The Socialist Struggle Movement\u2019s congress convened on 25\u201327 September in Tel Aviv, in the shadow of the destruction of Gaza City and the displacement of its population by the occupation forces, while the war of annihilation and its atrocities continue to rage, and against the backdrop of uncertainty surrounding vague declarations by the Trump administration to promote a framework for a ceasefire agreement, in a new round of pressure, ostensibly leading towards the declaration longed for by masses worldwide on the end of the war crisis and an exchange of hostages and prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again, Trump brandishes, with typical pomposity, a clear threat to renew support for another barbaric escalation in aggression against the bombed, massacred, displaced, and starved Palestinian population. In the background, media reports regarding the arrival of US refuelling aircraft in Qatar have heightened speculation as to the feasibility of preparations for a US strike against Iranian targets \u2014 a further reminder in itself of the explosive tensions in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the level of tension between Netanyahu and the US administration surrounding White House declarations has been a subject of speculation. In any case, for Palestinians, while a ceasefire \u2014 if indeed implemented \u2014 would undoubtedly provide relief from at least a portion of the murderous military aggression, the \u2018Trump plan\u2019 is a promise for the continuation of the war of occupation and national oppression by other means (alongside more of the same).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump issued the \u1e24amas leadership with an ultimatum of a few days to accede to the conditions he dictated. These include a hypocritical demand from the world\u2019s most powerful superpower and the regional occupying power for total disarmament, which the \u1e24amas leadership \u2014 at least in practice \u2014 is almost certain to oppose. Furthermore, Trump seeks to dictate the continued partial presence of Israeli occupation forces in a \u2018perimeter\u2019 of some kind, and the imposition of a foreign occupation regime for at least three years \u2014 to be run under his direct control, with the involvement of US tycoons and war criminals such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair from the era of the invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s goal was and remains to re-enforce the hegemony of US imperialism in the region, and to advance towards that end the normalisation of the occupation and subjugation of millions of Palestinians. His initiative at this time is also intended to try to shift the agenda in an attempt to loosen pressure against the continuation of the war of annihilation and occupation from public opinion in the US and Europe, which finds expression, among other things, in diplomatic pressure from governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Arab regimes in the region praise Trump\u2019s intervention, as they see in it potential for restraining the aggression of the Israeli regime \u2014 which the bombing in Qatar clearly demonstrated is not limited to the \u2018seven fronts\u2019 \u2014 and in particular for restraining the plan for ethnic cleansing through mass expulsion and official annexation, which they view as a source of internal political and social instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu declared that the implementation of the Trump framework would achieve \u2018all the goals of the war\u2019, although it is doubtful whether he believes the \u1e24amas leadership will raise a white flag before these dictates. From the outset he threatens that: \u2018If \u1e24amas rejects your plan, Mr President, or if they accept it and then do everything to oppose it, then Israel will finish the job alone\u2019<\/em>. In practice, similar to the previous ceasefire at the beginning of 2025, his government may decide at any stage to renege and return to the accelerated promotion of the ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza under various pretexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu praised Trump for his declaration at the UN General Assembly against recognition of a Palestinian state, signalling a wink that he has no issue with the cynical lip-service in the Trump framework recycling a promise of some form of future state once conditions supposedly ripen. Netanyahu was not even required to pay lip-service himself to recognizing the right of Palestinians to self-determination in an independent state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His partners Smotrich and Ben-Gvir openly hope for a refusal from \u1e24amas so that they can continuously proceed with implementing their plans for destruction, annihilation, and ethnic cleansing. The fact that Finance Minister Smotrich cries out over replacing a \u2018consciousness of victory\u2019 with a \u2018consciousness of defeat\u2019 and demands that Netanyahu return \u2018Israel to a healthy and natural track of war\u2019 raises genuine concern among far-right circles regarding the curtailment of their actions. Yet even in a scenario where some gradual implementation of a ceasefire agreement is advanced, the continued strengthening of the occupation and settlements will remain a key de facto parameter within it, and Netanyahu\u2019s capitalist government of death will retain further room to exploit opportunities to consolidate geo-strategic gains ahead of elections scheduled to take place at some point in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The solidarity strike by many in the Italian working class against ethnic cleansing, against genocide, and against arms supplies to the war machine helps signal the path required for real progress: an unconditional halt to the war of annihilation. The international solidarity movement continues to bolster inspiration and determination for the ongoing organisation of necessary demonstrations among various Palestinian communities. Inside the Green Line, a cross-community struggle must continue to be built to end the offensive of annihilation, for a hostage and prisoner exchange agreement, and to bring down the government of death \u2014 including further demonstrations, organised strikes and refusals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Establishment Israeli political parties opposed to Netanyahu have competed on numerous occasions over the past two years in justifying the military moves of the government of death and crimes against humanity, and in some cases figures such as former general Yair Golan have openly bypassed Netanyahu from the right. In the face of the Trump deception \u2014 which, even if realised, paves the way for the consolidation of the occupation and inevitably for further catastrophes \u2014 it is vital to fight for a political alternative to the parties of occupation and the rule of capital in the form of a working-class struggle party bridging national communities. Such a party within the Green Line could advance a struggle for root-and-branch change, striving for cooperation with a sister Palestinian party in the 1967 territories and with equivalents across the world, towards ending the occupation and achieving a socialist transformation to guarantee prosperity, democracy, and equality for millions across both nations between the Jordan River and the Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The congress had originally been scheduled to convene earlier in the year, but was postponed under the aggressive pressure of developments, both as a result of the intensive activity of the Socialist Struggle movement on the ground, particularly its intervention in demonstrations, and because of events that produced sharp turns in the agenda. A preliminary gathering was held on 4 July, ten days after the ceasefire in the Israel-Iran war, and a follow-up gathering is planned for the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of the congress\u2019s preparatory discussion process, perspectives documents were produced, discussed at every level of the organisation, and further developed with the aid of contributions to the discussion and proposals raised by comrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The congress also discussed an assessment and outline for building the organisation in the coming period, as well as important questions connected to building the struggle at the international level. In this context, it decided to withdraw from the international organisation ISA, in which we had participated over the previous six years, and to continue the struggle along separate paths. This includes, among other things, broader differences of approach that became increasingly clear in the shadow of the historic bloodshed crisis, as we will explain in a separate statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A document focusing on the global context (see: \u2018Systemic Capitalist Crisis in the Era of Trump 2, Mass Atrocities and Struggle\u2019, 7 May<\/a>) and a document focusing on the regional context (see: \u2018The War of Occupation and Extermination in a Regional Context and a Mass Challenge\u2019, 7 May<\/a>) were developed earlier in the year and adopted by the National Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The analysis they present, in terms of their central assessments, remains largely up to date, and no substantive disagreements emerged around them. However, because of the postponement of the congress and the density of its agenda, they were ultimately discussed at the September gathering as written contributions to the debates and were not submitted for adoption by vote, pending an updated document at the next gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The document on local perspectives, which constitutes a continuation chapter of the two previous documents while also standing on its own, is presented here in a version that was lightly updated ahead of the September gathering, where it was discussed and adopted. It is worth noting that the document was largely developed during May, with a first draft submitted around four months earlier. Given the pace of events in the current crisis, this represents a considerable period of time. Nevertheless, even at the present stage, the review contributes to the discussion surrounding a socialist class analysis of the development of the historic and multi-dimensional crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years into the horrific blood-soaked crisis, centred on the war of extermination and the crimes of genocide in Gaza, alongside the multi-front campaign of Israeli capitalism under Washington\u2019s patronage, with military aggression across more than seven fronts, the end is still nowhere in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hubris of Netanyahu\u2019s capitalist government of death and the Israeli far right received a fresh injection of momentum from Trump\u2019s return in the US. This was expressed first and foremost in the massive escalation of the war of extermination and occupation \u2014 in the West Bank from January onward and in the Gaza Strip from March onward \u2014 and through the decisions taken in early May and early August to expand the offensive, accompanied by declarations concerning the \u2018seizure of territory\u2019 for the purpose of reimposing direct long-term occupation, including the takeover of Gaza City, explicitly disconnected from the return of hostages and advanced alongside plans for ethnic cleansing backed by Trump. The death cabinet decided that the displacement of the entire population of Gaza City, close to one million residents, was to be completed by 7 October 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the regional context, this boost to the death government\u2019s hubris was expressed through the launching of a full-scale war against Iran in June, with full backing and direct military involvement from US imperialism in a bloody assault that sowed destruction and death across Iran through the use of the most powerful conventional bombs currently available. This came alongside the deepening of Israeli military intervention and occupation in Syria, and continuing military aggression in Lebanon and Yemen. At the same time, however, the new phase of escalation in crimes against humanity in Gaza, including starvation policies that reached an unprecedented deadly peak in the Strip together with the daily lethal shootings at queues for the distribution of \u2018aid\u2019, not only provoked a new wave of mass demonstrations of anger across the world \u2014 and limited strike actions by groups of workers that culminated in a wide-ranging strike day in Italy led by dockworkers and public transport workers (22 September) \u2014 but also left that same government facing a majority in Israeli public opinion demanding an end to the military campaign, and even growing criticism, albeit uneven and inconsistent, from its European allies and from Washington itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The all-out assault on Iran, which represented a significant shift in the regional balance of forces against the so-called \u2018Axis of Resistance\u2019, was utilised by the Israeli ruling class to present itself as an efficient \u2018forward outpost\u2019 for the interests of the Western imperialist powers. German Chancellor Merz openly praised this, declaring that \u2018Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us\u2019 \u2014 in practice, in the service of Western imperialism. Yet tensions between the government of death and the Western powers rapidly intensified once again following the end of the assault on Iran, to the point that the same Merz was compelled to declare that \u2018the German government will, until further notice, not approve any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, while uprooting, starving and massacring Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and while causing displacement, devastation and mass economic hardship in the West Bank, Israel\u2019s government of death is also confronting growing anger and even protests against the austerity policies being imposed on the working class in Israel to finance the war machine. Moreover, the death cabinet\u2019s arrogant declaration of the \u2018occupation of Gaza\u2019, in the face of warnings that the move would lead to the deaths of Israeli hostages held in the Strip, sparked renewed calls from some hostage families for the Histadrut leadership to shut down the economy, efforts to organise strike days \u2018from below\u2019 in response to Bar-David\u2019s categorical refusal to do so, and the organisation of mass rallies \u2014 this time with a more explicit demand for an end to the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since collapsing the ceasefire on 18 March, the government of death promoted the pretence of a proposal for another temporary ceasefire lasting several weeks, primarily in order to reduce pressure surrounding the hostage issue. The same pretence was repeated with even greater emphasis during the first days following the Israel-Iran war. Yet the Hamas leadership\u2019s stated acceptance on 18 August of a 60-day ceasefire and exchange deal, under which ten living Israeli hostages and eighteen deceased hostages would be released among others, was met with demonstrative disregard by the government of death. At every stage, the government of death insisted that no ceasefire arrangement could bind it to ending the war of extermination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 18 March, the occupation forces of Netanyahu\u2019s capitalist government of death and the Israeli far right have slaughtered approximately 15,000 people, around 3,700 of them during July alone, the deadliest month in Gaza since January 2024, while causing tens of thousands of injuries. The horrifying but, at this stage, conservative official death toll has already surpassed 63,000, the majority of them women, children and infants, while the official number of directly wounded is estimated at over 160,000, excluding the impacts of starvation, dehydration, the destruction of infrastructure and trauma. Thousands of families have been wiped from existence. As we have emphasised throughout, the war of extermination in Gaza constitutes crimes against humanity of enduring infamy, generated by the logic of occupation, oppression and dispossession imposed upon millions of Palestinians by Israeli capitalism under the patronage of Western imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The return of Trumpism gave additional impetus to the advance of reaction. The capitalist government of death initially accepted the temporary ceasefire in Gaza as a tactical concession for managing pressure, only to intensify further its genocidal campaign of aggression and the mass atrocities inflicted upon Palestinians, under heightened backing, albeit of fluctuating intensity, from the president who promised to \u2018end wars\u2019. This was accompanied by assertive promotion of regional aggression that reached its peak in the exploitation of a geopolitical window of opportunity for a strategic assault on Iran. That attack involved unprecedented large-scale strikes against military sites, civilian infrastructure, symbols of the regime and its senior officials, at an enormous human cost to ordinary people in Iran, while the government of death displayed a willingness to \u2018absorb\u2019 damage to cities and towns under Israeli rule during the counterattack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two days after the ceasefire agreement in Gaza came into force (21 January), a massive escalation in the offensive of occupation forces throughout the West Bank began. On 2 March, Israel\u2019s government of death once again initiated, under the criminal label of a \u2018humanitarian siege\u2019, a campaign of starvation and dehydration against the population, in preparation for the resumption of the war of extermination in the Strip on 18 March. The abandonment of the ceasefire agreement once again demonstrated how fluid the distinction truly is between the far-right wing and the rest of the capitalist government of death, and that the government\u2019s intention had never been to proceed to \u2018Phase Two\u2019 of that agreement. Defence Minister Israel Katz, who after the war against Iran threatened that \u2018Operation Rising Lion was only the trailer for a new Israeli policy \u2014 after 7 October, immunity is over\u2019, had already declared beforehand that occupation forces would remain indefinitely in \u2018buffer zones\u2019, \u2018in Syria, in Lebanon, and in the Gaza Strip and everywhere else; this is our lesson from 7 October\u2019. Netanyahu made clear that the government\u2019s decision in early May to expand the offensive in Gaza marked a transition \u2018from the method of raids to conquering territory and remaining there\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This amounts to a coherent programme, a policy of territorial expansion through long-term direct military occupation, both in pursuit of tighter control over Gaza \u2014 with Trump\u2019s plan for mass displacement intended to play a complementary role \u2014 and in pursuit of displays of military power within the regional context. Yet it is also an expression of the ruling class\u2019s strategic short-sightedness, amounting to a revival of a \u2018security zone\u2019 doctrine and a partial return to direct military administration over Gaza\u2019s population, while opening the door to the possibility of renewed settlement. In other words, it represents a recycling of \u2018solutions\u2019 already exposed historically as a farce, after the Israeli occupation was previously forced to withdraw military forces both from southern Lebanon and from Gaza due to the political and military difficulties involved in maintaining them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Transformations in the world order and the regional order have politically facilitated the expansion of territorial occupations by the Israeli regime at the present time. In the medium term, however, as international tensions demonstrate, these same developments may intensify difficulties, including instability, as well as mass protest and resistance from populations across the region and domestically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Netanyahu, under pressure from Washington, agreed to allow a renewed trickle of essential goods into Gaza against a backdrop of reports that dozens of Palestinian children had died of starvation, he openly acknowledged that documentation of the mass atrocities was generating public pressure that worries capitalist governments around the world: \u2018Our best friends in the world \u2026 come to me and say: \u201cWe are giving you all the assistance required to complete the victory \u2026 but there is one thing we cannot tolerate; we cannot accept images of mass starvation \u2026 we will not be able to support you\u201d.