The surprise success of Hamas in the Palestinian elections is another demonstration that the great imperialist powers are having more and more difficulty in controlling the growing chaos in the international situation. Hamas is now the dominant force in the Palestine Authority (PA) with the prospects of its armed wing being integrated into the Palestinian forces. It wasn’t supposed to be like this...

If we were to identify a vice that is characteristic of each epoch of human history, it would certainly be the hypocrisy of the ruling class that would fit the bill in the case of capitalism. The great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, amassed piles of skulls when he conquered towns that had not submitted to him. But he never claimed to do it for the good of their inhabitants. It took bourgeois capitalist democracy to teach us that war is "humanitarian" and that it is necessary to bomb civilian populations in order to bring… peace and freedom to these very populations.

The elections in Palestine and Iraq, we are told, have been great triumphs for democracy. George Bush was euphoric about them in his State of the Union speech. The peoples of the Middle East are not just getting peace but freedom and democracy too!

For Bush, spreading such noble ideals around the planet is the sacred mission of the USA. Few of the USA’s main imperialist rivals – Germany, France, Russia, etc – failed to heed the message: despite the Iraq fiasco, US imperialism will continue to assert its interests wherever it chooses.

In a situation of generalised chaos, of permanent civil war, of daily terrorist attacks and the abduction of hostages of all nationalities including Iraqis, the American army in Iraq has launched a new land and air offensive. For the first time since the beginning of the war, Iraqi soldiers armed entirely by the US and under American command have taken part in the first phase of this offensive. As the Financial Times put it "it's better to confer military operations on Iraqi forces in order to minimise the political repercussions". On October 3 this resulted in the fall of Samara, 100km north of Baghdad. The assault involved bitter fighting and house to house searches. It is well known that many civilians died even though statistics are hard to verify. According to a recent inquiry by a team of American and Iraqi researchers, the number of civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion in March 2003 may be as high as 100,000, the majority the result of aerial bombardments by the Coalition, which now hardly even bothers to claim that it is using 'precision' methods aimed at limiting civilian deaths. Since the team was unable to operate in Falluja, which has been reduced to a semi-ruin, the real casualty figures could be even higher.

In the context of the acceleration of political chaos and war around the world following the September 11th events, the Middle East is once again threatening to go up in flames. After being overshadowed for some time by conflicts in others parts of the world --Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan -- this region is reclaiming its status as an imperialist powder keg. In a situation that changes daily, the bourgeois media is packed with a dazzling amount of information on and "analyses" of the region. For a start, the US bourgeoisie has made clear its intention to once again unleash a military intervention against Iraq. At the same time the chronic Israel/Palestine conflict has reached the level of an all out open war. There is not day passed without a new act of barbarism being committed by either the Israel State or its Palestinian rivals. The death toll on both sides has already reached the thousands, Palestine's economic infrastructure is in shambles, and Israel's is not much better. Both populations live in constant fear; the misery, the suffering, the desperation is reaching nightmarish levels.

The killing and maiming in the Middle East is continuing and escalating. The construction of the huge Israeli wall to keep Palestinians out is destroying the water supply to many people, and will also further damage the economy. It is just one dramatic step in the escalating cycle of violence. After the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian areas, including the near destruction of Jenin, the riposte was bloody and determined.

At the time of writing, the latest atrocity in Israel/Palestine is the suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco, which left at least 17 young people dead and scores more injured. By the time this paper comes back from the printer, it is more than likely that the Israeli state will have exacted its revenge � perhaps another air raid on a refugee camp charged with harbouring the terrorists of Islamic Jihad who have claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing. Sharon will pretend that this is an attack on a military target, but as ever it will be defenceless civilians who will die or see their homes reduced to rubble. This in turn will provoke new acts of revenge by the Islamic groups or even by hapless, despairing individuals, like the Palestinian bus driver who drove his bus into a line of Israeli passengers.

In our article, "The proletariat confronts a dramatic deepening of all capitalism's contradictions" published in the International Review n°115, an error was made in stating that Sharon, described as the "butcher of Sabra and Shatila" "was responsible for a particularly barbaric Israeli punitive operation in two refugee camps in west Beirut, in September 1982, when thousands men, women and children were massacred." In fact, contrary to what we wrote, Sharon, who was the Israeli minister of defence at the time, did not take part in the bloody incursion in the Palestinian camps, nor did he lead them directly. It was the militias of the "Lebanese forces", with the authorisation of the Israeli troops, who did the dirty work.

Following the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire at the end of the 19th century, the Middle East, the meeting point of two seas and crossroads of three continents, has ever since been the constant object of imperialist rivalries. In particular, the First World War led to the region being divided up between France and Britain, with Palestine becoming a British protectorate in 1916 and Syria and Lebanon falling under French control. Later on, the necessities of the Cold War and America’s grip over the Mediterranean led the US to support the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 (this also had the advantage of weakening Britain’s hold over the region). While backing Israel at all levels, the US also fought against Russia’s attempts to gain influence over the Arab states who were hostile to Israel. During this period there were three major Arab-Israeli wars: 1956, 1967 and 1973, and behind each one of them could be discerned the deadly competition between the eastern and western blocs.

Military operations had barely ended in Afghanistan, when another round of carnage began in the Middle East. As the bloodshed continues in the West Bank and Jerusalem, another military operation is being prepared against Iraq. Inexorably, capitalism is plunging into chaos and military barbarism. With each new bloodbath, the murderous folly of this system stands more starkly revealed.