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NEITHER ISRAEL, NOR PALESTINE, THE WORKERS HAVE NO COUNTRY !

Since more than a week now, war is raging again in the Middle-East in the Gaza strip between Israel and the Hamas group at the head of the rump State, but not less capitalist than the Israël one, of the Gaza strip. Terror rules over the civilian populations of both countries. That Palestinian civilians suffer more than the Israelis, because the disproportion of military forces of each side, that the rockets launched by the Hamas on the Israelis cities are fare less murderous than the bombardments on Gaza of the Israeli air force, don't change anything to the terror suffered in "both sides" and to the fact that the cost of war which is underway now, is directly and tragically suffered by these populations, and particularly by the proletariat of both countries.

This war is an imperialist war, led by two ennemies as well anti-proletarian the one than the other and whose goals are as well bourgeois for the one and the other. Above all it is a time of increase of imperialist rivalries between the great powers since we know that the American bourgeoisie largely supports the warlike actions of Israel and that the Hamas, directly supported by Iran, benefits too indirectly and more discreetly from the support of other great powers which want to rival with the United-States.

We re-publish in this issue of the bulletin an article we wrote in World Revolution 240, the monthly paper of the British section of the ICC, in December 2000 during a previous conflict. The denunciation in this article of the historical and immediate responsibility of the great powers in the conflicts in Middle-East, remains completely valid today. There is an element of importance that our article didn't mention then - it was written before September 11^th 2001 attacks in the USA - and that it matters to clearly point out and denounce in the present period : this conflict, as all those which bathe today the planet in blood, is an additional moment of the march towards generalized imperialist war. Beyond the military and strategical advances and withdrawals which will result, it is going to strengthen and clarify a little more the different linings up of the imperialist powers, the greatest in first order, but also the middle ones and the smaller ones for one part ; and on the other part, it will participate to the evolution of the relation of forces between the main powers ; between the United-States and their main rivals, Germany, Rusia, France, etc... in this inexorable advance towards generalized imperialist war.

As well, we fully claim the denunciation in this article of all the political, nationalist, leftist, pacifist, forces which push the proletarians, the workers in all countries to take part for one side against the other. The workers in Israel and in Palestine, whose interests are common, are unfortunately even more submitted to the totalitarian nationalist ideology since 50 years of constant wars and bombings have created a true gulf of blood and tears between the two populations. They are the first victims of this war. In this climate of exacerbated nationalism, it is difficult for them to break with national union and to defend their class interests by the mean of struggle and strike. Nevertheless, the two proletariats have already led class fights in front of misery and salvage, brutal, State repression by the Israeli bourgeoisie as well as by the OLP or Hamas Palestinian bourgeoisie. It is precisely this struggle against their own bourgeoisie they must develop up to fraternize and unite beyond the frontiers. As everywhere else in capitalist world, the common struggle of the proletariats of Palestine and Israel is the unique real opposition to the war which rages in this region. The affirmation, even embryonic, of such a class perspective would have for practical, concrete, consequence to limit, indeed reverse, the warlike process locally and thus to participate to defend the living conditions of all the population.

But, of course, and as underlines our article of 2000, the solution to the misfortunes and the tragedy that the populations in Middle-East live, mainly and historically lies in the hands of the world proletariat, and particularly on the ones of the main imperialist powers. The true solidarity with the "Palestinian and... Israelis masses" is not in the leftist demonstrations we see today occurring all around the world and which are full of nationalism, calling for the "destruction of Israel", nor in the crying calls for immediate peace, but well in the workers struggles in front of Capital crisis and its generalized imperialist war perspective. The workers struggles are the living negation of the calls for national union and classes collaboration.

Only the proletariat's struggle can slow down and stop this infernal process in which capitalism drives every day more humanity and in which, already today, more than yesterday and les than tomorrow, millions of workers and human beings pay with their life, their misery, their sufferings, the survival of this society in crisis and decaying.

As in 2000, the slogans of the communists remains : Proletarians of all countries, Unite !

January 8^th 2009