\u2019 He praised Smotrich for publicly defending the decision through a statement explaining the underlying logic: \u2018We are destroying everything that remains of the Strip and, God willing, this will lead to the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages. The population will move to southern Gaza and from there to third countries\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s plan for Gaza materially encouraged the Israeli government of death. Nevertheless, the Trump administration continues, under the influence of the geopolitical interests of US imperialism, to operate according to a logic that combines foundational backing for the aggression of the Israeli regime with efforts to impose brakes and limits. In this respect, it represents a crude application of the same logic that guided the Biden-Harris administration, which played a decisive role in enabling the atrocities in Gaza. Thus, ahead of his regional visit in May, Trump fairly quickly moved towards open criticism of Netanyahu\u2019s government. It was even leaked that in private conversations he described the decision to expand the offensive in Gaza as a \u2018wasted effort\u2019. For Washington, the move complicates possibilities for reaching \u2018deals\u2019 in the region, both regarding Gaza and more broadly. For Netanyahu\u2019s government, the Trump administration is proving more similar to the Biden administration than it had hoped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Israeli air force bombed Sana\u2019a in another demonstrative attack following the impact of a Houthi missile at Ben Gurion Airport, Trump suddenly announced \u2014 and reportedly without informing the Israeli regime \u2014 an end to US and British bombing operations, claiming that the Houthis had informally committed to ceasing attacks on \u2018Western\u2019 shipping. This informal arrangement conspicuously excludes the exchange of fire between Israel and Sana\u2019a. The move added to dissatisfaction within Netanyahu\u2019s government regarding reports that the Trump administration had supposedly abandoned the condition that discussions over a Saudi civilian nuclear programme be tied to normalisation with Israel, effectively continuing exploratory efforts that had already taken place during the Biden administration concerning a strategic agreement with Riyadh without involvement from the Israeli regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the assault on Iran, Netanyahu\u2019s government expressed concern at the prolonged negotiations between Washington and Tehran, in light of contradictory signals from the US administration, through Trump and his envoy, property tycoon Steve Witkoff, regarding the terms of an agreement, particularly concerning uranium enrichment. In April it was reported that the Trump administration had dispatched a massive air and sea shipment of heavy bombs previously delayed by the Biden administration, as well as bunker-busting munitions. For several months, fearing destabilising consequences, the Trump administration rejected Israeli proposals for direct participation in bombing operations and a possible commando deployment, instead seeking to compel Tehran into an agreement. Yet, as we warned in advance, including in an earlier draft of this document, the collapse of the indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran created the space for an Israeli assault involving direct participation by the US military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US bombardment of Iran demonstrated both Trump\u2019s ambition to reimpose a \u2018unipolar\u2019 dynamic in international relations and signal who is \u2018the boss\u2019 in the Middle East and the wider global system, and the extent to which objective decline in the power of US imperialism places limits on that ambition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite efforts by Trump and Netanyahu to project an image of victory following the war against Iran, reports indicate that only the Fordow facility was actually destroyed in the US bombing campaign. The regime of the ayatollahs has shown little eagerness to comply with Trump\u2019s demands for renewed negotiations, even under threats from the governments of France, Germany and Britain to reactivate sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear agreement through the \u2018snapback\u2019 mechanism. The motivation of the Iranian regime to advance a military nuclear programme has actually been strengthened by Western imperialist aggression, while the motivation of Israel\u2019s government of death and of every wing of the hubris-saturated ruling class to weaken its regional rivals has reached a peak. This was reflected in the Israeli air force\u2019s highly publicised assassinations in late August of Houthi prime minister al-Rahawi in Yemen and a series of ministers in his government. The fundamental causes of the crisis remain intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration is incapable of imposing \u2018regime change\u2019 in Iran according to the Iraqi model, since a direct, large-scale military occupation of that kind is not a viable option for US imperialism in its present condition. Nevertheless, the Israeli regime, across its various wings, has developed an appetite for, and openly expresses aspirations towards, a trajectory of destabilising and even replacing the Iranian regime. Further rounds in the Israel-Iran conflict, potentially even more destructive ones, are certainly on the agenda, as Chief of Staff Zamir emphasised: \u2018The campaign against Iran is not over\u2019. The ruling classes generally, including sections of the Israeli ruling class, would prefer to avoid an entanglement that could develop into an uncontrollable regional conflagration, but they remain bound by the escalating logic of the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dynamics within the ruling classes are shaped by geopolitical calculations and fears of destabilising consequences, as well as by actual and potential developments in mass anger and mass protest. Governments and circles of capital within the camp of Western imperialism continue pursuing carefully balanced policies towards the political regime of Israeli capitalism, combining decisive material and political backing with attempts at discipline through forms of soft challenge at the rhetorical, diplomatic and legal levels. This reflects efforts both to distance themselves politically from identification with responsibility for the atrocities and to exert restraining pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This dynamic also sharpens tensions and conflicts within the Israeli ruling class over strategic questions and tactical approaches concerning the military campaign, administration of the occupation regime and maintenance of international relations. This is particularly the case given Netanyahu\u2019s government\u2019s failure to achieve the declared objectives of the war of extermination. Even after nearly two years of killing and destruction on a historic scale, supposedly aimed at eliminating Hamas\u2019s military and governing capacities, the Israeli military estimates that Hamas\u2019s militia still numbers around 40,000 fighters. It has failed even to halt missile launches, not only from Yemen but also from the besieged and devastated Gaza Strip itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the one hand, the mass atrocities continuously perpetrated by the government of death under Washington\u2019s patronage fundamentally express a systemic logic that was materially advanced by Netanyahu\u2019s and Trump\u2019s so-called liberal rivals as well. From the Democratic Party in the US to the Israeli bourgeois \u2018opposition\u2019 parties, assisted by a mobilised press, these forces played a decisive role in the systematic legitimisation of atrocities and the dehumanisation of Palestinians, just as they did in relation to the military attack on Iran and the full range of state-terror measures associated with it. The overwhelming majority of ruling-class circles opposed to the government of death repeatedly mobilised at critical junctures in firm support of its military actions. On the other hand, concerns are growing within the mainstream of the Israeli ruling class regarding the potentially destabilising long-term consequences from a systemic standpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deepening divisions within the Israeli ruling class are reflected in a renewed increase in political polarisation and friction between the Israeli government \u2014 which has returned to advancing at an accelerated pace a continuing Bonapartist tendency towards concentration of state power and attempts to silence opposition voices \u2014 and key components of the capitalist state apparatus. In relation to the war of extermination, rhetoric from the anti-Netanyahu camp within the Israeli ruling class has sharpened, with senior former members of the political-military elite, whose own hands are stained with blood, now appearing willing to acknowledge crimes of starvation, ethnic cleansing and the killing of infants in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ya\u2019alon, formerly IDF chief of staff and defence minister on behalf of Likud, has since November 2024 issued statements against what he himself describes as \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 in Gaza. He has even implicitly called on rank-and-file soldiers to refuse orders through reference to the legal category of a \u2018manifestly illegal order\u2019 (a concept developed following the Kafr Qasim massacre of 1956 and fundamentally serving as part of a shift towards individual rather than systemic responsibility). After the government of death approved \u2018Operation Gideon\u2019s Chariots\u2019 in early May, amid leaks that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir had clashed with ministers from Otzma Yehudit over the issue of \u2018humanitarian aid\u2019 \u2014 that is, the degree of starvation imposed on the population \u2014 Ya\u2019alon criticised him on the grounds that he was cooperating with a \u2018manifestly illegal order\u2019 in the form of a plan for the \u2018cleansing of the entire population of Gaza up to the border of the Strip\u2019, \u2018ordering his soldiers to become war criminals\u2019, and leaving soldiers the choice of \u2018whether to obey or refuse\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, Ya\u2019alon was presenting a strategic dispute from the standpoint of the ruling class. According to him, Israel is \u2018losing the United States\u2019, particularly regarding Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran, and in his view a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange deal should have been concluded in November-December 2023. This, however, was intended to facilitate more \u2018intensive operations\u2019 subsequently in Gaza, just as the Israeli military finds opportunities to strike Lebanon during a formal ceasefire, attacks Syria, and carries out raids at its own discretion within the \u2018Area A\u2019 zones of the West Bank. This is the same logic that informed the earlier chauvinist \u2018return them and return\u2019 campaign of occupation-supporting bourgeois forces opposed to Netanyahu, and that also finds expression in the repeated slogan calling for a deal \u2018even at the price of ending the war\u2019. In response, Netanyahu pointed out that this was an exceptionally transparent deception: \u2018Those among us who tell us \u2026 \u201cFold now, leave Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor, surrender to Hamas and promise not to return to fighting, and after Hamas returns all the hostages \u2014 return to fighting\u201d \u2026 Hamas are a gang of despicable murderers, but they are not stupid. They demand binding international guarantees \u2026 no one, certainly not the United States \u2014 nor China, nor Russia, nor other members of the Security Council \u2014 no one will cooperate with such a deception\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as the US ruling class exploited the mass shock generated by the horrific attacks of 11 September 2001 to launch its state-terror military campaign under the banner of the \u2018Global War on Terror\u2019 in order to display its power as the sole superpower, so the Israeli ruling class exploited the mass shock of 7 October 2023 and the atrocities committed against civilians of various nationalities, children and elderly people during the Hamas-led surprise attack, in order to embark on a campaign to reinforce the occupation, inflict a historic defeat on the Palestinian national movement, and achieve a qualitative shift in the regional balance of forces, including the promotion of a trajectory towards destabilisation and even \u2018regime change\u2019 in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Netanyahu\u2019s government of death did not itself win the support of an absolute majority in the 2022 elections, nor at any stage since its formation in Israeli public opinion, it nevertheless received extensive backing from the mouthpieces of the Israeli ruling class for the central themes of war propaganda, including dehumanisation and aspirations towards ethnic cleansing and extermination. Yet now, as it continues to project intoxication with power, including renewed calls for mass reserve mobilisation, it faces increasing isolation, including a growth in both openly declared refusal to report under mobilisation orders and forms of \u2018grey refusal\u2019 reflected in a continuing decline in turnout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The attempt by Netanyahu\u2019s rivals within the Israeli ruling class to present the extension of military call-up orders to the ultra-Orthodox as a \u2018solution\u2019 to the strain on the murderous war machine of Israeli capitalism and the occupation is now playing an accelerating role in the disintegrative pressures affecting the governing coalition, because the ultra-Orthodox parties are unable to market an official compromise on the issue. The next Knesset elections, which are formally due no later than October 2026, could easily be brought forward by several months. But insofar as it depends on the interests of Netanyahu and his government, their main hope is to continue clinging to power, while their polling position remains weak even after the \u2018June offensive\u2019 against Iran, which failed to improve their standing or create a scenario in which snap elections would appear advantageous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, they will seek to extract political dividends over the coming months from chaos and from attempts to reignite mass support for the military campaign through the exploitation of widespread security fears, including in the event of renewed escalation in the Israel-Iran confrontation, which, as noted, is very much on the agenda this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The approach of elections, together with the surge in polling support for Bennett\u2019s tentative party as the largest electoral force within the opposition camp to Netanyahu, only underlines the urgent need for a left-wing party of struggle rooted in the working class and organised across national communities within the Green Line, capable of advancing a socialist alternative to the horrors of the war of extermination and to life under Israeli capitalism. Beyond the need for demands centred on ending the war of extermination, the occupation and regional aggression, and rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and communities through the expropriation of resources from the capitalist class, the depth of the historic blood-soaked crisis demonstrates the need for a political force capable of advancing fundamental, revolutionary change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new phase of the war of occupation and extermination triggered a fresh wave of protest at both global and regional levels, including an international day of protest under the banner of a \u2018global strike\u2019, held on 7 April during a protest strike that took place primarily in the West Bank. This initiative joined a series of calls for a worldwide general strike issued since 7 October 2023. Although it remained symbolic in scale, owing decisively to the restraining role played by the leaderships of most trade unions, it nevertheless points to the necessity of mobilising strike action on a mass scale as part of a mass struggle to halt the murderous war machine of Israeli capitalism and disrupt the \u2018business as usual\u2019 of ruling classes around the world, as well as their military, economic and political support for the oppression and slaughter of the Palestinian masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar direction is importantly reflected in initiatives by dockworkers in a number of countries and cities along the Mediterranean coast to block the transport of weapons and military supplies to the Israeli regime, as well as in the call issued by dockworkers in Genoa, Italy, in early September to halt the loading of shipments to Israel \u2018and blockade all of Europe\u2019 if the protest flotilla to Gaza were attacked, and in the threat by the CGIL trade union confederation in Genoa to declare a general strike in the city. These initiatives helped pave the way for an important mobilisation of organised labour, including public transport workers, for a strike day and demonstrations on 22 September against the war of extermination and demanding an end to the transfer of weapons to the Israeli regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A huge demonstration involving tens of thousands in Genoa accompanied the latest protest flotilla that set sail for Gaza in September. The Gaza Freedom Flotilla protest campaign \u2014 continuing a tradition of challenging the blockade that began in 2010 \u2014 sailed towards Gaza for the first time this year in May and was attacked by a drone. In June, a vessel travelling towards Gaza was seized by the Israeli navy in international waters and all participants were arrested and effectively abducted to Israel. In response, the Global Sumud Flotilla was organised and sailed in September, comprising dozens of vessels, including from Tunisia, Greece, Spain, Italy and elsewhere. Despite their symbolic character, the flotillas have become an important reference point for the international protest movement. They have been met with incitement and attacks from the Israeli establishment, including, as noted, attacks by the navy, as the Israeli regime is determined to demonstrate complete control over the area and prevent any prospect of breaking the blockade. Thus, a de facto \u2018front\u2019 has emerged in which the Israeli state deploys military force, however limited in scope, directly against the international protest movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands up to one million demonstrators took to the streets, while demonstrations involving tens of thousands were reported in April in several countries, including Egypt, Morocco, Turkey and Pakistan. In The Hague, a demonstration of nearly 100,000 people took place on 18 May \u2014 the largest in the Netherlands in two decades. In Tunisia, amid a renewed upsurge of protests over economic and social conditions, calls have also intensified for the closure of the US embassy in response to the regional aggression of US imperialism and its Israeli prot\u00e9g\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout this period, political persecution and heavy state repression, both by governments aligned with Western imperialism and by reactionary Arab regimes, have faithfully served the Israeli occupation by limiting the development of the international movement. At the same time, Israel\u2019s government of death continues to suppress expressions of protest within the Green Line, including the removal from public spaces of photographs of Palestinian children killed by its forces. In Jordan, the monarchy intensified repression in April and appears in practice to have joined the Egyptian regime in banning the weekly demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza. This followed the outlawing, on the pretext of preparing weapons, of the principal opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (\u062c\u0628\u0647\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0645\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u0625\u0633\u0644\u0627\u0645\u064a), a front organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had succeeded in increasing its support in the September elections, partly because it had positioned itself as a militant voice against the extermination offensive in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Indonesia, the emerging protest movement, led by student organisations against austerity policies and authoritarian militaristic legislation \u2014 perceived as a slide back towards the era of Suharto\u2019s military dictatorship, overthrown in 1998 \u2014 has continued to develop alongside displays of solidarity with Gaza and protest against US imperialism. During the presidency of Joko Widodo, there was a shift towards normalising relations with the State of Israel. However, the mass demonstrations in Indonesia in solidarity with Gaza, which initially mobilised more than a million participants, presently serve as a deterrent against the implementation of such a move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the United States, thousands took part in a protest march in Washington, DC, against the extermination offensive in Gaza and against the escalating political persecution of students and activists involved in last year\u2019s wave of solidarity encampments for Gaza on university campuses. At Yale University in Connecticut, despite harassment by the university administration, a protest encampment was established in April and a spirited demonstration was organised in response to a nearby visit by Ben-Gvir. Reports also emerged of organising efforts to re-establish a protest encampment at Columbia University in New York. Meanwhile, workers at Microsoft protested against the transfer of AI technologies to the Israeli military. All this occurred against the backdrop of the broader anti-Trump protest movement, which brought millions into the streets on 5 April under the slogan \u2018Hands Off!