Rocket Attacks on Israeli Civilians
August 4, 2006
The Israeli ruling class is a criminal class that carries out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and war crimes against the Lebanese people and others. The Israeli ruling class must be defeated; its Zionist government (which is anti-democratic since it does not even pretend that its authority comes from the consent of all of the people it rules and only the people it rules) needs to be abolished and its Zionist military needs to be disarmed and disbanded.
Whatever force including lethal violence it takes to disarm and disband those who use violence to oppress Palestinians is justified, and this includes using violence against not only the Israeli soldiers in uniform but also against the civilian settlers (who, though civilians, are not non-combatant civilians) when they use violence to oppress Palestinians as well. OK, we agree on that, right?
Now let's discuss HOW to defeat the Israeli ruling class. Obviously, the Israeli ruling class gets its power from having convinced the preponderance of Jews in the world as well as many other gentiles in North America and Europe that it is protecting Jews from antisemitism. This enables it to rule Israel and build up its huge military force and get away with its ethnic cleansing. Also, it makes it possible for the American ruling class and the Israel Lobby to get the American public to go along with the pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy. If Jews in Israel, and Jews and gentiles in North America and Europe, did not believe that the Israeli government was defending Jews from antisemitism, then the Israeli ruling class would be PROFOUNDLY weakened.
Since the Israeli ruling class is a capitalist ruling class that is attacking the well-being of the Israeli working class (inequality in Israel is second only to the United States in Western nations) class struggle goes on inside Israel. For example there was a huge general strike in 1997 against the government. But that was during Oslo when people thought peace was at hand. When the Israeli Jewish public, however, is extremely frightened of being attacked by Arabs, that is when they turn away from fighting their government and rely on it to protect them. This is when the Jews in Israel support their govenment's warmongering and its worst atrocities, as is the case today.
Now let us consider the effect of Hamas and Hezbollah* aiming rockets at Israeli civilians in Haifa and other towns. How does it help the Palestinians to defeat the Israeli ruling class?
Answer: Zip! Nada! Zero! Zilch!
I challenge anybody to show how attacks on Israeli non-combatant civilians help defeat the Israeli ruling class. It is as clear as day that it only strengthens our enemy. If the Israeli rulers didn't have rockets landing in Haifa and other civilian targets, they wouldn't have nearly the support for their war on Gaza and Lebanon that they unfortunately enjoy today from the Israeli Jewish population and much of the North American and European population, gentile as well as Jewish. If Hamas and Hezbollah didn't fire those rockets at Jewish civilians, then I am sure Israel's Mossad or Military Intelligence would arrange to make it seem as if they did. Absolutely. The Israeli ruling class NEEDS those rockets to be fired (or suicide bombers to attack people at bus stops, etc.) Without attacks on Jewish non-combatants carried out in the name of the Palestinian people, the CORE Israeli ruling class strategy for staying in power would COLLAPSE. Think about that, very very hard. Please. [Also, see this analysis of the relation between Israel and Hezbollah, especially point #2.]
Incidentally, there is a huge difference between directing violence against Israeli combatants versus non-combatants. If Hamas and Hezbollah only attacked Jewish combatants, the Israeli ruling class would not be nearly as able to persuade Jews and others that it was protecting Jews from antisemitism. It would be far more clear to people that the Israeli military was being attacked by people who were defending themselves against ethnic cleansing. Dissent inside Israel and inside the Israeli military would grow because the public would see the truth instead of being blinded to it by attacks on Jewish children at bus stops or old people in hospitals. Eventually the Israeli ruling class would face the same problem that the U.S. ruling class faced in Vietnam, which caused it to retreat: it could not rely on its own army to fight.
It is a CRIME that somebody is ordering those rockets to be fired on Israeli non-combatants. It is a crime against the Palestinian people! It is a form of collaboration with the enemy, far far worse even than, say, the crime of some Palestinians who inform on their people to the Israeli government.
But this particular crime is, unfortunately, not obviously a crime in the eyes of many people trained by our elite rulers and leaders to view conflicts in terms of religion or race or ethnicity instead of class. People have been trained to think, "If the Israeli ruling class attacks us, then the logical thing is for us to attack Israeli civilians." Just like Israelis have been trained to think, "If Palestinian organizations attack us, then the logical thing is for us to attack Palestinian civilians." That is why these criminals (both Israeli and Palestinian and Lebanese) can get away with it. We need to speak out nonetheless. We need to say out loud that whoever orders an attack on non-combatants in the name of the Palestinians, is a traitor to the Palestinian people. It is impossible to win a fight when one's own leaders are sabotaging it.
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* As reported here, when Hezbollah accidentally killed some Palestinians with rockets it fired onto Israeli towns, Hezbollah officially apologized for it. But of course Hezbollah never apologized for killing Israeli Jewish civilians. This shows that Hezbollah's aim was to kill Jewish non-combatant civilians.