Britain, War in Gaza -- NO STATE SOLUTION IN GAZA - Anarchist Federation North

One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza: the Israeli state is 
committing atrocities which must end immediately. With hundreds dead and thousands 
wounded, it has become increasingly clear that the aim of the military operation, which 
has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is to 
break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade throughout the supposed 
?ceasefire?, which has destroyed the livelihoods of Gazans, ruined the civilian 
infrastructure and created a humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity 
would seek an end to. ---- But that's not all there is to say about the situation. On both 
sides of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting Hamas and its 
?resistance? movement is worryingly common. We totally reject this argument.

Just like any other set of rulers, Hamas, like all the other major Palestinian factions, 
are happy and willing to sacrifice ordinary Palestinians to increase their power. This 
isn?t some vague theoretical point ? for a period recently most deaths in Gaza were a 
result of fighting between Hamas and Fatah. The ?choices? offered to ordinary Palestinian 
people are between Islamist gangsters (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) or nationalist gangsters 
(Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades). These groups have shown their willingness to attack 
working class attempts to improve their living conditions, seizing union offices, 
kidnapping prominent trade unionists, and breaking strikes. One spectacular example is the 
attack on Palestine Workers Radio by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, for ?stoking internal 
conflicts?. Clearly, a ?free Palestine? under the control of any of these groups would be 
nothing of the sort.

As anarchists, we are internationalists, opposing the idea that the rulers and ruled 
within a nation have any interests in common. Therefore, anarchists reject Palestinian 
nationalism just as we reject Israeli nationalism (Zionism). Ethnicity does not grant 
?rights? to lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, on the other hand, 
have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able to live where they 
choose, freely.

Therefore, against the divisions and false choices set up by nationalism, we fully support 
the ordinary inhabitants of Gaza and Israel against state warfare ? not because of their 
nationality, ethnicity, or religion, but simply because they're real living, feeling, 
thinking, suffering, struggling human beings. And this support has to mean total hostility 
to all those who would oppress and exploit them ?the Israeli state and the Western 
governments and corporations that supply it with weapons, but also any other capitalist 
factions who seek to use ordinary working-class Palestinians as pawns in their power 
struggles. The only real solution is one which is collective, based on the fact that as a 
class, globally, we ultimately have nothing but our ability to work for others, and 
everything to gain in ending this system ? capitalism ? and the states and wars it needs.

That this seems like a ?difficult? solution does not stop it from being the right one. Any 
?solution? that means endless cycles of conflict, which is what nationalism represents, is 
no solution at all. And if that is the case, the fact that it is ?easier? is irrelevant. 
There are sectors of Palestinian society which are not dominated by the would-be rulers ? 
protests organised by village committees in the West Bank for instance. These deserve our 
support. As do those in Israel who refuse to fight, and who resist the war. But not the 
groups who call on Palestinians to be slaughtered on their behalf by one of the most 
advanced armies in the world, and who wilfully attack civilians on the other side of the 
border.

WHOEVER DIES, HAMAS AND THE ISRAELI STATE WIN

This statement was written by Manchester and Sheffield AF groups.

It has also been distributed in Ireland by Organise!