\u2019, demanding \u2018an end to the billionaire power grab\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu\u2019s second obsequious visit to the White House within two months, at the beginning of April, graphically highlighted the murderous alliance of oppressors and the fundamental conflict of interests between the masses around the world and US imperialism together with the Israeli occupation regime. The visit took place following Netanyahu\u2019s trip to Hungary, during which Orb\u00e1n announced a move to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), following on from the sanctions imposed by Trump against the ICC. At the same time, the State of Israel secured yet another six-month delay in the slow-moving proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in South Africa\u2019s case seeking a formal condemnation of the mass atrocities in Gaza as genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, as noted, the expansion of the war of extermination has once again intensified international pressure from governments within the Western imperialist camp. The governments of France, Canada and Britain issued a joint threat of \u2018concrete measures\u2019 \u2014 without specifying what those measures would be \u2014 against Netanyahu\u2019s government unless it ended the \u2018military operations in Gaza\u2019 and \u2018immediately allowed humanitarian aid to enter\u2019. The British government \u2014 which between October and December 2024 sharply increased military-equipment sales to the State of Israel despite announcing a partial arms embargo \u2014 threatened to suspend negotiations on a new trade agreement with Israel intended to expand the existing one, while making clear that the current agreement would remain in force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seventeen of the European Union\u2019s twenty-seven member states decided to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement, while there remains no consensus within the institutions of the European Union for its cancellation. A further twenty-one states joined the EU statement opposing the Trump administration\u2019s \u2018aid\u2019 distribution mechanism in Gaza. This sequence of measures, which also includes the British government\u2019s symbolic sanctions against the settler movement Nachala, indicates a certain momentum of increasing pressure against the Israeli government of death, but such measures remain largely symbolic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French imperialism is openly coordinating with Cairo and Amman in an effort to advance an alternative to Trump\u2019s ethnic-cleansing plan, driven by similar considerations. To that end, Macron participated in Egypt in the highly publicised meeting with el-Sisi and Abdullah on 7 April to express support for the Egyptian regime\u2019s counterproposal for a civilian administration in the Gaza Strip without Hamas involvement, accompanied by an explicit declaration against the displacement of Palestinians and against annexation, together with the announcement of a \u2018strategic partnership\u2019 agreement and the allocation of a quarter of a billion euros in loans and grants to Egypt, against the backdrop of Trump\u2019s threat to cut US funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Macron also announced that he would lead a coordinated initiative, together with a series of other states, for the symbolic formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. In his letter to Netanyahu on the matter, Macron insisted that such a move was consistent with the interests of Israeli capitalism, presenting formal recognition as a vital condition for advancing the normalisation process and as \u2018the only way truly to eliminate Hamas\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration responded to Macron\u2019s initiative by revoking the US entry visas of senior Palestinian Authority officials, including President Abbas, ahead of the UN General Assembly session in September, and called on the Authority to \u2018stop its attempts to secure unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state\u2019, while Netanyahu\u2019s government threatened to accelerate settlement construction still further, including in the E1 area, as well as the annexation of parts of the West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the occupying power\u2019s final repudiation of the agreement on 18 March and the reopening of the floodgates of mass atrocities in the Strip at full intensity, including mass displacement, intensive killing and the partitioning of the territory, Israel Katz declared \u2014 directly from the new partition corridor named after the former settlement of Morag \u2014 that the Israeli occupation would retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor\/Sala\u1e25 al-Din Corridor and \u2018every security zone surrounding Gaza \u2026 in any case, under any conditions, even if there is a deal, and even after we defeat Hamas\u2019. The \u2018Philadelphi Corridor\u2019 played a central role in Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s political manoeuvres to repel pressure for a ceasefire and an end to the military offensive in the Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within the Israeli ruling class, aversion remains towards the idea of re-establishing long-term direct military administration in the Strip, and even within Israel\u2019s government of death the leading aspiration appears to be the search for subcontractors to exercise direct control over the surviving population in Gaza. This includes the partial privatisation of occupation maintenance in the Strip through American mercenary corporations. The most horrifying example is the privatisation of \u2018aid\u2019 distribution through the GFH, which amounted to a form of \u2018engineered starvation\u2019 and turned the few distribution sites into death traps for residents. In the absence, at this stage, of practical alternatives in the form of Palestinian subcontractors or forces supplied by Arab regimes in the region, the Israeli occupation is preparing for direct military control over large areas of the Strip for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Entire communities had already been razed to the ground in earlier stages, but the Trump administration and the takeover-and-mass-displacement plan it presented for Gaza, as noted, spurred the openly expressed ethnic-cleansing ambitions of Israel\u2019s government of death \u2014 which had been a central component of the military campaign from the outset \u2014 to a new level of extremity. From the heights of hubris, under the protection of the Trump administration, the occupation gang expanded the objectives of its campaign of occupation and extermination, as it increasingly regarded ambitions of takeover, annexation and population reduction through expulsion as practical. To this end, the government of death even established a \u2018Voluntary Relocation Administration for Gaza Residents\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The indirect pressures exerted by the international solidarity movement, as well as by the Israeli movement for the return of the hostages, are reflected, as noted, in rhetorical shifts within the Israeli political-military elite, including condemnations of some of the crimes committed against the Palestinian population. This includes the statement by former deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, chair of The Democrats, which he later sought to blur, that \u2018Israel is on its way to becoming a pariah state among nations, the South Africa of old \u2026 A sane state [\u2026] does not kill babies as a hobby and does not set itself goals of expelling populations\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Virtually every family in the Gaza Strip has been bereaved. The monstrous scale of bereavement produced by the government of death of Israeli capitalism since 7 October 2023 vastly eclipses the scale of bereavement suffered by ordinary Israelis, not only in recent years but across generations since 1948. Despite this, even after more than a year and a half of unprecedented exterminatory operations in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government of death has failed to produce the image of \u2018total victory\u2019 which Netanyahu had, since December 2023, repeatedly insisted would be achieved \u2018soon\u2019 or was only \u2018a step away\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even after launching the full-scale war against Iran, as well as after the catastrophic blitz offensive in Lebanon in September 2024 and the boastful celebration of military blows struck against Tehran\u2019s \u2018Axis of Resistance\u2019, the government of death failed to achieve its formal objectives in the military assault on the Gaza Strip: supposedly dismantling Hamas\u2019s military and governing capabilities and recovering the hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the outset, it was incapable of erasing Hamas as a political movement with a mass support base. Its attempts to weaken Hamas organisationally while inflicting colossal devastation upon the Palestinian population as a whole concern relative capacities that Hamas developed and refined over years, despite and through successive \u2019rounds\u2019 of conflict that purported to weaken it. Although temporary ceasefire agreements have been concluded with Hamas, the occupation government appears determined not to return to a periodic \u2018working arrangement\u2019 with Hamas in the Strip. Yet, as noted, it has no practical political alternatives in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to stress that, against the relentless pumping of national chauvinism and fanatical militarism around calls for a \u2018total victory\u2019 for the occupation and the rule of capital, an internationalist class perspective demands an entirely opposite struggle: striving for a total defeat for the government of death, for the occupation and for the rule of capital. This is the broader interest not only of the besieged and bombarded residents of Gaza and of millions of Palestinians, but also, fundamentally, of millions of ordinary Israeli workers. This is the position that Socialist Struggle has advanced since the very first moment of the blood-soaked crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n made it explicit that the renewed offensive by occupation forces throughout the Strip was intended to increase pressure \u2018also on the population in Gaza\u2019 \u2014 state terror \u2014 which, as we have explained throughout, is from the outset merely the formal cover for the war of occupation and extermination against the people of Gaza and against the Palestinian people as a whole, and for the purpose of \u2018seizing extensive territory that will be incorporated into the security zones of the State of Israel\u2019, despite protests from sections of the families of Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is worth noting that the chauvinist logic of the occupying power, which justifies the extermination offensive against the population of Gaza through a series of arguments ranging from \u2018war against Hamas\u2019, through the terror-apologetic claim of \u2018pressuring the population\u2019, to the genocidal declaration that \u2018there are no uninvolved people\u2019, politically strengthens the mirror image of a misleading nationalist logic that justifies indiscriminate aggression against the population of the State of Israel as part of the struggle of the oppressed nation to free itself from the murderous jaws of occupation, which has reached a peak stage of atrocities under the government of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, beyond the double standard, the vicious myth that the personal security of ordinary Israeli Jews can be guaranteed through a systematic effort, fundamentally, to crush, trample upon and drown in blood the future of every Palestinian boy and girl \u2014 now more than ever \u2014 necessarily provokes such profound anger and revulsion towards the official Israeli capitalist society of oppression, occupation and murderous state terror that, in some cases, it also becomes fertile ground for feelings of helplessness and desires for revenge in response to oppression and bereavement. Those feelings may potentially be channelled into a driving force for fundamental socialist conclusions and for organised mass struggle towards revolutionary liberation from the dictatorship of occupation. Yet anger can be channelled in different directions. The events of 7 October grew within the hothouse of the murderous oppression imposed by the dictatorship of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hamas leadership channelled despair and aspirations for liberation into the implementation of its own reactionary methods, including the killing and abduction of civilians, in an utterly disastrous manner that provided an exceptional political pretext for an unprecedented murderous military assault on Gaza. The war of extermination is the continuation of the logic of the Israeli-Arab normalisation process, which sought openly, and with overflowing arrogance, to normalise the occupation and grind the Palestinians into the dust. The Hamas leadership planned its surprise attack in the wake of the events of May 2021 and ultimately acted in pursuit of a demonstration of strength and the derailment of the normalisation process, particularly the Saudi-Israeli agreement that was moving towards signature, as implied by Hamas spokespeople in its early stages and as was recently suggested by purported official documents recovered by occupation forces in Gaza and published by the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, the war of extermination, with the sickening mass atrocities it continues to produce, accompanied by security demagogy aimed at manufacturing consent, particularly among the Jewish population, has intensified into an even more extreme form the hell from which the current blood-soaked crisis of the occupation regime emerged, through starvation, destruction and rivers of blood \u2014 including roughly one thousand infants under the age of one and around 16,000 children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated in mid-April that the catastrophic survival conditions in the Strip under the extermination offensive, together with the medieval-style siege imposed by the Israeli government of death, were the worst since October 2023. Under the extensive displacement orders and \u2018security zones\u2019, 69% of the Strip\u2019s territory had, as of April, been prohibited to Palestinian residents by occupation forces. Since July, 85% of the Strip has been prohibited to Palestinian residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As early as April, the occupation regime cut off 70% of the Strip\u2019s drinking-water supply. Even the pretence of a designated \u2018humanitarian zone\u2019 was abandoned after 18 March, in the course of the barbaric process of displacement and reconcentration of the population, in line with a colonial logic fundamentally aimed at ridding itself of the Palestinian population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From early March until late May, hundreds of deaths from malnutrition and lack of medicines were documented in the Strip, along with hundreds of miscarriages. According to the World Health Organization, more than 230 residents died from starvation in Gaza between the beginning of the year and the end of August, including 65 children, while the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the UN\u2019s famine-monitoring body, published a report in August stating that Gaza City, with a population approaching one million, was experiencing the highest level of hunger according to its index. According to the report, famine was expected to continue spreading southwards to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, with more than one-third of the population expected to be in a state of mass starvation and catastrophic conditions (Phase 5) by the end of September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first statement we published on 8 October 2023 (on behalf of the National Secretariat), at a time when the official death toll was still counted in the hundreds on both sides of the fence and the dimensions of the emerging catastrophe were only beginning to become clear, we correctly identified the brutal Israeli occupation as the root of the crisis and stressed that this was not a \u2018symmetrical\u2019 conflict between states but, fundamentally, one between an occupying power and a population subjected to the dictatorship of occupation and siege. We emphasised that the mass incarceration imposed by the occupation\u2019s prison system itself provided the backdrop that generated motivation for hostage-taking operations aimed at securing releases. We warned of a broad campaign of state terror by the Netanyahu government and the far right, backed domestically by the official bourgeois opposition \u2014 including forces that had led the protest movement against the \u2018judicial coup\u2019 and acted to freeze demonstrations \u2014 and internationally by Western imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against the backdrop of the renewed military assault on the besieged surviving population trapped amid the inferno in the Strip, waves of demonstrations involving thousands in total broke out from 25 March onwards. They spread from the scenes of total devastation inflicted by occupation forces in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in the north of the Strip to Deir al-Balah in the centre and other locations, with calls to halt the occupation regime\u2019s relentless murderous aggression: \u2018Stop the war\u2019 (\u2018\u0623\u0648\u0642\u0641\u0648\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u062d\u0631\u0628\u2019), \u2018Enough wars\u2019 (\u2018\u0628\u0643\u0641\u064a \u062d\u0631\u0648\u0628\u2019), \u2018Our children\u2019s blood is not cheap\u2019 (\u2018\u062f\u0645\u0627\u0621 \u0623\u0637\u0641\u0627\u0644\u0646\u0627 \u0644\u064a\u0633\u062a \u0631\u062e\u064a\u0635\u0629\u2019), and \u2018We refuse to die\u2019 (\u2018\u0646\u0631\u0641\u0636 \u0646\u062d\u0646 \u0646\u0645\u0648\u062a\u2019). This was combined with protest slogans directed against the Hamas leadership, including \u2018Out, out, Hamas get out\u2019 (\u2018\u0628\u0631\u0627\u060c \u0628\u0631\u0627\u060c \u062d\u0645\u0627\u0633 \u062a\u0637\u0644\u0639 \u0628\u0631\u0627\u2019), \u2018Hey, hey, Hamas is terrorist\u2019 (\u2018\u0647\u064a\u0627\u060c \u0647\u064a\u0627\u060c \u062d\u0645\u0627\u0633 \u0627\u0631\u0647\u0627\u0628\u064a\u0629\u2019) and \u2018The people want the downfall of Hamas\u2019 (\u2018\u0627\u0644\u0634\u0639\u0628 \u064a\u0631\u064a\u062f \u0627\u0633\u0642\u0627\u0637 \u062d\u0645\u0627\u0633\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demonstrations drew a clear distinction between the state terror of the murderous occupying power and political criticism of a tendency within the Palestinian national movement, which the protests in effect accused of collaboration with the occupation. As one demonstrator put it: \u2018Hamas is a partner of the occupation. Our children are precious to us, unlike the Hamas leaders who are abroad\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the available information as a whole, including accounts from residents in Gaza, this appears to have been a spontaneously developed movement, similar to previous rounds of protest against the authoritarian pro-capitalist Hamas administration in earlier years, despite the fact that Fatah attempted to harness it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a characteristically sadistic manner, the killers of Israel\u2019s government of death, a minority government confronting mass demonstrations both internationally and within Israeli society, adopted a false rhetoric praising the protests while simultaneously making clear that the extermination offensive would continue at full intensity in a drive to further destroy the lives of the besieged population. Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the demonstrations in Gaza showed that his government\u2019s policy was \u2018working\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His poodle, Defence Minister Israel Katz, recited the line that, supposedly in the name of fighting Hamas, residents would \u2018lose your homes and more and more territory that will be annexed to Israel\u2019s security system\u2019. Yet he lectured the victims being slaughtered by his own government: \u2018Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia. As they have done, you too should demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages\u2019, as though this were \u2018the only way to stop the war\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, the occupying power is demanding that millions of Palestinians reconcile themselves to occupation, dispossession and subjugation, and renounce their national rights. That is something that will never happen. It was reported that some demonstrators regretted participating in the protests after their predatory and demagogic exploitation by spokespeople for the occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, Hamas and its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades \u2014 which only days earlier had lined up in defence of Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan against the protest movement in Turkey \u2014 incited against the protests, claiming that hostile forces had interfered in them in order \u2018to direct the slogans in favour of the Zionist occupation\u2019 (\u2018\u0642\u0627\u0645\u062a \u0628\u062a\u0648\u062c\u064a\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0647\u062a\u0627\u0641\u0627\u062a \u0644\u0635\u0627\u0644\u062d \u0627\u0644\u0627\u062d\u062a\u0644\u0627\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u0635\u0647\u064a\u0648\u0646\u064a\u2019), according to a Hamas-aligned Telegram channel, which also announced that further demonstrations had been prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Hamas appears to have refrained from direct police repression of the demonstrations, there was at least one reported case involving the arrest and killing of an activist. A report on a right-wing, pro-imperialist American news website included video footage of a demonstration in Beit Lahia in mid-April that allegedly showed a confrontation between demonstrators and Hamas activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Support for Hamas has weakened, but support for Fatah and the Palestinian Authority remains even lower. According to the long-established Palestinian polling institute PCPSR, which continued conducting in-depth face-to-face surveys even amid the catastrophe, Hamas\u2019s standing in public opinion within the Gaza Strip itself plunged within roughly a year of 7 October 2023. This included a decline from 57% who, in November 2023, judged Hamas\u2019s surprise attack to have been broadly the correct course of action in the context of the murderous siege and national oppression, to 39% roughly a year later. The view that Hamas would win the war fell from 50% to 26%; expectations that Hamas would continue governing locally in the besieged Strip \u2018the day after\u2019 declined from 51% to 37%; satisfaction with Hamas\u2019s performance during the war crisis dropped from 52% to 39%; and political support for Hamas