The AWL, declare that they oppose collective punishment of Gaza, settler attacks on Palestinians and so on, but they are just empty words without some means by which they can be brought about. There are only two ways they can be brought about. Either the Palestinians, as with the AWL's position in relation to Ukraine, is provided with the military capacity to force that on the Zionists, or else the working-class, collectively, takes action to bring it about, by taking action to denude the military capacity of the Zionist state to function. Marxists, as has been their position in all such wars, argue for the latter.
The AWL complain of HAMAS terroristic attacks on civilians – nothing compared to the attacks of the Zionist war machine on Gaza – but, if they were consistent in that, then, the conclusion ought to be, as they have proposed in Ukraine, a much better arming of Palestinians! Where is the demand, as raised for Ukraine, of the provision of an effective air defence system to take down Zionist war planes and missiles, or, as some have suggested, for Ukraine, the introduction of a no-fly zone over the whole of Palestine? Where is the demand for Palestinians to be provided with F-16's, or Stomshadow Cruise Missiles, or Abrams and Leopard II tanks, so that they could fight a conventional war rather than having to rely on ineffective rockets, and terrorist tactics?
But, as Trotsky pointed out, of course, Marxists do not propose such solutions, because we know that imperialism would never undertake such actions for the benefit of the progressive aims of the working-class, but only for its own interests.
“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?”...
If revolutionary and progressive movements beyond the boundaries of ones own country could be supported by supporting ones own imperialist bourgeoisie then the policy of social patriotism was in principle correct. There was no reason, then, for the founding of the Third International.”
Moreover, having simply stated those empty words, without any programme to implement them, the AWL's narrative, then, simply goes on to, essentially, justify the inevitable response of the Zionist state in doing the exact opposite. By starting from the attacks undertaken by Hamas etc., rather than the continued occupation and oppression meted out by the Zionist state, the AWL, put the blame on the Palestinians, and Hamas, for the inevitable backlash meted out by the Zionist state, a backlash that will, as always, be massively disproportionate to the desperate attacks launched by Palestinians, and already that is seen in the huge bombardment of Gaza, the use of the latest high-tech munitions to destroy residential buildings, to intensify even further the blockade of 3 millions Palestinians in Gaza, depriving them of power, food and medical supplies.
They say,
“The indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian targets, and the gunning down of civilians at random, cannot possibly serve emancipatory and democratic ends.”
But, by this, they are not referring to the indiscriminate gunning down of civilians and destruction of residential properties, on a huge scale, by the Zionist state, and its huge military machine, but to the rather pathetic and futile efforts of Hamas et al! Moreover, when it comes to Ukraine, they have taken a completely different stance. In the years, both before and after 2014, for example, the Nazis of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, repeatedly launched such attacks, including kidnapping and raping, on ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, much as had happened in similar conditions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and prior to that in Kosovo, where the agents of US imperialism, armed and financed the KLA, which undertook attacks on Kosovan Serbs.
The result was the Serbian invasion of Kosovo on the grounds of defending Kosovan Serbs, just as it led to the Russian invasions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and later Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. In response to the latter, the AWL have made no criticism of the actions of the Ukrainian state, which has launched indiscriminate rocket and drone attacks on Moscow and other Russian towns and cities, has set off car bombs, and café bombs in Moscow, killing Russian civilians, as well as having used NATO supplied drones and HIMAR missiles to blow up the Kerch Bridge between Russia and Crimea, and to blow up the Nova Kharkovka dam, sending millions of gallons of water into the surrounding territory and killing hundreds of civilians. And, when the US supplied illegal cluster munitions to the Ukrainian state, which, likewise, threaten innocent civilians for years after, the AWL acted as loyal apologists to justify that action too.
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