As Israel piles horror upon horror on Gaza, Palestine refuses to die
It didn’t seem possible that the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza could get any worse, but it has.
The Israeli tactics are bombing, shooting and starvation, with special emphasis on killing starving people as they try to access the little humanitarian food aid that Israel is allowing to enter the enclave. “The UN’s human rights office said Israeli troops or other gunmen had shot 1,054 people since late May, of whom 766 were killed near sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The rest were killed while trying to reach UN aid convoys” (Richard Spencer and Philip Willan, ‘“Mass starvation” across Gaza as US envoy opens ceasefire talks’, The Times, 23 July 2025). Cynically, Israel has no compunction in blaming the aid givers for the food shortages:
“Israeli officials said they had not identified a famine in Gaza and blamed United Nations bodies for not collecting and distributing food and supplies. Some 950 trucks’ worth of supplies were waiting to be collected by the UN from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, according to Cogat, an Israeli military agency.”
However “According to the UN, Israel’s restrictions and permit rejections are the reason for the mounting stockpiles at the border points, as aid organisations are regularly barred from transferring aid to warehouses and distribution sites, or risk coming under fire from the Israeli army if they do not obtain permissions” (ibid.).
Israel claims it has allowed about 4,500 aid lorries to enter Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, or about 70 a day on average, and that more than 700 were waiting to be picked up and distributed by the UN. Assuming this is even true, actually it amounts to an admission of guilt: the UN says 500 or 600 trucks a day are needed.
In the meantime doctors and nurses are passing out at work because of starvation, and aid workers too have to join the queues for humanitarian aid:
“Weak and dizzy, medics are passing out in the wards, where colleagues revive them with saline and glucose drips. Persistently short of basic tools such as antibiotics and painkillers, doctors are also running out of the special intravenous drips used to feed depleted patients.
“… the doctors described how they are increasingly unable to save malnourished babies and are instead forced to simply manage their decline…” (Patrick Kingsley, Bilal Shbair and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, ‘No meals, fainting nurses, dwindling baby formula: starvation haunts Gaza hospitals’, New York Times, 27 July 2025).
As at 12 August, total malnutrition deaths (since May 2025) amount to at least 193 (incl. 96 children), but this number is rising daily and exponentially. The rate of severe malnutrition among acutely malnourished children was 18% in June–July, up from 12% March–May. Furthermore, with July seeing a dramatic collapse in medical nutritional interventions – only about 3% of children needing feeding and micronutrient supplements were treated, compared to roughly 26% in previous months, again because supplies were being withheld by Israel.
Journalists targeted
This is combined with murdering journalists present who report the crimes Israel is committing, so that Israel can continue denying it is doing so. According to Foreign Policy on 11 August 2025, “Among the attacks on Gaza City over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes killed at least six journalists, including prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, in a tent near al-Shifa Hospital. The Israeli military said it purposely targeted Sharif, claiming that he was leading a Hamas cell in the city and ‘advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and troops.’ Sharif and Al Jazeera have previously called these allegations baseless. …
“Instead, press advocates have described the attacks as retribution against those documenting Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, including evidence of mass starvation…
“More than 240 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, according to a United Nations spokesperson, and this weekend’s deaths—of whom five were Al Jazeera staffers—were the deadliest attacks on reporters in more than 22 months. Israel has a history of targeting Al Jazeera, which is partially funded by the Qatari government, by blocking the news site from airing in Israel and raiding its offices in the occupied West Bank”.
Besides starving and murdering local journalists, Israel is blocking the entry to Gaza of international journalists, triggering a protest from major newspapers in the following terms:
“On Friday [26 July], dozens of members of the International News Safety Institute, a nonprofit group, issued a statement calling on Israel to allow journalists in Gaza who are facing starvation to leave the enclave, and for international reporters to be allowed entry. Signatories included The Washington Post, The Financial Times and The Guardian.
“’Israel must allow other journalists into Gaza’,” the statement said. “’Nearly two years into the war, no international media have been permitted to independently enter. As local reporters are killed, face the threat of starvation, or try to flee, the world will be systematically cut off from witnessing what is happening. This cannot be allowed to happen’” (Ephrat Livni, ‘News organizations urge Israel to let reporters and aid into Gaza’, New York Times, 27 July 2025).
