Zionist genocide: who is calling the tune?
Below is a presentation given by a Consistent Democrats speaker at a Zoom forum on 23rd February. The whole discussion is available as a podcast here.
When this forum was first mooted, the focus was Trump’s outrageous proposal for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to make way for a ‘Riviera’ owned by the United States. But since then, major events have happened regarding Ukraine, and Trump’s strategic objectives have caused chaotic, and on the face of it, unexpected developments with both. Both issues are of strategic importance for world politics. We as communists must address both questions and get them right. I will therefore deal with both here.
Trump has given Israel the green light for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and has hinted broadly that he intends to do the same with the West Bank. Trump says that that US would ‘buy’ Gaza – from who?! – and forcibly deport the Palestinian population that lives there somewhere else! So that they can have a ‘Riviera’ for the wealthy. This plan was mooted by Trump’s Jewish-Zionist son-in-law, Kushner, last year. Now it’s US policy. Trump’s real aim in saying this is transparently to steal, either for the US, or Israel – or both – the oil and gas reserves that have been found off the Gaza coast in the past decade or so.
In the mind of Trump, who regarding Middle Eastern questions is basically a political agent of Likud, Israel’s main ruling party – they funded his election in the US – Israel expelling the Gaza population, and the US doing so, are pretty much the same thing. It is piracy, and a motive for genocide. Trump is open about his intentions to steal natural resources of territories he covets and makes no bones about it. During his first term he openly boasted that US troops in Syria, who were sent in by Obama in 2014 supposedly to fight ISIS – were there to steal Syria’s oil for the United States. Although his policies in Ukraine appear superficially different, the underlying motive is similar.
His demand that Ukraine sign over ownership of their natural resource of $500 billion worth of rare earth metals as ‘reparation’ for the aid that Biden gave to Ukraine is again, just naked theft. Except the problem is that this resource is apparently in the Donbass, which is part of Russia now. In part, he is upset at Biden’s policy in Ukraine because Biden gave away aid to Ukraine gratis. He says that US aid should have been a loan, as most of the EU’s aid was and is. His bullying of Denmark over Greenland is the same, as are his threats against Panama, and his on-off tariffs against Mexico and Canada aimed at economic coercion to get them to do what he wants. For all his apparent equanimity towards Russia, his policy towards BRICS is the same – threatening all their members (including Russia) with 150% tariffs levied against them if they attempt to create any sort of alternative to the dollar as a world currency. Which would completely undermine the effects of sanctions as a tool of US domination.
Much of this is driven by hatred of what he and Rubio call “Communist China” – Cold War rhetoric is back in fashion, and they regard China as the US’s most strategic adversary, as it is on course to surpass the US in economic power in the immediate future. And much of its economic power does indeed derive from capitalism regulated by economic planning, whose origin was in the Chinese revolution – i.e. beyond capitalism. Much of Trump’s seeming sympathy for Russia, which causes apoplexy to the liberal imperialists, is driven by an aim of in some way setting Russia against China. Though it’s too late for that.
All these things have the same driving force – Trump is probably the crudest, open imperialist since Cecil Rhodes in the late 19th Century. Another similarity, and yet difference is that Rhodes was fighting hard to try to maintain Britain’s colonial dominance, which was being challenged by France and Germany, rival imperialist powers. The US is also in decline, but its world dominance or hegemony is not being challenged by rival imperialists, rather by an alliance of non-imperialist powers/semi-colonial countries and workers’ states centred around BRICS, which is almost like a more powerful version of the Non-Aligned Movement.
But Trump’s imperialism is not purely US-centred. The US is joined the at hip to Israel, by the overlapping of their ruling classes, something that also causes huge problems in Europe. This is historically unique phenomenon, a product of the disproportionate representation of Jews in the imperialist ruling-classes, relative to the proportion of Jews in the general population of those same Imperialist countries – the former exceeds the latter dozens of times over. The racist institution of birthright Israeli citizenship for all Jews around the world, while denying it to native-born Palestinians, creates a material interest of Jewish-born bourgeois in the Israeli bourgeois state. This is particularly significant in the imperialist countries. It is this overlapping of the Western ruling classes that is behind the power of the Israel lobby in the older imperialist countries. These layers constitute a distinct caste within the imperialist bourgeoisie, with a material interest in Israel, which they see as their state. And they have numerous fellow travelers, from Christian Zionists in the US and elsewhere, to Zionised elements nominally in the workers movement in Europe, like Starmer.
