The Slaughter of Palestinian Children, the Victory of Israel!

Ashraf Dehghani

“This morning, July 30th, the Israeli government claimed a decisive victory! It won over the children of Qana, and tore them apart… today is a day of celebration for a government that won over angels and reminded us that a ceasefire is only a short break between two massacres.”

These are the words of Palestinian writer and poet, Mahmoud Darwish, in regards to one of the Israeli government’s crimes against the people of Palestine including children in July 2006. One could go further back, even to a distant past and still witness massacres like that of Gana, and more bloodbaths of the Palestinian people by the hands of the Zionists. One could go back right to 1917 and pause at the issuance of “the Balfour Declaration” by  British imperialism, at the formation of the “Jewish Agency” and the opening of the doors of Palestine in order to carry out the plan for the vast migration of Zionists and Jews into Palestine, and later on at the formation of the terrorist groups of the Haganah (prior to the official establishment of the Israeli state); the very same paramilitary groups that forced the Palestinian people to flee their homes by committing the most vicious and criminal acts against them. Then, one could go over the various actions of  British and US imperialism and the Zionists   to encourage Jews from around the world to migrate to Palestine and the acceleration of this migration and finally arrive at the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. From this point onward, we come to the period where gruesome  massacres of Palestinians in Deir Yassin, Ein al-Zeitun and Salaheddin took place (April 1948). Then we witness the mass killings in cities and villages like Ikrit (1953), Acre (June 1956) and Kafr Qasim (October 1962) all of which were carried out in order to evacuate them from their Palestinian inhabitation. While committing all these atrocities, notably the US and the British imperialists were the advocates of the Israeli government. Along this path, we continue on to the Six-Day War in 1967 whereby the Zionist government of Israel seized the rest of Palestine, we also come to the Camp David Accords which, as a result, Israel was for the first time recognized by one of the USpuppet regimes (Egypt during the time of Anwar Sadat). Later on, following the exodus of the displaced Palestinians into camps, we witness the Zionist government of Israel together with its Phalange mercenaries in Lebanon preoccupied in the making of the grand slaughter of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut. Along this road and after passing other Israeli-made bloody atrocities which even includes the slaughter of men, women and children with white phosphorus bombs and other most modern US weapons, we finally arrive at the present day, at the massacres in Gaza; at further slaughter of Palestinians, and yet another round of the Israeli “military superiority” over the “angels” of Palestine, and yet another victory celebration for blowing up the children of Gaza into pieces, celebration for attacking the wounded in hospitals, attacking the handicapped, the old, the young, men, women and kids, and more carnage and more celebration for rendering bodies torn into bits, bodies with disabled parts, wounded and in trembling agony, the agony of death…

The above passage is actually a synopsis of the history of the occupation of Palestine by the Zionists, the establishment of the state of Israel, its consolidation by US imperialism, and the ongoing crimes against the people of Palestine. By picturing this image, one can more clearly understand the problem at the present time regarding the current savage attacks of Israel against the people of Gaza. Yes indeed, just as in the past, today the problem is none other than the aggression of the transgressing and occupying force against the people of Palestine and the genocide against the Palestinians; a people subject to the most forms of oppression. Today, just as in the past, the Israeli criminal attacks are towards the same anti-people objectives that the US has been carrying out for years via the Zionist government not only against the Palestinians but also against all of the masses of the Middle East.

There is no doubt that Hamas is an Islamic reactionary group which, according to some evidence, Israel itself played a role in its creation as an alternative force to “The Palestinian National Authority” in Gaza and the West Bank headed by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Hamas, as the Iranian people have known for years, is completely supported by the detested Islamic Republic regime as one of its provisioners. Hamas came to political power and became a dominating force in the Gaza Strip. It is based on these circumstances that Israel waged the current war on Gaza under the pretext of Hamas murdering three Israeli teenagers without any proof.

Right now, we see that both the Zionist state of Israel and  US imperialism together with its allies in their controlled media constantly portray  Israel’s current war against unarmed Palestinians as the war between Israel and Hamas and by using this or that action of Hamas as a pretext they try to distort the historical memory of the people of the world especially that of the people of the Middle East concerning the fact that the Israeli government is an aggressor force that has committed the most vicious crimes in order to occupy Palestine. In particular, the Zionists and imperialist powers together with their other mercenaries justify the Israeli’s current warmongering as a defense to Hamas’ rocket attacks which, according to the Israeli government itself, aren’t capable of passing their “Iron Dome” which was created as a defense system by receiving billions of dollars from the US. However, reducing the criminal war against the people of Gaza to a conflict between the reactionary Hamas and  Israel would be not only a cover up to hide the current savage actions of the Israeli government but also to mask over the fact that not just today but rather for the past 60 years, i.e., many decades before the existence of the reactionary Hamas, the Palestinians have been subject to the bloody aggression of the state of Israel with the full support of US imperialism. And in fact, if the Israeli government attacks the women and men, the elderly and the children of Palestine in the name of fighting Hamas, in other periods, it justified its aggression under different pretexts. Therefore, the worldwide aversion and abhorrence towards Hamas as a branch of reactionary Islamist forces  by no means provides any justification for the ruthless actions of the Zionist government of Israel. It isn’t a coincidence that today, on a large scale around the world, the Israeli government is referred to as a war criminal.