More bombing
Deir al-Balah that was previously relatively unscathed was on 20 July subjected to carpet bombing, its inhabitants forced out of their homes to join the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left homeless by bombing. On that day some 130 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in just 24 hours.
The situation has even shocked Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, who has told the security council (to no avail) that the situation in Gaza is a “horror show”. He said: “We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles. That system is being denied the conditions to function.”
The Financial Times editorial board has also decided that enough is enough:
“Rarely has the world had such visibility of mass human suffering as in Gaza. Images from the besieged Palestinian enclave are graphically displaying the death and destruction wrought by Israel’s nearly 22-month offensive. Women clutching horribly emaciated children. War-scarred hospitals struggling to treat streams of wounded. The dead lined up in rows in body bags.
“Mass starvation is stalking the strip. Yet Israeli soldiers have killed hundreds of people trekking to aid distribution centres operated under a flawed Israeli- and US-backed system that breaks with usual humanitarian models. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s offensive is nearing 60,000, according to local health officials.
“Across the strip, entire towns have been razed, with most of the 2.1mn population herded into barren wastelands. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has told local media he wants to establish a ‘humanitarian city’ in southern Gaza to house 600,000 people and later the entire population. Former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert warned that would be akin to a ‘concentration camp’” (‘The world is failing the Palestinian people’, 28 July 2025). As a major imperialist mouthpiece, the Financial Times considers it legitimate for Israel to retaliate following the 7 October attack, but, afraid that its protégé is losing every bit of the goodwill it once enjoyed, it now declares that “Israel’s offensive has long gone beyond all bounds of a proportionate response”. The Financial Times advocates that “Unless the Israeli government agrees to an immediate end to the war and a surge of aid into Gaza, western countries should be sanctioning Netanyahu and his government. They should halt all arms sales to Israel.” This goes far beyond what Britain’s ‘Labour’ government is prepared to contemplate!
Ceasefire negotiations
In the midst of all the horror, the US is setting itself up as an ‘honest broker’ to bring about the ceasefire and resumption of aid finally to put an end to the suffering. Israel wants the release of the remaining 50 hostages of whom 20 are thought to be still alive. However, once they are released, it wants the right to resume the fight to “eliminate Hamas”. Unsurprisingly the Palestinian resistance, and the people of Gaza in general, have no interest in a ceasefire that will only end with renewal of Israel’s exercise in ethnic cleansing! What the Palestinian side is demanding is that the ceasefire be guaranteed as permanent and that the IDF withdraw from the entire territory. The resistance is, of course, being denounced for intransigence, with Israel and the US flouncing out of ceasefire negotiations and refusing to end the suffering. Intransigence, however, is entirely on the Israeli side in insisting on its right to continue the genocide after its hostages have been returned.
Far from wanting a permanent ceasefire the Israeli government’s ambition is to take over and occupy the whole territory.
Imperialists and the 2-state solution
Faced with the mounting repulsion of the British people in response to the genocide in Gaza, Britain’s steadfastly pro-Zionist Labour government has suddenly felt the need to appear to show some compassion. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, is now saying the deteriorating situation in Gaza has “reached new depths” while condemning the “unspeakable and indefensible” failure by the Israeli government to allow aid into the territory. In response he has pledged to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN in September unless Israel agrees a ceasefire.
Emmanuel Macron too has pledged to recognise the Palestinian state, but placed no conditions on doing so.
Though both Starmer and Macron are the most thoroughbred lackeys of the respective imperialist ruling classes of their countries, both of which are host to major oil companies that rely on Israel to protect their interests in the Middle East, it almost looks as though their hearts have begun to bleed at last, to the extent they are prepared to take measures favouring the Palestinian people, and enraging the Israeli Zionists who accuse them of ‘rewarding terrorism’.
