Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been massacred queuing for food in the past weeks. Television screens are filled with images of children starving and malnourished, hundreds of whom are hospitalised each day, dozens dying. The Israeli state is using starvation as a weapon, on top of its razing to the ground vast swathes of the Gaza Strip.
For nearly two years, Israeli state terror has persisted in this worst war on Gaza yet. From the beginning, Israeli politicians have promised ‘hell’ – “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel… we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”, said former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on 9 October 2023.
Asked then whether it was appropriate for Israel to cut off power and water, Britain’s now prime minister Keir Starmer replied “I think that Israel does have that right”.
Now, with over 60,000 dead, Starmer says the government “must do all we can to end the current suffering”, and that “we have long been committed to recognising a state of Palestine”. This “inalienable right” will be acknowledged by the British state “unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commits to a long term sustainable peace, including through allowing the UN to restart without delay the supply of humanitarian support to the people of Gaza to end starvation, agreeing to a ceasefire, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.”
For Starmer, the Palestinians’ “inalienable right” to their own state is a bargaining chip. 140 countries already symbolically recognise a Palestinian state, although not yet any of the G7 countries.
Labour minister Emily Thornbury asked on BBC Radio 4: “If we were completely irrelevant, why has Netanyahu completely lost it overnight?”, referring to the Israeli prime minister’s accusations that the move would “reward Hamas”.
Any pressure – however weak – from the UK government is not irrelevant, but in fact, Netanyahu was probably mostly alarmed by Trump’s initial response to Starmer: “I’m not going to take a position, I don’t mind him taking a position” and “What he says doesn’t matter”. And the fact that US president contradicted the Israeli prime minister by saying “there’s real starvation, you can’t fake that”.
The Israeli state’s war of terror on Gaza, and its brutal occupation, are supported by US imperialism. It is one of the biggest beneficiaries of US foreign aid. Its recent bombing of Iran, ongoing bombardment of Lebanon, military intervention into Syria and strikes on Houthis in Yemen, are accepted by US capitalism and with massive military assistance – with Trump as president, as with Biden previously.
Trump is a less reliable representative of US imperialism, and also a reflection of the relative weakening of its ability to call the shots in the Middle East. Despite Trump’s rhetoric against the US being involved in ‘foreign wars’ and the support that gets from a section of his support base, he is acting in US imperialism’s interests by continuing Israel’s historic position as a bastion of its influence in the region. In fact his abhorrent ‘Gaza riviera’ plans are an example of his naked pursuit of US capitalist interests.
Huge pressure
Trump’s ‘loose words’ on starving children, and Starmer’s turn on Palestinian statehood, are both as a result of huge pressure of public opinion and revulsion to images from Gaza, as well as political turmoil domestically. Trump’s net approval rating is down 15 percentage points since taking office and he is mired in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Starmer has just been forced to butcher his benefits bill to avoid a parliamentary rebellion, faced hundreds of MPs pushing on the issue of statehood under public pressure including from within the cabinet, and most importantly there is the huge enthusiasm that has existed for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s announcement of steps towards a new party.
“The world is failing the Palestinian people – a failure that will haunt western nations in particular for years to come”, the Financial Times says. Sections of the capitalist establishment know that the brutality of their system being exposed in Gaza is radicalising workers and young people worldwide. The FT now calls for sanctions on Netanyahu and his government, and to halt all arms sales to Israel. Arguing before Starmer’s announcement, for governments to follow France in recognising a Palestinian state.
Alongside building for the largest possible anti-war demonstrations, it is working-class struggle, giving an organised expression to ordinary people’s revulsion to what is going in Gaza, that can best put pressure on capitalist governments and on Netanyahu. That includes an expansion of workers’ action that has already taken place to prevent arms reaching the Israeli state, for example. And importantly fighting for a working-class political alternative to capitalist rule that has enabled and assisted genocidal slaughter.
Capitalist governments’ formal recognition of a Palestinian state will not bring an end to the Israeli state’s brutal oppression of Palestinians, nor will it offer them genuine self-determination. That requires mass struggle of Palestinians, and of the Israeli working class, to bring an end of the rule of the capitalists. By building independent workers’ organisations and parties that can organise to take wealth and power out of the hands of the capitalist bosses, democratically planned economies can begin to improve the living standards for all people on both sides of the divide, creating space for democratically elected workers’ representatives from each side to discuss, negotiate and reach agreement on issues such as borders and distribution of resources. As part of a socialist Middle East and socialist world, that is the only way to achieve peace and prosperity.
The task of socialists in Britain is to fight to strengthen and develop the organisations of the working class, and to win them to a programme for socialist change here and worldwide.
- End the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all the Palestinian territories. For the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from those areas
- The release of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli prisons and the Israeli captives held in Gaza
- A mass struggle of the Palestinians, under their own democratic control, to fight for liberation
- The building of independent workers’ parties in Palestine and Israel and links between them
- An independent, socialist Palestinian state, alongside a socialist Israel, with guaranteed democratic rights for all minorities, as part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East
- No trust in capitalist politicians internationally. Fight to build workers’ parties that stand for socialism and internationalism