April 8, 2024
Between them, two events this past week escalated Israel’s genocidal slaughter in Gaza, and escalated the danger of a major war breaking out in the Middle East with unpredictable but potentially disastrous consequences for the region, and humanity as a whole.
Three dimensions to this:
ONE: On Monday, April 1, the Israeli military bombed a convoy of SUVs, killing seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) in central Gaza. This came after the convoy had delivered food to a warehouse for distribution to starving people. The aid workers were from Palestine, Poland, U.S., Canada, Australia, and UK. They were in close contact with the Israeli military even as they were being systematically killed.
TWO: Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing several Iranian military officials. The Iranian consulate in Syria was part of its embassy compound, and embassies are considered territory of the guest country. So, by all standards of international law, this was an attack on Iran. U.S., Israeli, and Iranian officials have all said a retaliatory attack from Iran is coming. The Middle East is on edge.
THREE: These events take place in a world dominated by a system in the grip of explosive contradictions. A system where the rabid dog-eat-dog conflicts between oppressors, and their determination to crush anyone in their way, have brought the world to the edge of destruction.
But this is not a cause for anyone to throw up their hands in despair. It poses a challenge to get into and get with the movement for a real revolution in a rare time when such a revolution is more possible than in “normal” times. Exactly because the world as people have known it, and have come to accept it, is being shaken under their feet.
ONE: Israel Assassinates World Central Kitchen Aid Workers in Gaza
Israel’s massacre of seven aid workers was part of a genocidal slaughter. As we post this, Israel has killed 33,137 Palestinian people in Gaza, and thousands remain uncounted, buried in the rubble of Israeli missiles, bombs, and bulldozers.
Some 200 of those killed by Israel in Gaza were aid workers. They were people who courageously took responsibility to try to distribute food to people that Israel is systematically starving to death.1
Israel’s assassination of seven WCK workers on April 1 served to enforce that starvation. It succeeded in “persuading” WCK to suspend food aid in Gaza. And it sent a message to the world that nobody is off limits if they get in the way of Israel’s genocide.
WCK’s founder and major funder, José Andrés, is a world-renowned chef and restaurateur. WCK is known worldwide for distributing food in crisis situations.2 WCK works in close contact with Israeli authorities, distributing food in Gaza at times and on routes approved by the Israeli military.
And still, an Israeli commander ordered his troops to attack the clearly marked convoy on routes Israel had approved in advance. And when some of the aid workers escaped the first drone-fired missile, and used their channels to contact the Israeli military, the commander ordered two more strikes, killing more of the aid workers.
In an emotional interview with Reuters, José Andrés insisted that the Israeli attack that killed seven of his food aid workers in Gaza had targeted them “systematically, car by car.” That WCK was in close contact with the Israeli military the whole time. And he angrily declared, “This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place.”
In another kind of world, in revolutionary societies aimed at ending all oppression, the humanitarian sentiments, willingness to sacrifice, and courage of the seven WCK aid workers would be a precious factor in unleashing people to change the world for the better. But in this system, dominated by bloodsucking, bloody-jawed wolves, with the USA #1, they were targeted for assassination.
Israeli Coverup Calls Killings a “Mistake,” Brags About Israel’s “Standard Operating Procedures”
On Friday, April 5, in the face of global outrage and increasing isolation, the Israeli military announced the results of a so-called “investigation” into its own murder of the WCK aid workers. The result added insult to a crime against humanity.
The report claimed, against all evidence, that the assassination of the WCK workers was “a mistaken identification.” It claimed Israeli troops thought one or two people associated with Hamas were on the convoy. That was not true, but what does it tell you about how indiscriminate Israel’s slaughter of people in Gaza is, that this was supposed to be a legitimate reason to wipe out the WCK convoy!?
Israel’s so-called investigation excused the killing as “errors in decision-making.” And claimed it was “contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures” of the Israeli army in Gaza. Lower ranking officers were relieved of their commands, and higher-ranking ones got… reprimands.
In fact, the real Israeli “standard operating procedures” are unrestrained blood lust, revenge, torture, looting, mass murder, and dehumanization of the Palestinian people in a genocidal slaughter in Gaza (see box, “Israel’s U.S.-Backed Army in Gaza: Fighting for and Embodying a System of Exploitation and Oppression”).
A former official in the Obama and Biden administrations, now president of a refugee rights organization and critic of Israel’s actions, Jeremy Konyndyk, said after the attack on WCK: “You don’t strike a de-conflicted [not involved in fighting] convoy repeatedly, hitting three vehicles in succession over the course of a kilometre of road, by accident. You do that by fostering a military culture that treats Gaza as a free-fire zone with total impunity for gross attacks on civilians [emphasis added].”
