Following the military developments in the most recent war between Israel and many of the Palestinian resistance groups, dominated by Hamas, we saw the US and its closer allies, along with the press and media monopolies of these countries, unanimously and unconditionally supporting Israel’s “right to self-defense” (even announcing the suspension of humanitarian aid to Gaza [1]). While Iran, Algeria, South Africa, Qatar and Kuwait, among other Muslim, Arab and African countries condemned Israel and pointed at its occupation of Palestine as the main cause of the violence, some of them even expressing open support for Hamas [2][3][4].
The BRICS group didn’t present a unified position; while Russia and China took neutral legalistic positions calling for restraint, dialogue and a two-state solution [5], the Indian Prime Minister expressed solidarity with Israel [6]. Brazil abstained from voting for a Russian resolution at the UN Security Council calling for a Humanitarian cease-fire (apparently in favor of their own proposal, which more closely aligned with Israel’s rhetoric) [7]. We already mentioned that South Africa explicitly positioned itself against Israel.
That’s a general overview of the international reactions to the conflict, now let’s examine some examples of relative independence within the US-allied bloc and the reaction of Israel to that.
In Spain, Ione Belarra, Minister of Social Rights, proposed for Netanyahu to face responsibility for Israeli war crimes before an international court and supported the street demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine. Her declarations were supported by two other members of the governing cabinet, Irene Montero and Alberto Garzón. Those statements were met with reply by Israel’s embassy in the Kingdom of Spain. Specifically, a press release posted on social media in which the Israeli Ambassador accused the three ministers of aligning with Hamas and putting Spanish Jewish communities in danger.
Additionally, he associated Hamas with ISIS drawing comparisons between the terrorist methods of both Jihadist organizations. The Spanish government answered the Israeli criticism by supporting the right of the ministers to express their opinions and positions within a democracy and condemning the calumny from the Ambassador. [8]
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, was very active on his social media calling for peace and respect for civilians on both sides. Additionally, he compared the treatment Palestinians receive from Israel with the genocidal policies Nazis exerted upon Jews, specifically with the Warsaw Ghetto massacre. Following that, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Colombian Ambassador and publicly complained about the “antisemitism” of Petro’s declarations, again accusing him of supporting Hamas and endangering Colombian Jews. In turn, the Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister threatened to expel Israel’s Ambassador and called for mutual respect between both governments.
That resulted in a counter-threat from Israel on halting their military exports to the South American country [9]. This threat was replied by Petro, who recalled the complicity of Israel with the death squads and the mass-killing against the Patriotic Union–UP, a left-wing coalition created within a peace agreement with FARC in order to give them legal political representation. He mentioned Yahir Klein (the Israeli trainer of the death squads in the Northwestern region of Colombia [10]) and Rafi Eitan (the Israeli intelligence advisor that proposed the extermination of the UP [11]) [12].
Our last example comes from the Vatican City. After the beginning of the war the Pope expressed his concern over the civilian victims of the attacks from both sides and called for the establishment of humanitarian corridors in Gaza. Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, in this instance, didn’t accuse the Pope of antisemitism but demanded an explicit condemnation of Hamas and proclaimed that the Vatican chief of state was paying more attention to Palestinian than to Israeli casualties [13].
We can see a pattern, Israel replies to any concern about Palestinians or any accusation of war crimes - that they have indeed committed by targeting civilians, civilian buildings and infrastructure and by blocking them from receiving humanitarian aid [14] – by issuing counter-accusations of supporting Hamas and sometimes of antisemitism. Nothing of this is new, Israel since its foundation has been ethnically cleansing Palestine while playing the victim. Like most capitalist states it uses excessive and unfounded accusations to secure unanimity around their military adventures.
What is interesting about this particular situation and some recent similar ones is that we are told everywhere that we live in a democracy, in a free “marketplace of ideas” in which we can express ourselves freely and seek the general benefit of society through rational debate. This is even used as the justification of chauvinism and nationalism (as it is in the Israeli regime). But, just when the interests of the owners of capital are questioned or evidenced as socially harmful, they start to harass this dissidence, even using things so irrational and hostile to evidence as religion. Similar examples could be found in the recent history of any capitalist country, especially ones high in the imperialist hierarchy, which use tags like “terrorist”, “national traitor”, “foreign agent”, “extremist” or “baizuo”.
