“…..the proletariat must support every national liberation movement, which tend to weaken and overthrow imperialism”
-Joseph Stalin
The war which is going on in Gaza is a war of national liberation. The Palestinians are fighting tooth and nail to free their country from 70 years of Israeli occupation and to get away from the clutches of US imperialism. It has been more than 150 days since Israel backed by US imperialism declared an all out war against the people of Palestine. The people who were under the forceful occupation of Israel and oppression for more than 7 decades are waging a militant combat bigger than ever before to free their country.
Palestine is a small country which was ruled by Ottoman Turks for 1400 years until the British colonists laid siege and occupied it in 1917. Since then, the British was aiding Jews to settle down in Palestine. The Palestinians were alarmed by this and have been resisting since the beginning. The occupying forces of the British marked certain places for Jewish immigration and made a mandatory law for Palestinian Arabs to evacuate from such marked places. The Palestinians were made to flee their own ancestral homes and villages where they resided for centuries. This occupation was resisted by tens of uprising by the Palestinians which were quashed by the occupying British forces leading to the death of thousands of Palestinians. In 1948, the United Nations passed a controversial resolution giving 70 percent of the Palestinian land to the minority Jews and 30% land to the native Palestinians. This resolution has always been rejected by the people of Palestine as it made 750,000 Palestinians as refugees in their own homeland. Soon after the partition, the blood-thirsty and land-hungry Israel went on to conduct genocide and mass exodus of people of
Palestine from their territories by killing Palestinians and gobbling up the territory, village by village. This violent displacement and dispossession of land is referred to as Al Nakba (catastrophe) by the Palestinians and is continuing to this day but the world turned its blind eye and deaf ears to the plight of Palestine.
The October 7 offensive of Hamas was not just a military action but a political one. It is the years of repression of the Palestinians by the state of Israel and the yearning for freedom of Palestinians for their homeland that brewed up the offensive. As much as it is sad that the Israeli civilians were killed and taken hostage, it is true that the forced occupation by Israel and the repression of the people of Palestine led to such an inevitable action. When such is the situation, one cannot take a safe centrist stand saying that both Israel and Hamas are in the wrong. The liability of all the death and suffering of this conflict lies on the shoulders of the Zionist occupation and the imperialists who have been so gladly supporting it for a century.
Colonialism is based on and completely shaped by violence which makes violence not just an inevitable part of resistance, but also armed struggle a necessity to destroy the basis of the violent colonial system. In the words of Frantz Fanon “The violence of the colonial regime and counter-violence of the native balance each other and respond to each other in an extraordinary reciprocal homogeneity… The settler’s work is to make even dreams of liberty impossible for the natives. The native’s work is to imagine all possible methods for destroying the settler.” Armed struggle is a potentially transformational force in the colonized nations that would create the space for a new society. It brings hope to the oppressed masses and shatters the spell of superiority of the ruling class. Victories through armed
struggle not only help to empower colonized people but also unite them.
The parties of Palestine varying from different Islamic ideology to the Marxist Leninist Ideology have formed a united front in this conflict. Although the main forces of this war from Palestinian side are the Hamas, there’s a full fledged coalition between all the forces of PFLP, DFLP, PIJ who reject the two state policy and have been waging armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine for years. Every bullet fired at the Israeli Zionist force is landing on US imperialism and thus, the ruling class across majority parts of the globe.
The Palestinian war has exposed the hypocrisy of the US, and its portrayal of world police. By smashing the status quo, Hamas has put the question of Palestinian national liberation in the limelight. The ones who were suffering silently have let the world know not only about their suffering but their will and strength to put an end to it.
Ethnic cleansing
The Israeli army has committed innumerable acts of war crime on the people of Palestine. Israel, using sophisticated drones and guided missiles, have targeted civilians mostly. It has bombed hospitals, schools, residences of the civilians, killing 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Out of frustration, unable to differentiate between the militants and unarmed civilians, Israel has resorted to unleash torture on the civilians to get information about militants and break the resilience of Palestinians. The apartheid Israeli force is detaining women and children and sexually assaulting them, all brutal tactics have been engaged to break the will and brutally suppress the resistance of the people of Palestine.
However, the United Nations has paid a blind eye to these atrocities. The Palestine situation has clearly exposed the United Nations once again as a toothless tiger which is heavily controlled by the United States of America. Where any global issues are
directly in link with the United states, the UNO remains silent and no action is taken actively. Mass massacres have become an everyday spectacle where civilians are fired upon indiscriminately when they were gathering around foodtruck which resulted in killing over
100 people. By the airstrike on Jabalia refugee camp 90 people were killed.
