The Nightmare on Gaza, and the Left

Except for a precious few, the Left of yesteryear; a well grounded dialectical Left able to enlighten the masses with a class analysis of socio-economic and political realities is not to be found at present. Instead, an array of reactionary misleading misinformation is what the so called Left has to offer.

Rami Khouri, a Jordanian American analyst from the American University in Beirut and a frequent guest on Democracy Now which is an independent “leftist”newscast, was interviewed on Dec. 27, 2023 regarding his article “The Axis of Resistance” published in Al Jazzera. He refers to Hamas as “a representative of the Palestinian people when it comes to struggle and resistance.”  Time and again, Jeremy Schahil, the cofounder of The Intercept, another “left” leaning publication, also paints Hamas in several articles, podcasts and interviews as a “resistance group”. In his article “On The Record With Hamas” in Drop Site News July 9, 2024, he states that it “is not just an armed insurgency movement or resistance movement, but also was a governing authority.”

The “left-wing” historian Gabriel Winant who has a column in Dissent Magazine urges progressives in his article “On Mourning and Statehood: A Response to Joshua Leifer” published on Oct. 13, 2023, not to mourn dead Israeli civilians because that sentiment may be used to advance the Zionist project. Then there is the American “leftist” movement “Queers for Palestine” who supports Hamas while oblivious to the fact that according to Hamas’s strict adherence to Islamic laws, would see them all executed. Just as In 2016, Hamas executed one of their own commanders, Mahmoud Ishtiwi, after torturing him for hours for allegedly having sex with another man (Haaretz, April 3, 2024).

In general, the so called “Left” of nowadays also continuously ignores Hamas’s blunt oppression against women who are deprived of the most basic rights. 

They also repeatedly fail to mention the known fact that Hamas was established and financed by Israel. Since coming to power, Hamas has received billions of dollars much of which came as financial aid from Qatar via the UN overseen by Israel. Hamas also participates in ‘drug, arms and people trafficking, smuggling and money laundering in its South American operations’ (NBC, Oct. 25, 2023).

Israeli General Segev reported in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists (Hamas) ‘whose charter rejected the existence of an Israeli state in order to counter, split and sabotage the implementation of a 2 state solution’. Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky stated in his 1994 book “The Other Side of Deception” that aiding Hamas was part of  “Mossad’s general plan” for the Middle East to be “run by fundamentalists”. Between 2012 and 2021, $1.8 billion was given to Hamas (The Japan Times, Nov. 21, 2023).

Samir Amin states in his article “Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism” published in Monthly Review Dec. 01, 2007 that the ‘Israelis nurtured and supported Hamas from the beginning in order to weaken the secular and democratic currents of the Palestinian resistance’. He wrote, “…political Islam is not the spontaneous result of the assertion of authentic religious convictions by the peoples concerned. Political Islam was constructed by the systematic action of imperialism, supported…by reactionary forces and subservient comprador classes.” He adds: “ On the terrain of the real social issues, political Islam aligns itself with the camp of dependent capitalism and dominant imperialism. It defends the principle of the sacred character of property and legitimizes inequality and all the requirements of capitalist reproduction…it is fundamentally reactionary and therefore obviously cannot participate in the progress of peoples’ liberation.” 

Yet despite the above readily available facts and class analysis concerning Hamas, the “Leftists” continue to misguide and misinform the masses who justifiably have been reacting with utter dismay and horror at the atrocities the Israeli regime has been committing against the Palestinian people for almost a year. By ignoring its warfare essence as “dependent capitalism and dominant imperialism” and by ignoring the class interests of Hamas’s existence, the so called Left leaves the Palestinian masses’ true interests abandoned and betrayed. Without class consciousness, the people are unable to see that just as the Israeli State does not represent the interests of its people, neither does Hamas represent the interests of the besieged Palestinians. And so in end, the question and answer as to whose interests they do serve is shrugged off nonchalantly as an unnecessary detail. But before delving into the huge profits as well as geopolitical strategy this abomination has given to the ruling class, let’s take a closer and brief look at class contradictions in both Israel and the Gaza Strip.

It is also known that the Israeli State has oppressed the Gazans for its own economic benefit for decades, meticulously documented by Amira Hass in her book “Drinking the Sea at Gaza”. Hass, an Israeli journalist for Haaretz has lived among the Palestinians for 30 years. The countless facts and stats in her book however do not contradict the economic oppression Hamas has also imposed upon the Gazans where despite having an annual military budget of hundreds of millions of dollars before the war, according to the UN, the unemployment rate was 47% and more than 80% of its population lived in poverty.

