Bulletin No50 septembre 2024 The genocidal army massacres in Lebanon as it does in Gaza
While the genocide in Gaza, methodically organized by the Zionists, has been going on for almost a year, with its procession of deaths, destruction, diseases and famine, the occupying army has also engaged in a bloody military offensive in Lebanon.
Until now, these were periodic attacks, especially in the south of the country, which had the support and cover of the US government, which still caused 700 deaths, including journalists. As we have already written, on September 17-18, an unprecedented attack was carried out by the Zionist forces that left more than 3,000 injured and 32 dead. Thousands of pagers and wireless radios exploded in the hands, most often, of municipal police officers in cities run by Hezbollah, workers in health and social institutions, and civilians.
Zionist military forces attacked a residential neighborhood in the suburbs of the Lebanese capital on September 27 with bombs that could contain up to a ton of explosives, destroying at least four buildings. This is what the Zionists and their media outlets call "targeted strikes." During Israel's intense bombardment of Beirut, Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, a leading leader of the Lebanese Resistance for over 30 years, fell, along with several other leaders of the movement. A few hours earlier, from New York, during the UN session, Benjamin Netanyahu had assured that he would not stop his genocidal offensive until he had defeated Hezbollah.
On September 29, another bombing of another residential neighborhood in Beirut killed two PFLP leaders and the Hamas leader in Lebanon, with, as always, an astronomical number of civilian deaths and displacements. The Zionist colonial state uses in Lebanon the same genocidal methods that it uses in the Gaza Strip, with one goal: to kill as many people as possible, and as for southern Lebanon, to expel as many inhabitants as possible.
Regarding the assassination of the leader of the Lebanese Resistance, here is what Hanna Gharib, Secretary-General of the Lebanese Communist Party, said on September 28: " The Lebanese Communist Party mourns the death of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah and firmly denounces the shameful crime perpetrated by the Zionist entity that assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. He was one of the figures who played one of the most important roles in the political life of the country, the resistance to the Zionist entity, the Palestinian resistance struggle. Together, we fought for the liberation of Lebanon from the Zionist occupation, in the July War and in the battle for the victory of Gaza and Palestine. The Lebanese Communist Party expresses its solidarity with Hezbollah and is assured of the fact that the blood of the martyrs of the Resistance will not flow in vain. The liberation of Lebanon and Palestine will be a shock to the Zionist fascists, but also to the regimes that seek "normalization" and their supporter: the United States. The Lebanese Communist Party presents its most sincere condolences to the leadership of Hezbollah and its close associates. Victory has been and will always be the best ally of the oppressed peoples. "
The Revolutionary Communist Party condemns these genocidal practices and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah leaders. We have philosophical and political differences with Hezbollah, however, it is part of the Lebanese Resistance, played a key role in the failure of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, contributed to the defeat of the Islamist fascist forces launched by the Western imperialists against the Baathist regime in Syria in the 2010s and continues to demonstrate its active solidarity with the Palestinians.
What are US imperialism and Netanyahu looking for?
However, the conflict here could take on a different nature. Netanyahu clearly wants the conflict to widen, first to make people forget the liberation struggle of the Palestinian Resistance, then to try to make the situation explode from Lebanon in order to rebalance the balance of power in favor of the Western imperialists, and consequently of Israel.
The Palestinians' struggle for liberation is profoundly just, we maintain, as is that of the Resistance fighters in Lebanon who are fighting the attempts of the Zionist state to expand its living space and destroy Lebanon. In this regard, Netanyahu's allies and the fanatical settlers do not even hide their intention to expand "Greater Israel" and to establish colonies in the part of southern Lebanon located south of the Litani River, which would then be annexed by the Zionists.
But the regional context is also one of confrontation within imperialism, as in Ukraine. To understand the issues at stake, we must avoid two errors.