declined slightly from 38% in September 2023 to 35% a year later. However, no other tendency enjoys broader support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fatah, whose support rose slightly to 29% over the same period, is not generally regarded as a preferred alternative, while support for the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Strip increased from 16% overall to 27%. In the words of Khalil Shikaki, director of PCPSR, it is unlikely that there has been any sharp shift in the balance of public opinion between the two main tendencies during recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This picture underscores the necessity both of advancing a clear left-wing critique of the dead end that Hamas represents for the Palestinian national liberation movement \u2014 at the level of its right-wing programme of political change, at the level of strategy and methods, and at the level of rhetoric \u2014 and of advancing an independent alternative to its left, based upon a programme of socialist transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The West Bank, or more precisely the Palestinian population of the West Bank, constitutes one of the seven officially declared fronts of the war of extermination, in which the regime of military occupation and dictatorship inflicts widespread destruction and intensive killing in order to deepen control, dispossession and territorial seizure \u2014 from the continuing displacement of tens of thousands in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarm, through raids into the heart of West Bank cities, to the uprooting of communities in Masafer Yatta. By late May, the number of Palestinians killed as a result of the occupation forces\u2019 offensive in the West Bank was estimated at around 970, the number of wounded requiring medical treatment at 7,000, and more than 17,000 had been arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scale of mass displacement is the greatest since the 1967 war of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas in relation to the Gaza Strip there exists a wing of the government of death that seeks to exploit opportunities in pursuit of renewed colonisation, in the West Bank a central objective of the military campaign from the outset has been the ethnic cleansing of territory for the benefit of the colonial settlement project. Acts of terror by Kahanist settler forces on a daily basis \u2018complete the work\u2019 of the state\u2019s occupation forces, which in some cases accompany and assist these Kahanist attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A particularly notable recent case was the attack on the village of Umm al-Khair led by the settler Yinon Levi, which ended with the murder of villager Odeh al-Hadhalin. Although the attack was not unusual in terms of its horrific outcome, it attracted particular attention because of the ease with which the murderer, despite being filmed shooting in broad daylight, avoided any punishment and even pointed out to police which villagers should be arrested. This serves as a demonstration of the dynamic between the settlers and the occupation forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to reports, Netanyahu\u2019s decision in late May to allow the renewed entry of a minimal quantity of supplies into the Gaza Strip in response to international pressure was tied to securing the cooperation of Religious Zionism through a commitment to further approvals for settlement construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unemployment rate jumped from 18% on the eve of 7 October 2023 to 35% by the end of 2024, GDP contracted dramatically by 19%, and consumption fell by 13%.\u00a0 In its most recent May Day statement, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) (\u0627\u0644\u0627\u062a\u062d\u0627\u062f \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0627\u0645 \u0644\u0646\u0642\u0627\u0628\u0627\u062a \u0639\u0645\u0627\u0644 \u0641\u0644\u0633\u0637\u064a\u0646) noted that the cumulative wage losses suffered by Palestinian workers who had lost their jobs since 7 October were estimated at NIS 1.35 billion every month, while around 89% of the Palestinian working class in the territories occupied in 1967 had no social insurance or pension provisions whatsoever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s government of death cut off at a stroke the livelihoods of tens of thousands of households in the West Bank and some in the Gaza Strip by revoking almost all the work permits that had been valid before 7 October \u2014 120,000 from the West Bank and 18,500 from Gaza \u2014 expelling workers and launching an ongoing manhunt for \u2018illegal\u2019 labourers in workplaces. Only a few thousand currently receive permits, and even in the sweatshops of the colonial settlement project the number of Palestinian workers has been reduced. Tens of thousands have been pushed into clandestine work inside the Green Line \u2014 around 40,000 according to an Israeli government estimate\u00a0 \u2014 under severe risk of arrest, fines and harassment by the armed forces of the Israeli state, and, as occurred in a series of incidents, even being shot dead while undertaking the difficult journey between home and work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the Palestinian Authority, as the largest employer within the territories under its administration, imposed public-sector wage cuts as part of an austerity programme aimed at covering the widening budget deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Military raids and attacks are conducted at a high daily intensity throughout the West Bank, especially since the beginning of \u2018Operation Iron Wall\u2019 on 21 January. The impoverished Jenin refugee camp has been completely emptied. Refugees from 1948 and their descendants have once again been displaced, while occupation forces demolished hundreds of homes there as part of a drive to reshape the area according to their requirements. Demolitions have also been reported in the refugee camps of Tulkarm and Nur Shams.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n While occupation forces have permitted a partial return to routine in the city of Jenin itself, the refugee camp remained devoid of residents even by late May, with a military force numbering dozens of soldiers still stationed there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the shadow of constant raids, arrests, ground and air attacks, killing and destruction, the occupation regime of Israeli capitalism is strangling and wrecking the economic infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority, looting billions from its coffers, destroying livelihoods and creating severe poverty. Yet even under these conditions, residents continue to organise and struggle. Since the start of the war of extermination, demonstrations and commercial and service-sector strikes have repeatedly been organised\u00a0 both locally and across the West Bank, and at times among Palestinians in East Jerusalem as well , in response to attacks by the occupation forces. Funerals have increasingly taken on the character of demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Umm al-Khair, villagers organised a struggle to secure the release of the murdered resident\u2019s body. This campaign generated protests and anger internationally and within the Green Line, and women from the village even launched a hunger strike until the body was returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These circumstances, including the fact that some demonstrations in the West Bank against Israel\u2019s war of extermination faced repression by the Palestinian Authority police from the very beginning,\u00a0 often restrict the scale of such protests, yet they continue to be organised as a challenge to the occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of these struggles have increasingly been directed against the Palestinian Authority itself, over collaboration and wage arrears. In response to the relentless economic extortion imposed by the occupation regime, the Ramallah government has passed the financial burden primarily onto public-sector workers rather than, for example, touching the Palestinian banks, which actually increased their profits by 40% in the first quarter of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those banks, although under conditions of occupation they are small sharks compared with the banks of Israeli capital, intensified debt collection and fees from public-sector workers who had previously benefited from favourable loan conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April, Bassam Zakarneh, General Secretary of the Public Service Workers\u2019 Union (\u0646\u0642\u0627\u0628\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0627\u0645\u0644\u064a\u0646 \u0641\u064a \u0627\u0644\u0648\u0638\u064a\u0641\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0645\u0648\u0645\u064a\u0629) and a member of Fatah\u2019s Revolutionary Council, rhetorically attacked the Palestinian Authority leadership over its lack of public legitimacy and what he described as the promotion of \u2018a coup against the people to consolidate one-man rule\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier, the union announced that it would promote protest measures against the banks, although according to reports it qualified this position by arguing that protests against the banks should remain quiet in order to preserve their stability.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that even the leaderships of the traditional unions, which remain under Fatah\u2019s hegemony, are expressing sharp criticism of the Palestinian Authority highlights the depth of popular hostility towards the role played by the PA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside the offensive by the occupation forces, the Palestinian Authority\u2019s own forces have been acting in an attempt to reimpose authority on the ground, with their weapons directed overwhelmingly against the Palestinian population rather than towards any form of defence against armed attacks by settlers or the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December, armed PA forces imposed a siege and conducted a weeks-long large-scale raid on Jenin refugee camp while setting up checkpoints across the city (\u2018Operation Protecting the Homeland\u2019 \u2014 \u2018\u0639\u0645\u0644\u064a\u0629 \u062d\u0645\u0627\u064a\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0648\u0637\u0646\u2019).\u00a0 This was aimed at weakening the cross-tendency local militia known as the Jenin Battalion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unofficially, the PA appears to have hoped that this display of force would deter militias from entertaining any notion that they could reproduce, on a smaller scale, the model of Assad\u2019s military overthrow. At the same time, it sought to demonstrate in the regional context a potential capacity to return to governing the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas, despite opposition from the Israeli government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Residents demonstrated in Jenin against the raid,\u00a0 while protests against the PA emerged in several other locations. The depth of hostility towards the role played by the Authority was encapsulated by one Jenin resident quoted in Asharq Al-Awsat: \u2018The Authority doesn\u2019t have D9 bulldozers. The army has D9 bulldozers. That\u2019s the only difference.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n After residents were killed in Jenin, a commercial strike was organised throughout both the camp and the city in protest against the Authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even after the raid ended in January, only days before the escalation of the Israeli offensive in the northern West Bank, reports indicated that the siege of the camp was continuing, including restrictions on the movement of food and medicines and disruptions to water and electricity supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Palestinian Authority, concerned by media coverage, announced a ban on the activities of Al Jazeera (eventually lifted in May),\u00a0 seemingly inspired by Israel\u2019s government of death, which had banned the channel\u2019s activities in May 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, the PA, fundamentally as a subcontractor of the occupation, helped prepare the ground in the northern West Bank for the raids of the occupation forces. Although President Mahmoud Abbas has occasionally suspended military coordination with the occupation over recent years, he ultimately remained faithful to his 2014 declaration that \u2018security coordination is sacred and will continue\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n PA offensive operations against Palestinian militias have continued throughout the recent period \u2018almost daily\u2019, including hundreds of arrests and entries into areas \u2018where Palestinian police had not operated for years\u2019. As ynet noted, \u2018this eases the operational burden placed on the IDF because of the manpower crisis\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu\u2019s government rejects Palestinian Authority involvement in any \u2018day after\u2019 arrangement for governing the Gaza Strip \u2014 in Netanyahu\u2019s formulation, \u2018Neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan\u2019 \u2014 and in any case intends to maintain direct military occupation over parts of the Strip for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas Biden called during his presidency for a \u2018revitalised\u2019 Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza, Trump has been more ambiguous and has continued the trend of dismantling pressures against the PA, including the symbolic abolition of the US diplomatic mission for Palestinian affairs and the appointment of an ambassador to Israel who denies both the occupation and the very existence of the Palestinian people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n By contrast, French imperialism, together with the regimes in Egypt and Jordan, remains committed to demanding the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.\u00a0 Sections of the Israeli ruling class likewise regard this as a preferable option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant staged a threatened resignation in May 2024 to express reservations about the policy of undermining the PA, the strategic logic of which was articulated by Bezalel Smotrich: \u2018The damage caused by the Authority outweighs its benefits. The time has come for the State of Israel to bring about its collapse.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Shin Bet also intervened in this dispute, subsequently warning against the policy out of concern that it could in practice lead to a severe destabilisation of Israeli control over the Palestinian population in the West Bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The April decision by the PLO Central Council, on Abbas\u2019s recommendation, to create the post of vice-president of the Palestinian Authority and appoint Hussein al-Sheikh, Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee and member of Fatah\u2019s Central Committee, was reportedly adopted under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE ahead of Trump\u2019s regional visit, apparently in order to signal preparation for \u2018the day after\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same session, Abbas referred to the Hamas leadership as \u2018sons of dogs\u2019 and called on them to release the hostages, stop providing excuses to the Israeli regime and make way for the Palestinian Authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, this represented a further step in the PA\u2019s autocratic machinery to secure, as increasingly apparent in recent years, the political succession of the 90-year-old president with minimal disruption. Al-Sheikh is regarded as a \u2018comfortable\u2019 candidate from the standpoint of ruling-class circles in both the United States and Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the appointment of a wealthy political operator from the heart of the PA elite, associated with corruption, military coordination with the occupation and even Trump-style hush-money payments to an employee who complained of sexual harassment, has generated little enthusiasm among Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the events of 7 October, a European diplomat supportive of al-Sheikh was forced to admit that he was \u2018about as popular among Palestinians as the Shah [of Iran] was in January 1979\u2019 \u2014 the month in which the Shah fled amid the Iranian Revolution, before Khomeini\u2019s counter-revolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The comparison may be somewhat exaggerated at the current stage, but he is certainly not popular. A survey conducted in both the West Bank and Gaza following his appointment recorded only lukewarm support from a minority of around 32%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Popular figures, foremost among them the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti, remain a red line for the Israeli regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The occupation government, while pursuing its open policy of undermining the PA and nevertheless continuing to rely upon it in practice, will seek to prevent the PA\u2019s return to the Gaza Strip and avoid making any substantive concessions to the Ramallah government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leading orientation of the occupation government regarding the West Bank and East Jerusalem is clear, as a direct consequence of the logic of the war of extermination as a whole: exploiting opportunities to strengthen the Israeli regime\u2019s hold over the territory at the expense of Palestinian residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of this, a restricted ministerial forum headed by Netanyahu recently convened to discuss the declaration of annexation measures in the West Bank, potentially also as a \u2018response\u2019 to France\u2019s initiative for recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This also fits into the continuing multi-dimensional campaign to destroy UNRWA, involving a profound assault on livelihoods and essential service infrastructure. Fundamentally, the aim is the arrogant and hopeless attempt to erase from history the issue of Palestinian refugees created by the regime of Israeli capitalism at its inception in accordance with the reactionary programme of the bourgeois leadership of the Zionist movement, particularly in the Gaza Strip, which became an enclave where refugees from the 1948 Nakba were concentrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The assault on the services provided by UNRWA is being felt in every sphere of its operations, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In May alone, occupation police raided six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem, including in Shuafat refugee camp, trapped beyond the separation wall, leaving hundreds of children without access to education.