Then there is the Israeli state’s economic assault on its own citizens where even the survivors of the Holocaust are not exempt. Gilles Darmon, head of an Israeli non-profit group to help the impoverished describes 1 million Israelis as “the soup kitchen nation” (The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 14, 2020). 10% of 9.7 million Israelis face “severe food insecurity” (The Times of Israel, Jan. 17, 2023). From 2010-2020, in fact, the income gap between the top 10% and the lowest 10% in Israel increased by an annual average of more than 5%. This is the fastest pace of the redistribution of wealth among the OECD (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), an organization of which 37 countries of so called democracies are members (OECD Economic Surveys in Israel 2020). According to an article published in the The Seattle Times July 7, 2010, Holocaust survivors lived in poverty surrounded by mold. 30% of the approximately 200,000 of these very elderly survivors eat at soup kitchens and get their clothes from charity yet still cannot afford both groceries and medications. It has gone from terrible to much worse for them where the Israeli state solemnly gives lip service on Holocaust Day; the ‘raison d’être’ of its very establishment.  On May 2, 2024, The Jerusalem Post updated the stats. Nowadays, 50% of Holocaust survivors are impoverished. 

Now back to the gains to have been made by this war against the ‘monster it helped spawn’. Hamas’s invasion on Oct 7 was outlined with ‘shocking precision’ in a 40 page document the Israeli State code named “Jericho Wall”. The plan included the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information so accurate that questions were raised as to whether there were leaks inside Israel’s security apparatus. The translated document was reviewed by The New York Times on Dec.2, 2023.

In addition, there were training exercises and dry runs by dozens of Hamas commandos overseen by senior commanders including the dismantling of security cameras, the use of paragliders, attacks on kibbutzes, taking over a military base and the taking of hostages all of which was reported by a highly respected veteran analyst of Israel’s intelligence agency known as Unit 8200 in July 2023. Further emails corroborated the report a few days later. Yet senior officers, including the head of Unit 8200, suggested to Israeli journalists that they were not shown these warnings despite the email chain discussing it. Haaretz described the warning which entailed that Hamas had completed its preparations because senior Hamas commanders had turned out to view the exercises. This was also reported by IDF (Israeli Defense Force) spotters based on the border. “And just like the spotters, the veteran’s warnings were brushed off dismissively”, Haaretz wrote. The warnings were distributed to senior officers and to field intelligence where a senior intelligence officer praised the veteran’s work. The warnings were again given by the soldiers involved a few weeks before Oct. 7 when a senior intelligence officer visited their base and the intelligence was presented to him. Despite all this, however, even on Oct. 6, senior officers described the evidence as “weak” (Haaretz Nov. 11, 2023).

In one of the warnings, Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally called Netanyahu only 10 days before the Oct.7 invasion that Hamas was likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation” according to the ynet news site. Furthermore, an Egyptian intelligence official said that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings Hamas was planning “something big” including the aforementioned direct notice from Cairo’s Intelligence Minister to the Israeli Prime Minister (The Times of Israel, Oct. 9, 2023).

According to Israeli authorities, the unpreparedness to the Oct. 7 invasion suggests serious failings within the IDF’s intelligence reporting and distribution system. But were they indeed failings? And before the words “conspiracy theorist” are muttered, I pose 2 questions: Firstly, have there ever been military attacks orchestrated or at the very least, allowed to happen in order to justify a bludgeoning war in response that would result in enormous profits and decisive geopolitical advantages? Yes indeed! In fact, the majority of them! Secondly, is capitalism in and of itself not a conspiracy of the ruling class against the exploited masses?! Yes it is! This is not a theory; the class conspiracy by the exploiters is a fact! 

A closer look at the circumstantial evidence to suspect the conspiracy of the ruling class against both the Israeli masses and especially against the Palestinian masses can be found first and foremost in the astounding profits being made from the hell on earth created in Gaza. On Oct. 29, 2024 Israel’s Energy Ministry approved 12 licenses for 6 companies to explore natural gas reserves in the G Zone, an area adjacent to Gaza’s coastline. 62% of this region falls within the maritime boundaries declared by Palestine in 2019 under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which Palestine is a signatory. Thus according to international law, by the recognition of the Gaza strip as a part of the State of Palestine, Palestine has a right to claim its own EEZ (exclusive economic zone). BP, ENI (an Italian energy company) and ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) were among those granted the licenses (Anadolu Anjansi, Feb. 15, 2024).