But neither the oil companies nor Israel need to fear! While Britain and France both call boldly for a halt and reversal of Israeli military operations, there has been no explicit public information that they have ceased arms sales to Israel. Neither country has declared an arms embargo or any suspension of military supplies to Israel. On the contrary, The Times has revealed that “The British military is hiring American contractors to carry out secret spying missions over Gaza for Israel because of a shortage of RAF aircraft”. As The Times points out, “Britain’s military support for Israel is at odds with the Foreign Office position, which has been to call out the Israeli government for ‘grotesque’ treatment of Palestinians and threaten sanctions” and apparently even British “Military sources are baffled by the decision to privatise RAF intelligence-gathering tasks to help Israel, questioning why the government hasn’t pulled support after photographs emerged of starving Palestinians” (Larisa Brown, ‘Blunder reveals UK hired foreign contractors for Gaza spy mission’, 4 August 2025).
The Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, struggling to present recognition of the Palestinian state as a helpful measure said: “A lot of people would argue that recognition on its own has a symbolic value that could send a strong message to the Israeli government.” Given that it is well known that the Israeli government is entirely impervious to ‘strong messages’ (as indeed are all imperialist governments), it is hard to escape the conclusion that ‘recognition of the Palestinian state’ is just a meaningless gesture intended to soothe the outrage of the gullible.
As The Telegraph aptly comments: “Beyond symbolism … the move will have little tangible effect. After all, 147 countries have already recognised Palestine without altering its prospects for statehood. Recognition cannot conjure up a functioning state” (Adrian Blomfield, ‘Starmer cannot simply conjure up a Palestinian state – here’s why’, 29 July 2025).
Dr HA Hellyer from the Royal United Services Institute hit the nail on the head when he commented in the Financial Times of 1 August (‘Recognition of Palestinian statehood is not enough when it comes to Gaza’): “Recognition affirms the Palestinian people’s entitlement to self-determination under international law, which the vast majority of the world’s nations already uphold. But if this recognition is not tied to real measures to end the war on Gaza and dismantle the occupation, it risks becoming a substitute for action” – which is precisely what it is meant to be!
Way back at the time of the Oslo accords in 1993 it had been agreed that there should be a 2-state solution. Even though the Palestinian Liberation Organisation by virtue of these accords recognised the Israeli state and agreed that the Palestinian territory would be restricted to 22% of the land of Palestine, complete failure by the Israelis to honour their commitments meant that the Oslo accords turned out to be not worth the paper they were written on.
What difference would it make if the whole world recognised the Palestinian state? Virtually none. The British recognition would only mean that the Palestinian mission in London would be renamed an embassy, and Palestine would be admitted to “international committees that require members to have statehood” (see Richard Spencer, ‘What impact would British recognition of Palestinian state have?’, The Times, 27 July 2025). It might be thought that the Palestinian representative would have a vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations and would be entitled from time to time to take a turn on the Security Council as a non-permanent member, having no right of veto. In itself no big deal, but we can be sure that the US would veto Palestine being accepted as a member state, rendering the Starmer/Macron gestures even more meaningless.
Palestine Action
If anything illustrates the continued unconditional British imperialist support for Israel, notwithstanding the latter’s “grotesque treatment of Palestinians”, it is the egregiously fascistic measures taken against Palestine Action, officially declaring it to be a terrorist organisation, proscribing it and making it a criminal offence to ‘support’ it that can result in 14-year jail sentences. The British police force, that is notoriously too overburdened to find time to deal with shoplifting, burglary, car theft and fraud, or even to pound the streets of Knightsbridge to help protect wealthy tourists from having their expensive watches snatched, is being mobilised en masse to arrest, as terrorists no less, entirely blameless citizens for holding up handwritten placards bearing the slogan ‘I support Palestine Action’:
“Police arrested more than 450 protesters gathered in central London on Saturday [9 August] to support Palestine Action, the activist group banned by the government as a terrorist organisation.
“The protesters openly flouted terrorism laws by descending on Parliament Square in Westminster at 1pm to hold up handwritten placards bearing the slogan: ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’ …
“By 9pm, the force, assisted by scores of officers drafted in from across Britain, had detained 466 people for supporting a proscribed organisation.
