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AN EYE FOR AN EYE

S.N.

Imperialism is afraid of China and the Arab peoples. Israel and Taiwan are the base areas of imperialism in Asia. You are the front door to this great continent, and we are the back door. The objective is the same in both cases. Asia is the biggest continent in the world, and the West wants to continue exploiting it. The West does not like us, and we must recognize this fact. The struggle of the Arab peoples against the West is, at the same time, a struggle against Israel.

Mao Zedong: You Fight in Your Way and We Fight in Ours (Between the 17th and 22nd of March, 1965)

This past weekend, a major military offensive was launched by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) against the Zionist forces in a number of occupied Palestinian territories surrounding the Gaza Strip. The particularly militant character of this offensive has shocked the world and provoked all manner of denunciations, even from self-proclaimed Left-wingers, who condemn the «violence» against the «civilian population» in «Israel». In this article, I will briefly refute these holier-than-thou apologists for Zionist colonialism, with a particular emphasis on those who claim to be «Communists».

1. THE CRIMES OF THIS GUILTY LAND CAN NEVER BE PURGED AWAY BUT WITH BLOOD

The «State of Israel», that is, the Zionist State, is a creation of Western imperialism. During the First World War (1914-18), Britain violently seized Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. In return for assistance in this, Britain promised that the Zionist movement would be allowed to colonize Palestine, with no regard for the indigenous Arab people (who belonged to both Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and other religious groups). Thus, a large influx of European and North American Jews into colonial Palestine began, with the «Jewish Legion» of the British army as their vanguard detachment. This was in the interest of British imperialism, which already had the experience of setting up settler-colonial States in countries such as the United States (Britain’s pilot project in this regard), Canada, Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Azania (South Africa), and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). The establishment of such settler-colonial States would allow the British imperialists to maintain a «native» garrison and labour force, with which to exploit and oppress the natives and exploit their natural resources, without having to commit troops for a protracted and bloody occupation, as in Britain’s resource-extraction colonies (such as India and Nigeria, for example). Thus, from its very beginning in the 1920s, «Israel» was nothing but an outpost of Western imperialism.

The Jewish settlers violently displaced the Arab natives from their lands in order to conquer and colonize Palestine. Far Right Jewish militias, such as the Haganah [Defence], the «National Military Organization in the Land of Israel» [IRGUN], and the «Fighters for the Freedom of Israel» [LEHI] (the latter of which allied itself with Nazi Germany), committed genocidal massacres on an enormous scale. It has been estimated that at least 100’000 Palestinians were exterminated in their homeland between 1918 and ’48, when the Zionist State was formally established. This was an extremely violent process, which can only be compared with such genocides as the German quest for «Living Space» in Eastern Europe, North American «Manifest Destiny», and other such settler-colonial projects. Without a doubt, this scared off many Jews from migrating to Palestine, as the Zionist movement — at this time still bourgeois in its social basis (its leadership always was and remains bourgeois) — did not find roots among the working majority of the Jewish peoples of the West. Indeed, for those who sought a Jewish homeland, precisely such an entity had been set up in the Union of Socialist Council Republics, called the Jewish Autonomous Province, where working-class Jews would have much better living conditions than in Palestine, without being involved in a genocidal war of conquest.

However, this all changed due to the Holocaust. 6’000’000 European Jews were exterminated by German imperialism and its allies and lackeys in the course of the Second World War. This strengthened the Zionist movement immensely, as it had always played up the anti-Semitic lie that the Jews were «foreign elements» to the European nationalities and that they should «find their own homeland», as «assimilation was impossible» — exactly the same rationale used by the Nazi-Fascists. The Zionist movement gained a more or less working-class social basis, and millions of Holocaust survivors migrated to Palestine in a (rather understandable) attempt to evade a second genocide, which the Zionists convinced them had to come sooner or later (and, in some places, where the Holocaust did not end with the war, such as parts of Poland, where it continued until the Red Army put an end to it). Most of these Jewish workers became simple wage-slaves to the Zionist capitalists, who had already seized most of the Palestinian land and resources for themselves in a particularly brutal process of primitive accumulation.