And just before, in June 2023, Israel approved the development of “Gaza Marine”, the strip of water off the Gaza’s coast containing an estimated 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Offshore Technology said the field would produce about $2.4 billion in profits noting that “Gaza Marine” being closer to shore than Israel’s existing oil and gas fields, would make it cheaper to develop. Meanwhile, after Europe cut off Russian oil and gas supplies in 2022, Israel signed a deal with the EU to become a keystone supplier. However, the main economic and logistic obstacles were the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the area. According to Wikileaks and Haaretz, a week after the Hamas attack, ’Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence issued a secret 10 page document outlining the expulsion of the Palestinian population of Gaza to northern Sinai, in Egypt’:

1. “Instruct Palestinian civilians to vacate north Gaza ahead of land operations.
2. Sequential land operations from north to south Gaza.
3. Routes across Rafah to be left clear.
4. Establish tent cities in northern Sinai and construct cities to resettle Palestinians in Egypt.”(+972Magazine, Oct. 30, 2023)

Annual Israeli arms sales reached a new record in 2023. According to the defense ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate known as SIBAT, arms exports totaled $13 billion. Between 2018 and 2020, that number was around $8 billion. Indeed, the war against the very same Hamas Israel created has greatly increased the profits of its weapons industry. ’Since Oct. 7, defense contractors have been manufacturing weaponry and equipment for the IDF around the clock, alongside previous orders for foreign clients which include the Asia-Pacific region which buys 48% of total exports followed by Europe at 35%’ (The Times of Israel, June 17, 2024).

Of course, the stupendous profits made by the Israeli weapons industry is only the tip of the iceberg. Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Jan. 2024, 10,000 tons of US weapons, 244 cargo planes and 20 ships were transferred from the US.  This included 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells  Between Oct. 8 and March, the US approved more than 100 military sales to Israel but publicly disclosed only 2. A list of known US arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade. “An undisclosed amount of weapons was also transferred from US military stockpiles already stored in Israel, known as War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I). The use of WRSA-I to provide Israel with weapons serves to further obfuscate the full picture of US arms transfers as there is no public record of these stockpiles’ inventory.” This is on top of the $3.8 billion the US already gives to the Israeli military annually which with it, is required to buy American made weapons. This form of socialism for the ruling class is not only given to the largest weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, whose stock prices have rocketed since Oct. 7 but also for companies not typically known as part of the weapons industry such as Caterpillar, Ford and Toyota’ (AFSC–The American Friends Service Committee).

The latest financial transfer is from a $14 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel that was passed by Congress in April 2024. Washington recently announced it will release $3.5 billion of it for the purchase of US weapons and military equipment (Reuters, Aug. 9, 2024).

The AFSC has amassed a list of over 50 weapons manufacturing companies whose CEOs and major stockholders relish the thought of the non-ending bombardment and onslaught of Gaza. The following is the link which was last updated on May 28, 2024 where one can find the list with its accompanying bloody details of which I highly encourage the reader to see for themselves: https://afsc.org/gaza-genocide-companies. Here are a couple of examples: 

1. General Dynamics is the world’s 6th largest weapons manufacturer. 500 of the 2,000lb. bombs it supplied to Israel were dropped in Northern Gaza in the first month alone after Oct. 7 (CNN, Dec. 22, 2023) and by Nov. 15 almost 210 more on Southern Gaza (New York Times, Dec. 21, 2023). During a call to investors on Oct. 25, its CFO Jason Aiken said: “I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of [the attacks on Gaza], the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.” 
2. RTX (formerly Raytheon) is the world’s 2nd largest weapons manufacturer.  On Oct. 24, its CEO Greg Hayes said to investors: “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you’re going to see a benefit of this restocking” (AFSC).

Indeed, this ongoing horrific carnage just like all others, serves the geopolitical and economic interests of the ruling class. Specifically regarding the weapons industry aside from direct profits for which the above website gives an encompassing list, war also provides the opportunity for the testing, improving and advertising of their death machines to all interested clients. Take for example when the Houthis sent a drone detected by Israel yet strangely was not intercepted. The official explanation was that a severe human error occurred in the Israeli air defense system. Really? In the middle of a war? Its retaliatory strike’s successful outcome at about 1,700 km from Israel displayed its air force’s long range military capabilities (Haaretz, July, 2024).  Infos-Israel.News just released a video on August 12, 2024 demonstrating Air Lora, a new Israeli ballistic missile capable of reaching both Iran and Yemen without being intercepted. 

All the lives that have been so cruelly and brutally destroyed in the last 10 months are only further desecrated by the superficial chest thumping of the petite bourgeoisie’s analysis of good versus evil, Palestinian versus Israeli, etc. The so called Left’s incapability of giving the people a true class analysis of the deep rooted problems created by the ruling class to strengthen and protect their position of power and wealth, demonstrates that a true Left voice at present, except for the precious few, is mostly nowhere to be heard. Until they are, the Palestinians’ right to self-determination as well as all peoples’ right to self-determination will be cruelly forced to wait.

Rachel