U.S. Postures, but Puts Seal of Approval on Israeli Cover-Up
People all over the world responded in outrage to Israel’s murder, lies and coverup. In response, Genocide Joe Biden had a phone call with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu (Netan-NAZI). The New York Times reported that Biden made undefined “threats” that if Israel did not change course, and allow some food to be distributed in Gaza, then… then… then… actually? NOTHING. When reporters asked for more details, Biden said, “I asked them [Israel] to do what they’re doing.” Translation? Continue the coverup. And when asked by reporters if he might be abandoning Israel, Biden shot back, “Is that a serious question?”
Biden’s phone call to Netan-NAZI, and his response to reporters’ questions, tell you two things. One is that Israel’s genocidal massacre in Gaza is causing real problems for Biden’s agenda of portraying the U.S. as a global defender of freedom and democracy—all over the world, and in particular in the U.S., especially with those sections of the people the Democratic Party normally tries to appeal to—or, in other words, politically confine, control and demobilize. The other is that despite all that, Israel is an essential enforcer of the interests of U.S. capitalism-imperialism in the Middle East and beyond. And that, for anyone with any meaningful position from which to impact U.S. policy, questioning U.S. support for Israel, especially military support, is in Biden’s own words, not a serious question.
TWO: An Extreme Provocation: Israel Bombs Iranian Consulate in Syria
On April 1, the same day Israel killed the WCK workers, an Israeli airstrike demolished Iran’s consulate in Syria. The consulate is attached to the Iranian Embassy and includes the residence of Iran’s ambassador. The ambassador and his family were not killed, but two Iranian generals and five officers were. According to the U.S. State Department, “an attack on an embassy is considered an attack on the country it represents.” So, by rules the U.S. claims to uphold, the attack on this embassy was an attack on Iran.
Israel, as is its usual policy, did not officially confirm being responsible for the attack. But according to U.S. news reports, the attack was an escalation of Israeli attacks on Iran because of its support for Hamas and other forces in the region fighting Israel.3
Throwing a Match on the Tinder of Regional War
Israel’s bombing of the Iranian embassy compound in Syria was an outrageous act that inflamed an already explosive situation. It was guaranteed to provoke a response from Iran. As we post this, the region is on edge. Iran’s ambassador, Hossein Akbari, vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Israel’s attack escalated an explosive and unpredictable set of conflicts in the Middle East. On one side, the U.S., with Israel as its nuclear-armed enforcer, has dominated this economically, politically, and militarily critical region of the world for decades. Reactionary regimes in the region like Saudi Arabia and Egypt make up key parts of the U.S. bloc in that region and sit on top of ruthlessly oppressed people within their borders. But Israel plays the decisive anchoring role for American domination.
Arrayed against the U.S. and Israel is the reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran and forces it is aligned with. Iran calls this alliance the “axis of resistance.”4 In fact, it is an alignment of reactionary forces looking for a better position in the global pecking order, and the advancement of global Islamic fundamentalist holy war. Standing behind them is Russia.
Rival Nuclear Powers in an Explosive Mix
Both the U.S. and Russia have military installations and forces in the Middle East. China, while not as deeply engaged militarily, has been making major economic and diplomatic advances in countries aligned with the U.S., including Egypt, trying to pry them out of the American orbit.
In February, the U.S. military struck more than 85 targets at seven facilities they claimed were being used by Iran’s military and forces they sponsor in Syria and Iraq. The U.S. said the attacks were in retaliation for an attack on U.S. troops stationed in Jordan.
Did you know the U.S. has troops stationed in the Middle East country of Jordan? And 40,000 troops throughout the Middle East?5 If not, you’re not alone. That’s because the rulers of this country don’t want you to know, and don’t want you to ask why! To get to the bottom of why, you need to give a listen to the social media post Breaking News, February 9, 2024 from BA:
Recently, these so-called “news outlets” have been full of talk about U.S. “retaliatory strikes” in the “Middle East,” after an attack on a U.S. military installation in the country of Jordan killed three U.S. soldiers. This brings up a very important question that none of these media want you to think about: What the hell is the U.S. military doing thousands of miles from the U.S. in the Middle Eastern country of Jordan?!
The answer is this:
What it is doing in Jordan is part of what the U.S. military as a whole is doing, with its guns, bombs, missiles, and other means of mass slaughter: killing huge numbers of people in the most monstrous ways, all over the world, so that the U.S. can remain the world’s “number one” capitalist-imperialist oppressor and destroyer of people and the environment (with the U.S. military itself one of the main forces rapidly devastating the environment).
The bombs dropped on Syria and Iraq by the U.S. in February were from bombers based in the U.S. At a press conference announcing the attack, a U.S. general declared, “I would tell you the beauty [talking about weapons of mass destruction!!] of the American bomber is we can strike anywhere in the world at a time of our choosing… We can, again, conduct this from home turf, so to speak.” Those were not nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Syria and Iraq, but those bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons. And Israel itself has at least 150 to 200 nuclear weapons. No one’s explicitly threatening nuclear attack right now, but the potential for things spiraling into disaster is clearly there.