Thus, when the Zionist State was declared in 1948, it was neither an imperialist national State nor a subjugated colony — it was a parasite, a sub-contractor stratum sucking the blood of the Palestinian people and the Israeli working class alike, all for the benefit of a handful of Zionist big capitalists and their Western imperialist allies. Palestine and Israel are both nationalities that never got the chance to fully form. Their common struggle is national in nature, and the struggle of the Israeli people in particular also contains a significant class aspect. This provides the basis for a genuine new-democratic revolution in Palestine, which can transition without interruption to a socialist revolution, but only after the demolition of the Zionist State and the expulsion of the imperialists.

As is well known, the Zionist State practises the most brutal form of settler-colonial oppression known to humanity — Apartheid. The word «Apartheid» is actually somewhat lacking, because what «Israel» does reminds one more of the policies applied toward the Jews before the Wannsee Conference and the beginning of the wholesale annihilation of the Jewish peoples of Europe. Disenfranchisement, ghettoization, martial law, racial segregation, brutal repression, super-exploitation — all these crimes are daily life for the Palestinian people. And, emulating the South African fascists of the 20th century, the Zionists have even set up their own «Bantustan» in the West Bank, a puppet government with limited sovereignty, which it seeks to use as the basis for its «two-State solution» — a «final solution» which would achieve international recognition of the Zionist policy of ghettoization and slow extermination of the Palestinian people.

As if that were not enough, Zionist settler-colonialism even encroaches on the Bantustan of the West Bank and on the ghetto of the Gaza Strip, with Palestinian lands being annexed bit by bit in violation of international law. European and North American Jewish settlers burn down Palestinian homes, they beat, torture, rape, murder, and massacre Palestinians who refuse to leave, and they conduct armed demonstrations and pogroms, waving Zionist flags while chanting: «Gas the Arabs!» Fascist paramilitary organizations operate openly in these areas, and the Israeli «Defence» Forces are always only one step behind the settlers, building electrical fences, walls, surveillance cameras, and border checks as the settlers advance, with the Zionist government legalizing the annexations a few years later. And these territories are the areas in which Hamas is now conducting its offensive!

At the same time, the Zionist government is not content with exploiting and oppressing the Palestinian people. No, the Israeli people, too — the descendants of the working-class Jews who were tricked into migrating to Palestine by the Zionist bourgeois after the Second World War, that is, not settlers, but ordinary Israelis — suffer under this exploitative and oppressive regime. A brutal sub-contractor capitalism without a semi-feudal basis, like the corrupt capitalism so well known from countries like Poland and North Korea, with corporatist elements like the Kibbutz system running through the whole mode of production — that is the «economic freedom» that Zionism offers to its «own» people. Politically? A fascist government system, with a corrupt president for life (Netanyahu) who has basically put parliament and the courts out of function, ruling the Palestinian and Israeli peoples alike with an iron fist, funded by the hundreds of billions of dollars paid to his regime by his imperialist backers. The fascist government was the target of widespread democratic protest by the Israeli people earlier this year. Thus, it is clear to anyone with eyes in their head that the enemy of both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples is the Zionist parasite on their backs. And this entity must be rooted out with violence, just as it was created with violence, so that Palestine shall become free, independent, multinational, and democratic.

This will not be a process of peaceful change. Indeed, it cannot be. In the words of anti-colonial psychologist Frantz Fanon:

National liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event. […] Decolonization is quite simply the substitution of one human «species» by another. This substitution is unconditional, absolute, total […].

Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

This process of decolonization has now reawakened after years of slumber.

2. THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST…

The Palestinian people have risen up in a just war of national liberation against the Zionist occupiers. The «State of Israel», the illegitimate Zionist entity that, parasite-like, imposes itself on and sucks the blood of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples alike, has been shaken to its very foundations. At the time of writing, the offensive led by Hamas still has not been entirely beaten back, in spite of the already-beginning genocide of the people of the Gaza ghetto by the Israeli «Defence» Forces.

