Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The War in Gaza

The UN defines a major war as an excess of 1,000 battlefield deaths in a year. There have been around 10 such wars going on in the world each year for the past half century. Around two dozen lower intensity conflicts bubble on around the world.

We rarely hear of them because war has become so normal it fades into the news background. Only sudden bouts of violence, in areas where our local capitalists have a particular interest seem to make the headlines.

The current war in Gaza attracts attention because of the oil interest in the Middle East, and its threat to the stability in the region. Palestinian and Israeli workers are being used as pawns in a struggle for control of a strategically useful patch of land. A very wealthy war machine confronts a poor one with abundant human resources.

Neither Palestinian nor Israeli workers will benefit from any victory – the only victory for them will be the cessation of violence, the removal of the threat of death from their lives. That matters more than any borderline.

Any peace, though, would only be temporary. In a world of continual warfare over access to trade routes and resources, violence will flare up again there or somewhere else – and you will be called out onto the streets once more in the name of peace.

The only rational response to a world of continual warfare is to deal with the global conditions that produce warfare. The division of the world into units of property by competing profiteers means someone will inevitably cheat and resort of violence to boost their profits.

Around the world, there are billions who own nothing but their ability to work, and who take no share in these profits, but who are compelled to fight or die in these wars. These people, the working class, live by their labour, their co-operation. Their interest does not lie in the division of the world into property, but the emancipation of their labour from the chains of private property.

The world should be a common treasury for all – a worldwide cooperative commonwealth would mean an end to the causes of this war, and all wars. Don't let yourselves be sidetracked into who started what, when or why; nor by those who ask you to "support Hamas", call out for "Victory to the resistance" or chant "No justice, no peace". The cause of the workers is the only route to lasting peace: the world for the workers!

Bill M.

5 comments:

Jock said...

Bill, this is a well written piece.
But would you agree that if you had Israeli soldiers invading your local Gaza street, it is possible your instinctive response would be a hostile one?

Bill said...

POssibly, but also a rational one, to the effect that there's no popint killing in a war I couldn't win; and that as a worker it makes no odds if I am exploited by an Israeli capitalist or a Palestinian one (or a peruvian one). I would, certainly, take steps to defend my democratic rights, but that is a civil movement, not a military one.

jim said...

War is one worker pointing a weapon at another while the masters make themselves scarce on the field of battle.Violence wether defending ones Democratic or other rights is not the answer. Marks and Engels had a major fall out over this issue, Marks for and Engils agin,as a socialist i take the position of Engels, one of none violence but of education and rational thinking.Keep educating Jim.

Unknown said...

Perhaps I've just been brainwashed but in that particular case in the middle east would they not fight anyway.
From the hatred thats built up over thousands of years and territory??

aberfoyle said...

Of course but as a socialist you must ignore the extremes of what is in the end a grab for land and security, as you well know after the last mega war no one wanted the jewish people and therefor were dumpted in palestine. From the romans to the french the crusades the brits no one has changed a thing in what is the middle east and not in our life time either sad to accept but true. i was not knocking your unerstanding just saying that violence is not the answer to any dispute.My background is working class scot and trust me if anyone has a grievence regarding land grabs my peolpe have.