Support the Palestinian People’s Struggle Until Victory!

Statement of the ILPS Regional Committee for Africa and West Asia

For the Palestinians and most people in the world, October 7, 2023  marked a  turning point not just in the struggle for liberation against Zionism and Israel’s worsening settler-colonialism but also in the struggle against US-led imperialism. On this day of October last year, Hamas led fighters from different Palestinian factions in a surprise, coordinated attack called Al Aqsa Flood. The Palestinian fighters were just exercising their right to self-determination and defending their land. The start of Al Aqsa Flood that day that  involved land, sea, and air units evidently shocked the imperialists in US, Europe and NATO. The Flood and its show of Palestinian unity and determination were indeed, as Hamas said, their necessary response to Israel’s violent and devious moves to eradicate the Palestinian cause, seize even more of Palestinian lands and establish control over mosques and sites that are holy and significant to the Palestinian people. 

 A year since the Flood, the world is shocked by the horrendous actions and campaigns of vilification of the just Palestinian struggle by the US imperialist-backed Israel. Hamas apparently sought to take hostages they can later exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Hamas took at least 251 hostages in their first attack while almost ten thousand Palestinians languished in Israeli prisons. Yet from then on, though the surprise Flood was a success and featured points where the fighters could have done it better, the unfortunate death of some 1,200 people was latched on by other forces to obfuscate the justness of the Palestinian struggle. Worse, to even justify a more chilling and ramped up genocide of Palestinians for Zionist Israeli expansion. 

Hamas stressed in their report, “Our Narrative…Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” the need to alleviate the blockade in Gaza, break free from Israeli occupation, and restore national rights. 

Instead, the US-Netanyahu Zionist regime has launched air and ground assaults on Gaza. These topped the bloodiest assault so far in the 76 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine. The US-Netanyahu Zionist regime killed over 41,000 Gazans, most of whom were civilians, and destroyed vital infrastructure and cultural institutions. For its deadly assault on Gaza, the Zionist regime was cited by the International Court of Justice for “plausible genocide”.

Much has been said and will likely be said about the Al Aqsa Flood and the ensuing events.  Amid the US and Israel’s nitpicking and questioning of legality of the Hamas attacks – while they conduct intense bombings and massacres of civilians including children in Gaza – it is even more crucial for the peoples of the world to show support to the Palestinian war of liberation. We must not let ourselves be hoodwinked by the US imperialists and the settler-colonialist Israel into blaming the Palestinians when it was the US-backed Israel who was the aggressor, perpetrator and beneficiary of the genocide. Let us continue to show support to the Palestinian people. In their war of liberation against Zionist settler-colonialism, note that:

• Al Aqsa Flood debunked the “invincibility” of Israel. The most powerful army in West Asia and one of the most highly regarded intelligence agencies in the world was caught flat-footed with the Hamas-led operation. 
• The defense of Gaza has united the various Palestinian groups fighting for national liberation. Some fourteen Palestinian groups have signed a declaration in Beijing pledging to end division and strengthen unity. Among them are Fatah, which heads the Palestinian Authority that governs parts of the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza.
• The brutal attack of the US-Netanyahu Zionist regime on the Gazans and all of the Palestinians underlines the cruelty of 76 years of Zionist occupation. Killings, torture, collective punishment, hunger, displacement, denial of services, resource- and land-grabbing – all these the Zionists are doing in its mad drive to “cleanse” Palestine of other ethnic groups.
• The support of US imperialism and European powers for the Zionist state has further exposed the hypocrisy of the Western governments. Their supposed advocacy for human rights ring hollow in the face of their political and military support for the Zionist genocide. 
• The inhumanity of the Zionist regime and the courage of the Palestinians facing genocide have brought the issue of Palestine to the world stage. Millions of people around the world now march in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people for national liberation. The calls for boycott of companies supportive of the Zionists, divestment from Zionist corporations and projects and sanctions against the Zionist state are getting louder in universities and public spaces. Israel is on the way to being if not already a pariah for the people of the world.

Highlighted by the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Zionists is the right of an oppressed people to use all forms of struggle, including armed struggle, to fight for national liberation.

Let us spread the call for stopping the genocide in Palestine and heeding the demands of the Palestinian people for independence. Let the people put pressure to the US-backed Zionist state that now seeks to expand the war in West Asia by attacking Lebanon and other members of the Axis of Resistance. This new stage of aggression by the Zionist state aims to expand settler-colonialism in furtherance of the imperialist apartheid project to build a “Greater Israel.” Truly, US imperialism with its Zionist settler-colonialist sidekick is the greatest  destroyer of peace in the region and  the whole world.

In the face of the brutality and genocide perpetuated by the Zionist state in Gaza and Palestine with the backing of US imperialism and its allies, the ILPS Regional Committee for Africa and West Asia calls on the people of the world to support the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation until victory.

Long Live Palestine!

Long Live the Palestinian Resistance! Long Live the Al Aqsa Flood!

Long Live the Axis of Resistance!

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!

Down with Zionism! Down with Imperialism!

 

Signed,

ILPS Regional Committee for Africa and West Asia