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have carried out a series of struggle initiatives in the shadow of the war of extermination and in response to the specific offensive directed against them by the government of death and far-right settler organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the protest strike of 26 January, organised in response to the deployment of military checkpoints, included work stoppages by employees of Jerusalem Municipality, medical staff and Palestinian bus drivers. The collective action of workers was sufficiently powerful that the municipality itself announced disruptions to public transport services that day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government of death frequently relies on political persecution and the police suppression of demonstrations against its policies among the mainstream of Israeli society. In this, the fundamental role of the policing arm of the capitalist state \u2014 the preservation of the existing social order \u2014 is revealed with particular clarity. Yet the persecution directed against the minority, across national communities, within the Green Line that persistently struggles against the war of extermination is far more draconian. The heaviest level of political persecution and state repression within the Green Line is directed against the Palestinian Arab community \u2014 in the streets, workplaces, university campuses and homes \u2014 particularly in relation to protest against the war of extermination and against every aspect of national oppression. In addition, connections to relatives and friends in the Gaza Strip, at the heart of the inferno, themselves intensify the extent of the repression facing Palestinian citizens of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The patterns of political persecution and police repression even recall aspects of the old military administration, while the thuggish and cowardly persecution of the Palestinian national flag has returned to the level of brutality that existed before Oslo. At the same time that Defence Minister Israel Katz announced an end to the use of administrative detention orders against settlers in the West Bank, dozens of Palestinian citizens of Israel are being held under administrative detention, without public charges and without trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that nothing comparable so far to the shooting dead of Palestinian citizens of Israel during the protests of October 2000 has developed within the Green Line reflects, above all, the level of struggle \u2014 at that time it was a phase of mass uprising \u2014 rather than the degree of willingness on the part of the Israeli regime today to crush Palestinian protest brutally even within the Green Line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the time being, the regime seeks to prevent the development of broad protest among the Palestinian Arab population within the Green Line through the cultivation of fear and a systematic effort to narrow the space available for demonstrations, including the imposition of censorship through the confiscation of placards and the pushing of protest events into marginal locations. This is not merely the policy of the \u2018Ben-Gvir police\u2019 or of the current government specifically. The ivory tower of the High Court itself has helped strengthen the government of death in this regard, for example by accepting in January the demand of the Israeli police to ban an anti-war march in the centre of Sakhnin, one of the police\u2019s arguments being the possibility of speeches that would \u2018weaken the security forces\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Together with the trend towards criminalising criticism of the government \u2014 in the media and through \u2018gag laws\u2019 in schools and higher-education institutions \u2014 the government of death, which continues to languish in the polls, has, in cooperation with sections of the \u2018opposition\u2019 from the \u2018centre-right\u2019, continued to advance the campaign to delegitimise Palestinian Arab representation in the Knesset. This is particularly evident in threats to strengthen the effective powers of the governing coalition to deprive Palestinian Arab MKs \u2014 and ultimately also Jewish MKs to the left of the Israeli establishment \u2014 of the right to stand for election under the false banner of combating \u2018support for terrorism\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government of death has continued the policies of the Bennett-Lapid \u2018government of change\u2019, with a sharp escalation in the destruction of Arab communities in the Negev as part of a strategy of gradual ethnic cleansing. In the shadow of the war of extermination, another sharp increase has taken place following the transfer in July 2024 of the \u2018Land Enforcement Authority\u2019 into the jurisdiction of Ben-Gvir\u2019s \u2018Ministry of National Security\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside policies criminalising construction and advancing ethnic cleansing, the government of death is pursuing economic strangulation and deepening poverty among the Palestinian Arab population within the Green Line. The Shin Bet not only attempted to regulate the destabilising pressures directed against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, but intervened in March in an effort to influence the government to stop delaying the transfer of funds promised to Arab local authorities, out of concern that the economic squeeze could trigger an explosive event similar to that of May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This concern related to the possible development of protest, unrest and deadly clashes between civilians along nationalist lines in the streets \u2014 developments that emerged during the previous bloody phase of crisis in the occupation regime and were characterised primarily by violence by the state and Jewish far-right forces against Palestinians. In the 2025 state budget, a further NIS 2 billion originally allocated to the Palestinian Arab population was cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobilisation within the Palestinian Arab community around protest activity against the war of extermination and the government of death has developed in waves, but under intense pressures of state repression. As under other regimes in the region, this factor can play a restraining role, but it cannot entirely prevent the development of counter-movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the absence of a mass democratic organisation of struggle, many place their hopes in initiatives from the High Follow-Up Committee. The Committee operates on the basis of consensus among the parties rooted in the Palestinian Arab community within the Green Line and itself faces severe persecution. It succeeded in organising a number of demonstrations but refrained from announcing any clear plan of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even when it finally called for a strike across commerce and services within the community on 1 October as a protest against the assault on Gaza, against house demolitions, and against the crisis of gun violence raging within the community under the protection of state policy, the dynamics generated by the launching of Israel\u2019s large-scale offensive in Lebanon during those weeks fostered an atmosphere of shock and weakened the momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, alongside the Committee\u2019s central initiatives, \u2018from below\u2019 protest initiatives also emerged, including a number of militant student demonstrations on university campuses \u2014 particularly at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem \u2014 as well as local protest vigils that gathered a certain momentum following the national demonstration in Sakhnin (25 July), as the starvation crisis in Gaza intensified during July and August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Already throughout 2024, a substantive shift took place in Israeli public opinion towards support for ending the military campaign. In fact, although consistent categorical opposition to the war of occupation and extermination within the Green Line came only from the Palestinian community as a whole and from small left-wing forces \u2014 among them Socialist Struggle, from the very first day \u2014 for most of the period since 7 October, Israel\u2019s government of death has failed to secure the support of a solid majority among the general public in Israel, and particularly among the Jewish population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tendency towards declining support for the war developed in an extremely uneven and contradictory fashion, under the intensive influence of chauvinist and militarist propaganda that activated powerful ideological mechanisms of the Israeli ruling class. These forces skilfully exploited the shock, fear and anger felt by millions of Israelis in response to the Hamas attack of 7 October, as well as in response to indiscriminate rocket fire, the political programme and right-wing rhetoric of Hamas, and the other forces of the so-called \u2018Axis of Resistance\u2019. Every Israeli establishment party, the entire establishment media, and all the well-resourced bourgeois forces intervening in the movement for the return of the hostages mobilised to justify the logic underlying the military campaign led by the government of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the same Yair Lapid who, amid mass protests in early September 2024, criticised Benjamin Netanyahu on the grounds that \u2018he wants a forever war\u2019, simultaneously joined the threats that Netanyahu\u2019s government implemented within days through a large-scale escalation of military aggression in Lebanon. Likewise, the mobilised establishment press systematically rushed to justify the collapse of the ceasefire by the government of death in March, as documented by the media-criticism website The Seventh Eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This extensive assistance to government propaganda initially even helped the government tighten Israeli public support for the assault on Gaza once again to a narrow majority, at least according to one poll. Alongside the widespread dehumanisation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank promoted by all wings of the Israeli ruling class, the bourgeois opposition leaders to Netanyahu \u2014 from General Benny Gantz to General Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats, the successor formation of what remains of Labour and Meretz \u2014 played a prominent role in war-mongering, including challenging the government from the right by calling for increased military aggression, whether in Lebanon or against Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet divisions within the Israeli ruling class continue to intensify. The long-running struggle between the two principal political camps of the Israeli ruling class \u2014 for whom the figure of Netanyahu supposedly serves as the main dividing line \u2014 pro-Netanyahu versus anti-Netanyahu, Bibiism versus anti-Bibiism \u2014 escalated in the years preceding the rise of the current government and before 7 October. This reflected a systemic crisis of Israeli capitalism, in which the occupation regime plays a dominant destabilising role, amidst the impact of broader crises within world capitalism and the continuing erosion of support for the traditional parties among sections of the working class and the middle strata of Israeli society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an expression of circumstances in which the ruling class objectively lacks any viable fundamentally stabilising strategic path, both regarding the occupation regime and more generally, the two blocs \u2014 essentially two heads of the same monster \u2014 not only repeatedly cooperated openly under the banner of \u2018national unity\u2019 whenever they judged this to suit the broader interests of the ruling class, especially its geostrategic interests, most notably during the surprise attack and war against Iran in June, but were also characterised by a volatile dynamic of temporary alliances and repeated defections between the camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The repeated return of Gantz\u2019s faction to Netanyahu\u2019s government, as well as the return of Gideon Sa\u02bfar\u2019s faction to Netanyahu\u2019s camp despite its lack of public support, demonstrated more clearly than anything else how the camp opposed to Netanyahu has failed to channel mass dissatisfaction into genuine popular support and instead tends to rely on appeals based on the logic of the \u2018lesser evil\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Likud and the Netanyahu bloc fluctuate around 50 seats under the current party configuration (compared with 64 in the 2022 election, when they received around 48% of the vote, and presently around 67 seats when combined with the National Right), including about eight seats for Otzma Yehudit, while Smotrich\u2019s Religious Zionism, representing finance-capital and settlement interests, hovers around the electoral threshold. In a series of polls, 60% support calls for Netanyahu\u2019s resignation, including a quarter of his own supporters. Conversely, the anti-Netanyahu bloc of Zionist establishment parties together with Ra\u2019am stands at 61 seats. According to Maariv polling, the decline in support for the government of death, particularly since the Israel-Iran war, has left it with only 48-49 seats in a scenario where Naftali Bennett runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The weakness of the establishment opposition is evident in circumstances where the government is hated and weak, yet forces to the left remain unable to become a mass pole of attraction. Fundamentally, this forms part of a broader global trend in which bourgeois political forces of both liberal and conservative varieties, appealing to defend bourgeois democracy, the \u2018rule of law\u2019 and the \u2018national interest\u2019 against right-wing populism, are incapable of generating genuine mass enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current government, which never at any point rested on majority support among the general public in Israel, embodied from the outset the political legacy bequeathed by the faltering capitalist Bennett-Lapid \u2018government of change\u2019, which defended the status quo, alongside Netanyahu\u2019s growing dependence on a close alliance with far-right forces. From its first day, it displayed an intoxication with power, launching an offensive in its struggle against rivals within the ruling class and state apparatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, it sought to entrench governmental power under conditions of broad social opposition \u2014 in effect, a tendency towards increased authoritarianism and strengthened Bonapartist features within the political regime. This is a typical combination of right-wing populist rhetoric attacking the capitalist state apparatus and aspects of bourgeois legality \u2018in the name of the people\u2019, while simultaneously confronting liberal appeals to defend the \u2018rule of law\u2019, together with the promotion of a \u2018law and order\u2019 agenda supposedly directed against \u2018anarchy\u2019, but in reality strengthening the regime\u2019s reliance on the sword, the armed forces of the capitalist state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, a government that relies upon police forces to attack demonstrations against it also includes ministers who participated in the highly publicised July 2024 storming of the notorious detention facility at Sde Teiman by occupation supporters. In practice, this constituted an intervention aimed at sabotaging an investigation into suspects accused of raping a kidnapped Palestinian detainee and defending the \u2018Israeli Guant\u00e1namo\u2019 more broadly, where documented cases of abuse occurred and dozens died among the thousands of Palestinians abducted from Gaza by occupation forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, this tendency advances an ideological aspiration to remove obstacles to the accelerated expansion of the colonial settlement project and various forms of nationalist-religious reaction, fundamentally in an effort to resolve through political means contradictions reflecting conflicting interests within the ruling class regarding the maintenance of the existing social order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the intensified push in recent years towards the formal annexation of Area C in the West Bank represents a continuation of the logic of creeping annexation and creeping ethnic cleansing, yet carries destabilising and complicating consequences in relation to the maintenance of Israeli rule over millions of Palestinians. Since the Nakba of 1948, and especially since 1967, this question has remained a source of strategic debate within the Israeli ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in the context of what is perceived as a historic opportunity arising from the war of occupation and extermination, sections of the Netanyahu camp have seriously examined from the outset the idea of solving what they perceive as a national \u2018demographic problem\u2019 through massive ethnic cleansing in the form of mass displacement beyond the borders of historic Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fears regarding the strategic consequences of such plans, and of other actions by the government of death, explain the intensification of tensions between the government and the senior military command \u2014 reflected in the clashes between Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant and Gallant\u2019s dismissal in November \u2014 as well as with Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. The attempt to remove Bar in March pushed the political regime towards a \u2018constitutional crisis\u2019, that is, a peak confrontation between two branches of government, the executive and the judiciary, and in reality between two rival camps within the ruling class, until Bar\u2019s resignation effectively defused the immediate crisis. Netanyahu\u2019s arrogant attempt to appoint General David Zini to lead the Shin Bet has reignited the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu\u2019s rivals within the ruling class, who cultivate na\u00efve illusions that the former head of the secret police is a democratic \u2018gatekeeper\u2019 and that the constitutional order of capitalist rule, poverty and occupation represents democracy, seek to channel mass anger against the government \u2014 especially over the prolongation of the war crisis \u2014 into creating a deterrent against the Netanyahu camp\u2019s drive to consolidate power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet since the blitz offensive in Lebanon in September, and even more so since Trump\u2019s return, the government has arrogantly accelerated its campaign to purge rivals from senior positions within the state apparatus, including the effort since March to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, alongside attempts to revive the judicial counter-reform and intensify attacks upon the media and academia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu remains in a politically weakened position in the face of public hostility, a mass protest movement, challenges from sections of the ruling class and international pressure. The slow-moving corruption trial against him and the explosion of the \u2018Qatargate\u2019 affair \u2014 under which Netanyahu\u2019s office is suspected of receiving funds from the Qatari government, which also finances Hamas, to advance Qatari interests \u2014 contributed to the dynamic driving the Netanyahu camp towards further consolidation of governmental power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of his rivals within the Israeli ruling class continue to recycle hopes of removing him through legal mechanisms, much as Marine Le Pen in France was barred from standing for office. Socialist left forces reject the illusions cultivated by liberal, pro-capitalist forces in such purely formal \u2018solutions\u2019 to right-wing populist and far-right figures. The courts of the capitalist state will not dissolve the social base of support for such forces. Rather, they will inflame that constituency\u2019s anger at what will appear to be a fearful elite relying upon manoeuvres by the upper echelons of the state bureaucracy \u2014 the so-called \u2018deep state\u2019 \u2014 because it fears the ballot box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we understand the sentiments behind slogans such as \u2018incapacitation now\u2019, we do not adopt them. Instead, we advance slogans such as \u2018bring down the government of death\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The narrative promoted by the bourgeois opposition to Netanyahu, centred on a statist (\u2018mamlachti\u2019) agenda combining a conservative approach to stabilising the occupation regime and the rule of capital with a veneer of liberalism, misleadingly presents the war of extermination as fundamentally \u2018Netanyahu\u2019s peace war\u2019, as former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo described it at a demonstration of tens of thousands in Tel Aviv following the collapse of the ceasefire in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, the anger of hostage families towards Netanyahu and his ministers, and the broader anger among Israeli workers over the war crisis that is channelled towards Netanyahu, are entirely justified. Netanyahu and his associates bear not only central responsibility for the catastrophe itself, but also have a clear interest in prolonging the military campaign, with political survival considerations forming one important factor, alongside a distinct ideological agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accordingly, while understanding and engaging with this mass anger, one of the tasks of the socialist left is to help overcome the illusion that the roots of the crisis are personal rather than systemic, and to expose the essentially reactionary role of the opposition establishment parties, which enthusiastically mobilised in defence of the war of extermination, including against the international protest movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This highlights the necessity of connecting opposition to the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians, and ultimately to capitalism and imperialism themselves, with the struggle to place on the agenda a solution to the problems underlying the war of extermination \u2014 a solution that requires socialist transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demand for a \u2018state commission of inquiry\u2019, which the Netanyahu government fears, enjoys broad support in Israeli society, largely because many hope it will officially hold some of those responsible for the crisis to account. To the extent that such a hypothetical commission would formally condemn some ministers and generals, that would constitute a positive element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, this political demand, which fundamentally belongs to the programme of establishment forces opposed to Netanyahu and seeks to employ the legal machinery of the capitalist state itself to investigate and analyse the war crisis, contains the potential to obscure rather than reveal the roots of the catastrophe, beginning with the occupation itself and the siege of Gaza. From the standpoint of the establishment, the institution of a state inquiry commission exists to advance cosmetic adjustments and cultivate the false impression of a self-correcting system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A left-wing alternative, countering illusions in this path, would be an independent cross-community commission of inquiry examining the entirety of the atrocities committed during the war of extermination, first and foremost the unprecedented mass killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of Gaza, and the role of the current government, previous governments and the major world powers in creating the conditions for the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all, however, it is essential to emphasise that the most fundamental conclusions \u2014 those driving millions into the streets across the world \u2014 do not require investigations into one or another specific detail or individual. What is needed is a struggle to end the occupation and all forms of oppression and national supremacy, including inequalities in living conditions and rights, as part of a struggle for socialist transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also fitting into the agenda of the bourgeois opposition is its right-wing challenge to the government of death through the old reactionary \u2018divide and rule\u2019 campaign for military \u2018equal burden-sharing\u2019, focused on incitement against poor Haredim while serving to justify the burden of maintaining war and occupation. The campaign is presented as a response to growing exhaustion among Israeli reservists and to Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir\u2019s warning in April that shortages in combat manpower would limit implementation of some of the government\u2019s ambitions to expand the extermination offensive in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The system is hungry for more cannon fodder in order to carry out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population in the service of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against the background of a public mood increasingly inclined towards ending the military campaign, the establishment campaign for a hostage deal under the chauvinist slogan \u2018even at the price of ending the fighting\u2019 has likewise intensified. This included around 20 protest letters published in April by thousands of former and current reservists, particularly veterans of the officer corps and elite units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The initiative recalls the collective but largely symbolic threats made during the summer of 2023 to stop reporting for reserve duty in response to the judicial reforms. Although the new letters did not threaten to refuse military service or ignore mobilisation orders, military leaders reacted furiously, essentially fearing that views emerging \u2018from within the army\u2019 calling for an end to the government\u2019s deployment of the army in Gaza could gain strength. The \u2018Pilots\u2019 Letter\u2019, led by figures such as former chief of staff Dan Halutz, described the war as being conducted \u2018primarily because of personal and political interests, not security interests\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet because only a minority of the signatories are active reservists, the army has thus far refrained even from dismissing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the tendency towards refusal to answer reserve call-up orders is expanding. Reported attendance rates fluctuate around 50-60%. Much of the decline reflects exhaustion and falling motivation rather than explicit political opposition to continuing the war. Nevertheless, this objectively adds to the pressures for ending the murderous assault on Gaza and increases the space available for both open and passive forms of political refusal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The organisation \u2018Soldiers for the Hostages\u2019 announced in May an organised refusal campaign involving about 300 soldiers and officers who had served either as reservists or regular soldiers during the war, around one-third of them combat troops:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The political survival of the government does not justify sacrificing more soldiers and Israeli civilians. We will not remain silent in the face of the deaths of innocent people and we will not participate in worsening the humanitarian disaster.