The first comes from those, and there are some in the international communist movement, who claim that an “ anti-imperialist axis ” (Iran-Russia-China) is being formed, and that it should be supported against the US imperialists and their allies. In practice, this concept of an anti-imperialist axis abandons the class approach, treating imperialism as an aggressive policy of the United States and its allies, ignoring the fact that in China and Russia too, the monopolies are in control, and that the capitalist classes in these countries are also seeking to promote their own plans. The support, mainly verbal, of Russia, China and Iran for the Palestinians is motivated not by the “ just cause of the peoples ”, but by the desire to hinder the plans of the United States in the region, to obstruct them, to strike them. There is therefore no anti-imperialist axis formed by these powers. They work for their own interests and for their own monopolies and that is why they cannot be consistent in their support for the Palestinian struggle, even though it is not excluded that some Iranian leaders sincerely want to help Palestine. The fact that the Palestinians, like any national liberation or even revolutionary movement, are right to seek to exploit these contradictions in their struggle against the Israeli occupation is a different matter.
The second, less widespread at the moment, comes from those who claim that all war conflicts are imperialist, that they are different expressions of a third imperialist world war, and that we cannot therefore support the struggle of the Palestinian people for their liberation, because it is part of the imperialist conflict. For revolutionaries, it is not possible to reject the just struggle of the Palestinian people in the name of imperialist war. Because, as has been demonstrated historically, in circumstances of international imperialist confrontation and even war, the outbreak of just wars of national liberation cannot be excluded. Lenin addressed these questions in detail in the context of the First World War, in response to the erroneous positions of Rosa Luxemburg.
Even if some Arab leaders are only asking to come to an agreement with it, the Zionist state is isolated and the rival imperialist axis has been scoring points for years. To recover, the dominant US imperialism is banking on Lebanon, because it is a weak link. It is a divided country, based on a confessional system, marked by the presence of militias that are still armed other than Hezbollah, including the Phalanges, whose territorial integrity is regularly undermined by the Zionists. There is always a risk of Lebanon being fragmented. The Zionist entity, which has been working for a long time to prevent the formation of a government in Lebanon (it has been a political vacuum at least since 2022) wants to provoke this fragmentation, weaken Lebanon, provoke a new civil war and expel Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. But the objective of "destroying Hezbollah", like that of "destroying Hamas" is unattainable. Hezbollah has certainly taken a hit, but it is still standing and effective, as witness the rockets that destroyed the Mossad headquarters while Iran rained its missiles on the Zionist state.
In an address to the communist and workers' parties of the world, the Political Bureau of the CPL put it clearly: " These terrorist attacks aim to intimidate the Lebanese people and force them to submit to the conditions of the Zionist enemy and its backer, the United States, preventing the Lebanese national forces from supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza. They also aim to strengthen security control over the entire region, consolidate the influence of the imperialist powers over oil resources and trade routes, and maintain Israel's qualitative military and security superiority, as Israel plays a crucial role in this broader project. "
Regional conflagration?
As we have said, Netanyahu wants to move towards a general conflagration in the Middle East; a general war that would involve increased military support from the United States of America as well as from countries that support the genocide in Palestine. This would be both a way to ensure that there is no Palestinian state and an opportunity to regain ground on the rival imperialist axis, China-Russia-Iran.
The risk exists, it is undeniable. However, nothing is certain for Netanyahu and the Zionists. The military situation, first of all, is not as advantageous as our pro-imperialist media present it. For 2 days Israel has been conducting ground operations in southern Lebanon, which are encountering strong resistance. Furthermore, the Iranian missile attack on the evening of the 1st caused much more damage than our media say, which are content to relay Zionist propaganda without ever questioning it. Airports have been damaged, military targets hit and Hezbollah took advantage of this to destroy the Mossad headquarters, while the Palestinian Resistance targeted and reached Tel Aviv from Gaza.
