Israel’s ‘Final Solution’

It’s one of the most savage ironies of history that the Israeli Zionists, who wrap around themselves the claim to be the political inheritors of the victims of the holocaust are, after more than 50 years, recreating many elements of the techniques of the Nazis in Palestine - the scorched earth technique of total obliteration applied to refugee camps, mass torture, tattooing the arms of their victims for easy identification.  One Israeli officer even remarked on the need to draw upon the Nazi experience of wiping out the Warsaw ghetto!

There’s a wave of outrage around the world at the Israeli repression and at the willingness of the US and its allies to excuse and accommodate the Israeli attacks, but unthinking emotionalism is not enough.  Without thought we are falling into a pattern of support for Arafat and for the Oslo accords.  In essence US imperialism is being urged to do the right thing and bring peace. In reality the US support Israel even to the extent that the Jenin massacre won’t even be investigated.

In the real world the Oslo accords trapped the Palestinians in tiny enclaves while Arafat and his forces were paid millions to act as jailers and repress the Palestinian workers.  The US role is not to bring peace to the region but to smash any attempt at resistance.

A solution based on a sectarian Jewish state and a subordinate Palestinian state will not work – that’s what caused the violence in the first place.  Socialists have a simple and clear policy – smash the sectarian state and build a secular socialist republic home to Palestinian and Jewish workers.