On October 7 of this year, one year has passed since the war of
extermination by the Zionist State of Israel[i], a European and USprotectorate, against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Under the
protection and military support of the imperialist powers of Europe and
the US, the Israeli colonial army killed around 42,000 Palestinians,
including more than 16,000 children, injured 96,000, there are more than
10,000 missing and more than 2.3 million Palestinians are war refugees.
The statements made by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu make clear its objectives of promoting ethnic cleansing and
extermination of the Palestinian people.
Since the beginning of the war, the terrorist actions of the State of
Israel have intensified in the occupied West Bank, with repression
against Palestinian demonstrations, mass arrests, with more than 5,000
political prisoners, and summary executions, with more than 700
Palestinians executed in this territory. In addition, Israeli settlers
have also carried out several attacks against the Palestinian people in
the occupied West Bank and stolen their lands. Hamas and other armed
groups for the liberation of Palestine carry out the resistance,
however, their forces are disproportionate to the power of Israel's
colonial war machine, mainly with the support of other imperialist
powers. In addition to their own forces, the Palestinian people can only
count on military support from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, the Islamic Resistance group in Iraq and the Iranian
government. The escalation of the war in the context of the new Cold War
imposes scenarios that require recognizing the risk of a regional war
with global repercussions, the response to which must be proletarian
internationalism and the paths to Social Revolution.
Israel's Total War and Imperialist Interests
During the year of war against the Palestinian people, the Zionist State
of Israel promoted the escalation of the war by attacking Lebanon, Iran,
Yemen, Iraq and Syria, that is, attacks against the "axis of Islamic
resistance" armed against its genocidal colonial policy. Its war of
extermination took on the character of a total war against the peoples
of the Middle East, serving the imperialist interests of the European
powers and, mainly, the United States.
The escalation of the total war was marked by the Israeli attack on the
capital of Lebanon, Beirut, on January 2 of this year, with the aim of
assassinating Hamas leaders who were exiled in the country. The
terrorist action by Israel killed three Hamas commanders, including
Saleh al-Arouri, an important political leader and one of the historical
founders of the Palestinian armed resistance.
In the offensive against Hezbollah, the Israeli secret service, the
Mossad, orchestrated terrorist attacks by planting explosives in the
Shiite group's communication equipment. These attacks killed 32 people
and left more than 3,200 injured, many of whom lost their sight due to
eye injuries. Subsequently, on September 27, Israeli military forces
assassinated Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the historical leader of Hezbollah
and the popular resistance in the region. This entire offensive was
preparation for the land invasion of Lebanese territory.
On July 20, in a joint attack with US imperialist forces, the Israeli
military bombed Yemen for the first time. The region under attack is the
territory of the Houthi rebels, an armed Shiite resistance organization
called Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), founded in the 1990s and with
Houssein al Houthi (1959-2004) as its main leader.
The Houthis, who have advanced in control of Yemeni territory since
2015, have a recent history of confrontation with US and British
imperialist forces. After the start of the war of extermination of the
Palestinian people, Yemeni Shiites have carried out military actions in
the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea against vessels heading towards Israel.
Since the Iranian Political Revolution of 1979, which was a
counteroffensive led by the ayatollahs and reversed the coup d'état
orchestrated by the CIA, the country with a Shiite majority and Persian
culture has become an adversary of US and European imperialism in the
Middle East and assumed this leading role after the dismantling of the
USSR. In the current context of the new Cold War, it is an important
ally of the Beijing government in the New Silk Road project and is
responsible for coordinating the "axis of Islamic resistance".
Iran's participation in defending the Palestinian cause with direct
military attacks against Israel began after the Israeli terrorist action
that bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria on April 1, killing eight
Iranian military commanders, including one of the commanders of the head
of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Reza Zahedi. The Iranian military
response demystified the power of the "Iron Dome," Israel's
anti-aircraft battery system, by successfully hitting military targets.
