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We Are Firmly Against This Genocide
Over the last 2 years, Israel has killed anywhere from 65,000 to 680,000 Palestinians.1 In a campaign of indiscriminate bombing, land invasion of the entire Gaza Strip, and the forced relocation of nearly the entire civilian population. It is obvious that the actions of the Israeli state constitute mass ethnic cleansing to make way for the benefit of global capital’s accumulation. Important to note is also that such policies have not been taken only in the past two years, but are merely an escalation of the ethnic cleansing that Israel has been engaged in since the Nakba in 1948. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this reality cannot be taken seriously on the subject.
In response to this extermination presented for the world to see, movements dedicated to opposing material aid to Israel have appeared across the planet. We write this article primarily for the members of these movements, because we sympathize with them greatly. Yet it was in our time taking part in and observing the actions of these movements that we have come to believe that a full theoretical understanding of the causes of this genocide is rarely held, and the conclusions that are drawn as a result of such lack of a materialist worldview will lead to nothing but further inability to effectively confront the system of capitalism, the ultimate cause of this genocide.
It is not enough to discuss events past or present and to act without full theoretical clarity. We must think critically about the full implications of them, what caused them, as well as what course of action we must take to actually end such atrocities. Capitalism, which the entire world finds itself struggling under, exists precisely because it captures revolutionary energy that might supersede it (alongside its massacres) into organizational dead ends that seek only to target its worst manifestations. We must attack its roots and not its branches. What this means is that in order to actually end such massacres, we must first educate ourselves to know how to overthrow capitalism, and further, to know what it actually means to overthrow capitalism.
Idealist Abstractions of The Non-Communist Left
Certainly, it may be quite a controversial statement to say that capitalism is the cause of the ongoing Palestinian genocide. Rarely is it denied by those opposed to the genocide that capitalism has provided the framework for such a genocide to happen, even that capitalism has incentivized it to happen. Yet despite this, there is still an apprehension by many organizations and individuals to admit that the ongoing genocide was caused and continues to happen inseparably because of capitalism.
This apprehension has many causes, most obviously among them the lack of a materialist understanding of how capitalism directly causes and then informs other oppressive systems and beliefs such as racism, nationalism, imperialism and sexism. Such a flawed idealist conception of the world can be seen quite clearly in the broadly accepted notion of “Intersectionality” within the non-communist left. Taken definitionally, intersectionality is:
“The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage; a theoretical approach based on such a premise.”
-Oxford Dictionary
At first glance, this seems to be a correct understanding of how the world works. Certainly we do not deny that Capitalism is interconnected with systems such as Racism, Sexism, and Imperialism. Where we do disagree is in the notion that class is (if even present) portrayed as on equal footing to and in some respects independent of other forms of oppression. Such is a notion that has been demonstrably proven false historically. Modern racism as a social institution did not exist prior to mercantilist (early capitalist) chattel slavery, which necessitated its creation to justify its means of exploitation. Sexism has existed since ancient times, yet its manifestation has always been dependent on the class relations that enforced and created it. Imperialism became a global institution only as capital, driven by its own growth, necessitated new markets for continued growth and exploitation.
A lack of such understanding, and more importantly its consequences, can be seen in the propaganda and subsequent actions of the various non-communist left organizations that constantly pin the genocide on individuals, ideas, or nations; rather than on the all encompassing global system of capitalism. And which subsequently argue (purposefully or unwittingly) that we must fight these individuals, ideas, or nations rather than their source, capitalism. Take for example the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s article “Trump a full partner in Israel’s onslaught against Iran, risks wider war”2 which states:
“Donald Trump is the co-architect of the Israeli war against Iran and shares full responsibility with Benjamin Netanyahu for the extraordinary danger facing the whole world.”