Then, the last incursion of the occupation troops into Lebanon, in 2006, ended in complete failure and a victory for the Lebanese Resistance forces (notably Hezbollah and the PCL). The PCL's fight recalls these words of Georges-Ibrahim Abdallah joining the PFLP: " There will be no liberation of Lebanon without the liberation of Palestine ." On this subject, the statement of the Secretary-General of the PCL clearly sets the course: " The Lebanese Communist Party, while condemning the massacres of the far-right fascist government of the Zionist entity, salutes the communist comrades who today respond to the obligations to execute the call of the Central Committee to resist the Zionist aggression to defend Lebanon, its destiny and its existence, alongside all the resistance fighters of the different forces facing the enemy.
The Party affirms the urgent need to proclaim a popular and national mobilization to resist the enemy and provide all the necessary means on the political, military and popular resilience levels in order to face all the challenges resulting from the gravity of the situation that Lebanon is going through.
This is the mission of the Lebanese Communist Party in these dangerous circumstances: the need to mobilize all energies and capabilities to defeat this enemy. We reiterate our call: it is high time to resist the enemy behind a national political project in an inclusive national gathering where all energies, efforts and capabilities are combined. Otherwise, this enemy will continue to repeat its crimes and aggressions .
Finally, Netanyahu's disgraceful performance at the UN (where he accused the UN of being an anti-Semitic quagmire) made it possible to measure the state of isolation in the world of his clique and the Zionists in general. The people and workers first stand in solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. More and more voices are being raised to denounce the arrogance and impunity of the Zionists.
In Conclusion
On September 11, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza issued an appeal to trade unions around the world. This passage fully illuminates the state of mind of the Resistance: “ Despite everything, we lick our wounds and raise our voices in international forums, urging the free world and the global labor movement to engage in a broad campaign of solidarity with the people of Gaza. We, members of the Palestinian General Federation of Workers, in the tradition of our people’s legendary tenacity and their refusal of displacement policies, continue to live on our lands , despite internal displacement to escape inevitable death, while more than 80% of the population has been displaced. These citizens have endured extremely difficult conditions, living for several months in mobile tents, far from the lives of civilians, and in inhumane circumstances. Moreover, in the northern areas of Gaza, which have long been subjected to forced starvation and deprivation of most basic necessities, Palestinians have chosen to be patient and endure this suffering, rather than abandon their homes and homeland .
The deployment of its military force in Lebanon, the plans to destroy all Palestinian life in northern Gaza, the growing control over the lands of the Palestinians of the West Bank do not change anything, the Zionist state shows its muscles to hide that it cannot achieve its goals. The Palestinians, with or without weapons, resist and the occupation army is in difficulty, the Zionist state itself is on the verge of collapse. The Lebanese Resistance, despite the blows dealt, is organizing and keeping watch. This is enough to warm the hearts of those who fight in their own way for the liberation of Palestine.
Like all those supporters of the liberation of Palestine around the world, we continue and will continue, tirelessly, to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as free access for humanitarians throughout the Gaza Strip, and the total withdrawal of the occupying forces from the enclave. But this will not be enough.
A just peace means the dismantling of the colonies, the return of the refugees and an independent Palestinian state. What prevents such a peace is the existence of a colonial state. The workers of Israel cannot be free if they do not break with Zionism, if they continue to find themselves objectively in the camp of the colonizers. Solidarity with Palestine cannot be satisfied with general phrases about peace. We need a state where all inhabitants enjoy the same rights and can live together, regardless of their origin, in this case, a democratic Palestinian state. Similarly, the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people does not need compassion, but real political support and actions of internationalist solidarity. And for France, where the Revolutionaries, as elsewhere, must first fight their capitalists, this begins with the political struggle against the support of French imperialism for the Zionist colonial state.
This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party intends to continue to bring together all those who want an immediate ceasefire to end the massacre of Palestinians and who speak out for peace. For us, this means supporting the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement, especially after the assassination of one of its leaders: an immediate end to Zionist military aggression, the right of return for refugees and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.