While presenting the fake scenario of a war between Israel and Hamas, the Zionist government has dropped only on one occasion alone, 1500 tons of explosive on the people of Gaza who are squeezed into a small dense area. And by claiming that Hamas launches rockets from people’s homes, Israel gives itself the right to bombard residential areas, schools and even hospitals and still proclaim that it chooses its targets with “precision”. A claim that proved its true meaning to the people of the world when Israeli forces attacked the schools and hospitals under the supervision of the UN where the elderly, children and teens and preteens had taken refuge from its brutal attacks.

It has been seven years now since Israel has turned Gaza into a prison for Palestinians by imposing an economic blockade on Gaza and a restraint on people moving to other regions, on top of all the other repressive and anti-people policies. So much so, that as the result of poverty, destitution and other types of deprivations including the lack of health and medical services in Gaza even prior to this war it was reported that a high percentage of Palestinian children were suffering from malnutrition. It is under these deadly conditions that the Palestinians in Gaza are faced with the barbarous and merciless attacks of the Israeli government where, under the pretense of preventing Palestinians from infiltrating into Israel, their underground tunnels are destroyed and this too is used as yet another pretext to justify  Israel’s warmongering. But no matter what the excuse or evasion, when the oppressed people of Palestine are burnt in the flames of war and destruction, when they are under Israeli attack from above and below, nothing can deny or hide the beastly face and reactionary nature of the Israeli state. Today, the intensity and enormity of Israel’s criminal actions have reached a scale for which even the most conformist groups aren’t able to provide a viable justification.

It is under these circumstances that when the US and its partners in Europe and all their lackey news agencies, large and small, propound that Israel is “defending” itself and that Israel’s “right to self-defense” should be recognized, it incites nothing but an even greater outrage and disgust from the people of the world. What right? The right to transgression and occupation? The same right which the imperialists used to give themselves during the old colonialism era when they would massacre and plunder the countries they colonized, and which now see themselves also entitled to the same under their new colonial rule? Only in the tradition of imperialists such a thing would be called a “right”. Recognizing the rights of Israel as a transgressing and occupying force, especially when it commits the most horrid atrocities in order to advance its tyrannical objectives, could have no other meaning than supporting and encouraging it to continue its crimes. The state of Israelis an organism, an organized reactionary and invading force that runs on killing and carnage just like a vampire that lives on the blood of people. Therefore, wrapping the carnage and the killing of Palestinians in phraseologies like “maintaining security”, “self-defense” and so on,only suits the imperialists and their lackeys who have taken the world into captivity and imposed war and bloodshed on people all over the world.

The fact of the matter is that the Zionist state of Israel has for so long been the executive force of the anti-people policies of US imperialism in the Middle East, to the point that Ronald Reagan, the US president in the 80s, referred to Israel as “America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East”. Israel has also been referred to as the US 51st state. Whereas in the terminology of communists and progressive forces around the world Israel is called by its real name, i. e., a lackey of US imperialism. The existence of this lackey in the Middle East, aside from all the other roles it plays in the interests of the United States in different parts of the world, has provided the grounds as a centre of conflict for the sale of billions of dollars of armaments and military equipment to the reactionary governments in the Middle East and the militarization of the region. The aggressive actions of Israel against the Palestinians, which has overshadowed even the appalling news of the reactionary and felonious actions of ISIS in Iraq, serves the US desired policy of creating a war situation and an even greater crisis in the region. The current warmongering of Israel is taking place within the conditions where in order to escape the crisis and stagnation that has been casted over the capitalist world, the US and its imperialist allies have more than ever resorted to militarism and try to set their military industries in motion and build a vibrant market for themselves by creating war zones in this or that corner of the world, and by pouring a rain of bombs on civilians. This is how the ongoing actions of Israel against the Palestinians are in definite connection with the general policies of the US in  Middle East policies that are designed not only against the people of Palestine but rather against all the oppressed people of the Middle East.

When following the Israeli bombing, or in other words, when the rain of bombs started to fall on the unarmed civilian people of Gaza and the Zionist regime deployed its tanks and began a land attack against the Palestinians, a Norwegian doctor named Mads Frederick Gilbert who was working at Al Shifa hospital helping the wounded, while describing the horrible situation of the injured which is not easy to express, wrote: “Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.  But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “Dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.  The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.”

This Norwegian doctor is correct that “they have tuned their instruments of death”, in order to kill more and more until they run out of ammunition so that the US would provide them with more and more bombs and rockets and new deadly merchandise from its arsenal. After all, these military industries must operate, they must produce so that the wheel of the US economy will turn, so that they may deal with the stagnation of their rotten capitalism, etc.