-The Party for Socialism and Liberation
Notably, this article contained zero mentions of capital, capitalism, capitalists, profit, socialism, labor, the proletariat, or workers. Something which is certainly strange for a supposedly socialist organization. Surprising even to us was their decision not to even mention as much as the fact that such imperialist policies were similarly taken by the government prior to Trump. As a result, they place the blame squarely on the shoulders of individual heads of state and feuds between particular nations, rather than on the ruling class of all nations, the international bourgeoisie. Essentially repeating the nationalistic propaganda of the ruling class and spinning it as communist rhetoric for them.
Claim as they may that such blatant abandonment of the class struggle was partaken as part of a strategy of “meeting the working class where they’re at,” the result of such a strategy is the same; venting of actual class struggle into reformism. They betray the fact that they do not wish to overturn the existing bourgeois world system, but instead see themselves as the vanguard of international bourgeois law by their statement in the same article:
“Make no mistake, the Israeli war against Iran is a clear violation of the UN Charter, and thus a violation of international law.”
-The Party for Socialism and Liberation
Refusing to spread the actual aims of communism is non-communist, but to reify the institutions of bourgeois control over the world is undeniably anti-communist. Such doctrine comes not from thin air, but as a direct result of an idealistic understanding of what causes atrocities such as the Palestinian genocide.
Why Does Capitalism Cause Such Atrocities?
Put most simply, Capitalism causes such atrocities due to its tendency to make redundant swathes of the working class through its necessary development of capital accumulation. Such is not a novel or new tendency that must be uniquely resisted separate to capitalism (nor can it be), but an intrinsic part of the system that has existed for as long as capitalism itself.
As a brief explanation of why this occurs, the bourgeoisie (who gain their wealth only by the expropriation of surplus value produced by the proletariat), due to their competition amongst one another are forced to produce commodities for as little value as possible. Value (which under capitalism is determined solely by socially necessary labor time) must in this way be optimized either by using capital (machinery) to reduce the labor time spent on the production of any given commodity, or by increasingly exploiting the working class (paying them less for their labor, etc). What this means is that due to their own competition, the bourgeois must lay off workers whose jobs are made redundant, leaving vast sections of the proletariat impoverished. A further explanation of the actual economics behind this has been linked at the bottom of the work.
What is important for the topic at hand here is that in response to this mass impoverishment, the proletariat, in leaps and bounds, realizes its collective interest against the system, and will take whatever course of action they feel will best preserve their own survival. This radicalism within the working class, brought about by the material conditions of capitalism represents the source of capital’s destruction; but is also something which the bourgeoisie, in an effort to preserve their own survival as a class, has learned to warp through obfuscation and lies into non-communist forms through the division of the working class via arbitrary distinctions such as nationality, race, religion, sexuality, and gender.
In the United States, this process can be seen most clearly through the historical shifts in immigration policy taken at different stages in capitalism’s development, and the subsequent spread of racist attitudes and oppression that followed. It is possible to track like clockwork the cyclical nature by which the bourgeois state, according to the needs of the class it represents, either allows or expels migrants from abroad. During both the first and second world wars, the state, in a situation in which capital necessitated large amounts of growth, relaxed immigration policy to allow large numbers of migrant workers to enter the country. Programs that were then reversed and replaced with state oppression of migrants in the following periods of stagnation.
Such oppressive government policy was undertaken not because the government was evil, but because the proletariat, faced with impoverishment as a consequence of their increasing redundancy, could only be prevented from overthrowing capitalism by sacrificing a section of themselves to prolong their usefulness to the rest of the economy.
This is not a uniquely American phenomenon, of course, as similar patterns are visible globally. The Holocaust3, the Armenian Genocide4, and of course the Palestinian genocide are but a few examples of how economic realities under capitalism lead to genocide. The Nakba quite clearly began not due to an intrinsic Jewish hatred towards the Palestinian population or vice versa, but because Palestinians needed to be forced out to allow for the appropriation of property for the vast number of Israeli settlers that capital felt best suited their interests to have inhabit the region. Palestinians have since been kept in the region by capital as a disenfranchised reserve army of labor, callable upon when necessitated by capital’s growth, and dismissible when necessitated as a concession from capital to the Israeli proletariat. In the current economic conditions of both Israel and the rest of the global capitalist system, there simply is no room for Palestinians in the capitalist economy. To attempt to resist this specific manifestation of capital without resisting the system of capitalism in its entirety is to try to change the laws of nature.
