Gaza offensive: we are all Palestinians!

Gaza has been under blockade for 15 years and has suffered a dramatic humanitarian situation ever since, not to mention the humiliations, deaths and bombings. For a long time, the news focused on the cycle of provocations, rockets, bombings and calls for "de-escalation" from "both sides", and the Palestinians were portrayed as passive, always trying to survive. The Israeli strategy, known as the "lawnmower", consists in fact in the regular physical elimination of new generations of activists and opponents of the occupation, in a never-ending cycle of repetition.

This time, the offensive is on the side of the resistance. With an openly extreme right-wing Israeli government prepared to commit all manner of annexations and war crimes, the latest provocations on the Esplanade of the Mosques cannot go on! Hamas is calling on Palestinians to rise up in all the territories and fight against the occupation. Demonstrations for democracy in Israel (due to take place this Saturday) have been cancelled by their organisers in support of the occupying army. It is too early to know the outcome of this offensive. At this stage, it is obviously to be feared that the Israeli army will indulge in the worst abuses and reprisals, with the blessing of the Western international community.

The NPA is not joining in the litany of calls for so-called "de-escalation". In fact, the war against the Palestinians has been going on for 75 years, and the left should remember the need for solidarity with resistance struggles against oppression and occupation. The NPA reiterates its support for the Palestinians and the means they have chosen to resist. We call for the rapid organisation of mobilisations in support of the Palestinian people. We support the demand for international sanctions against Israel’s war crimes and apartheid, which are even more necessary today in the face of the violence and hatred of the current ruling class in Israel. Finally, we recall that it is the absence of sanctions and, more generally, the occupation, the extension of colonisation and apartheid that are responsible for this situation.

Today, like yesterday, we are all Palestinians. Intifada!

Saturday 7 October 2023

Montreuil