Our standpoint as Communists on the question of Palestine is clear: We stand entirely for the national self-determination of the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples alike. However, the fascist entity calling itself the «State of Israel» represents neither; it represents nothing but a handful of sub-contractors who serve the interests of the Western imperialist bloc, as well as the European and North American settlers whom it uses as shock troops against the people of Palestine. One only has to think of the fact that, in «Israel», Apartheid extends not only to the Palestinian Muslims, but also to Israeli Muslims, Palestinian Jews, Christians of various nationalities, and even Ethiopian Jews with «Israeli» citizenship. The hoax of a «Jewish State» disappears like drawings in the water, and the true face of the Zionist entity is revealed: a farce propped up by imperialism, mainly US imperialism, a rabid dog armed with nuclear claws to scare off the Arab peoples from rebelling. It is the outpost of the Yankee and other Western imperialist armed forces in West Asia.

What we want is the independence of Palestine from this imperialist imposition, a single, multinational, revolutionary-democratic People’s Republic of Palestine, a Council Republic, with the right to self-determination of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples alike, and not of the settler-colonial sub-contractor parasites who illegally occupy Palestinian land. We support every just rebellion of the Palestinian people against settler-colonial rule, just as we support every democratic movement of the Israeli people against Netanyahu’s fascist regime. Self-determination is non-negotiable. Lenin hit the nail on the head when he said:

Our Party is not afraid to declare publicly that it will sympathize with wars or uprisings which Ireland might start against England; Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia against France; Libya against Italy; Ukraine, Iran, China against Russia; and so on.

Nikolaj Lenin: An Open Letter to Boris Souvarine (Second Half of December 1916)

Zionism and anti-Semitism are twins. Zionism cannot exist without anti-Semitism. The fact that the Zionist occupiers brought Hamas to power in Gaza to weaken the influence of secular nationalists is evidence enough of this; moreover, without anti-Semitism, the «State of Israel» would lose the national myth at the foundation of its existence, its alibi — the Holocaust, which serves the same function for Zionist settler-colonialism as religious persecution of the Pilgrims does for US, forced convict labour for Australian, and British concentration camps during the Boer Wars for South African settler-colonialism. Let us bear in mind that the systematic settlement of Palestine by the Zionists began after the First World War, not after the Holocaust took place. And the objective role played by the Zionist State in world politics is clear as glass — as Mao Zedong pointed out, «Israel» is the «base area of imperialism» in West Asia. Finally, let us bear firmly in mind that, as I discussed in the first part of this article, the vast majority of Israelis are not settlers, nor have they ever been. In general, the descendants of the Holocaust survivors are not the settlers; that role is played by the descendants of those who left Europe before the Holocaust, and who turned the Holocaust survivors into their private wage-slaves.

Moreover, even Hamas recognizes the fundamental fact that there is a distinction between Israelis and settlers:

The Palestinian people are one people, made up of all Palestinians, inside and outside of Palestine, irrespective of their religion, culture or political affiliation.

[…]

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity. [My emphasis.]

https://hamas.ps/en/post/678/A-Document-of-General-Principles-and-Policies

In other words, the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, who are both rebelling against the settler-colonial, reactionary, fascist «State of Israel», should form a united front for democracy and national liberation. Of course, this requires a reconstituted Communist Party in Palestine. But we must be practical. There is no such Communist Party, nor will there be for a number of years, until this historical responsibility is taken up by a group of Communists of both nationalities that inhabit Palestine — a concrete fusion of the Palestinian struggle for land and the Israeli democratic and labour struggle on the basis of the joint struggle against imperialism and Zionism. In the meantime, we have no choice but to adhere to the policy pointed out by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto:

[…] the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party (December 1847-January 1848)

3. … AND THE HENS ARE SHOCKED

But there are some who do not see it in this way. The Nepalese and Chinese revisionists, who in practice are the most vile and bootlicking traitors to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism — both invoking the names of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong while negating every principle and policy for which they stood — throw their weight behind the genocidal «State of Israel» in its struggle against the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. Prachanda, the ex-Maoist revisionist leader of Nepal, who in 2006 betrayed the Nepalese revolution and became a prostitute for British imperialism and Indian expansionism, recently stated on Twitter:

I unequivocally condemn the terrorist attack in Israel this morning. Nine of the Nepalis have been reportedly injured. At this critical hour, I extend my heartfelt sympathies to injured Nepalis and other innocent victims and their families.