The role of communist militants must always be to connect the struggles of any particular section of the working class at any one time to the historical oppression of the whole working class. Our task is to continually point to the fact that similar genocides have occurred in the past and that it is possible to not only discern why they occurred (as we have just done) but also to use the lessons learned in blood of how they were opposed in the past, in order to teach those who want to truly oppose genocide what will and will not achieve this goal. In furthering this theoretical understanding we help inform strategy and action, ensuring that the misconceptions and pitfalls of various kinds that have been fallen into in the past are avoided. This is not a history lecture; it is a critical analysis of the mistakes and successes of our past, it is the continuation of lessons the militant workers of the world have learned themselves through lifetimes of effort. When we criticize these ideas and those who believe them, it is for the benefit of future victims of imperialist slaughter and for all of humanity, who serve to be liberated by our cause.
Against Full Support of National Liberation
The most clearly non-Communist and thus ineffectual form that this activism has taken is through the organizations that proclaim full support for the national liberation of Palestine (and as such the concept of nationality) as a worthwhile or necessary end in and of itself. These organizations fall into two broad categories. Firstly, those that solely exist to advocate national liberation. Secondly, those who falsify the doctrine of Socialism, and as such claim that it should support such national liberation. Both of these groups ultimately fail to address the underlying causes of the genocide, and it is these organizations that advocate for nationalism and national liberation as part of a socialist strategy that represent the most dangerous tendency within the left. Hereafter, we will refer to the organizations that comprise this ideological tendency, which advocates national liberation as a method to advance Communism, with an unsettling yet accurate title for their beliefs, National Socialists.
Advocating solely for the national liberation of Palestine as the National Socialists do, is ultimately a disservice to the people who are being genocided along its national lines. This approach only addresses the imperialist component of capital without challenging the greater system that ultimately produces it. Anti-imperialism without anti-capitalism is ultimately fighting a symptom rather than a cause, and this avenue will lead only to further genocides and imperialist wars. Such an approach fundamentally leads to a struggle that (if it succeeds) will only lead to a new state which must then itself engage in the imperialist system of capitalism. Such a fact is not merely theoretical but backed up by the history of national/ethnic liberation movements.
Would these National Socialists have supported the struggle of the Hutu people to overthrow the colonial backed Tutsi regime in Rwanda prior to 1990? It is undeniable that prior to their overthrow, the Hutus were oppressed by the Tutsis in a very real and material way. Similar to Israel, the Tutsi regime was also backed by the Imperialist capitalist blocs for the purposes of neocolonialism. The circumstances are of course different in the way that the Tutsi did not themselves come from abroad and force the Hutus off the land, yet if genetic ties to land or historical tradition is the sole reason for a supposedly socialist organization’s stance on which nations should be supported in their right to violently take claim to a piece of land, it is hopefully clear that they are not at all socialist, but reactionary defenders of the doctrine of blood and soil.
For decades, various Hutu ethnic liberation groups attempted to overthrow the Tutsi regime and failed quite similarly to the Palestinian national liberation movement. This of course, all changed when the imperialist powers decided it was in their best interest to instead back the Hutus instead of the Tutsis. While the interests of American capital are today very linked to that of the Israeli state, it is already known today that Hamas was funded by Israel and Qatar. It is also a readily available fact that Syria and Iran have participated by proxy in the region’s conflict.
In 1972, an issue of “Workers Vanguard” (A Trotskyist newspaper with which we do not fully share our views with) wrote “Nor is the nationalism of the oppressed any more noble. Let it not be forgotten that the Palestinian Arabs are victims of the nationalism of the oppressed turned oppressor. In Burundi, had the Hutu’s coup against the ruling minority Tutsi been successful, the tribalism of the oppressed would have translated itself into the genocidal nationalism of the oppressor, All nationalism is reactionary, for successful nationalism equals genocide.”5 Certainly a shockingly clairvoyant prediction given our hindsight of what happened in 1994 when the Hutu indeed did succeed in their coup against the Tutsi.