Israeli soldiers are fuelled by hatred and bigotry. Israel is trying to call it a ‘Moral war/Just War’ and cover up by painting a rosy picture of the war. But the conduct of the soldiers on the ground give the reality. The process of constant dehumanization of Palestinians takes place in order to help the Israeli soldiers inflict violence upon them. The dehumanization of Palestinians is also broadcast on social media by the Israeli state media, social media of Israeli soldiers, and the general population, where videos have surfaced of captured mosques with pop song backgrounds, Tiktok trends mocking blindfolded detainees, collecting undergarments of Palestinian women as war trophies and parading them.
All reactionaries are nothing but paper tigers
The people’s war means where normal citizens of the country take up arms forming people’s militia to fight for their own interests instead of the conventional standing army of the country which is recruited. The people’s war is fought by people’s militia and it would consist of a voluntary army. It is this kind of war which was fought against the US imperialism in the hills of Afghanistan and in the jungles of Vietnam. Here people were successful in sending back the invading foreign army. It is now fought in the tunnels of Palestine. This war will never see depletion of armed cadres as it is not merely recruited soldiers who fight but a sea of people. For every person martyred, tens of people will join the cause.
Many Palestinians have formed their own militia such as Lion’s Den and Jenin Camp consisting mostly of young people. They have resorted to fighting
the enemy through underground tunnels and indulging in guerrilla warfare. The IDF has suffered severe losses and setbacks as they couldn’t go through these tunnels. They tried to flood these tunnels by sea water and shell them. However, the tunnel systems being very complicated, couldn’t be destroyed, and the IDF, after its initial attempts to venture into the tunnels, did not dare to step in as they were surprised and taken aback at the complexities of the tunnel. The people of Palestine have indeed opened a new chapter in urban warfare. The celebrated “spy nation” of Israel couldn’t get to know about these tunnels being constructed right under their nose.
The US has suffered major setbacks due to the Palestinian war. It has spent billions of dollars in the ongoing war and the economic loss it has suffered is many times more. The US has supplied all sorts of precision missiles and modern fighter jets, deputing its naval fleet to the red sea and even mobilizing its ground troops. The ongoing war has exposed the inability of the US imperialism, with its billions of military budget and modern sophistication, being unable to subjugate the masses of Palestine. The war also shows the change in situation in geopolitics and a shift from unipolar world where US hegemony triumphed.
The Western media has been trying its best to cover-up the war crimes committed by Israel and trying to portray the reactionary occupational force as the ‘Moral Force’. The media is also engaging in showing the ground reality of the war situation and vastly overlooking the losses faced by the Israeli forces.
Israel, fighting a losing war
Israel has accomplished neither of the two objectives it had declared before the war. Neither could it completely eliminate Hamas, nor has it been successful in recovering the hostages. Israel is fighting a reactionary war while the Palestinians are fighting a liberating one. Hamas has already been successful in showing the world that the resistance
of Palestine is still burning even after seven long decades and has given voice to the voiceless people of Palestine, which is now echoing all around the globe. It has garnered support from each and every corner of the world and has united people against US imperialism. People in thousands are rallying on the streets expressing solidarity. Workers have called for strikes, refusing to ship goods to Israel. There have been instances where people have stormed Israeli embassies in order to pressurize their governments. Militant groups such as Hezbollah and Houthis are conducting direct actions against Israel and the US in support of Palestine. Palestine is questioning the US hegemony, the war is also showing the change in situation where it is no longer a unipolar world. The resistance of Palestine and the global show of solidarity has forced United Nations Security Council to pass a ceasefire resolution. Many reactionary governments including India which opposed and abstained from voting for ceasefire have now succumbed to the pressure of the people.
Israel has leaped into the war with no proper game plan, it is just counting on killing as many Palestinians as possible so that they wear out and stop supporting Hamas eventually. This strategy of Israel is flawed as on one hand they are exposing themselves by conducting heinous atrocities, and on the other hand they are pushing the people of Palestine further towards Hamas. The popularity of Hamas has drastically increased among the people of the West Bank too and Israel may be at the brink of opening a third front which would be devastating to it. The grit and resilience of Palestine, the exemplary courage and valour displayed by the people serve as the guiding light to all the people of oppressed nationalities.
Long live People’s resistance!
