place to turn. Israel’s reckless assassination spree is pushing the Middle East toward a regional war and, given the crisis of capitalism and intensified imperialist competition, toward World War III.
Over the last 10 months, based on conservative estimates, nearly 40,000 workers have been killed in Gaza. According to the medical journal The Lancet, the true death toll from Israel’s ethnic cleansing—including bodies buried under rubble and “indirect” deaths from the collapse of health and food distribution infrastructure—exceeds 186,000, or more than 8 percent of Gaza’s prewar population (Al Jazeera, 8/7). The missile strike on the Gaza City shelter struck a prayer hall filled with 200 workers and children, strewing the scene with bodies and body parts. “The dead are all in pieces,” one worker said (New York Times, 8/10).
Progressive Labor Party calls for internationalism and multiracial unity to smash the U.S.-backed Zionist baby-killers and the murderous capitalist system behind these racist atrocities. Only communist revolution by the international working class can end capitalist genocide for all time!
Zionist isolation and U.S. weakness
As war widens in the Middle East and the blood-soaked Israeli bosses become more and more isolated, there are clear signs of growing U.S. weakness in the region. After the latest assassinations, Iran demanded an emergency meeting of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The OIC proceeded to hold Israel, “the illegal occupying power, fully responsible for this heinous attack.” Saudi Arabia, a bitter enemy of Iran until China arranged a rapprochement in March, called the murder of Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas a “blatant violation” of Iran’s sovereignty (Al Jazeera, 8/7).
As Israel’s crimes against humanity show no sign of ebbing, the United Nations keeps telling the world that there is no longer any safe place in Gaza. Schools, shelters, and hospitals are all routinely targeted by Zionist bombs and missiles. Even with more reports of torture and rapes in Palestine by Israeli soldiers, the Biden-Harris administration continues to write a blank check for money and weapons to these war criminals.
After Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s settler Nazi finance minister, stated it “may be just and moral” to try to free Israeli hostages by exterminating 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the Zionist regime faced a firestorm of criticism from the European Union (Financial Times, 8/9). If Iran and its proxies back up their threats of retaliation, the U.S. may soon find itself in a lonely place in taking Israel’s side.
Spiral to WWIII
U.S. complicity in the Gaza genocide has further eroded its influence over the vital, oil-rich Middle East. Both regional challenger Iran and imperialist rivals China and Russia are moving aggressively to fill the power vacuum. While U.S. Middle East “alliances” are disintegrating, Iran’s strategy of building up proxy militias and appealing to potential allies seems to be working. The imperialist rulers of Russia, Iran’s key backer, have used the horrors of Gaza to expose the U.S. rulers’ hypocritical criticism of Russia’s onslaught against Ukraine. And while the U.S. funds two wars, China continues to strengthen its economic and political ties in the Middle East and Africa, frequently at U.S. expense. As the U.S. prepares to send a dozen combat ships and a squadron of fighter jets to defend Israel from retaliation by Iran, it’s been reduced to pleading with Israel to accept a ceasefire agreement.
Meanwhile, both wings of the U.S. capitalist ruling class are working to squash a growing anti-genocide movement. Avril Haines, Genocide Joe Biden’s director of national intelligence, claimed that “actors tied to Iran’s government [are] posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to [anti-genocide] protesters.” This provoked 22 members of the Trump-controlled House of Representatives to demand the “investigation and criminal prosecution as well as financial ruin of Gaza war protesters, who they claim have received funding from Iran” (Ken Klippenstein, 8/9). It wasn’t enough for U.S. rulers to use their fascist KKKops to destroy overwhelmingly peaceful encampments protesting genocide in Gaza. Now they propose to criminalize the protests’ organizers.
While Top KKKop Kamala Harris agreed to meet with members of the anti-genocide Uncommitted movement, her security advisor made it clear she will never back an arms embargo against Israel: "She will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups” (Al Jazeera, 8/8). Neither Harris nor Biden has the spine to defy the Zionist lobby in the U.S., led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group spent record amounts in recent primary elections to oust two anti-genocide Congresspeople, Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri.
Worker-soldier-student fightback can end war
For the workers of the world, Zionism and Hamas-inspired Palestinian nationalism are both dead ends. Nationalism and racism are two sides of the same coin. They are used by the capitalist rulers to divide workers and mislead them into believing they have more in common with their oppressors than with their class sisters and brothers around the world.
Workers around the world have continued to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Tens of thousands are planning to demonstrate outside the warmakers’ Democratic National Convention this month. PLP applauds the bravery and determination of these protesters. But street actions and campus encampments are not enough to end capitalist wars for profit! The international working class needs more.
During the Vietnam War, Progressive Labor Party built a worker-student-soldier alliance that called for turning imperialist genocide into a war for workers’ power. That means organizing soldiers in all capitalist-led armies to turn the guns around for communist revolution. Only an international revolutionary communist party can lead the fight to smash imperialist wars—and to build a new world run by and for the working class. Fight back for the workers and children of Gaza! Join PLP!