While it may be hard for us to today comprehend a world in which the tables suddenly flip and it is the Palestinians who have the power under capitalism to engage in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Israelis (who contrary to the racist dogmatism of National Socialist parties like PSL are not are all nepo babies who willingly came to Israel from Brooklyn), all that it would take for the balance of power in the region to suddenly shift would be for the Western powers to decide that support for a Palestinian satellite state is better suited to their goals or for Chinese capitalism to decide that competition against the western powers in the region is necessary for its continued growth and for it to successfully enforce the creation of a Palestinian state within their sphere of influence.
In such a turn of events, the entire movement of entryism and rallying around the national liberation of Palestine would all at once turn on the National Socialists’ heads and, as all non-communist movements do, be co-opted by capital into something that even more directly serves its interests.
Though it’s impossible to tell whether or not a Palestinian national liberation movement would succeed at overthrowing Israeli nationalism; the results of either the failure or success of such a movement are, from analysis of history, crystal clear. Rwanda is but one example. We could also look to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Bosnia in 1995, Darfur since 2003, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Tigray in Ethiopia, or currently the Masalit, a non-Arab population in Sudan to see the same process repeating itself across time.
There is no method by which national liberation can be in any way a building block of Communist society, and there is no method by which Communists can support it without themselves becoming the pawns of Capitalism.
What Does it Actually Mean to Support or Not Support National Liberation Movements
With this in mind, we must also ask what such support given by such organizations within the non-communist left actually means. Within this wider discussion, we see a lot of confusion and false understanding about the nature by which we can actually give support to Palestinians in their resistance to this genocide. Contrary to the lies repeated by the propaganda machine of the ruling class, no American protester is sending weapons to Hamas. No, all that the talk and moralizing of support for national liberation amounts to is using mechanisms of political pressure on our ruling class through protest campaigns with the hope of forcing them to stop the genocide.
This objective of the Pro-Palestine protest movement, putting pressure on our government to stop sending weapons, will absolutely never be enough. Under capitalism, protest movements do not and cannot force these concessions to happen. Because the power lies fully with the ruling class, they are fully able to choose how long to ignore any given protest movement or any minority political movement asking them for some demand. All that political pressure achieves in the decision making process of the ruling class is to help them calculate exactly what mechanisms are best to achieve their goal (profit extraction through ethnic cleansing and Israeli settlement). If the US is forced to stop sending weapons, it can give those weapons to Germany and in turn Germany will give the IDF the weapons instead. Alternatively, the US military could decide that because this is a conflict, it can simply hide its activity from the public, claiming to stop assisting this genocide while continuing to do so. We fundamentally do not live in a society where working people have full knowledge of exactly what any government is doing, we only know what they themselves tell us. Accordingly, there are endless ways that the ruling class can co-opt, mislead, or fully ignore pressure put on them by the protest movements of the working class who ask them for change, because this process is all taking place in a situation where the ruling class holds all the leverage.
This lack of effect that declaring support for the various national liberation movements around the world actually has (even in helping the national bourgeois of any given region to establish their own exploitation of one sect of the international proletariat over another imperialist bloc, which is all that national liberation actually represents) must then be contrasted with the immense destructive impact such blatant disregard for internationalism has on the function of any organization that calls itself Communist in the actual struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Communist organizations cannot themselves defend the rights or lives of workers under capitalism, they cannot lead and win the revolution themselves, and they cannot in any serious way lead capitalism towards better outcomes. The sole vector by which organizations of militant workers (or anyone) can actually do anything to save both our species and our planet from the all encompassing system of global Capitalism is by preparing to turn the crisis of capital into a revolution that will supersede it. Key to this preparation is being the consistent body that develops the memory of the class as to its historic interests and the consistent voice that spreads this knowledge amongst the working class. In both of these domains, support for national liberation by Communist organizations serves only to play into the abstractions of the capitalist system and to divide the international among nationalist lines. For this reason, it can be considered only to be an anti-communist and counter-revolutionary practice, and one which actual Communists must make a concerted point to denounce as such.
