The rare pictures that we have from Gaza are horrifying. Scattered bodies where a market or a school has been bombed. Men fishing to survive being shot in cold blood. Children who are nothing but skin and bone. People massing around food distribution points. Suffering and despair in people’s eyes. Cries for help.

Since Netanyahu broke the truce on March 18, 2,000 inhabitants have been killed. And those who escaped the bombs are threatened with starvation because the Israeli gouvernment has blocked food and bare essentials from entering Gaza for more than two months. The Israeli army has even attacked at sea humanitarian ships trying to bring supplies to Gaza!

Netanyahu isn’t waging war on Hamas: he’s practicing ethnic cleansing. His goal is to rule out the possibility of a state of Palestine existing, whether in Gaza or on the West Bank.

Netanyahu has in fact recalled tens of thousands of reservists to beat Gaza: having massacred then terrorized the population, he now wants to deport them, voluntarily or by force. Trump’s cynical and revolting project of turning the enclave into a beach resort built on top of tens of thousands of bodies is under way!

During a meeting with his counterparts, the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister declared: - “The European Union needs to wake up: this is absolutely shameful.” The Finnish minister stated: - “We have seen the horrifying images and this has to stop.” And the French Minister had this to say: - “Gaza is on the brink of collapse, chaos and famine.”

And what did the meeting produce? The decision to hold another meeting! Of course Macron added his voice to the chorus of hypocrisy: he plans to recognize a Palestinian state but at the exact time when the possibility is disappearing before our very eyes.

It appears that Trump, currently on his way to a tour of the Middle East, is starting to get annoyed with Netanyahu. If his main ally massacres Palestinians, it won’t help him to get kingdoms like Saudi Arabica to do his bidding! But he still fundamentally supports the executioners from Tel Aviv.

Imperialist leaders support Israel in the name of the Jews’ right to have their own state. But it’s only because Israel is defending their interests in that part of the world. And who really believes that approving this massacre protects the Jews?

Netanyahu’s policy is criminal towards the Palestinians and suicidal for the Israelis. Israeli demonstrators are challenging it and there are reservists refusing the call-up. For the moment, they’re mainly challenging a new military operation that will endanger the lives of hostages.

Every Israeli is in fact hostage to this die-hard warring. It condemns them to life in an entrenched camp, at war with all their neighbors. Each new bombardment feeds hatred and the thirst for vengeance. New generations of Palestinians will swell the ranks of fighters in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. Israel has already spread fighting to those countries and there is no end to war in sight!

Peace cannot be built on mass killings or the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people. It requires an end to oppression and the apartheid policy, plus the dismantling of the colonies. It requires the recognition of equal rights for all peoples!

Contrary to what far-right Zionist organizations and reactionary Islamist groups would have us believe, a fraternal co-existence between the peoples of Israel and Palestine and the neighboring Arab peoples is possible.

The imperialist states have drawn artificial borders between Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, etc. They set peoples against one another, Israelis against Palestinians, Arabs against Kurds, Sunni or Shia majorities against Christians, Druze or Alawites. The only way out of a permanent state of war is for there to be a federation of the peoples of the Middle East in which all are equal and enjoy the same rights.

This can only happen if the oppressed people in the region rise up against their respective leaders’ will to dominate and exploit. And it’s up to us, here, to push this prospect against the complicity of our leaders in this new genocide.

Nathalie Arthaud