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the organisation does not categorically oppose the war of extermination from its inception, and although its scale remains relatively symbolic, it helps point a direction for additional soldiers to join collective protest refusals as part of building pressure to end the military campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of its founders, a combat medic, explained that he turned towards protest refusal after being ordered to participate in the systematic burning of Palestinian homes in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scale of the atrocities and crimes against humanity carried out by the war machine of Israeli capitalism is ultimately deepening doubts among some rank-and-file soldiers and strengthening opposition to continuation of the war, even if in the overwhelming majority of cases this does not translate into open political refusal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the background, dozens of Israeli teenagers continue to organise around explicit refusal to enlist in the military out of categorical opposition to the war of extermination and to the occupation. Although this remains a phenomenon of individuals, concentrated mainly among middle-class layers, it faces particularly severe repression precisely because it challenges the very organised aggression directed against Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the beginning of the blood-soaked crisis, we have pointed \u2014 against a tide of aggressive chauvinist reaction \u2014 to the necessity of promoting refusal by ordinary Israelis to participate in military operations carried out as part of the murderous assault on the people of Gaza, as part of building a struggle to halt the catastrophe and secure a profound transformation of social conditions, including an end to the occupation and siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the space for protest refusals aimed at stopping the war is expanding, and their impact may be amplified by the broader public mood and the spread of \u2018grey refusal\u2019. We continue to call for refusal against the war of extermination and the occupation, whether explicit or implicit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, as many young people and workers who rebel in one way or another against the atrocities of the occupation and the war of extermination would agree, what is fundamentally needed is not individual acts of \u2018conscience-cleansing\u2019 at the margins, but steps aimed at advancing a broad collective struggle to stop the war machine and bring down the government of death, as part of a struggle against the occupation and the rule of capital. In this context, it is also necessary to place on the agenda a political alternative based on a socialist working-class left perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hostage issue became, among the Jewish population in Israel, the central factor repeatedly undermining the war propaganda, which has struggled to conceal the fact that the barbaric military and economic assault against the Palestinian population necessarily harms the hostages as well. They could have been released through a comprehensive agreement from the very beginning as an alternative to the war of occupation and extermination. As noted, that war was intended above all to reinforce the dictatorship of the occupation that gave rise to the present blood-soaked crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important, precisely in this context, to recall that not only Netanyahu\u2019s minority government and the far right, but all establishment forces in Israeli society that supported and advanced the extermination offensive in the Gaza Strip were necessarily acting against the movement for the return of the hostages. A desperate petition to the High Court by a group of hostage families demanding the restoration of electricity supplies to Gaza, on the grounds that cutting them also endangered the hostages, was summarily rejected in April. Among the reactionary legalistic arguments advanced was the claim that \u2018The State of Israel is not obligated to supply electricity to the Gaza Strip \u2026 Israel does not possess legal sovereignty over the Strip\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we explained even before 7 October, during the height of the Israeli protest movement against the programme of \u2018judicial overhaul\u2019, although it is necessary to fight the drive of the full-on right-wing government to concentrate governmental power, the High Court has never been a bastion of democracy and social progress as liberals claim. Fundamentally, it functions as a watchdog for a social order of extreme inequality, poverty, exploitation, oppression and occupation. We argued that, in opposition to the right-wing populism of Netanyahu and his partners in their confrontations with the judicial system of the capitalist state, which are advanced under the misleading guise of democracy, the demand should be for a genuinely democratic reform that strengthens not the powers of the government but the expression of the interests, hardships and struggles of the working class and oppressed communities, as part of a struggle for socialist change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The movement for the return of the hostages developed in conjunction with the movement against Netanyahu and for \u2018elections now\u2019, itself a continuation of the movement against the \u2018judicial overhaul\u2019. The two largely merged, tending towards a broader anti-government movement, although the hostage issue remained the principal point of convergence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the movement that existed before 7 October, it is a cross-class movement reflecting mass anger but also the heavy dominant influence of establishment forces. On the one hand, it reflects a mass revolt from below, marked by a profound revulsion towards the government and the far right, including the participation of a number of protest groupings organised around professions within the social services. Yet at the same time, forces of capital and retired generals play a central leading role within the broader movement, embodying a fundamental conflict of interests with the masses, particularly through their shaping influence over the agenda, including that of the official Hostages and Missing Families Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For roughly a year, the militant core of the hostage families, especially around Begin Gate opposite the Kirya military headquarters, developed in practice as an alternative leadership to the \u2018apolitical\u2019 strategy of the official families\u2019 forum. This tendency was led by Einav Zangauker, a single mother from a working-class background in Ofakim. At the time of writing, this development faces a test, as Zangauker has decided not to organise separate and parallel demonstrations at Begin Gate but instead to join the weekly protest at \u2018Hostages Square\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite periodic expressions of class anger since 7 October among Israeli workers against giant corporations raising prices and accumulating profits during the crisis, the Israeli protest movement, owing to the dominant influence of bourgeois forces within its leadership, has expressed almost no class-based antagonism or challenge. Its identification with establishment forces that attach a pro-capitalist political agenda of defending the establishment against the right-wing populism and far-right politics of the government of death to the specific issue of concern for the hostages undoubtedly secured broad public sympathy, yet at the same time substantially limited its capacity to mobilise deeper layers of dissatisfaction among wider sections of the working class who did not see the demonstrations as genuinely reflecting their own hardships and interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the narrow focus on the hostage issue illustrated growing cracks within the war propaganda, but also reflected the influence of national chauvinism and dehumanisation, with a tendency to erase consideration of every person struggling to survive in Gaza except for the hostages. Even during periods when support for the military campaign among the Jewish population reaches its lowest levels, right-wing resistance periodically emerges within the Israeli protest movement against interventions by left-wing forces carrying broader messages against the occupation and in solidarity with ordinary residents of Gaza, supposedly on the grounds that such issues are unrelated to the hostages, even though the speeches delivered at demonstrations routinely include wider political messages against Netanyahu and the government of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The absence of a clear, categorical opposition to the war of extermination in Gaza and to the murderous national oppression of Palestinians in general almost entirely alienated participation by the persecuted Palestinian Arab community within Israel. This was reinforced by the extent to which the Israeli protest movement, aside from a small left-wing wing, identified itself with support for the Israeli establishment, expressions of militarism, national chauvinism and Zionist nationalism, under the leadership of politically dominant bourgeois forces, aided by organisations such as \u2018Kaplan Force\u2019, \u2018Brothers and Sisters in Arms\u2019, \u2018Building an Alternative\u2019 and the \u2018Movement for Quality Government\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Building an Alternative\u2019 certainly reflects engagement with a widespread feminist sentiment within the Israeli protest movement, as a response to the full-on right-wing government and the threats it poses particularly to women. Yet because it rests upon a liberal-national, bourgeois form of feminism, it revealed itself during the test of the blood-soaked crisis, much like a range of liberal Israeli feminist organisations, as an agent of nationalist feminism in the service of the ruling class\u2019s war propaganda. In other words, fundamentally the opposite of an alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, whereas Pride flags featured prominently in the protest movement against the \u2018judicial overhaul\u2019, as a challenge to the threats posed by the government towards LGBTQ+ people, during the ordeal of the blood-soaked crisis, forces within liberal-national LGBTQ+ organisations in Israel enlisted themselves even more explicitly as agents of the government\u2019s pinkwashing operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dangerous political deception exercised by establishment liberal organisations in relation to struggles against oppression, exposed so starkly in the shadow of the blood crisis, itself demonstrates the acute lack of influence exercised by organised left-wing forces at the present time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of a reactionary patriotic competition with the government of death, and continuing the right-wing practices already evident during the Kaplan protests, anti-Netanyahu organisations consciously flood demonstrations with Israeli flags. Although, as with many mass protest movements elsewhere in the world, many Israeli demonstrators understand the Israeli flag in the context of anti-government protest as a symbol indicating that they, rather than the government, represent the \u2018will of the people\u2019, the ambiguity of the demonstrations regarding the murderous oppression of Palestinians, or worse among their more right-wing wings, at a time when the Palestinian national flag is brutally persecuted by the state, highlights exclusion and hostility towards Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These elements of class-distorting influence within the Israeli protest movement inherently weakened the challenge posed to the capitalist government of death, even during moments of peak mobilisation. In this context, two contradictory tendencies emerged, both expressing an aspiration to escalate the struggle and alter the balance of forces against the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the one hand, there has been a desperate reliance on lobbying and on recruiting \u2018allies\u2019 from within the Israeli ruling class, especially from the military-security elite, and even through appeals to the US administration. The most extreme example has been the prolonged campaign of sympathetic appeals to Donald Trump in an attempt to use him as a counterweight to Netanyahu. Similarly, establishment campaigns defending former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant or the outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, both architects of the catastrophe, reflected a profoundly desperate situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, recognition that a greater degree of power was required to force the Israeli government into a \u2018comprehensive deal\u2019 quickly brought the idea of the strike weapon onto the agenda and, fundamentally, the prospect of a general strike across the economy. This was influenced by the living experience of the political general protest strike of March 2023 against the same government\u2019s programme of \u2018judicial overhaul\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The centrality of the idea of the strike weapon, echoing the movement against the \u2018judicial overhaul\u2019 and, fundamentally, as part of an international tendency towards a partial recognition of the potential power of the organised working class in society, led some hostage families to approach the leadership of the Histadrut on the matter at a relatively early stage. In January 2024, on the 100th day of the historic bloodbath, the Histadrut leadership contented itself with a momentary protest stoppage across the economy, without any real connection to demands or a programme of struggle, essentially as a token gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leadership of the General Histadrut under Arnon Bar-David played an intensely reactionary role throughout the crisis, acting ultimately as an agent of capital\u2019s interests within the workers\u2019 movement, including through support for the war and, in practice, for the slaughter of Palestinian workers and the poor, as well as through support for austerity policies designed to finance the war machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its calculations concerning struggles against the government, it was connected to and coordinated with forums representing sections of big business from the camp opposed to Netanyahu. Those forces turned, in an unusual fashion, towards a limited reliance on methods of mass struggle and even a restricted general strike across the economy, on the assumption that they had no alternative and that they possessed decisive political influence over the agenda of that anti-government movement. As we explained, by turning down such a path they involuntarily prepared the ground for a living experience of the working class in Israel using the weapon of the general strike in a broader political struggle against the government, something considered legally and politically to lie outside the accepted rules of the game in Israeli society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mass eruption of anger on 1 September following reports of the deaths of six hostages was a backlash against the arrogant policy of \u2018military pressure\u2019 pursued by the government of death \u2014 the myth of a military solution to the hostage question, which forms part of the wider myth of a military solution to the national conflict, at whose root lies the conflict between the occupying power and the Palestinian population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in the streets even pushed Bar-David to declare a general protest strike for the following day. Although in an extremely softened form, it brought the organised power of the working class into the arena as a response to a mass desire for a \u2018shutdown of the state\u2019 aimed at forcing the government of death into a ceasefire and prisoner-exchange agreement. Unlike the agenda advanced by the central demonstrations, the strike mobilised the organised power of hundreds of thousands of workers across national communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, while the strike represented a democratic response to a mass mood, the right-wing leadership of the Histadrut under Bar-David carried it out without any serious preparation. From the standpoint of the chair, who treats the organised power of hundreds of thousands of workers as a private asset subordinate to his own authority, it was fundamentally a symbolic valve for releasing pressure. Consequently, no clear demands were presented from the outset, no plan for escalating the struggle was proposed, and no explanatory assemblies or discussions were organised in workplaces or trade unions. Moreover, instead of exposing the manner in which the government of death utilises the judicial arm of the capitalist state, through the Labour Court, to neutralise struggles against its attacks by means of anti-democratic injunctions, the leader of Israel\u2019s largest workers\u2019 organisation hurried to retreat as soon as the court acceded to the government\u2019s demand \u2014 supported by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara \u2014 that work across the economy should immediately resume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet despite all this, the general strike of 2 September 2024 represented a dramatic positive development. It was the second political general strike against the government within eighteen months. Although its partial implementation and rapid retreat were utilised by the government and sections of the ruling class for an ideological counter-offensive designed to discourage any repetition in the future, it nevertheless demonstrated in practice the very feasibility of conducting a political general strike against the central government despite the legal norm prohibiting \u2018political\u2019 strikes in Israel. Moreover, for the first time, a general strike organised within the Histadrut took place in direct response to the war policy of an Israeli government. Admittedly, it was not called explicitly to stop the military assault on Gaza, still less as a categorical rejection of the war of occupation itself. Nonetheless, it set a precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sections of the left, including within organised labour, did not believe that either of the two general strikes against the government constituted a practical possibility and, wrongly, failed to build pressure and preparation in that direction. Regrettably, even within the leadership of the Workers\u2019 Advice Centre (Koach LaOvdim), voices emerged expressing reservations about openly supporting the September 2024 general strike and, retrospectively, even the March 2023 strike, partly on the grounds that this would deepen political divisions among workers, including supporters of the far right. Yet union leaderships should chart a course that reflects the broader interests of workers from all communities, while helping to organise assemblies and processes of discussion among rank-and-file workers, with the objective of challenging and overcoming the influence of powerful propaganda mechanisms that encourage sections of workers to support the interests of their own class enemies through support for the murderous