Trump and Netanyahu are a partnership, alternating playing hard cop and soft cop against the Palestinians. Thus, Netanyahu did not carry out Trump’s threat that the current ceasefire would be junked if Hamas did not release all their Israeli captives by 15th Feb. Instead, a ‘normal’ weekend cycle of the release of three hostages for many hundreds of Palestinians took place. And they are still taking place as part of the ‘first phase’ of the ceasefire. But now we see the Israelis on another lying campaign, claiming that some hostages whose bodies have been released, including two children, who were blown to hell by the IDF, were supposedly ‘murdered’ by Hamas instead. This is from the people who lied about ‘beheaded babies’ and babies supposedly being cooked in ovens on October 7th. And now Israel have ‘suspended’ the corresponding release of more than 600 Palestinian hostages, who should have been released also this weekend. The second phase of the ceasefire deal, which is looming, is still to be negotiated in detail. But that looks very fragile right now.
The real motive for this renewed Zionist hate campaign is shown by the leaflets being dropped in Gaza, seeking to terrorise Palestinians into accepting exile by openly threatening mass extermination if they don’t. These leaflets feature pictures of Netanyahu and Trump. Even the Nazis were not so brazen in openly, in front of the world, boasting of their genocidal intentions. Though Israel’s problem is that they have already been defeated in Gaza.
Regarding Ukraine, things are moving very fast. There was the meeting in Saudi Arabia in the first half of last week. Involving Trump, his secretary of state Rubio, Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov, and others. Trump accused Biden of starting the Ukraine war by greenlighting Ukraine joining NATO, and Ukraine for not making a deal. Lavrov says that both sides will have to make concessions. There will undoubtedly be more negotiations, and likely a full summit between Putin and Trump soon. But such attempts to make a deal are likely to founder because the war, though Russia is winning, is not over yet. Russia still needs to take the remainder of the various four provinces that voted to join Russia in September 2022. And there is Odessa, a major centre of Russian/Russophone population that have been oppressed since 2014. Odessa borders Transnistria – where a long-autonomous Russian population – since 1991 in fact – is under threat from pro-NATO forces in Moldova.
The European imperialist powers are spitting rage against Trump for ‘betraying’ Ukraine and whipping up hysteria about it. This is all over the British media. The BBC news has been extremely virulent. We have never seen such a falling out with the United States before. The ruling classes of West Europe have become used to being Washington’s clients, over all the decades since World War II. And suddenly Washington has woken up the fact that it is no longer hegemonic. That does not mean that it has lost all its power. But it has lost in Ukraine. Trump’s policy is a response to this – a temporary retreat to reconsolidate US rule in the Western hemisphere in the short term. With the aim of a later reconquest of that hegemony in the medium term. And from that point of view, the Asia-Pacific region – centrally China – is far more important than Europe. The European powers are not used to being treated with such contempt.
Zelensky claims Trump is under influence of Putin’s ‘disinformation bubble’. The BBC echoes this narrative – sanctimonious hypocrisy from disinformation mercenaries who are really complaining about elements of truth that they cannot avoid mentioning. Trump responded by noting that Zelensky is a dictator. To complete outrage from the Europeans. The West European imperialists are raging about themselves and Zelensky not being invited to the meeting in Saudi Arabia. So, they called the Starmer-Macron-Scholz emergency summit meeting in Paris last Monday. Out of this grew the threat from Starmer to send troops to Ukraine as supposed ‘peacekeepers’. Which leads straight to a threat of conscription here, to send troops to Ukraine.
There is a wave of pathetic military jingoism coming from the decrepit British ruling class, which under Johnson, Truss, Sunak and now Starmer, has been the most virulently militaristic over Ukraine. There is talk of conflict over the three Baltic states. Trump’s insistence that NATO must be funded by Europeans is a big spoiler for that. The US retreat is a threat to NATO’s article 5 – it renders it a dead duck and puts a huge question mark over NATO’s survival. Trump’s change in US policy means any troop deployment in Ukraine by European powers will not have NATO/US backing, so Article 5 Is a non-starter. Starmer is in line to be humiliated by this. So is Macron, who has no working French government. Scholz will be out of power shortly, likely replaced by Merz in Germany. The AfD, the pro-Zionist far right party which has Nazi overtones but is hostile to the Ukraine war, is likely to be in a strong position after the elections. Possibly also the leftist, but social chauvinist pro-Russian social democratic Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) which is riding the tide of popular hostility to the Ukraine War. Her trend somewhat resembles that of George Galloway in Britain. Terribly flawed but possibly at times critically supportable.
Ukraine will not be in NATO, according to Trump. That at least is a good thing if true. But this has ignited a furious antagonism between the bulk of the EU, and non-EU fellow travelers like Starmer, with the Trump administration. The Europeans are looking for new provocations against Russia. One such provocation is the talk of closing the Baltic Sea to Russian ships.