Iran, and Russia, are deeply involved in propping up the reactionary regime of Syrian ruler Hafez Assad. Assad is fighting reactionary armed forces aligned with the U.S. in Syria. And remember, Syria is where Israel bombed the Iranian embassy on April 1. So here you see how closely tied together all these conflicts are, and how involved nuclear powers are.
Throughout the Middle East, reactionary powers and aligned forces are clashing. The whole situation was explosive before Israel’s April 1 attack. It got much more dangerous afterwards.
Three Take-Aways, and the Urgent Need for Revolution
1. Israel, in open sight, repeatedly fired missiles at a food aid convoy it authorized, sponsored by a world-famous chef and including both Palestinian and international volunteers. Genocide Joe Biden chastised Netan-NAZI but lectured reporters that they can’t be serious if they ask whether the U.S. will abandon Israel.
2. Israel spit on international law, bombed an embassy in another country to “send a message” to regional reactionary rival Iran. It did this knowing full well this will set off a retaliatory response that can lead to an unpredictable spiral of intensifying war throughout the Middle East, and even draw the U.S. and Russia into direct conflict.
3. This whole nightmarish mix is a product of the system of capitalism-imperialism that rules the world today.
All this is one more set of reasons why it is true, what Bob Avakian says:
We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way—a whole different way to organize society, a whole better world, is possible.
Israel’s U.S.-Backed Army in Gaza: Fighting for and Embodying a System of Exploitation and Oppression
How an army fights is a concentration of the outlook, the values, and the objectives of the society they are fighting for. The following are just a sampling of reports, suppressed or downplayed by U.S. ruling-class media, that reveal the systemic depravity of Israeli troops in Gaza. And how that reflects the essential, apartheid, genocidal nature of the State of Israel.
Israeli troops have been conditioned from an early age to see the Palestinian people as subhuman threats to Jewish supremacy, whose lives are worth nothing. And conditioned by military culture and statements from the highest levels of the Israeli government that they are on a mission of genocidal torture, terror, and death.
- After the most token “punishment” imaginable for the military officers Israel said were directly responsible for the massacre of the World Central Kitchen workers, Israel’s powerful Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir denounced even that as “the abandonment of troops in the middle of a war.”
- From the earliest days of Israel’s massacre in Gaza, there were widespread reports of Israeli soldiers burning food, chanting racist slogans, desecrating Muslim religious icons, posing with graffiti saying “let’s erase Gaza.” And six week’s into Israel’s massacre in Gaza, an Israeli commander declared that Israel must do to Gaza what biblical Simeon and Levi did in Nablus, invoking a story from the Bible where “god” commands Israel to kill every man, take all the women and children hostages and loot the entire city.
- Recently, the Israeli military created kill zones inside Gaza where Israeli troops kill anyone who crosses into the area. Military officials have told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that these are often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by Israeli military.
_______________
FOOTNOTES:
1. For background articles on Israel’s strategic policy of starving the Palestinian people in Gaza into death, or utterly crushing them, see these previous articles at revcom.us: Gaza Update: Ongoing Starvation, a Massive No-Go Zone, Surveillance, Detention, Torture and In Front of the Whole World: Israel and the U.S. Continue to Starve Gaza into a Nazi-Style Death Camp. [back]
2. WCK has distributed free food in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Zambia, Peru, Cuba, Uganda, Cambodia, to Ukrainian refugees in Poland on the border of Ukraine, and Puerto Rico. And in Israel, after the Hamas attack on October 7.
Just days before Israel killed the seven WCK workers, on March 30, an Israeli military sniper fired on a car with an WCK staff person inside. That attack hit the car’s windshield but failed to assassinate the staffer. That incident provoked a major protest from WCK demanding the army stop the firing at its staff and guarantee their safety when distributing food in the Gaza Strip. After all that, two days later Israel assassinated seven WCK workers. [back]
3. Israel seized on Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel—which included the war crimes of taking hostages and the murder of civilians—to attempt to deal with what Israel’s rulers see as an existential threat. That is: in the area now ruled by Israel (the state of Israel and territory it occupies), Jews are a minority. Israel’s objective in the current genocidal assault on Gaza is to reduce the Palestinians to such a state that they can no longer pose any threat to Israel’s existence as an apartheid, Jewish-supremacist state. And that could mean mass expulsion and/or slaughter on a massive scale, beyond even what Israel is now carrying out. [back]
4. These forces include Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. For a concise exposure of the reactionary outlook and agenda of Hamas, see What Is Hamas? at revcom.us. Other Iranian-backed forces include the Houthi government of Yemen that has launched missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and powerful Hezbollah militias in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border. [back]
5. The U.S. has 40,000 troops stationed in the Middle East countries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. [back]