The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns the recent Israeli-American terrorist attacks in Syria

The past few weeks have seen an expansion and intensification of Israel’s genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people. While Gaza remains the epicentre, incursions into the West Bank continue. The unspeakable brutality of the attack on Gaza has offered a convenient smokescreen for the Israelis to terrorise the people of the West Bank. The State of Israel has used the inevitable attacks of October 7th to decisively shift from a policy of apartheid to one of outright ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.

Israel has long functioned as an unpredictable but ultimately reliable U.S. client in the Middle East. It facilitates the projection of U.S. power in the region sowing discord with and between states deemed contrary to US geopolitical and economic interests. Not least of these are ambitions to control the plentiful oil reserves in the region in addition to important maritime trade routes.

The United States have made several statements over the holiday period encouraging Israel to move to a more ‘low intensity’ form of warfare. Almost in the same breath the Biden administration, for the second time in a month, pledged yet more munitions to Israel; ostensibly to bolster its defensive capacity. The perpetuation of the myth of Israel as a state under siege is only worthy of contempt. Poorly concealed beneath this threadbare lie are the bodies of over 30,000 innocent Palestinian children, women and men killed since October of last year in a conflict spanning decades.

The smoke and mirror tactics of the imperialist PR machine cannot conceal the truth and the horror of what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories. Nor can it disguise the true motivations and material interests behind the United States continued economic, political, and military support for the state of Israel and their joint role in the expansion of hostilities in the region.

As many of us predicted, the U.S. backed ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has expanded into a broader regional war. Pre-existing tensions and conflicts in the Middle East have become more acute. Attacks by the US-Israel coalition have spread into Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria over the past number of weeks including a number of high-profile political assassinations. The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns these attacks which will only lead to the further destabilisation of the region and potentially tens of thousands more civilian deaths.

The essential nature of the conflict in the region as that of an imperialist intervention led by the U.S.–NATO has become even more explicit and attacks by US-British forces in Yemen leaves no further room for doubt on this score. It is the acts of solidarity with the Palestinian people undertaken by the Houthis in the Red Sea, as opposed to the genocide of the Palestinian people, that have been deemed beyond the pale by the imperialists. This is a further confirmation of their total disregard for the millions of innocent civilians killed and displaced by their persistent interference in the region over decades.

The United States is the vanguard of the imperialist states and represents the greatest threat to peace, democracy, and social development globally. Their continued attempts to destabilise the region and to topple governments that refuse to be subordinate to U.S. geopolitical interests, undermines the possibility for democratic development and quite often fosters the growth of reactionary forces. This in turn retards social development and the crystallisation of an effective workers’ movement for socialism in these countries.

Strong workers’ movements drive democratic development and build the foundation for socialism. And while we should be under no illusions as to the democratic credentials of many regimes in the region, we must also recognise that interventions by the imperialists do not promote democracy but are rather barriers to progress and political, social, and economic development. Destabilisation and foreign interventions undermine the fullest development of class antagonisms by destroying civil society and reigniting and escalating sectarian religious, communal and ethnic tensions.

• The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East by the United States and their British allies and the continuing genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Defence Forces.

• Furthermore, while we must be realistic about the prospects of a positive outcome, we fully support South Africa’s case against the Israeli State in the International Court of Justice. The State of Israel is a genocidal regime and must be held accountable for its actions.

• There must be an immediate ceasefire in Palestine and the provision of aid to the beleaguered and brutalised population must be prioritised to prevent more innocent lives being lost.

However, we also recognise that without justice for the Palestinian people there can be no lasting peace. And in this case, justice requires nothing less than Palestinian statehood.

Down with imperialism and war!

For peace, socialism, and workers’ power!

Alan Kidney, International Secretary, The Workers’ Party of Ireland