Since St Petersburg is a Russian port, as is Kaliningrad, this is a casus bello if it happens. The Baltic states, which may become the focus of future anti-Russian warmongering, are just as demented in their dominant pro-Nazi politics as Ukrainian nationalists. They also have Russian populations which they persecute. Latvia in particular has a very large Russian minority. You can see what could happen. Europe is unstable. But Trump’s ascendancy has strengthened the hand of Orban, and the rightful Romanian President, Georgescu, whose election on a ticket opposing the Ukraine proxy war was cancelled by the Constitutional Court in Romania. Fico is a leftist anomaly among that crowd, as is Sahra Wagenknecht.
We have to acknowledge that Trump’s policy on Ukraine is an improvement, but that this faction in bourgeois politics, despite this, is very dangerous and far right – as shown over Zionism. Today’s degenerate liberal bourgeois factions are just as reactionary as Trump. The decay of capitalism and US hegemony has extinguished liberalism – leading to major strategic and tactical differences among them, indeed, but about how to achieve many similar foul objectives. Neither side is better. Orban is a diehard supporter of Israel. Georgescu reflets the values of extreme reaction in Romania, praising Antonescu and other far right and Nazi collaborator elements in Romanian history. The liberals’ Ukraine war is unpopular in some nationalist circles in Europe. Even though those liberals were prepared to back overtly Nazi forces in Ukraine, and likely in the Baltics also. The nationalist right sees it as war for ‘globalism’ not nationalist causes, at odds with a strategy of retrenchment behind national borders and tariff walls. Rubio, in his recent article in the State Department’s in-house journal Foreign Policy basically admits that US hegemony is over, and the US has no choice but to operate in an increasingly multipolar world.
Trump is the most virulent Zionist and even worse than Biden. Trump and his supporters and imitators are predators with different tactics. In the Middle East, they are the most virulent examples of the bourgeoisie’s Zionist cult. They propose to expel the population of Gaza to Egypt?! Sisi’s regime has made it clear that such an attempt will lead to war with Israel. This is not an example of any courage from Sisi and co. They fear the masses. This war threat is remarkable given the origins of Sisi’s regime, and the history of Egypt since the death of Nasser in 1970. Jordan has likewise refused to discuss this. This is the conundrum of the outcome of the Gaza War. Trump’s policy, where he was acting as a shill for Netanyahu, has run aground. He can find no one to implement it except Netanyahu.
The real ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, allowed an opinion poll to be conducted, which showed there is 98% opposition to Trump’s threat against Gaza in that country, and basically if the regime tried to co-operate with Trump, it would be simply doomed. So, it isn’t going well for them. But Smotrich in Israel is putting forward a draft law to implement Trump’s proposal. And the whole Israeli government says yes. The ceasefire is intact for now, but only just. Broken with impunity in Gaza and Lebanon by Israel, but not fully broken down. Israel is still banning mobile homes and heavy building equipment from the strip in violation of the agreement. It is supposed to have evacuated Lebanon but is still staying in 5 strategic places. Syria meanwhile is descending towards another civil war, as resistance is taking hold. Jolani’s regime is attacking Lebanon. The US wants to exclude Hizballah from the Lebanese government, but it is the biggest party in Lebanon, so this makes little sense. These all portend a likely regional Middle Eastern war. There is the ever-present threat of an Israeli or US attack on Iran to add to the mix. Though if the Zionists provoke a regional war involving Egypt and/or Jordan, Iran will be the least of their problems. They could lose. Though Israel has nuclear arms of its own, plenty of them. The opponents of imperialism and Zionism ought to have been clear all along that Israeli extermination of the peoples of the region will result in Israel being wiped out. At the moment, they think they can get away with it and are moving to bring about Greater Israel. Their occupation of parts of Syria since Assad’s fall indicates this clearly. Overall, major changes are underway in the world, but not for the better so far. Without the emergence of a new, communist pole, they threaten only new chaos and more genocidal wars. We are out of the Biden Missile Crisis at least, which may even have been more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but in a new period.
And then there is the Trump administration’s domestic project, which is already inspiring resistance, but it is very dangerous to the US working class, and that of the whole of the Americas. The US ‘Deep state’ being purged, but not for the benefit of working-class people. For the benefit of the billionaire class, even more than under past regimes. The response to all this has to be a regroupment of the genuine left around the world, the formation of a new, coherent international communist movement. It must be one that has the political courage to take the side of those demonized by imperialism, from the Russian/Russophone people of the Donbass to the Palestinian people, to defend Russia and China, and the surviving workers states, against imperialism. And to do all these things with a perspective of revolutionary internationalism, with the perspective that the only road to real peace is international socialist revolution