The total war of the Zionist State of Israel is an offensive against the
grouping generically called the "axis of Islamic resistance," under the
leadership of the Iranian government. If colonial expansion in the form
of a war of extermination against the Palestinian people serves the
interests of Netanyahu and the Israeli ruling classes, total war serves
the interests of the United States and Europe, as it advances on Iran
and its network of alliances and influences. At the same time, the
attacks on the Tehran government are attacks on the main ally in the
Middle East of the Sino-Russian bloc. Thus, in the geopolitics of the
conflicts of the new Cold War with the disputes over infrastructure
structures for the new phase of development of capitalism in ecological,
economic, political, social and cultural crisis, the US-Europe bloc uses
Zionist colonialism to open another war front, after the Ukrainian front
and the sabotage of the NordStream gas pipeline[ii], dealing a blow to
the New Silk Road project[iii].
Therefore, four conflicting fronts of the new Cold War can be
identified: 1) the Eastern European front in the Russia versus Ukraine
war; 2) the Middle East front; 3) the African front, with the civil wars
and coups d'état driven by the conflicts of interests of the European
imperialist powers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
Sino-Russian interests; 4) conflicts in the China Sea, whose sea route
is essential, between the Beijing government and US interests defended
by satellite states, in this case the Philippine government.
The "Axis of Resistance" and the Limits of Islamic Nationalism
Having as a milestone the dismantling of the Soviet interstate bloc from
1991 onwards, with the end of the USSR, armed resistance and national
liberation struggles in the Middle East became predominantly Islamic in
their religious orientation, with programs in defense of Islamic
theocracies.
It was in this post-Cold War context that Hamas and Hezbollah became,
respectively, the main anti-imperialist forces in Palestine and Lebanon.
However, the leading role came to be played by Iran, as a nation-state
and regional military power opposing US and European imperialism.
Therefore, today the government of the ayatollahs is responsible for
coordinating the "axis of Islamic resistance," formed mainly by groups
from the Shiite faction of Islam, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi
Islamic Resistance, the Yemeni Houthis, and the Palestinian Hamas, which
is from the Sunni faction. The Syrian autocrat, Bashar al-Assad, who is
from the Alawite sect of the Shiite faction, is also an important ally
of Iran in this articulation of armed resistance to Israel's offensives
and opposition to US and European interests in the Middle East. The
Assad government does not engage in direct confrontation with Israel or
the imperialist forces, but Syria is at war with Israel, which annexed
part of its territory, the Golan Heights, and on the other hand, it
faces Turkish forces to the north and the various groups that remain
from Daesh, the so-called Islamic State, which is Sunni in orientation.
For this reason, it maintains a contradictory relationship with the
autonomous project of the peoples of Rojava, not only the Kurds.
The military alliance of the "axis of resistance" also includes the
fight against the Islamic State, which suffered significant defeats in
Syria and Iraq. And in the geopolitics of the new Cold War, Iran and
Syria are strategic allies of the Sino-Russian bloc.
Although the relevance of the "axis of resistance" and the heroic
character of its anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles are
recognized, the limits of the strategy and program of national
liberation for the implementation of an Islamic Theocratic State are
very clear, whether through the defense of statism or the defense of
theologism.
Anarchist criticism, when examining the wars of independence and
anti-colonialism on the African continent, showed that the defense of
the program of the independent Nation-State did not mean the true
emancipation of Africans. Black Panther Party revolutionary and black
anarchist activist Ashanti Alston comes to the following conclusion when
analyzing the decolonization struggles in Africa:
"For the first time, in these colonial contexts, African people were
creating what Angolans called "people's power." This people's power took
a very anti-authoritarian form: people were not only running their own
lives, but also transforming them as they fought against whatever
foreign power oppressed them. However, in each of these liberation
struggles, new repressive structures were imposed as soon as people came
close to liberation: the leadership was obsessed with ideas of
governance, with establishing a standing army, with controlling the
people once the oppressors had been driven out. Once the much-vaunted
victory was achieved, the people - who had fought for years against
their oppressors - were disarmed and, instead of having real people's
power, a new party was installed in charge of the state. Thus, there
were no real revolutions or true liberation in Angola, Guinea-Bissau,
Mozambique and Zimbabwe, because they simply replaced a foreign
oppressor with a native oppressor." (Ashanti Alston, Black Anarchism) In
fact, Bakunin, when analyzing the various revolutionary processes of his
time and the different liberation struggles of the peoples, came to the
conclusion that the struggles of the Slavic peoples should point to the
need to advance beyond the limits of nationalism and statism:
"Today no revolution can be successful in any country if it is not at
the same time a political and social revolution. All exclusively
political revolutions - whether in defense of national independence or
for internal changes, or even for the establishment of a republic - that
do not aim at the immediate and real political and economic emancipation
of the people will be a false revolution. Their objectives will not be
achieved and their consequences will be reactionary. The Revolution must
be made not for, but by the people and can never be successful if it
does not enthusiastically involve all the masses of the people.
