The last weeks have seen a series of imperialist attacks against Arab peoples and the SWANA region [1].
Israel has continued to carry out a series of attacks against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, causing several casualties. On January 8, it arrived in the southern suburbs of Beirut to kill Wissam Tawil, the senior commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan forces; in the West Bank, it attacked refugee camps and mosques; the most vicious recent murder was the running over of a young man by a tank and the killing of three young men aged 22-24 in the north of the occupied territory.
After Israel killed a Hamas leader in Lebanon and Iran suffered an attack that left at least 84 dead, the United States sponsored a drone strike on January 4 to kill the leader of a pro-Iranian group, Harakat Hezbolla a-Nujaba [2], based in Baghdad.
Now, a U.S.-led coalition has launched airstrikes against Yemen and Houthi rebels for attacking ships on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea in support of Palestinians in Gaza. The airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, killing and injuring fighters and civilians.
These actions show the total impossibility of the existence of two states in Palestine due to the destructive saga of Israel and U.S., imperialism, and that the strategy of the resistance must be the destruction of the state of Israel.
On the other hand, they show Israel and imperialist policy is striving for the capitulation and total submission of the region’s governments.
The ruling bourgeoisie of these countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Lebanon, are ready to accept this. Because despite all these attacks, they still refuse to confront Israel militarily. The strategy of these governments in the region is to make a pact with the Zionists through the Abraham Accords.
A Regional War to Defeat Israel
This will only be achieved with the formation of an alternative leadership to the governments of the region. If this happens, it raises the possibility of changing the correlation of military forces in the region.
So far, only the Houthis and the Palestinian resistance are engaged in military fighting.
The Houthi leadership has claimed that the imperialist countries are entering into “the greatest madness in their history” and that they, like Hamas, are prepared for a long-term struggle.
Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel,” hundreds of thousands of people, many of them armed, marched through the streets of Sanaa carrying Yemeni and Palestinian flags.
In Bahrain, where the government is a U.S. ally, thousands of people took to the streets to protest the country’s participation in the military coalition [3]. Demonstrations also took place in Malaysia and Indonesia.
On January 13, thousands gathered at Bank Junction in central London and in Washington D.C. in solidarity with Gaza, calling for a ceasefire and an end to the escalating U.S. attacks in Yemen.
On January 15, a U.S.-owned and operated Marshall Islands-flagged container ship was hit by an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by Houthi militants. On the same day, Iran targeted the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan with ballistic missiles, killing four civilians. According to the Revolutionary Guards, the attack targeted an Israeli spy center in an indirect and totally insufficient response.
Rejecting the Imperialist Attack on Yemen
The Houthis are insurgents who control most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. The group emerged in the 1980s and is backed by, but not completely subordinated to, Iran. They differ from the Iranian proxies not only because they are followers of the Zaydi Shiite doctrine, but also because they are economically autonomous from Tehran (they receive state revenues from the northern regions and control smuggling networks in the area, mainly arms), and have their own political agenda and their own power structure [4].
Differently, they are also the fruit of the Arab Spring, when they gained significant momentum and in 2014 succeeded in overthrowing the Saudi and imperialist-backed government and seizing power in much of Yemen. A series of negotiations led to a cessation of fighting in 2022, with troops backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
What they recognize most about Iran is that it represents a model of state resistance to the West.
The group honed its military skills during years of civil war. In fact, it has been more successful as a military group than as a government.
Yemen is an extremely poor country, but the attacks it has carried out against ships in the Bab el-Mandab Strait, which separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, have economically affected the imperialist multinationals, mainly in the oil and natural gas sectors.
Therefore, U.S. imperialism has created a multinational force to protect the routes: Operation Prosperity Guardian, with the participation of the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles and Spain, and attacked Yemen in a totally disproportionate reaction. This may lead to a regionalization of the conflict.
But it is difficult to justify an attack on Yemen when its forces attacked some ships, while at the same time Israel continues to commit genocide with its brutal bombing and encirclement of Gaza without any consequences from any country.
The Palestinian Resistance Creates Obstacles for Israel
On January 1, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced the withdrawal of two brigades from Gaza. Each brigade consists of about 4,000 soldiers. He also announced that three more brigades would be withdrawn.
