The recent Hamas-led armed resistance against the fascist occupying forces of Israel has largely been portrayed by the US and its allies as an ‘unprovoked attack against Israeli civilians’ – a portrayal that clearly benefits the US imperialist design of waging a genocidal war against Palestine and regaining strategic control of resources in the Middle East.
To call the Hamas strike ‘unprovoked’ categorically ignores the large number of Israeli settlers who stormed the al-Aqsa mosque on 5 October, the hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) between January to October this year, the increasing tracts of Palestinian land forcibly being occupied by Israeli settlers, and the daily and constant violence committed by Israeli troops on the Palestinian people.
To consider Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza an act of ‘retaliation’ and ‘self-defense’ dismisses the grossly disproportionate armed offensives against Palestine and the fact that this is not a war between equals. The Netanyahu administration wields a vast arsenal of modern weaponry and military technology far superior to those being used by Palestinian armed groups. It must also be noted that Israel’s military superiority is not merely a matter of circumstance but a direct result of years of US goading and unequivocal support to Israel.
To portray Palestinian armed resistance as a ‘terrorist attack’ obscures the justness of the Palestinian cause for self-determination and freedom from military occupation. It erases generations of historical injustice suffered by the Palestinian people in the hands of a Zionist state coddled and supported by the US for decades. It glosses over the fact that Israeli attacks have targeted homes, hospitals, the media, and other public establishments killing thousands of Palestinians many of whom are women and children.
It must be understood that the Palestinian struggle for liberation warps the US objective of establishing hegemony and control over oil resources in the Middle East. By supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the US seeks to maintain Israel as its key strategic asset in the region and serves to foster US alliances with major oil producers such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – all of which consider Israel as a regional ally against Iran. By prolonging the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the US diverts attention away from its own interests and seeks to maintain a level of control over the region’s key actors, ensuring they remain reliant on American support.
But the US treads a tightrope. Already overstretched by simultaneous conflicts from the US-NATO war in Ukraine to its attempts to contain China’s expansion and military aggression in the South China Sea, an escalation of hostilities in the Middle East threatens to overheat the US economy by military production. Conscious of its strategic decline, US imperialism is bound to seek solutions through intensified plunder, fascism, and wars.
In this context, supporting the Palestinian cause not only becomes understandable but becomes a necessity in the broader struggle against imperialism and all reaction.
