By John Pickard
If over a quarter of a million UK residents had been bombed – the overwhelming majority of them civilians – there would be outrage, in Britain, Europe and globally. But that would be the number killed if the Gaza death toll was scaled up as a proportion of the UK population.
The Gaza death toll is a higher figure – again in proportion to the population – than the total UK civilian deaths in the whole of World War II. Yet much of the mainstream media still largely ignores it.
Even the BBC Middle East correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, has pointed out that in five weeks Israel has killed more civilians in Gaza than Russia has killed in Ukraine in a year and a half. The death toll in that narrow strip of land has now reached over 10,000, more than 4,000 of them children. Dozens of journalists have been killed and, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, 88 UN employees.
International agencies that deal with human rights, such as the UN itself, as well as charities, have condemned the inhumanity of the attack on Gaza. The International Criminal Court is looking at possible war crimes in the Israeli attack on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.
Gaza is still undergoing ‘total siege’ and what humanitarian aid has been allowed in by Israel has been a tiny fraction of what is required for a population of 2.3mn. By arrangement with the Israeli military, the Jordanian government was permitted to parachute in a few boxes of of “urgent medical aid”, which is a drop in the ocean, compared to what is needed.
The Israeli military machine now routinely bombs hospitals, ambulances, schools, bakeries, water towers, generators, desalinisation plants, and all aspects of what little infrastructure still remains in Gaza. Even solar panels on rooftops. Cars carrying families and heading South – fleeing the Northern area, as the Israeli authorities have urged – have been bombed. Yet all of these, according to the daily IDF press briefings, are ‘Hamas targets’.
More than 150 killed in the West Bank
Israel is trying to make life as difficult as possible, if not unbearable, for Arabs in the West Bank. More than 150 Palestinians have been killed there since October 7, many by Jewish settlers, protected by their uniforms as IDF reservists. A video clip on social media shows Israeli soldiers attacking mourners at the funeral of a Christain Palestinian woman killed. These brave soldiers are clubbing the handful of men trying to carry the coffin. Is this coffin, the person posting the video asks, a ‘Hamas base’ too?
In towns and cities all over Europe, the USA and the world there have been massive demonstrations against the horrific bombing of Gaza. These have included ‘flash’ demonstrations taking over railway stations and public places in London, Manchester, Birmingham, New York and in many other places. All of the these demonstrations and the scores of resolutions passed by labour movement organisations are in support of a cease fire, although by a twisted and malicious inversion of logic they are described by the Home Secretary, ‘Cruella’ Braverman, as ‘hate-marches’.
It is because of the world-wide coverage on social media that there has been a tidal wave of anger among workers and youth at the genocidal bombing in Gaza. It is this public pressure, not the consciences of politicians, that is creating unprecedented international difficulties for Isael. Four South American states have either withdrawn embassadors or broken off diplomatic relations altogether. Even some European governments are now saying it is time for a cease-fire.
Turning a blind eye to suffering in Gaza
The South African government, no stranger to apartheid, is withdrawing its embassador to Israel, to signal its concern over the killing of innocent children and civilians Gaza. “We believe the nature of response by Israel” the foreign minister said, “has become one of collective punishment.”
It is only the White House, the British government and, disgracefully, the leadership of the Labour Party, that turn a blind eye to the suffering in Gaza and maintains a completely pro-Israeli position. Their chief concern is the “defence” of israel, although in reality, there is not and never was any ‘existential threat’ to the powerful Israeli state.
It is the huge surge of support for Palestine around the world that led the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken to call on the Qatari government to ‘turn down’ Al Jazeera, which is financed by Qatar. Al Jazeera has the best coverage of the effects of the pulverisations in Gaza, precisely because it still has journalists on the ground. Blinken can see that the film they transmit to the world is dynamite.
Journalists targeted in Gaza and the West Bank
In response, Israel is trying – and failing – to control news and information coming out of Gaza and the West Bank. They are targetting journalists in both places as well as on the border with Lebanon. Al Jazeera reported that in Israel, journalists were beaten by police because they were heard ‘speaking Arabic’.
But Blinken cuts a lonely figure touring capitals in the Middle East, and getting little support for the USA backing for Israel. Not one of the Arab government leaders can be trusted to support the interests of the Palestinian people, and, like Blinken, their overriding concern is the ‘stability’ of capitalism and their own privilige, wealth and power.
Left to themselves, they would support the USA, but they can feel a chill and fierce wind blowing through the corridors of power. The Arab workers and youth of the whole Middle East feel a natural affinity with fellow Arabs in Palestine and the more savage the bombardment of Gaza, the more that Arab governments will feel the rage of their own people.
This war looks like it may yet run its grim, bloody, course for a lot longer. If the ground is shifting under the feet of governments across the world now, it is because of the scenes of carnage in Gaza and the protests of workers and youth. The labour movement must make sure that the shaking ground becomes an earthquake, until there is an end to the bombing of Gaza.
The international labour movement has a responsibility, not only to continue its protests, but to raise the class issues in a conflict that ultimately can have no military solution, only a political and a socialist one. Socialists must support the struggle of the Palestinian people for a future, either as a separate state in a two-state arrangement, or as part of a unitary, socialist state, with full equality in all respects. It is only on that basis that can there be genuine peace.
The social and political rights of Jewish and Arab workers can both be met in Israel/Palestine, not on the basis of capitalism, but through the workers’ movement struggling for a socialist Israel/Palestine, as part of a socialist federation of Middle East states. That seems a long and difficult road, but it is the only one that the labour movement can support.
[Pictures from Al Jazeera]