(Bakunin, National Catechism)
The anarchist perspective is assertive in defending the total
emancipation of peoples: the Social Revolution, that is, the
simultaneous destruction of the exploitation of labor, with the
abolition of private property and class inequalities, and of state
structures of oppression and domination.
Islamic theologism, as a nationalist political ideology that establishes
the bases of a theocratic state program, acts as an obstacle to the
advancement of socialist and revolutionary conceptions. Despite
guaranteeing an apparently common worldview among the different groups
of the "axis of resistance", which identify with Islam and its
symbolism, its program is limited to the determinations of the
Nation-State, reproducing its centralizing and oppressive structure,
consequently, it does not establish the abolition of private property in
its program of national liberation.
In the context of colonial turmoil, national liberation struggles play a
central role in the resistance of the Palestinians and other peoples of
the Middle East. However, the historical experiences of revolutionary
and decolonization struggles, whose programs did not break with state
nationalism, succumbed to counterrevolution, with the rise of a ruling
class with a dominant and patriarchal ethnicity and/or group in the
structures of state power and in the reproduction of the various forms
of exploitation, oppression and territorial domination.
The Tasks of Anarchists, Revolutionaries and Internationalists
It was in the context of the extension of the popular uprisings that
broke out in late 2010 in North Africa and the Middle East, an episode
known as the "Arab Spring", that the rise of the Houthis in Yemen
occurred, occupying the country's capital in 2014. The Shiite insurgents
faced a counteroffensive from the imperialist coalition of Saudi Arabia,
the United States and England. The Houthis' advance has strengthened
Iran's position and its policy of building an "axis of resistance" based
ideologically and programmatically on Islamic nationalism.
It was in this same context that the Rojava Revolution[iv]broke out in
the Syrian Kurdistan region, led by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party).
On July 19, 2012, the popular military organizations of the PKK, the YPJ
(Women's Defense Units) and the YPG (People's Protection Units),
advanced to liberate the territory and the Kurdish people of Rojava.
The Houthis and the PKK have been engaged in armed popular resistance
for decades, and in the process of expanding the "Arab Spring"
uprisings, they advanced in their struggles for popular emancipation and
the liberation of territories. But the similarities between the Houthi
insurgents and the revolutionaries of Rojava end there. If the former
move towards the consolidation of the program of Islamic and statist
nationalism, the latter defend democratic confederalism (note), pointing
to a revolutionary alternative not only for the peoples of the Middle
East, but also a reference for proletarian internationalism.
The program of democratic confederalism breaks with the program of the
independent nation-state of anti-colonial and national liberation
struggles, but above all, it rejects Islamic nationalism and all forms
of statism and centralization of power. In this sense, it builds an
autonomous insurgent axis in defense of otherness against the interstate
system and the economy of the capitalist world, the basis of its
internationalist action. In a similar vein to anarchism, democratic
confederalism understands that modern nation-states are inventions of
the bourgeoisie in the service of capitalist domination, built on the
foundations of patriarchal sexism, theologism and the
subordination/genocide of races, cultures and ethnicities considered
inferior. Therefore, it proposes breaking with nation-states.
According to Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism is a type of
political administration that is "non-state or democracy without a state":
Democracies are based on voluntary participation. Democratic
Confederalism is open to other political groups and factions. It is
flexible, multicultural, anti-monopolistic and consensus-oriented.
Ecology and feminism are central pillars. Within the framework of this
type of self-government, an alternative economy will become necessary,
increasing society's resources rather than exploiting them, thus doing
justice to society's multiple needs. (Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism)
To a certain extent, it is a contemporary update of the "Non-State" or
working-class self-government program, which Bakunin and the
collectivists defined as the free federation of communes and
associations of the proletariat. Thus, the Rojava Revolution is an
indigenous experiment in anti-state popular self-government[v].
