It’s been a long and painful year since October 7, 2023. So many of us have friends and family in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, some of whom were killed, some taken hostage, and some of whom were innocent victims of Israeli “collective punishment”. We are all deeply impacted by this tragedy. We have gotten through this year and its traumas together, and so we shall continue. We see today not as a day for rejoicing, but for mourning the loss of innocent life on that day and the subsequent genocidal invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Netanyahu regime.
It is important to note that Netanyahu instigated these wars. In April of last year, a raid by Israeli police on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the most holy Muslim site in Jerusalem, triggered a spike in violence that culminated in the October 7th Hamas-led attack on Israel’s southern border.
While Netanyahu ultimately instigated the conflict, communists should not accept the terroristic aspects of Hamas’ response, such as the taking of over 250 Israeli hostages, many of which were civilians. In addition, Netanyahu is guilty of “state terrorism”, by his relentless genocidal attacks on an unprotected population in Gaza. As Former Communist Party USA General Secretary Gus Hall warned about terrorism, “individual acts of violence are methods of a class that history is rejecting. The working class, the carrier of all that is progressive and the class that is leading the way toward social progress and a socialist society free of violence, relies on masses in motion, mass movements, and mass struggles [not individual acts of violence].”
Moreover, Netanyahu prevented negotiations to release the hostages taken by Hamas simply to keep the war going. In late August 2024, when the bodies of six kidnapped hostages turned up, the families of the deceased lashed out at Netanyahu, accusing him of “choosing to abandon the hostages in order to [politically] survive. All of the hostages could have been brought back, but Netanyahu chose to sacrifice the hostages.”
Netanyahu continues to assassinate leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah), Ismail Haniyeh (former President of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas leader), and even Iranian leaders, such as commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Saeed Abiyar. Furthermore, the Israeli forces have conducted air-strikes in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, as well as launched a ground invasion into neighboring Lebanon that so far has killed hundreds of Lebanese including innocent women and children.
If the current trend of developments continues, the region will be plunged into a cycle of conflict that could easily lead to a third world war. This would endanger the security of all states and peoples in the Middle East. It is important to note that both sides possess nuclear missiles, with Israel’s Samson Option threatening nuclear annihilation.
There are those on the Left and Right that are cheering on the violence and escalation as if it is a spectator sport. We see this as objectively playing into the hands of Netanyahu and his American corporate backers and against the goal of a permanent ceasefire and peace in the region. As stated by Abdul Ghani Salama of the Palestinian People’s Party:
“Some of those who refuse to criticize are among those who follow the war from a safe distance, as if it were a football match, feeling ecstatic whenever they see the sight of a tank being blown up, or the killing of invading soldiers, and they do not pay attention to the suffering of the people of Gaza, from hunger, deprivation, fear, displacement and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. All this destruction, killing and massacres are forgotten in front of the sight of a tank being blown up. And whoever criticizes will spoil for them ‘the splendor of the scene of legendary steadfastness’”
The Party of Communists USA agrees with our comrades in the Communist Party of Australia and most world communist parties in calling for:
- An immediate end to Israel’s aggression and crimes and call for the complete withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from Gaza and the West Bank.
- The United Nations to insist upon the implementation of its resolutions which require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, the Syrian Golan Heights and all Palestinian land illegally occupied since the 1967 Six Day War.
- Israel to dismantle all settlements constructed on occupied territories.
- The American government to withdraw its support of Israel’s aggression and to support intervention by the United Nations to bring about a peaceful settlement incorporating the above measures.
- Americans to rally in defense of the Palestinian people who are in the frontline of the struggle for an independent homeland in the face of the plans of the Israeli and US governments to embroil the whole Middle East in war. Such a war could once again lead to a world war with enormous destruction and loss of life.
Secretariat,
Central Committee,
Party of Communists USA