“They included an 89-year-old Jewish refugee and Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate. La Pethick, another 89-year-old, was carried away by officers on a folding chair after she refused to walk…
“Among those taking part in yesterday’s protest was Claudia Cotton, 89, a Jewish refugee whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1939. ‘I am prepared to be arrested,’ the retired social worker from London said. ‘In fact, I think it’s a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose governments that are doing evil things’” (Dipesh Gadher, Harry Yorke and Dominic Hauschild, ‘Police arrest 466 at Palestine Action protest, beating poll tax record ‘, The Times, 9 August 2025).
‘Support’ of course is a very elastic word whose meaning on any given occasion needs to be clarified by the context in which it is used. In the context of ‘supporting’ a political organisation, ‘support’ would normally involve making some kind of substantial or continuing financial contribution and/or regular participation in that organisation’s activities. To clarify, it is not entirely impossible that a person might, perhaps to their own surprise, find some measure taken or proposed by, say, a Conservative government of which he or she approves. Does that make such a person a ‘supporter’ of the Conservative Party? Obviously not. Likewise, just because an individual believes that war crimes are being committed in Gaza and therefore approves of measures taken by Palestine Action to sabotage the armaments used for that purpose, it does not follow that he or she is ‘supporting’ Palestine Action as an organisation. A placard saying ‘I support Palestine Action’ really means ‘I agree with what Palestine Action has been doing’ but it in no way constitutes actual support for the organisation. Risking arrest and imprisonment could be construed as support, but it is support for the democratic right of freedom of speech, not support for Palestine Action as such.
The crux of the matter is of course that the word ‘terrorism’ has a far more definite meaning than the word ‘support’ and that it is a word that can in no way be properly applied to what Palestine Action have been doing. A terrorist is someone who endeavours to impose his political will by the systematic use of violence against the public or some section of it. It is exclusively confined to violence directed against persons, not against inanimate objects such as military aircraft.
“Surprisingly, even The Times, typically a reliable megaphone for Britain’s intelligence, military and security apparatus, published an editorial on July 7 intensely critical of ‘the heavy-handed branding of Palestine Action as terrorists,’ dubbing the proscription ‘absurd.’ While describing the group as ‘a malign force’ and ‘antisocial menace,’ the outlet argued that activists’ damage to commercial and private property could be ‘prosecuted into submission’ under existing criminal law…” (Kit Klarenberg, Mint Press, 25 July 2025).
So how come the Home Secretary (Labour Party) was able officially to abuse the English language by categorising Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation when its activities are entirely peaceful? The main advantage from her point of view is that prosecutions against its members as ‘terrorists’ does not require a jury trial – a most important consideration given that British juries, made up as they are of ordinary citizens, have been accepting the defence that the accused truly believed that what was done was legitimate under international law to prevent war crimes. The fact is that under Section 1 of the Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. This being the case, when the government fails to uphold its moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are of course the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it.
Could anything be clearer in the circumstances than that it is the will of the British government that nobody should be allowed to interfere with its ability to commit war crimes and to support others in doing so?
Palestine Action applied for judicial review of Cooper’s proscription of the organisation, on the basis that the proscription was an irrational abuse of power – an application which was granted so that a court will hear the case in November. However, the organisation had also applied for an interim order suspending the proscription in the meantime, which, given that it was accepted there were grounds for believing an abuse of power may have been committed, one might have thought would follow as a matter of course. But the interim order was not granted, so the proscription stands until and unless it is overturned at the main hearing. And in the meantime hundreds of people are being rounded up by the police, arrested as ‘terrorists’ and threatened with lengthy jail terms. What can one say?
“Speaking to MintPress News, [an] anonymous Actionist expressed frustration over the court’s decision. ‘A UN Special Rapporteur supported us, warning the proscription breached international standards, but apparently British judges know better. It just shows how corrupt the entire system is. Every part of it is rotten,’ they lament. ‘The government, almost unanimously supported by parliament, rammed through the proscription without warning or any public debate whatsoever, after falsely briefing the media we might be funded by Iran. Who will they target like this next?’”
A salutary lesson in the nature of the state, and all state institutions including the judiciary, not as the guardian of democratic rights but as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the popular masses – democratic rights being guaranteed only insofar as their exercise does not impinge on the interests of the bourgeoisie, i.e., of British imperialism.