In fact, a report from the news agency The Middle East Panorama on July 31, 2014 vividly confirms the above reality. In this report it is stated, quoting a US defense official, that the United States has allowed Israel to use an American-owned munitions stockpile located in Israel. According to this report, this US defense official revealed that “Israel, however, did not cite an emergency when it made its latest request about 10 days ago”. Following this request, the US allowed Israel to enter this munitions stockpile and make use of the 40mm Grenade and 120mm mortars in there, even though this stockpile was stored for emergency situations. Subsequently, it seems that as the stockpile is used up the US eventually needs to replace the cache of armaments used. This US military official stated: “we gave it to them so that we could rotate our stocks. One could not confess more clearly to the fact that Israel as a lackey of US imperialism is given the mission to use American armaments without restriction in the course of slaughtering innocent Palestinians so that stockpiles like that are emptied and thus create the need to refill them with new American weapons and munitions. The words of the Norwegian doctor should resonate here once again: “the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned”. It is also noteworthy to mention that in the heat of the recent Israeli attacks, US congress directed $225 million in additional US funding for rebuilding and improving the manufacturing of the Israel’s costly Iron Dome rocket defense system. US congress justified the approval of this “financial aid” by stating that “strengthening the military capability” of Israel is a part of US “national interest”. Considering these realities, no one with any conscience can close their eyes to the interests and bloodstained hands of US imperialism and its military industrial complex in the bloodbath created by Israel in Gaza.

In the past, especially when communist dialogue was prevailing on an international scale, and unlike today, within the Palestinian movement too, leftist and secular groups were considered powerful, and in general, the political face of the world looked different (the same era when Iranian revolutionaries would go to Palestinian whether to fight alongside the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel or in order to learn military skills, and when the Shah would send his torturers to Israel to advance their training), the situation was such that even though “The United Nations” was serving the imperialists  even back then, however, at least it would condemn Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Also as an international body, it would try to play, at least superficially, an active role in this regard and issue some resolutions in order to prevent Israeli aggression and atrocities. But nowadays, the UN acts so openly in the interests of the imperialists that even as a formality it not does condemn Israel for killing children and committing other war crimes, or not even in order to put an end to the current war does it issue any resolutions against Israel, despite the fact that the UN’s principles necessitate it to take effective measures to save the lives of civilian whenever there is a threat.

If today the imperialists treat the slaughter in Gaza with shamelessness and insolence, the UN too ever more clearly reveals its partiality towards the imperialists by showing indifference regarding these carnages. So much so, that the truth behind the existence of this “community” is exposed before the eyes of the world. Of course, it must be pointed out that, even in the past, that neither the UN could resolve the problems of the people of Palestine nor would Israel heed the UN’s demands. In particular, the state of Israel throughout its cursed history has proven that, relying on US support, it never sees itself obligated to comply with any UN resolutions and that indeed it has violated all of the resolutions of both the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. One of the most famous resolutions of the UN is the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which was adopted in November 1967. This resolution demands that Israelmust withdraw to the pre-1967 borders. The above demand, while being a collaborative demand that agrees to the occupation of some 78 percent of Palestine by Israel, presumes as if by withdrawal to previous borders, Israel, as an occupying force, will stop its aggression, occupation, killing and carnage. However, all the facts up until now prove that only when dead and destroyed, the Zionist state of Israel will put an end to its war on the oppressed people of Palestine and its indescribable atrocities against them.

Just like its beginning, the end of this article should also include the words of the Palestinian poet and writer, Mahmoud Darwish. While expressing a memory about a place in Palestine where he had spent his childhood, he writes: “Isn’t there enough room to live side by side? Can’t two dreams simultaneously and freely bloom under the umbrella of one sky? Or must the first child live in exile, alone and homeless… and without banishment: he is not there and he who is there is not “him”.”

Since the presence of Jews in Palestine for a long time has become an undeniable reality, doesn’t a genuine peace in this land really depend on the destruction of the Zionist state of Israel and thus the establishment of  completely democratic conditions there? Without  Zionists and in a democratic atmosphere; a reality which is of course only possible in our era through the path of struggle for socialism, only then will the Palestinians be able to return to their ancestral homeland and freely determine their future. In this scenario they will either live side by side with the Jewish people under the vast sky of Palestine or build two separate but democratic countries with Palestinian and Jewish inhabitants.

Today, the capitalist world is drowning in such a putrefied swamp that in order to save itself, it commits any savagery and creates all sorts of calamities whether through Zionism, Islamic fundamentalism, ISIS, etc. These reactionary and murderous actions of the imperialists and their lackey regimes and mercenaries have fomented such wrath among the masses throughout the world that is the embodiment of “the fiery red harvest of the downtrodden hopes”, and this wrath sooner or later will set the existence of the rotten and parasitic system of capitalism on fire, and with it, the fight against world imperialism will enter a new phase. The existing realities today, more than ever, turn the slogan “Socialism or Barbarism” into the slogan of “the countless army of labourers” and that of the oppressed masses of the world. In fact, the very constant warmongering of Israel, and the failure of all the so-called solutions that the imperialist forces have, in different periods, offered to Palestinian collaborationist political groups, in itself proves that socialism is the only path to freedom for the people of Palestine- as it is so for the oppressed people of the whole world.

August 2, 2014