@cmprachanda (7th of October, 2023)

The Chinese revisionist Ministry of Foreign Affairs followed him up with the following statement:

China is deeply concerned over the current escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel. We call on relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities to protect civilians and avoid further deterioration of the situation.

The recurrence of the conflict shows once again that the protracted standstill of the peace process cannot last. The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine. The international community needs to act with greater urgency, step up input into the Palestine question, facilitate the early resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and find a way to bring about enduring peace. China will continue to work relentlessly with the international community towards that end.

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/202310/t20231008_11157299.html

These revisionist traitors, each in their own way, oppose the just struggle of the peoples of Palestine against the fascist Zionist occupiers.

Prachanda is content with condemning the war of national liberation, because his interests are tied up with those of the Western imperialist bloc. To this end, he advocates open social-chauvinism, that is, support for national oppression under the signboard of Socialism.

China condemns both sides and encourages Confucian «restraint», because the war of national liberation may upset the delicate balance of power in West Asia, which Chinese social-imperialism (that is, socialism in name, imperialism in deeds) has been working so patiently to gradually shift in its favour rather than that of US imperialism. (See China’s recent brokering of a «truce» between Iran and the Saudi State.) To this end, the Chinese advocate social-pacifism (that is, opposition to just wars of liberation under cover of «opposition to all war») when it suits them (in Palestine), just as they advocate social-chauvinism at other times (toward the Philippines, Vietnam, and Tigray).

Both points of view would be betrayals of the peoples of Palestine if, indeed, these revisionists had not betrayed all the peoples of the world many years ago.

In Switzerland, the social-pacifist point of view was best expressed by Social-Democratic National Councillor and former President of the Young Socialists, Fabian Molina:

To kidnap Israeli civilians and to shoot rockets at cities is despicable. But to respond in rage by cutting off electricity to Palestinian hospitals is just is wrong.

But there are comrades who may actually be deceived by the social-chauvinism and social-pacifism of the revisionists. These comrades do not condemn the national struggle of the Palestinian people, but «simply» oppose the current offensive led by Hamas, which is the main expression of this struggle today, by equating it to the actions of the Zionists. Of course, we do not agree with Hamas — they are not Communists, but Islamic fundamentalists. However, as nationalists, even reactionary ones, we support them only to the degree that they win national self-determination for Palestine, and not one step further, as their feudal ideology would then block the revolutionization of the relations of production, the development of the productive forces, and the emergence of a genuine Palestinian bourgeoisie and proletariat, and oppose the reconstitution of the Communist Party — just as the Zionists do today. But, until that point, we support them. After that point, the Communists shall work with all their might to overthrow them and to establish a Council Republic — the peoples of Iran, Algeria, and other countries know very well that no «Islamic Republic» can ever represent their interests once the imperialist jackboots have left their territory.

Moreover, the only solution really is a multinational People’s Republic of Palestine. The Trotskijites from The Spark, the Swiss section of the International Marxist Tendency, in a recent article propose the establishment of «an all-Palestinian socialist federation as part of a socialist federation of the Near and Middle East». Without looking at the implication of a one-stage «socialist» revolution in Palestine and other West Asian countries — I already demonstrated in the first part of this article that Palestine is not capitalist — the fact is that it is only among the Israeli nationality that developed capitalist productive forces exist; they are not highly developed in the West Bank, and basically do not exist in Gaza. Thus, this kind of «federation» would essentially mean a reinvention of Israeli colonialism, but in a new, social-imperialist form. The only solution is a national-democratic revolution led by the working class, as described by Comrade Mao Zedong in his On New Democracy (January 1940) and The Present Situation and Our Tasks (December 1947), as Lenin advocated in Russia in 1905 (see Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution), and as Marx and Engels advocated in Germany in 1848 (see the Manifesto of the Communist Party and the final Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League).

4. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WAR CRIMES?