The Palestinian resistance will not be beaten
Despite the horrors of the Israeli genocide, the Palestinian resistance keeps on going while the Israeli monster is gradually weakening. Indeed it is this weakening that is prompting US imperialism to send Steve Witkoff off to try to pull together some kind of a ceasefire, in the face of Israeli intransigence. As the Financial Times has pointed out, “Part of being a pro-Israel US president meant stepping in when necessary to save Israel from itself, said Amos Hochstein, who was a senior adviser to former president Joe Biden” (Abigail Hauslohner, ‘Has Gaza tested the limits of Donald Trump’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu?’, 30 July 2025).
Israeli weakening is today probably the biggest spur to Israel’s imperialist backers to start pressing for a ceasefire that they had hitherto resisted, even if as yet they are still reluctant to implement an arms embargo or any serious sanctions:
“Israel’s ability to sustain the war amid growing fatigue among its military reservists is increasingly under question. After a rise in death by suicide of reserve soldiers, the military has set up a committee to investigate how to better support those leaving service.
“’Israel is in the tightest spot it has been in at any point in the war,’ Michael Koplow, an analyst at Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group, said in an interview.
“’It is dealing with a societal crisis over the continued war and plight of the hostages, a military crisis over the lack of clear aims and reservist fatigue, a diplomatic crisis over its close European allies lining up to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood, and an existential crisis over its eroding standing in the U.S.,’ Mr. Koplow said” (Patrick Kingsley, ‘Netanyahu squanders his moment to halt the war’, New York Times, 4 August 2025). Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned that the Palestinian resistance front’s “hidden capacities” will “guarantee victory for Gaza and the Palestinian nation, the defeat of the fake Zionist regime, and the frustration of its sponsors” (see ‘IRGC rejects two-state solution as evil scheme’, Tasnim News Agency, 2 August 2025).
And it is not only the Iranians who are recognising the continued strength of the Palestinian resistance:
Spat between Netanyahu and the IDF high command
Like a gambling addict at a casino hoping to make up for his losses by doubling up his bets, the Netanyahu government, notwithstanding all attempts at dissuasion by its imperialist backers, has determined to seize Gaza city in the hope that this will provide the key for achieving its elusive goal of ‘eliminating Hamas’, by which it means the entire Palestinian resistance. In pursuit of that unholy aim, Gaza City’s residents must by 7 October this year evacuate to tent cities, while their homes in Gaza are already being bombed in advance of the Israeli invasion.
Even the IDF is appalled at this mad gamble.
“The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, has pushed back against the plan, according to four Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. He has shared concerns about the exhaustion and fitness of reservists, and about the military’s becoming responsible for governing millions of Palestinians, they said…
“The military believes it could seize the remaining parts of Gaza within months, but setting up a system similar to the one it oversees in the Israeli-occupied West Bank would require up to five years of sustained combat…”
“’Conquering Gaza is a bad operational idea, a bad moral idea and a bad economic idea,’ [said] Yair Lapid, the leader of the parliamentary opposition” (Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer, Ronen Bergman and Isabel Kershner, ‘Israeli security cabinet approves plan to take control of Gaza City’, New York Times, 7-8 August 2025).
It is notable that Germany, which refused to ‘recognise the Palestinian state’, has, however, since the Israeli government announced its intention of capturing Gaza City, announced that it is suspending all arms sales to Israel until further notice.
Jewish people say enough is enough
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious sect Naturei Karta has always upheld the honour of Judaism and denounced the very concept of a Jewish state. The horrors of the genocide are leading thousands of thinking Jewish people, who would previously have believed a Jewish state could do no wrong, to denounce what Israel is doing. Several prominent rabbis, though still stubbornly clinging to the concept of Israel’s ‘right to exist’, nevertheless wrote that they “cannot condone the mass killings of civilians, including a great many women, children and elderly, or the use of starvation as a weapon of war,” their letter continued. “The severe limitation placed on humanitarian relief in Gaza, and the policy of withholding of food, water, and medical supplies from a needy civilian population contradict essential values of Judaism as we understand it” (see Ben Sales, ‘Hundreds of rabbis demand Israel stop “using starvation as a weapon of war”’, Times of Israel, 27 July 2025).