In his work Statism and Anarchy, Bakunin defines the bourgeois
nation-state as essentially a conquering state and, therefore, a
legal-military structure condemned to war, war between states and,
mainly, war of states against the people and the rights of the
proletarian masses of the countryside and the city. In turn, Öcalan
states that the Zionist state of Israel "has been at war since its
foundation" and concludes that the "example of Israel-Palestine shows
the complete failure of capitalist modernity and the state" (Öcalan,
Democratic Confederalism).
Therefore, the history of the struggles of the peoples and exploited
classes is the struggle against capitalism and its nation-state, with
the social revolution being the only real alternative for emancipation.
But the Social Revolution is not the work of a single people, as Bakunin
concluded when analyzing the struggles of the Slavic peoples. By its
nature, the revolution is international, encompassing all peoples, all
races, in all corners of the planet (Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy). In
other words, from the Bakuninist perspective, proletarian
internationalism, which materialized historically in the experience of
the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) founded in 1864, plays
a fundamental role in the expansion of the Social Revolution, the first
step of which is the mobilization of international solidarity in defense
of Palestine.
In the first months of the genocidal offensive by Israeli military
forces against the Palestinian people in Gaza, street demonstrations in
defense of the Palestinians multiplied in several countries. Between
April and May of this year, a new wave of pro-Palestine demonstrations
occurred, which were concentrated in universities in several central
capitalist countries, including the United States, England, France,
Australia, among others. The repression of pro-Palestine movements and
accusations of anti-Semitism were the strategies of the pro-Zionist
imperialist reaction.
There is an urgent need for an international solidarity network that can
pressure governments that support the Zionist regime to break off
relations and strangle Israel economically and politically. But the task
of revolutionaries should not be one of "uncritical solidarity". Our
task must be to raise popular consciousness through concrete solidarity
with the Palestinian people through actions that can pressure the
various governments to be afraid of this alliance and to give in to us
and the Palestinian people, either by breaking off relations with Israel
or by disinvesting in this state.
Working class organizations, such as the ICL-CIT (International
Confederation of Labor), women, LGBTI, indigenous peoples and black
people must organize to organize boycott and divestment actions, such as
BTS, and to organize a General Strike against the colonial occupation of
Israel with direct actions to end the supply of weapons and supplies to
the Israeli colonial army. Strikes and boycotts by transport and port
workers are essential to advancing this internationalist policy.
It is necessary to advance the programmatic debate, pointing out the
limits of nationalism, of national liberation struggles tied to statist
projects, and consequently to the strengthening of the interstate
capitalist system. Bringing the internationalist struggles of the
proletariat closer to the insurgent and emancipatory anti-statist and
autonomous struggles, such as those of the Mapuche peoples,
Afro-Colombian communities, Zapatism and Democratic Confederalism.
Defending the insurrectionary strategy, armed resistance, the
destruction of state power and the abolition of private property.
Defending the anarchist program of the free federation of communes and
associations of the working class and of an economy of mutual aid.
Free Palestine from the River to the Sea!
For the Confederation of the Peoples of Palestine!
[i]On the origins of the Zionist State of Israel and its colonial
expansion and the limits of theocratic-oriented resistance movements,
read UNIPA, Solidarity with the Courageous People of Palestine, October
26, 2023, Available at
https://uniaoanarquista.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/solidariedade-ao-corajoso-povo-da-palestina/.
[ii]On the war between Russia and Ukraine, see UNIPA, After the plague,
the war! - New cold war, characterization of an inter-imperialist
conflict, the roles of the States involved and the initiatives to resist
the invasion. Communiqué No. 77, March 1, 2022.
[iii]This is a Chinese government project launched in 2013, with the aim
of integrating Asia with Europe through various infrastructure projects
such as highways, railways and ports, as well as projects in the energy
sector, such as oil and gas pipelines.
[iv]UNIPA, Create two, three, many Rojavas: Long live the 8 years of
revolutionary experience in northern Syria! Communiqué 72, July 19, 2020.
[v]The Rojava experience is similar to the Zapatista revolutionary
experience and its program of the Good Government Junta and the
Zapatista rebel municipalities organized in Caracol. Although the
Zapatistas present themselves as a national liberation army, their
program assumes anti-statist programmatic characteristics, an indigenous
experience of three decades of popular self-government.
https://uniaoanarquista.wordpress.com/2024/10/28/da-guerra-de-exterminio-a-guerra-total-uma-analise-bakuninista-da-escalada-da-guerra-no-oriente-medio/
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