Support for ‘Free Palestine’ is a trap to disarm the proletariat

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In a previous article on pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Italy[1], we denounced the bourgeoisie's trap designed to divert the outrage over the massacres in Gaza into nationalist support for Palestine, i.e for the Palestinian state and the Palestinian ruling class, which is at war, notably with its Iranian allies, against a rival bourgeoisie, that of Israel. Against war and the steamroller of nationalism, the only perspective for the proletariat is to defend the unity and solidarity of workers in all countries, to refuse to allow workers to be drafted into a war that is not theirs, in which they are forced to murder their class brothers and sisters. This perspective of concrete and living international class solidarity is still a long way off, or at least it is defended today only by small revolutionary minorities. But it is the only possible way to prevent the bourgeoisie from plunging the entire planet into military barbarism. The enemy is not the worker from another country who has been forcibly conscripted; “the enemy is in our own country, it is our own bourgeoisie,” proclaimed the revolutionaries during the first imperialist world war, when the proletariat was still reeling from the declaration of war. In 1912 in the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) also pointed out that the national flag is always used to blindfold workers and make them lose sight of their class interests[2]. In other words, the demand for a ‘free’ Palestine is the opposite of proletarian internationalism; it is a call to continue the imperialist war.

This is what those who waved the Palestinian flag at demonstrations in Italy fail to see.

We have often demonstrated in our articles that the era of capitalism's ascendancy is well and truly over, an era in which the emergence of new nations represented progress in terms of the development of productive forces and the growth of the proletariat. However barbaric the wars that unified nations may have been, as was the case in Italy in 1860 and in Germany after 1870, they represented a step forward in the development of capitalism and, consequently, of its gravedigger: the working class. It was then possible for workers, under certain conditions, by organising themselves separately, to sometimes support wars of national liberation and struggles for democratic rights.

That time is irretrievably gone; capitalism is no longer and will never again be a factor of progress. The task of the proletariat is now to resist attacks on wages and working conditions and, by politicising their struggles, to constitute themselves as a class, to prepare to overthrow the bourgeois state everywhere, firmly rejecting all nationalist propaganda. This is a long-term task that requires workers to become aware of their interests and their ultimate goal. Revolutionaries must play their part in this politicisation and, even if they are still in the minority, continue to denounce without fail the dominant ideology, particularly when it’s propagated by organisations that claim to be working class or even revolutionary - all the ‘left-wing parties’ of the bourgeoisie. The latter, systematically advocating the defence of the small bourgeois Palestinian state on the pretext that it is ‘under attack’ or ‘weaker’, are merely endorsing the confinement of its proletarians in a logic of war, in the name of a supposed ‘liberation’. The slogan “Free Palestine” is a trap!

The genocide in Gaza provokes anger and indignation. These kinds of feelings have often radicalised the class struggle, especially when workers are victims of repression. The history of the workers’ movement provides countless examples of this. It is normal to get involved in the class struggle with our emotions, but these can also be bad advisers because they trap us in the immediate and in outward appearances.

However, the current situation has absolutely nothing to do with the class struggle. On both sides, the proletarians are hostages to an imperialist conflict, victims driven to crime and hatred towards each other. It is therefore necessary to take a step back and not allow ourselves to be drawn into the nationalist trap. This is obviously extremely difficult for the proletarians and politicised elements of Israel and Palestine, as they are directly immersed in this barbarism, without the political weapons of the proletariat, without the internationalist solidarity of their class brothers in other countries. They are caught up in the heat of events, amid provocations and revenge, the rage of despair and powerlessness, in an atmosphere marked by death and the ideology of war. We have seen that it was also very difficult for the proletarians in Italy because of the currently very low level of consciousness in the class, whose maturation is only just beginning on an international scale. They still have to take a step forward to be able to unmask the deceptive discourse of the ruling class. Let us take a few fragments of this discourse:

1. ‘It is only fair to demand a national home for the Palestinians, as the Jewish people demanded and obtained after the Second World War.’ The creation of the State of Israel took place during the Cold War between the two great imperialist blocs led by the USSR and the United States. It is the product of imperialist war, as shown by the regional wars that have constantly bloodied the Middle East. If a Palestinian state is created in turn, the same will be true. Calling for a ‘free’ Palestinian state means formalising yet another competitor on the world stage, calling for the endless pursuit of imperialist war in this dog-eat-dog world that will once again pit all the states in the region against each other, each seeking to rely on the medium and great powers that defend their geostrategic interests on the international stage. All states, regardless of their size and power, are imperialist states. All are compelled to defend their national and strategic interests, their place on the bloody chessboard of decadent capitalism.

2. ‘To abandon the struggle for a free Palestine is to implicitly accept the massacre of the Palestinians and leave the way open for the annexation of all their territories by Israel.’ Rejecting the terrain of imperialist war and nationalism does not mean abandoning the struggle! For the proletariat, it means regaining the means to fight for their own class interests, it means being able to acquire the enormous strength that stems from the fact that Israeli and Palestinian proletarians have the same class interests, that they can overcome these divisions imposed by the bourgeoisie. Yes, this perspective is not immediately achievable. Yes, the working class does not yet have the means to oppose the massacres head-on. But the alternative proposed by the left wing of capital is the creation of a new imperialist state already in the orbit of Iran and Hezbollah. It is an exploited working class that is being sent to its death by Hamas or another ‘more presentable’ faction of the Palestinian bourgeoisie that is just as barbaric.

Far from putting an end to the massacres and preventing capitalism from sinking deeper into war, nationalist slogans in favour of a ‘free Palestine’ only serve to distract workers from the only perspective capable of truly ending capitalist barbarism: world revolution. Through these campaigns, the bourgeoisie seeks to prevent the proletarians of the major capitalist metropolises from developing their resistance to the effects of the crisis and the rise of militarism, which are essential stepping stones towards the politicisation of struggles and mass strikes, the only means capable of providing a beginning of a response to the imperialist, destructive and murderous adventures of the bourgeoisie. International class solidarity is a powerful lever, the only one that can give respite to the working class on the periphery of capitalism, deeply impacted by war, while awaiting the emergence of an international revolutionary wave.

3. ‘The great powers or institutions such as the International Court of Justice have the means to end this war and impose peace.’ The peace plan that Trump is seeking to impose reveals to us every day how much of a new deception it is. This attempt is doomed to failure and the hypocrisy is total. Trump would like to be able to resolve the problems caused by this war in Gaza so that he can deploy his forces in the Pacific against the Chinese enemy, that is, to prepare for other wars. The idea of ‘peace’ under capitalism is always a pure lie and a pipe dream. The rare moments of respite, when each nation prepared for war through an arms race, are now turning into a ‘hybrid war’, against a backdrop of rampant militarism and high-intensity conflicts. War is not simply the result of the will or a decision of the bourgeoisie. War is a product of the capitalist system. As Jaurès said, ‘capitalism carries war within it like a cloud carries a storm’.

To give in to support for the ‘nation’, an embodiment of this system, is not only to accept but to promote the logic of war. The only way to end war, or at least initially to hinder the bourgeoisie's warmongering projects, is to reject all patriotism and nationalism, defending the unity of the proletariat, first and foremost in the major capitalist metropoles, where the working class has a wealth of historical experience, but also on the periphery of capitalism where the class may be weakened by the weight of intermediate social strata. The communist revolution will put an end to imperialist war once and for all by abolishing the economic categories of capitalism: wage labour, value production, competition, classes and national borders. This is why it is so important to defend internationalist positions and the autonomous struggle of the working class throughout the world, a working class which, in Italy as elsewhere, is today capable of developing its consciousness, albeit slowly due to numerous obstacles and the still strong ideological hold of the bourgeoisie.

Avrom E, December 2025

 

 

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Imperialist wars