Against Opportunist Critical Support
In contrast to full support for the national liberation of Palestine, there is a countervalent logic within certain sects of the left who, rather than support the national liberation of Palestine as an end goal in and of itself, advocate it on the grounds of national liberation weakening “The Empire” and being an example of successful working class mobilization that can push further action. We often even see a hybrid approach where a group may flip back and forth between both perspectives. For example the PSL says in a separate article of theirs:
“This (support of national liberation) is not only a morally correct position for the U.S. movement but a strategic necessity. The capitalist class that supports and profits from the oppression of Palestinians is the same capitalist class that creates poverty, inequality, and insecurity within the United States. Thus, if those capitalists lose their domination over Palestine, the working class movement here will benefit. So too would the Palestinian liberation struggle benefit if those capitalists lose their domination over the U.S. working class. International solidarity is a necessary tool to build a strong working class movement on many fronts against a common enemy.”
-The Party for Socialism and Liberation6
It would be understandable to read this position and agree that it represents true proletarian internationalism, they are correct after all, that we have a duty to fight against our own national bourgeoisie during all wars and with the necessity of international solidarity. The problem arises when we look at what is meant by their exact form of solidarity with “Palestinian liberation” because in effect they mean support for the national liberation of Palestine, not support for the liberation of the Palestinian working class.
If we confuse national liberation for a substitute for or a stepping stone to international proletarian revolution, then we continue in a direction away from Communism. Nationalism of all kinds, even underdog nationalism, is an anti-communist goal. Class collaboration is similarly a measure that has only led to disaster and death for those who want to bring about a liberated humanity without borders or a ruling class.
Because we exist in a world with large imperialist power blocs constantly competing with one another for influence, we have to ensure that our theory and actions are directly opposed to the capitalist system itself, rather than in support of one component of the system or one section of the ruling class against another.
We know that the leadership of Hamas operates as a militia for the capitalist ruling class of other imperialist blocs, principally Iran, and it uses an ideology of Palestinian nationalism for propaganda to cloak its particular form of oppressive control. This means that if we hold our noses and give critical support, we are opening the door to a very dangerous move, collaboration and sympathy with nationalist movements and capitalist states. If there is any lesson that Communists have learned in the last 100 years of counterrevolution, it is that we cannot work with, or support in any form, any cause that does not support our goal of a united and liberated humanity. It should be clear that the creation of an independent Palestinian state, regardless of other effects, would not assist the international working class in its task of organizing a revolution and the establishment of a new society.
As the Internationalist Communist Tendency so eloquently puts it:
“The project of national liberation, the so-called “right of nations to self-determination” is the project of the bourgeoisie that was completed as the imperialist phase of capitalism began. Today [the] ability of a national bourgeoisie to realize its project of national liberation hinges entirely in its capacity to mobilize backing and capital from a major imperialist power. This was clear from the very struggles that created Israel itself”7
-The Internationalist Communist Tendency
The dissolution and creation of nation-states is firmly in the framework of competition and struggle between the various capitalist blocs, and therefore not for the workers of the world to treat with any real legitimacy. This is evidenced when the Soviet Union supported the creation of the state of Israel in 1947, both diplomatically by being the first state to officially recognize them and by materially sending arms from Czechoslovakia, then part of the Soviet bloc, to aid them in their establishment. Such support was given by the “great and authentic” Soviet Union, not because they wanted to support the right of national determination for a group who had just come out of a genocide, but because they felt it would deal a decisive blow to the imperialist British and French control of the region and support their own ambitions as a bourgeois world power.
“As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof. … During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. …
The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter. …
The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.”
-Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromyko 14 May 1947
What Should We Actually Be Doing?
If supporting national liberation will not actually save Palestinian lives or bring an end to capitalism, but will more likely than not achieve the exact opposite, then what is it that we can actually do to end the genocide?
We express our solidarity with Palestinians, not a Palestinian nation, because nations are merely a form of political division of people. We express our support for the working class of Palestine through our continued struggle to achieve true liberation alongside them, as a part of our shared liberation along the identity that we have in common, as members of the working class. We do not fetishize the Palestinian population as victims who need special treatment, but rather we treat them as human beings with the same agency and the same herculean task as the rest of us.
Support for the oppressive rulers of an oppressed people so that they won’t fall under the rule of a different ruling class is a massive disservice to a population that has already suffered incredible hardship. When we express solidarity with Palestinians, is it based on ethnicity, nationality, and political orientation, or is it because even though they live thousands of miles away, we have more in common with them than we do with our national ruling class?
To show solidarity with the working class of Palestine is important; in fact it is unavoidable for anyone with even a shred of empathy. But no matter the intention, the outcome of transforming this solidarity with Palestinians into critical support of its capitalist regime is a dangerous misstep that leads only to the continuation of the myths of nationalism and the legitimacy of the nation-state. In effect, this muddling of theory leads to confusion for the whole working class and its revolutionary movement, harming the possibility of freedom for the Palestinian people and all the workers of the world.
Until the time for global revolution is at hand we can only organize ourselves and the wider class so that all workers, including Palestinian workers, will be able to overthrow the oppressive system of capitalism that has caused such atrocities. When that time comes the Palestinian working class will play their own part in defeating the capitalist system in their own locale as well as the forces of counterrevolution that will inevitably attempt to respond to this radical act of liberation. Until then, it is nonsensical and directly harmful to give support to the very forces that play a role in the repression and control of the Palestinian working class.
Perhaps the hardest part of this struggle is to accept that as of now the class movement can only have a negligible effect on this ongoing Genocide, a massacre happening before the eyes of the whole globe. Yet the purpose of Communist organizing is not to do what makes us feel morally righteous, but to be radically honest with ourselves, to be brave enough to accept the truth of our abilities at this moment so that we may act in accordance with reality. We cannot stop this, neither through reformist demands nor rallying to the ideologies of National Socialists, opportunists, or outright reactionary nationalists.
We cannot stop this slaughter, in the same way we cannot stop the slaughters in Sudan, in Myanmar, or Ukraine. Our duty as Internationalist communists who hold solidarity for all the world’s workers, to tirelessly organize and further our capacity for change in this horrific world, which can only mean building towards an international revolution to overthrow this world encompassing system. This means continuous defense of our hard learned positions and strategies, not only in the times where it is easy to do so, but especially in the times such as these where it is most difficult.
We have a world to win, but we also have a world to lose. We can either learn from the mistakes of the past or repeat them. If you want to overthrow capitalism and build a world in which all people are free, only Communist organizations prepared to meet the revolutionary wave will be able to do so. If you want to support one imperialist bloc against another, join one of the various National Socialist organizations that warp the doctrine of Communism into the destruction of the working class.
And Remember…
Socialism or Barbarism, Communism or Extinction – There is no Third Way!
Further Reading
Capitalism’s Economic Foundations – The ICT
The Invention of the White Race – Theodore W Allen
- https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-22-october-2025 ↩︎
- https://liberationnews.org/psl-statement-trump-a-full-partner-in-israels-onslaught-against-iran-risks-wider-war/ ↩︎
- https://libcom.org/article/auschwitz-or-great-alibi ↩︎
- https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2015-08-06/1915-to-2015-a-century-of-genocide ↩︎
- https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workersvanguard/1972/0012_00_10_1972.pdf ↩︎
- https://liberationnews.org/palestine-the-struggle-for-national-liberation-and-the-role-of-the-u-s-working-class/ ↩︎
- https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle ↩︎
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