The Israeli government has begun to feel the cost of the war against the Palestinian resistance at home, both economically and politically.
The cost of the war to Israel has been estimated at about $60 billion. Admittedly, the goals set for the war were not achieved, as evidenced by the failure to dismantle Hamas and release the hostages, just as the assassination of top Hamas commanders remains illusory [5].
Even if they claim that their forces are proving more adept at identifying and dismantling booby traps, maneuvering to avoid ambushes, and evacuating the wounded, this is an admission that the conflict has a long way to go. The Israeli army command admits that it is fighting a “complex and complicated war.”
All This Points the Way to Political Crisis
There is a crisis in Netanyahu’s coalition, the most right-wing in the country’s history. On Saturday, January 6, thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv and in front of Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea, demanding immediate national elections in the midst of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza [6].
But if the Zionist government has its way, the policy of genocide in Gaza will continue.
As the figures of international institutions and agencies have been reporting, at least 25,000 Palestinians have been killed and 60,000 injured. The Wall Street Journal reports that nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and half of its buildings have been destroyed, as well as much of the water, electricity, and communications infrastructure, and that health care is “beyond repair.” Of the 36 hospitals, only 8 are functioning, and two-thirds of the school buildings were damaged, as were churches and more than 100 mosques. According to the Associated Press, in two months of war, Israel has caused more destruction in Gaza than the battle for Aleppo in Syria or the attack on Mariupol in Ukraine, fueled by two bloodthirsty and murderous dictators: Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.
Imperialist International Law is Impotent in the Face of Aggressions from Oppressor States
We are following the case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice for genocide. The trial began on January 11.
But unfortunately, this verdict will not have any concrete effect in stopping Israel’s attacks against the Palestinian people.
We have already seen, in the case of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, that Putin violated the norms of international law. Ukraine has the right to territorial integrity and political independence, even in the context of Russia’s “recognition” of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has committed an act of aggression against Ukraine, but the international institutions did nothing beyond a formal disapproval of its actions.
During the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa claimed that Israel’s offensive, which destroyed much of the coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people, was aimed at “the destruction of the population” of Gaza.
They sought to prove that Israel’s political and military leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were among the “inciters of genocide.” This is evident from the manner in which this military assault is being carried out.
Israel rejected the accusations of genocide as false and baseless, saying that South Africa was speaking on behalf of Hamas; their discourse is that the accusation is full of hypocrisy and lies, and that are the ones fighting against genocide.
South Africa’s defense has cited as evidence Israel’s sustained bombing campaign and statements by ministers such as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said that “we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”
The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted after the mass murder of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” This is what the Israeli army is demonstrably doing.
International law requires that every effort be made to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and that only civilians be protected. The numbers show that the Israeli army has made no distinction and kills Israel’s own hostages.
In addition, Israel has imposed a total blockade, depriving the entire Gaza Strip of basic necessities such as fuel, electricity, drinking water, and hospitals. It has blocked humanitarian aid, even through Rafah, which connects the Palestinian territory to Egypt.
The tribunal is expected to rule this month on possible emergency measures, but most likely will not rule on the genocide charges, and those proceedings could take years. In the end, even if the tribunal rules, it has no way of enforcing any measures.
It will be the demonstrations of workers and youth around the world, the political and military support for the Palestinian resistance, and the divestment and boycott campaigns against Israel and its sponsors that will be able to change the course of the war. The mobilization of our class will increase the possibility of the military defeat of the state of Israel and the establishment of a secular, democratic, and non-racist Palestinian state.
Notes:
[1] Decolonization acronym for the region of Southwest Asia and North Africa.
[2] The Noble Party of God Movement, officially the 12th Brigade, is a radical Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group. Shiite paramilitary group that is particularly active in Syria and Iraq.
[3] https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2024/01/12/bombardeios-de-eua-e-reino-unido-no-iemen-alimentam-meta-de-houthis-por-guerra-regional-expandida-dizem-especialistas.ghtml
[4] https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/houthis-and-iran-a-war-time-alliance-121951
[5] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/cost-of-israeli-war-on-gaza-reaches-60-billion-report/3102769
[6] https://www.timesofisrael.com/protesters-in-tel-aviv-outside-netanyahus-caesarea-home-call-for-elections-now/