oppression of other workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The absence of support for a general strike to stop the war prevented Koach LaOvdim from challenging the Histadrut bureaucracy from the left when it refused to mobilise to stop the war. As an organisation that also organises Palestinian workers, who form the majority in some workplace committees, it possesses the potential to challenge the criminal collaboration of the Histadrut leadership with the murderous agenda of the government of bloodshed and to apply pressure on Bar-David to stop sabotaging the struggle and instead lead a programme that includes a series of general strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within days of the September 2024 general strike, the government of death launched its offensive in Lebanon and significantly curtailed the development of the movement for the return of the hostages and the broader movement against the government, aided by the immediate and extensive support it received from the bourgeois anti-Netanyahu opposition. Thanks to the militant core of the hostage families, demonstrations continued, alongside the smaller protests organised by the organised left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet this chauvinist reactionary wave also subsided, and the trend in Israeli public opinion and within the demonstrations once again shifted towards building pressure for a \u2018comprehensive deal\u2019 and an end to the military campaign, as well as towards opposition to the government of death more generally. The idea of the strike weapon returned to the agenda, whether through attempts to organise symbolic \u2018civil strike\u2019 days outside the Histadrut framework, or through renewed pressure upon the Histadrut leadership itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The organisation \u2018White Robes\u2019 has for months been organising symbolic half-hour protest stoppages among medical staff across a number of hospitals. Meanwhile, hostage families called for a broad protest strike across the Israeli economy in August in response to the security cabinet\u2019s decision to pursue the full military occupation of the Gaza Strip, demanding an agreement for the release of all hostages and an end to the war. They called for the strike to be organised \u2018from the bottom up\u2019 in an attempt to answer the refusal of the Histadrut leadership under Bar-David to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The promotion of independent protest actions at the workplace level \u2014 an idea that we ourselves support and seek to help advance wherever possible \u2014 has the potential to strengthen the participation of rank-and-file workers, broaden outreach to additional workers, inspire similar actions in more workplaces, and therefore potentially increase pressure upon the union bureaucracy while building momentum towards stronger industrial action and strike measures through the official unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against the backdrop of ideological confusion and the dominance of forces drawn from the ruling class within the anti-government protest movements, such intervention is necessary to develop the independent programme and voice of the working class. This means linking immediate economic demands against wage erosion, the cost-of-living crisis and austerity measures designed to finance the war machine to the demand for a complete end to the war, while opposing national chauvinism, the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians. The absence of such a connection materially limits the potential of the Israeli protest movement to challenge the government\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bar-David, the authoritarian chair, has made clear that, so far as he is concerned, the Histadrut will not lead a shutdown of the economy. The only declared exception is a vague commitment to join the threat issued jointly by big-business groups in the Business Forum and the Israeli High-Tech Headquarters to shut down the economy in the event of a \u2018constitutional crisis\u2019. That is, to lead mass strike action only when such a course enjoys broad approval among major capitalists and in accordance with their political agenda, without even a trace of an independent political programme for the workers\u2019 movement itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, as has occurred at previous turning points, and particularly around the general strikes, the right-wing pro-capitalist bureaucracy of the Histadrut does not possess complete control over the dynamics of events and struggle. It can ultimately be driven into cooperating with dramatic organisational steps that it has systematically sought to prevent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The policy pursued by the Histadrut leadership under Arnon Bar-David undoubtedly served as a destructive brake upon struggles against the capitalist government of death, and in practice represented a double betrayal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, it aligned itself with the government in supporting the murderous assault on the Gaza Strip and, in that context, refused to lead any serious struggle for resolving the hostage issue and ending the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, it aligned itself with the government in its economic offensive against the working class in Israel aimed at financing the war machine. This was demonstrated in November through its cooperation with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in passing the austerity budget, which was finally approved at the end of March without any meaningful industrial action led by the Histadrut leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet despite the commitment of the right-wing Histadrut leadership to suppress class struggle, pressures from below continued to develop and found a particularly turbulent expression in the teachers\u2019 rebellion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the Bar-David\u2013Smotrich agreement, no union leaderships were prepared to challenge categorically the wage cuts as a whole. Some instead advanced demands merely to exempt lower pay grades, as reflected in a joint letter issued by the leaderships of Koach LaOvdim, the Journalists\u2019 Union, the Communications Workers\u2019 Union and the Coordinating Council of Junior Academic Staff Organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quite apart from the unwillingness to challenge the very principle of financing the war\u2019s atrocities, this illustrated a common approach, with harmful consequences, even among sections of organised labour inclined towards the left: the tendency to minimise necessary struggle demands on the grounds that the balance of forces at a particular moment supposedly makes their achievement impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such an approach is not genuinely more \u2018realistic\u2019. Rather, it reflects a dangerous combination of a rigid, one-sided understanding of reality and a tendency towards surrender in struggle. In this instance, the concession stemmed from accepting weakness in the balance of forces against the government under conditions in which the Histadrut leadership had already abandoned any effort to lead a fight. Yet tens of thousands of rank-and-file teachers demonstrated the short-sightedness even of parts of the organised labour left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abandoned by the General Histadrut leadership, which refused to organise a struggle, and after the Teachers\u2019 Union leadership had likewise almost entirely refrained from leading industrial action and hurried to sign a surrender agreement accepting wage cuts to finance the war, an independent and militant challenge emerged from rank-and-file teachers and nursery workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Labour Court acceded to the government\u2019s demand for an injunction to crush the right to strike and permit an assault on the livelihoods of working families, in response to the symbolic industrial action led by the Teachers\u2019 Union leadership, the most militant layer of teachers and nursery workers refused to accept the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What began on 2 May as an independent initiative by dozens of teachers and nursery workers, launching an unauthorised grassroots strike through the tactic of a \u2018sick strike\u2019, expanded within two days to approximately 25,000 teachers and nursery workers \u2014 around 10% of education workers outside upper-secondary education \u2014 while hundreds of schools and nurseries remained closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The momentum continued to build after intervention by Benjamin Netanyahu led the Teachers\u2019 Union leadership to declare what amounted in practice to a surrender agreement, under which the net wage cut was reduced but replaced by other attacks on overall pay. At the same time, General Secretary Yaffa Ben-David thanked \u2018the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister of Education \u2026 the Director of Wages at the Treasury \u2026 who understood that an injustice had indeed been done to education workers\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The centre of gravity of the strike lay in the Central District, where 155 schools were shut at its peak, but it also spread elsewhere, including 26 schools in the Haifa District and 13 in the Jerusalem District. Even on 7 May, when signs of decline had begun to appear, dozens of schools remained closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that same day, the Labour Court once again acted as a rubber stamp for the government of death and helped it intimidate the striking teachers, who remained abandoned in the field by both the Teachers\u2019 Union leadership and the General Histadrut leadership, even several days into the dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tactic of collective feigned illness in workers\u2019 struggles \u2014 a sick-out, formally disguised as sick leave \u2014 is traditionally used, in Israel and internationally, to circumvent repressive measures directed against strikes. It demonstrates militancy, but also reflects an inherent organisational weakness because it is more difficult to sustain and coordinate effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this case, however, the teachers\u2019 rebellion provided a brief glimpse of independent workers\u2019 power and of an element of trade-union democracy in response to a defeatist leadership, as well as to the practice of imposing agreements over the heads of rank-and-file workers through closed-door deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a moment, the teachers demonstrated that wage cuts were not an act of fate and that struggle could make a difference. While the Teachers\u2019 Union leadership waited for the rebellion to dissipate, it nevertheless succeeded in inspiring other groups of public-sector workers and in indicating a potential path towards a broader struggle that union leaderships had already abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rebellion began among education workers, the largest organised workforce, and then continued at an initial level around extra-union professional protest groups that had developed in recent years among sections of workers in the social services and had become integrated into the broader struggles against the current Netanyahu and far-right government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These groups of healthcare workers, social workers and academic staff are drawn from a layer that, like education workers, has historically been regarded as part of the \u2018professions\u2019, carrying a certain middle-class prestige, but has increasingly been pushed through a process of proletarianisation. This is especially true because these are, to a significant extent, low-paid \u2018pink-collar\u2019 occupations that have increasingly found themselves on the front line of class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such struggles are capable not only of generating broad public sympathy but also of inspiring other sections of the working class, which often face even greater pressures suppressing and delaying organisation and struggle, and which do not necessarily hold less developed or less radical conclusions regarding the ruling class and the capitalist state. In some cases, their conclusions may be sharper still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among healthcare workers, the organisation Mirsham promoted resistance to the wage cuts even after an agreement with the Israeli Medical Association shifted the cuts into wage-freezes and attacks on previously promised salary increases and recuperation payments. It organised a Zoom assembly attended by dozens of participants, more than 1,000 joined organising groups on WhatsApp, around 200 healthcare workers participated in a symbolic absence campaign, and organisers reported that the protest was spreading because \u2018the virus is very contagious\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group \u2018Social Workers for Democracy\u2019 likewise launched a \u2018sick-strike\u2019 initiative inspired by the teachers\u2019 rebellion, although without a clear emphasis on a struggle against the wage cuts themselves and apparently without pointing towards necessary action by the leadership of the Social Workers\u2019 Union. Instead, it called for strike action in solidarity \u2018with all public-sector workers\u2019, arguing that \u2018the government is abandoning people\u2019 and that \u2018the war is a war of choice\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inbal Hermoni, chair of the Social Workers\u2019 Union and member of the Future Movement tendency, called for acceptance of the wage cuts as \u2018the lesser evil\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I know it isn\u2019t pleasant and it isn\u2019t good that there are wage cuts, but more severe decrees were prevented. Together we will continue to struggle \u2014 over welfare policy, over our professional work, and over staffing levels that can prevent the unbearable workloads imposed on workers.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that respect, the position resembled that of the General Secretary of the Teachers\u2019 Union, minus even the limited industrial action. Yet at the same time, Hermoni, in what she described as a personal opinion expressed through a Facebook post, advanced a position that, while defending practical acceptance of the cuts through the general truth that defensive struggles against government attacks often involve compromises, nevertheless stressed that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What is required here is therefore a root-and-branch change. That means: getting rid of this government and stopping the war. The wage cut is a symptom, not the disease itself.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, in this case the broader position is not translated consistently into a corresponding concrete stance regarding the struggle against the wage cuts and the struggle to stop the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At different stages of struggle, compromises can indeed be imposed by the balance of forces, and the socialist left does not criticise every compromise under all circumstances, nor does it abstractly call for escalation at every stage. What is required is a concrete and all-sided assessment of circumstances. Yet one fact stands out regarding the wage cuts in the public sector: unlike the teachers who organised a \u2018sick strike\u2019 following minimal steps taken by their union leadership, union leaderships in general failed even to mount the shadow of a defensive struggle over the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No clear official position of categorical opposition to the cuts as a whole, or to the logic underlying them, was placed on the agenda. It simply did not happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that union leaderships largely joined the chorus of \u2018there is no alternative\u2019 and \u2018there is no point\u2019, thereby cultivating a defeatist mood designed to reconcile workers to the theft of their wages in order to finance the war, makes the teachers\u2019 rebellion all the more remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, opposition to the continuation of the war by a union chair in Israel is still not something that can be taken for granted. Even if at this stage it is presented only to a relatively limited audience \u2014 and given the urgent necessity of struggle to halt mass atrocities, it is important that such a position be presented broadly to the full membership, including through processes of discussion and political explanation within the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The potential for this was illustrated by the public letter from \u2018Social Workers for Democracy\u2019 demanding that the union adopt \u2018a clear and courageous position against the extermination and starvation taking place in the Gaza Strip\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We would certainly agree that a fundamental transformation is required, although bringing down the government and halting the war are not yet equivalent to a genuinely root-and-branch transformation addressing the foundations of the blood-soaked crisis itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The teachers\u2019 rebellion also succeeded in expanding within the education system and crossing union boundaries as it spread into secondary education. Under pressure from below \u2014 thanks to the initiative of the independent \u2018sick strike\u2019 \u2014 Ran Erez, chair of the Secondary Teachers\u2019 Association, finally announced a protest rally in Tel Aviv a week later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following day, 8 May, the same day on which a small protest initiative attempted to extend the momentum into a general economy-wide \u2018sick strike\u2019, General Secretary Yaffa Ben-David announced a further revision of the agreement with the Treasury, describing it as \u2018the best that could be achieved in these challenging times\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, something supposedly better than what had been presented as an achievement granted through the benevolence of the Prime Minister only four days earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What forced the government to make further concessions \u2014 however limited they remained \u2014 was not the defeatism of the leadership but the militancy, determination and independent initiative of rank-and-file workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same statement, Ben-David continued to present the cuts as effectively unavoidable, but she nevertheless echoed an element of class anger among education workers when she remarked rhetorically that she would have preferred the source of funding to be \u2018powerful bodies such as the banks\u2019 rather than the public sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, however, she did not challenge even indirectly the central argument advanced by the government as articulated by Bezalel Smotrich in a direct appeal to teachers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018These are temporary freezes for one to two years in order to finance this very important and very expensive war.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Smotrich, the direct fiscal cost of the war had already reached 300 billion shekels, following an earlier estimate of 255 billion shekels by Bank of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Public sympathy for the teachers\u2019 rebellion in Israeli society at the beginning of May stood at a level comparable to support for \u2018a deal to return all the hostages and end the war\u2019 \u2014 slightly above 60 per cent, compared with roughly 25 per cent who opposed the teachers\u2019 struggle and supported \u2018expanding the fighting and occupying Gaza\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among opposition voters, support rose to 77 per cent for the teachers and 86 per cent for a prisoner-exchange agreement and an end to the military campaign. Among coalition voters, support stood at 48 per cent for the teachers and 37 per cent for a deal, compared with only 44 per cent supporting an expansion of the war of extermination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unpopularity of the government of death and of all its policies \u2014 including the continuation of the war of extermination in Gaza and attacks upon workers\u2019 wages \u2014 itself reflects the dramatic weakness of the government and points towards the potential for a broad mass movement against it, far beyond anything that has developed so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Histadrut chair Arnon Bar-David stabbed the teachers\u2019 rebellion in the back, calling on teachers to obey the agreement stitched together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over their heads and to comply with the gagging measures approved at the government\u2019s request by the Labour Court. Yet because the struggle was a popular one, he found himself confronted at the beginning of May during the Future of Israel Conference at Tel Aviv University when the moderator, to loud applause, drew attention to the fact that the \u2018sick strike\u2019 exposed the failure of the Histadrut leadership:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018A lot of people will come and say that, in the end, the teachers are now doing what you were supposed to do, which is strike in protest against wage cuts.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, Bar-David once again made clear which side he was on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018At the end of the day there\u2019s a war, and the war has to be managed, and money has to be generated for the war.