More recently Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Knesset and a committed Zionist, nevertheless called for a million Jews to file an appeal to the International Court of Justice over war crimes in Gaza: “This is not a rejection of our people; it is a defence of its soul”, he said.
In addition, “Two of the best-known Israeli human rights groups said [on 28 July] that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, adding fuel to a passionately fought international debate over whether the death and destruction there have crossed a moral red line.
“The two groups were B’Tselem, a rights monitor that documents the effects of Israeli policies on Palestinians, and Physicians for Human Rights — Israel. Their announcement was the first time major Israeli rights groups have publicly concluded that the Gaza war is a genocide…” (Aaron Boxerman, ‘In a first, leading Israeli rights groups accuse Israel of Gaza genocide’, New York Times, 28 July 2025).
It can be understood why Jewish people, who have for centuries been subjected to discrimination, and much worse, in the predominantly Christian countries to which they belonged, might be seduced by the idea of living in a Jewish state which would of course be free of anti-semitism. What tended to be lost sight of, however, was that if such a Jewish state were to be created in the preferred territory of Palestine, it would mean ethnically cleansing the local population to make way for Jewish immigrants.
The Zionist founders of the state of Israel, however, had no illusions on this score. The outstandingly honest Israeli historian Ilan Pappé in his book The ethnic cleansing of Palestine (incidentally now withdrawn from sale by its publisher Fayard) tells how “Jewish leaders finalised a ‘plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’ (Plan Dalet) on 10 March 1948, more than two months before the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and how, by the time war broke out, ‘Jewish forces had already managed to expel nearly 250,000 Palestinians through violence.’ Within a year, around 60% of Palestine’s population found themselves in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighbouring Arab countries. Meanwhile, Israel had conquered a third more territory than assigned to it under the UN partition plan and occupied 78% of historical Palestine. (It gained control of the remaining 22% during the Six Day war in June 1967).
“Pappé’s work reveals the true facts surrounding Israel’s establishment and emphasises the colonial and racist aspects of Zionism, which calls for the replacement of an indigenous population with one from elsewhere. This ethnic cleansing is inevitably based on a logic of extermination and, he says, ‘must become rooted in our memory and consciousness as a crime against humanity’. Pappé argues that because Israel was established not through a war of independence, as the official narrative claims, but by dispossession, ‘the paradigm of ethnic cleansing [should] replace the paradigm of war.’” (Olivier Pironet, ‘Palestine: a century of oppression and resistance’, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2025).
When on the creation of the state of Israel exactly this ethnic cleansing came to pass, the ethnic cleansing was ‘justified’ by categorising Palestinian resistance to their dispossession as ‘anti-semitism’ that deserved to be punished, just as the Nazis deserved to be punished for the Holocaust. But the Palestinians weren’t Nazis then and are not Nazis now. They were only trying to defend their homes and livelihoods. Nevertheless the mantra gained currency that Israel has the right to defend itself, which actually purports to accord Israel the ‘right’ to defend its ill-gotten, stolen, gains. And, as we can see, that mantra still beguiles some very decent people who are nevertheless today prepared to stand up to denounce the suffering that is being visited on the innocent people in Gaza.
In the 19th century, the downtrodden Jewish people in the various Christian majority countries lent their support in very large numbers to the communist movement that promises the outlawing of all irrational discrimination such as anti-semitism. Jewish people tended to be better educated than the average since their living often depended on acquiring intellectual, manual or artistic skills that were in demand in the community, skills that were of great value to the cause of the working class. It is surely no coincidence that the racist ideology of Zionism began at that time to be propagated among them, intended to have the effect of diverting them away from communism. Even so, it was only as a result of the Holocaust that Zionism was able to embed itself in the broad Jewish community. As many Jewish religious scholars have been pointing out, however, Zionism was always an abomination that has led far too many people to lose their soul. It is time to wake up from this nightmare. It is time for Jews to stand alongside Arabs to demand a unified Palestinian state in which both communities can live in mutual respect and enjoying equal rights. Only then will Israeli Jews be able to break free from their role as cannon fodder for, and defender of, predatory imperialist interests. Only then will Palestine, as well as its Jewish and Arab inhabitants, be free – from the river to the sea.