The harassment of local dissent in this specific situation took the shape of legal bans and police violence against pro-Palestinian demonstrations and public displays of the Palestinian flag in the very countries that cry about being the most democratic in the world (the US and the EU affiliates) [15]. And fortunately, we had seen how this persecution has been made ineffective by mass demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine, which could well have been a factor in the moderation of pro-Israeli rhetoric from the corresponding governments.
An additional comment worth including in this article is how Israel threatened to stop its defense and security exports. This points to an important matter; the role of that country as one of the main providers of technology for repression. Apart from the already mentioned complicity of former Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents in the Colombian repression against left-wing movements and private terror against peasants, Israel has been a key factor in some other episodes of state terror and repression against democratic movements. Concretely in Latin America, Israel maintained diplomatic relationships (giving legitimacy) and military aid to regimes like Pinochet’s Chile, Brazil’s military dictatorship, Duvalier’s Haiti, Central American counter-insurgent military regimes. Also, surprisingly, they aided the Argentinian military junta and Stroessner’s Paraguay, which persecuted Jewish citizens and openly expressed sympathies for Nazism respectively; it’s illustrative how several of those states protected Nazi officers directly involved in the Holocaust [16].
More recent examples of Israel’s cooperation with reactionary governments are found in Hungary and other European states, some of them putting a lot of effort in hiding their Nazi affinity. Regarding Hungary specifically, their government signed an agreement for military drone production with Israel and Germany some months ago [17]. It didn’t matter for Israelis that the Hungarian government had been using a recycled version of the Jewish world domination conspiracy theory. The Hungarian government points only towards Jewish international finance oligarchs as the source of funding for liberal reformism [18] as a way to hide the nature of the capitalist system.
Especially how many other international bourgeois groups press for competing political agendas – some of them also Jewish – including the capitalists that support Orban himself. Another form of actual antisemitism in the governing political group of Hungary is the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators like Miklos Horthy [18]. But again, that doesn’t matter for the state that claims to be the protector of the Jewish community, and fulfils this duty at the cost of bombing civilians. Finally, we cannot forget that the Israeli state is providing states around the world, even some formally hostile to them, with tools for mass surveillance and espionage like the Pegasus software (widely used to spy on journalists and dissidents) [19].
Summarizing, capitalism uses continually harassment and calumny as the means to enforce the ideology and interests of the capitalists. By doing that, the capitalist states put in evidence not only the exclusion of the working masses from their false “democracy”, but also their will to use violence to avoid any politically effective critique to their ideology. Even though, workers are not impotent against those measures but can and should consciously organize to act massively in defense of their interests.
Apart from that, imperialism integrates ethnic and national chauvinism as a key part of their ideological support, whether hypocritically as “characteristics” of some region or as an open and central part of their propaganda.
Sources:
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-freezes-aid-payments-palestinians-after-hamas-attack-israel-2023-10-09/
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/International/International/african-leaders-react-israel-declares-war-hamas/story?id=103885919
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/world-reacts-surprise-attack-by-hamas-israel-2023-10-07/
[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/china-russia-find-common-cause-israel-hamas-crisis-2023-10-20/
[9] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-halts-security-exports-to-colombia-over-presidents-support-of-hamas/
[12] https://x.com/petrogustavo/status/1713651638039117872
[13] https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/unacceptable-israel-foreign-minister-eli-cohen-vatican-statement-pope-hamas-attack-gaza-concern-2449486-2023-10-16
[14] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-as-israeli-attacks-wipe-out-entire-families-in-gaza/
[15] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/europe-right-to-protest-must-be-protected-during-latest-escalations-in-israel-opt/
[16] https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/israels-support-for-the-far-right-in-latin-america-goes-back-decades
[17] https://apnews.com/article/hungary-israel-manufacture-combat-drones-7be91bb6edded7a7274080b082c3d828
[18] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/world/europe/orban-hungary-antisemitism.html