The fact remains that the taking of civilian hostages, looting of civilian homes, and rapes and murders of civilians are mainly taking place in the settler-occupied Palestinian territories; in other words, the «civilians» in question are not really civilians in the true sense, but participants in the low-intensity war waged by the settler-colonial Zionist State against the Palestinian people. Moreover, Hamas is not a people’s army, but a guerrilla force under reactionary nationalist leadership, and, as such, cannot be held to the same standards as a people’s army. Is it good that such war crimes are taking place? No. Does it in the least affect our support for the war of national liberation? Again, no. Such war crimes have always been part of revolutions and wars of national liberation, because the masses are not subject to the same laws of war that regular armies are; moreover, such laws are bourgeois in nature, and should be observed only when such observance tactically benefits the revolution rather than weakens it. To spread terror among settlers who objectively participate in colonizing one’s people (and who, moreover, can be called as reservists in the occupier’s military at any time), so as to force them to leave one’s lands, is a legitimate reason why not to respect the laws of war when it comes to such settlers. Finally, this is simple retaliation on the part of the guerrillas and the masses for the towering mountain of war crimes inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Zionists, these settlers included, for almost a century at this point. We cannot condemn the Palestinian offensive for this. As Mao Zedong said:

Then, there is another section of people who say: «Yes, peasant associations are necessary, but they are going rather too far.» This is the opinion of the Centrists. But what is the actual situation? True, the peasants are in a sense «unruly» in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the feudal lords no say and sweeps away their prestige. This amounts to striking the feudal lords down to the dust and keeping them there. The peasants threaten [the feudal lords]. They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan-chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs, and consume their grain. They even rape the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation, they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying: «You dirty feudal lords, now you know who we are!» Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside. This is what some people call «going too far», or «exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong», or «really too much». Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the local tyrants, evil gentry, and lawless feudal lords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages, they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry, and lawless feudal lords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted. Who is bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so vicious, who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let off lightly — the peasants keep clear accounts, and very seldom has the punishment exceeded the crime. Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the feudal lords, which has lasted for thousands of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can mobilize the people in their millions to become a powerful force. All the actions mentioned here which have been labelled as «going too far» flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action. In this period, it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the peasants. It was necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations. It was necessary to overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike them to the ground, and to keep them there. There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labelled as «going too far» in this period. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or to overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted. [My emphasis.]

Mao Zedong: Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (16th to 18th of February, 1927)

Or, in other words, as the religious texts of the peoples of Palestine themselves say:

«Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. […] If anyone injures his neighbour, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. You shall have the same rule for the foreigner and for the citizen, for I am the Lord your God.» So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and […] the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses. [My emphasis.]

Book of Leviticus, Chapter 24

How should we understand the question of excesses in revolutionary struggles, uprisings, and wars as discussed by Mao Zedong in the quotation above, especially when atrocities and war crimes are committed? The point that Mao made was not that such actions are good in themselves; they are not. The point is also not that revolutionaries should commit atrocities, such as torture, massacres, or rape; they should not. Rather, the point is, firstly, that the masses cannot be blamed for releasing their pent-up anger; secondly, that it is historically necessary that the masses create terror, including through such atrocities; and, thirdly, that the masses will lose confidence in «leaders» who belittle and lecture them. Of course, I expect to be called «misanthropic» by a number of pseudo-Left post-modernists, who undoubtedly will cry out: «But rape is patriarchal violence! We cannot support a struggle in which rape is used as a weapon!» But then you would have to stop supporting every just war. There will always be excesses and atrocities in wars and uprisings. Yes, the Palestinian forces most likely massacred a few hundred festival-goers, but those people were on occupied land, less than ten kilometres away from a ghetto where millions of people are imprisoned, and they — the ones among them who were not settlers themselves — decided to go partying there. That is despicable. To put it bluntly, I do not care what is done to people like that; I am not a Hamas officer, so it is not my job to prevent Hamas soldiers from doing those atrocities, even though they are atrocities. A Communist-led people’s army does not commit atrocities, but Communists also are not so lost in their own fantasies about the «noble Palestinian savages» that we imagine their war of national liberation to be perfect. To put it even more bluntly, the standpoint that wars of national liberation in which acts of patriarchal violence are committed cannot be supported is racist. As Frantz Fanon pointed out:

The colonized’s sector, or at least the «native» quarters, the shantytown, the Medina, the reservation, is a disreputable place inhabited by disreputable people. You are born anywhere, anyhow. You die anywhere, from anything. It’s a world with no space, people are piled one on top of the other, the shacks squeezed tightly together. The colonized’s sector is a famished sector, hungry for bread, meat, shoes, coal, and light. The colonized’s sector is a sector that crouches and cowers, a sector on its knees, a sector that is prostrate. It’s a sector of niggers, a sector of towelheads. The gaze that the colonized subject casts at the colonist’s sector is a look of lust, a look of envy. Dreams of possession. Every type of possession: of sitting at the colonist’s table and sleeping in his bed, preferably with his wife. The colonized man is an envious man. The colonist is aware of this as he catches the furtive glance, and constantly on his guard, realizes bitterly that: «They want to take our place.» And it’s true there is not one colonized subject who at least once a day does not dream of taking the place of the colonist.

Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

In sum, we Communists support revolutionary and national-liberation struggles, uprisings, and wars, with all the horror they entail, with all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the atrocities, all the war crimes, all the death and suffering they carry with them, because we care about actually transforming the world, and such transformation can only be brought about by the masses, and the masses are not perfect university students without the slightest «problematic» or «critical» idea in their brains.

This is precisely why we Communists want to abolish war through war, by fighting the last war, the worldwide people’s war to abolish exploitation and oppression everywhere in the world, so that there will never again be war, atrocities, or violence. But only a naive child or a bourgeois humanist could possibly believe, after centuries of pacifist agitation against «all war», that our exploiters and oppressors will suddenly start listening to them and give us peace — and, moreover, not offer us their Pax Romana, their «Roman Peace» of the graveyards, their peace of exploitation and oppression, which is worse than any just war could ever be, even the most brutal one.

We cannot limit ourselves to abstract calls or wishful thinking: We must take a stand in favour of the current, real offensive.

5. SUPPOSE HAMAS CAPITULATES?

Finally, suppose Hamas capitulates? What then? There have already been signs of impending «negotiations» with the Zionists, although it is doubtful that the settler-colonial State will accept talks with Hamas after the profound humiliation it has just suffered. It is more likely that we will now see the beginning of a protracted, genocidal war of extermination on the part of «Israel», which will force Hamas into the role that it would prefer not to play — the role of suddenly fighting for the interests of their nation rather than their own interests.

While Hamas has the backing of the masses of Gaza because of its nationalism, it does not represent their fundamental interests. Although there has been some degree of mass mobilization as part of this offensive, it is in no way sufficient, and this very failure to mobilize the masses is what will determine the failure of the uprising. In order for this uprising (or the war that follows) to have any hope of success, it must be combined with revolutionary mass action, with a new Intifada.

If Hamas should capitulate, the fight will go on. When Fatah capitulated to the Zionists and Arafat became the figurehead of the Bantustan puppet regime in the West Bank, groups like Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] took the lead in the Palestinian resistance struggle. Such a change would undoubtedly occur once again should Hamas capitulate. Such betrayals, capitulations, and overthrows are part of the normal process of national liberation movements, and this is a vicious cycle through which all such movements go until they learn to let themselves be led by a proletarian political party that is armed with a coherent ideology: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The Palestinian people will learn from this struggle, and they will draw lessons. But the only way out of occupation and genocide for them is to produce a proletarian leadership and unite with the Israeli working people, so as to storm and shatter the walls from both sides through revolutionary war. This is the perspective and the only way out for the peoples of Palestine.

In the meantime, I will continue to support anyone who offers armed national resistance to the Zionists and their imperialist puppeteers, and anyone who wants to talk to me about «atrocities» can go and cry about it together with all the imperialist warmongers, who only care about war crimes when they affect (gasp!) oppressor nationalities, while they have been silent about the ongoing genocide of the oppressed nationalities ever since the imperialist system came into being, including since 1918 in Palestine.