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason that, unlike the General Secretary of the Teachers\u2019 Union, he did not even pay lip service to the idea that the money should be taken from the banks is that he himself, drawing a ministerial-level salary, handed the heads of workers struggling to make ends meet to Smotrich and the war machine on a plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Into the vacuum created by the absence of leadership from the organised power of the working class in the struggle against the government of death, initiatives attempting to organise strikes \u2018from below\u2019 have once again emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Potentially, as noted, it is entirely correct to promote independent grassroots initiatives at the level of workplaces and unions, with the aim of helping to build the preparation and momentum necessary for the larger organisational measures that are required, while simultaneously increasing pressure on union leaderships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, it is a fundamental mistake to ignore the existence of trade unions, which organise the collective power of the working class. This constitutes a major weakness of the \u2018Israel Stops\u2019 campaign, led by a cross-class, Kaplanist coalition. The campaign seeks to promote disruptions and a general \u2018shutdown\u2019 of the economy around the demand for the return of the hostages through an agreement and under the banner of \u2018saving democracy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The campaign website, registered on 25 April and pointing for \u2018inspiration\u2019 to articles by arch-reactionaries such as Ehud Barak and Matan Vilnai, rather oddly argues that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Stopping the economy is a new means [sic] that we have not yet used to its full strength \u2014 an effective and powerful tool capable of bringing about real change.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the only \u2018new\u2019 thing about it is that it manages to avoid using the word strike, does not mention the general strikes that have already taken place, and does not refer to organised labour at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tactic of symbolic protest stoppages, particularly in workplaces, can certainly help point the way towards organised large-scale strike action. However, without clearly raising the idea of a one-day warning general strike across the economy, as part of a rolling programme aimed at shutting down the economy and the war machine, it continues to point towards a strategic dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we explained in movement publications during the most recent \u2018day of stoppage\u2019 in August:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018In order to defeat the government of bloodshed and its plans for the occupation of Gaza and the sacrifice of the hostages, even a full 24-hour general strike would probably not have been sufficient. But a protest strike day must serve as the starting point for a new phase of building momentum towards mass demonstrations and mass strikes. This includes efforts to mobilise workplace committees and workers\u2019 organisations \u201cfrom the bottom up\u201d, with the aim of carrying out a one-day paralysing warning general strike with active enforcement, together with an ultimatum for a two-day and even three-day general strike, as part of an escalating programme of action \u2014 for the immediate and unconditional end of the war of extermination and for a comprehensive exchange deal, everyone for everyone.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to some definitions, Israel\u2019s national economy has been in a prolonged recession since October 2023. Although the Israeli Economic Association estimates that the low point of the economic trend was already reached during 2024, the continued war crisis opens the possibility of a much broader economic deterioration. This is all the more the case given the heightened potential for a global recession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli GDP growth in 2024 was cut to 0.9% \u2014 negative real growth in light of a population growth rate estimated at 1.1%, after that rate itself declined due to the emigration of tens of thousands. In particular, output in the business sector fell by 0.8%, such that the expansion of public spending, chiefly for the purposes of the war machine, was what kept the nominal figure for economic growth above zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n GDP per capita, as an indicative economic measure of living standards, fell back to its level at the beginning of 2022, even after a renewed rise in early 2025 during the ceasefire. That rise was abruptly cut short, principally as a consequence of the war against Iran, with the second quarter reflecting an annualised decline of 4.4% in GDP per capita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the banks recorded a 15% surge in net profits over two years, and the major supermarket chains reported a doubling of net profits within a single year, the erosion of working-class incomes in the Israeli economy deepened further during 2025 through regressive taxation measures, public-sector wage cuts, steep increases in the cost of public transport, water, electricity and municipal taxes, as well as rising consumer prices in the supermarket chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wages of the majority of workers in the Israeli economy are in decline. The average wage figure for 2024 rose in real terms (after adjusting for inflation) by 1.9%, but this indicator is inherently skewed towards the minority receiving extremely high salaries, while median wage data have not been published since 2022. Even if the war of extermination were to end immediately, the real decline in wages would continue for some time. The decisive factor capable of reversing the trend would be offensive wage struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, the minimal unemployment figures in the Israeli economy conceal significant upheavals within the labour force in the shadow of the war of extermination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the most severe blow to living standards has been suffered by a super-exploited layer of Palestinian workers from the Palestinian Authority territories employed within the Green Line, particularly through the near-total revocation of work permits previously discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, tens of thousands of migrant workers left the country after the Hamas attack involved the murder and abduction of dozens of migrant workers, primarily from Thailand. Others arrived to replace them, partially filling, together with Israeli workers, the gap left in sectors such as construction, agriculture and cleaning within the Green Line as a result of the mass expulsion of Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against this background, the number of jobs in the Israeli economy contracted in real terms (after accounting for population growth) by approximately 0.8% in 2024. Correlating with GDP figures, the number of public-sector jobs increased slightly while the private sector contracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tens of thousands of former reservists who ceased working because of physical injuries or mental-health reasons are not recorded as jobseekers, and this aspect therefore also disappears from the official unemployment picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The capitalist government of death led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the far right is displaying an intoxication with power, encouraged by Trump\u2019s return and by the significant shift in the regional balance of forces against the so-called \u2018Axis of Resistance\u2019 following the demonstrative bombing attack on Iran. Yet it is now once again facing intensified international pressure, including growing tensions with the interests of US imperialism, as well as a renewed deepening of its legitimacy crisis among the Israeli public, against the backdrop of broad support for ending the military campaign and the economic crisis that the campaign continues to worsen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no certainty as to when this government \u2014 the most dangerous force in the present conflict at the regional level \u2014 will ultimately be compelled to end the war of extermination in Gaza and its multi-front campaign of aggression, including threats of a further round of war against Iran following the June attack. Counter-movements, both internationally and locally, will continue, and there is a basis for mass mobilisations on an even larger scale. The ideas of international protest strikes \u2014 still largely symbolic at this stage \u2014 and of Palestinian protest strikes will continue to arise and challenge existing forms of struggle. At the same time, the idea of a general strike in the Israeli economy is increasingly returning to the agenda within the dynamics of a sharpening confrontation with the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This government has an interest in postponing \u2018the day after\u2019 for as long as possible, unless Netanyahu and sections of his coalition are granted a \u2018golden parachute\u2019 in the form of a normalisation agreement with the Saudi monarchy \u2014 something that, for the time being, appears to have fallen off the agenda during the lifetime of this government. Without such a scenario, or alternatively a renewed escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict, \u2018the day after\u2019 for Netanyahu and his allies is a bleak horizon in which a period of political reckoning will arrive, including the likely prospect of a punitive vote, a commission of inquiry and perhaps personal legal proceedings. It is not implausible that Netanyahu may decide to retire from politics altogether. Perhaps the accidental figure of the millionaire Naftali Bennett will become a key player in assembling a new governing coalition for the occupation and the rule of capital, and perhaps he will not. The game of musical chairs within the Israeli political system will change nothing regarding the fundamental causes of the catastrophe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On both sides of the Green Line there remains an absence of broad left-wing fighting parties capable, on the basis of a socialist programme, of offering a way out of the dystopian reality of the war of extermination, and of the occupation, capitalism and imperialism that led to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Circles within the Israeli left are discussing the possibility of launching a new party to fill the electoral vacuum left by Meretz, which dissolved itself into the liberal centre-left project of General Yair Golan. Meretz, which participated in the capitalist occupation government of Bennett and which never represented an alternative to the Israeli establishment from the left, but rather advocated capitalism with a human face together with moderate Zionist nationalism, does not need to be revived. However, every opportunity should be utilised to advance steps towards a fighting party that cuts across national communities within the Green Line and is rooted in the interests, hardships and struggles of the working class and the oppressed. Any development in such a direction could potentially become an influential factor in the dynamics of future struggles and strengthen the idea of a working-class socialist political alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The depth of this historic blood-soaked crisis underscores the necessity of struggling for profound fundamental solutions. For revolutionary change. At the same time, however, the depth of the reaction strengthens scepticism regarding the very possibility of politically and practically resolving the historical problem of the cycle of bloodshed generated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whose foundation lies in the extreme oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian masses. Yet such an understandable fatalistic sentiment is nevertheless an ahistorical argument that substitutes itself for political analysis and a programme of struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling ideas in every society are the ideas of the ruling class. Yet the contradictions of class society repeatedly undermine the mass influence of those ideas. This applies equally to the aggressive ideological offensive of the Israeli ruling class among the Jewish population in Israel and to the continued rightward shift in attitudes, particularly among Jewish youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A distorted expression of what is, fundamentally, a potential openness to changing attitudes even among a significant section of that population can be seen in support for what is itself a right-wing proposal, namely an Israeli-Saudi agreement under Trump\u2019s sponsorship and a future agreement to establish a Palestinian state. According to one poll, 42% of the general public in Israel supported the idea, compared with 37% who opposed it. The absence of mass left-wing forces as a point of reference in the region and within Israeli society acts as a brake on the development of support for a left-wing alternative programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we have explained throughout, the blood-soaked crisis subjects all political forces in society to fundamental tests regarding their essential programme and the social and class interests they represent. Differences that may, over long periods, appear marginal between different tendencies on the left can reveal themselves to be critical at decisive historical moments. While a variety of currents on the left may make positive contributions in specific struggles, and while practical cooperation between left-wing forces can play a progressive role from a broader class perspective at various turning points in struggle and in reaching the wider, unorganised layers of society, over time the fundamental political differences between left tendencies must nevertheless be assessed in relation to the tasks arising from the objective situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, the mistaken support given by sections of the left to the Oslo Accords, which were designed to reorganise the occupation, contributed to fostering illusions rather than raising necessary warnings. The same applies to the mistaken support given by sections of the left to the blinding logic of lesser-evil politics, whether through nurturing illusions in the capitalist occupation government of Bennett and Lapid, which paved the way for the government of death and for the bloody crisis of the occupation regime, or through nurturing illusions in the Biden-Harris administration in the United States, which played a decisive role in enabling mass atrocities. This is all the more significant given that forces considered part of the left internationally and locally refrained from taking a clear position in favour of building struggle against the extermination offensive from its very beginning, including Standing Together as a tendency of the populist left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, large sections of the left internationally focus solely upon opposition to mass atrocities, but when it comes to political strategy and programme most tendencies display significant weaknesses. They range from placing special emphasis upon diplomatic and legal measures by states and reproducing Oslo-style frameworks under the sponsorship of Western imperialism, to functioning as little more than cheering squads for protest movements, often tending towards an uncritical attitude towards popular political forces within the national liberation movement and solidarity movement, while softening warnings regarding counterproductive and destructive methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initiatives pointing in the direction of trade unions in Europe and elsewhere moving to block weapons shipments and military supplies to Israel, and to \u2018shut down Europe\u2019, represent a necessary development and indicate an effective path for struggle against the extermination machine of the Israeli elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without support for the complete national and social liberation of the Palestinians from every form of oppression, exploitation and inequality, and without recognition of the historical injustice of the Nakba and of the crimes against humanity committed in defence of the occupation and the rule of Israeli capital, the Israeli working class has no path towards liberating itself from the grip of the Israeli ruling class and from the cycle of bloodshed. This is also a precondition for combining forces in a future broader struggle against that same ruling class, aiming towards public ownership and democratic working-class control over the resources of the region, as part of a transition towards a democratically planned economy and within a struggle for a socialist spring and the establishment of a confederation of socialist democracies with equal rights for all nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A socialist programme that recognises the reality of oppression and dispossession as its starting point, acknowledges the existence of two principal nations of millions of people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea who must live in prosperity and complete equality of rights and living standards, including the right to self-determination, and that advocates a just solution for Palestinian refugees based upon recognition of the injustice committed against them and their right of return, offers a fundamental revolutionary transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It proposes disarming the ruling class of the most powerful military state in the region and making it possible to reorganise regional relations on a socialist basis, thereby laying the foundations for a sustainable regional peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Socialist Struggle Movement is committed to advancing this programme in the coming period through continued socialist and internationalist involvement in the counter-movements developing on both sides of the Green Line, and especially within the Green Line itself, among the two principal national communities, particularly on university campuses and in sections of workplaces, including among healthcare workers and education workers. Popularising and connecting this programme to concrete proposals for advancing struggle \u2014 including around various initiatives for strike action, educational or workplace stoppages, local protest vigils and petitions aimed at exerting pressure \u2014 requires a willingness to swim against the current, but also an orientation towards broad layers of society and towards unorganised layers undergoing radicalisation beyond the narrow circles of the organised left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The continuing war of extermination is among the gravest catastrophes yet witnessed in our region. Yet precisely for that reason, in an era of profound upheaval, it ultimately increases openness to discussion about the fundamental solutions that are needed. The additional political value of revolutionary Marxist forces internationally engaged on the ground in the struggle to stop the murderous war machine and bring down the capitalist government of death lies in helping to sharpen conclusions about the steps required to strengthen the struggle and about the necessity of a fundamental socialist solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no local-national solution to the fundamental problems that produced the catastrophe of the war of extermination. The solution must be integrated into the context of a regional and global struggle against imperialism, capitalism, the occupation and the oligarchies of the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Socialist Struggle Movement\u2019s congress convened on 25\u201327 September in Tel Aviv, in the shadow of the destruction of Gaza City and the displacement of its population by the occupation forces, while the war of annihilation and its atrocities continue to rage, and against the backdrop of uncertainty surrounding vague declarations by the Trump administration to promote a framework for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[32,100,6,8],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ssm","category-imperialism-war","tag-gaza-genocide","tag-perspectives","tag-regional-war","tag-trump"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":675,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLocal Perspectives<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Return of Trump, the War of Extermination, and the Regional Campaign<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The International Solidarity Movement<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Tensions Within the Western Imperialist Camp<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Extermination and the Advancement of Ethnic Cleansing in the Gaza Strip<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Demonstrations in the Gaza Strip Against the Atrocities of the Occupation and Hamas Rule<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Escalation of Aggression by the Occupation Regime and Processes of Dispossession in the West Bank<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Repression of the Left and the Palestinian Community Within the Green Line<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Shift in Israeli Public Opinion Against the Continuation of the War of Extermination<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli Protest Movement for the Return of the Hostages and Against the Government of Death<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Centrality of the Strike Weapon<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Teachers\u2019 and Nursery Workers\u2019 \u2018Sick-Strike\u2019 Rebellion<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The Virus Is Contagious\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Challenging the Absence of Leadership from Organised Labour<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wage Cuts to Finance the War of Extermination<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Our Tasks<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n