N° 25 juin 2022 The Easter weekend saw an outbreak of Israeli violence in Jerusalem – such violence that it led to a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday April 19,
at the request of France, China, Ireland, Norway and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions. No, these nations are not disturbed by the reign of terror imposed by the imperialist state of Israel; on the contrary they lump together colonizers and colonized and it is not from the UN that the restoration of Palestine’s right will come.
Since the 2021 legislative elections, nothing has changed in Israel except that Benyamin Netanyahu has been replaced by Naftali Bennet at the head of a right-wing coalition that has 61 MPs out of 120. The occupation of the Palestinian territories by settlers continues and even accelerates and the economic situation in Palestine is increasingly precarious.
On March 22, in Beersheba, in the south of the country, a stabbing and ramming attack killed four people; the assailant "neutralized" by civilians who were present was not identified, which did not prevent N. Bennett to declare that the security forces of all the country were on “high alert”.
Since then, the murderous attacks of the Israelis have known no respite: on March 31, 70 injured in Nablus in the West Bank – Palestinian territory occupied since 1967; on that same day two Palestinians killed in Jenin "suspected" of being linked to an attack in Tel Aviv; another killed in Hebron on April 1. A few hours later, Naftali Bennett declared “We give complete freedom to the army, to Sin Beth (internal intelligence service) and to all the security forces in order to defeat terror. There are and will be no limits to this war.” Between that date and April 15, 21 Palestinians were killed. On the 14th, Israel chose to seal off the West Bank and deploy the army in the old city among others places especially around the Esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site for Muslims and also considered the first holiest site in Judaism. With repeated provocation from the army and the Jewish extremists, then on the 17th the arrival of the religious that came to pray precisely where they did not have the authorization followed by the affront of the army entering the Al Aqsa Mosque, everything led to the inevitable explosion of violence. The firing of rubber-rimmed metal bullets seriously injured 153 Palestinians. Jordan attributes full responsibility for these clashes to Israel and calls on it "to put an end to the illegal and provocative measures that lead to a further escalation of violence". Qatar expresses its strong condemnation of the attack while France and the United States with one voice and without shame call for "more restraint"!
As for the pope, he pleads for “free” access to holy places and invites Israelis and Palestinians to “experience the beauty of peace”! All supporters of US imperialism take turns to protect their Israeli ally whatever the cost.
Since then the clashes and the massacres have continued: two young girls aged 16 and 18 in Jenin, shepherds forced to flee under fire in Gaza. On Sunday evening a rocket fire triggered heavy shelling in southern Gaza.
In recent weeks Israeli security sources and analysts have repeated that Hamas does not want a war this year, citing mainly two reasons. First, the movement's military capabilities were affected by the May 2021 war. Secondly, because in the event of a conflict, the new Israeli government may suspend the thousands of work permits granted in recent months to workers in Gaza, a territory under blockade weighed down by a local unemployment rate of around 50%.
In terms of domestic policy, the Israeli Arab Raam party of Islamist obedience suspends its support for the government coalition: “if the government continues its arbitrary measures at the Esplanade of the Mosques, we will submit a collective resignation”. This would hardly change the situation, Benyamin Netanyahu affirmed that another right-wing coalition would pursue the same policy.
By attacking these highly symbolic places for the Palestinians, Israel wanted to demonstrate its determination to destroy what makes up their identity and to eradicate from people's minds the idea of a possible Palestinian state. After the ethnic cleansing conscientiously organized for years without any reaction from the "international community", so quick to mobilize on other subjects, the space for struggle is severely tending to shrink. Tension remains extremely high and the Palestinians are still very determined to resist despite the violence of the repression.
The Revolutionary Party Communistes continues to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to a state and demands that the French government sever all diplomatic relations with Israel.