While the direct trigger for this war was Hamas’ armed attacks on Israel, the root causes lie in the British colonial period, which fostered Zionist movements to suppress anti-colonial movements among Palestinians. Subsequently, since Israel’s establishment in 1948, continuous oppression of the Palestinian people has been evident. Israel has established settlements throughout Palestine, displaced Arab residents, targeted Palestinian resistance (even peaceful ones), launched wars against Palestine, and implemented policies of racial segregation. These measures have forced many Palestinians to leave their homes, resulting in the displacement of a significant portion of the Palestinian population to other countries. Israel’s policies of racial segregation have led to massive poverty and hindered economic and social progress in Palestine. The prolonged oppression has led to armed resistance by the Palestinian people. We support the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israel’s settler colonialism and racist regime.

However, supporting the Palestinian people’s resistance against Israel does not mean endorsing Hamas. We oppose Israel and Western imperialist governments’ use of “terrorism” to attack Hamas. Nevertheless, we recognize Hamas as an ultra-right-wing obscurantist organisation that promotes corrupt, anti-working class and gender-oppressive policies in Gaza. While they actively resist Israel’s invasion, their indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians and adherence to Islamic fundamentalism hinder the cause of Palestinian liberation. We also do not support the Palestinian Liberation Organization (Fatah), as the Fatah regime, accepting the Oslo Accords, has become a puppet regime fostered by Israel in Palestine, extending a “peaceful” hand to Israel while wielding an oppressive fist against the Palestinian people.

Imperialist governments such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany hypocritically claim “humanitarianism” while steadfastly endorsing Israel’s colonial rule. They shift the main responsibility for this war onto the shoulder of Palestine and Hamas, allowing Israel’s unrestricted bombing of Gaza, making them among the main creators of the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. Their involvement in Palestine aims to maintain their imperialist hegemony in the Middle East. They now restrict their own countries’ freedom and democratic rights under the guise of “opposing anti-Semitism” to support Israel. China and Russia ostensibly support Palestine, not wanting the Middle East to be entirely controlled by Western imperialism, which could affect their regional hegemonic expansion. However, under monopolistic capitalist systems, China no longer supports Palestinian liberation. By recognizing the 1967 borders between Israel and Palestine, the Chinese government essentially acknowledges Israel’s colonisation of Palestine as legitimate. As long as colonisation and occupation continue, there can be no lasting peace in Palestine. Therefore, China’s proposed “peace between Israel and Palestine” is immensely hypocritical, aiming for regional stability to better export capital to Palestine and other Middle Eastern countries and develop capitalist economic and trade relations with Israel. Hence, relying on any imperialist power will not achieve the liberation of the Palestinian people or bring peace to Palestine. The struggle of the Palestinian people must reject and oppose any reliance on imperialist forces. Additionally, we support movements worldwide opposing Israel and advocating for the Palestinian people, aligning with struggles defending and asserting countries’ freedom and democratic rights, fighting against racism, and promoting the workers’ anti-war movement.

Many reactionary forces, including conservative liberals in China, praise Israel as a representative of civilization and peace, using Islamophobia to label Palestinian Arabs as “terrorists.” This is a complete distortion. Zionism sacrifices the interests of indigenous Palestinians to establish a racist Jewish state of settlers. While many Chinese nationalists superficially support Palestine, they are, in essence, aligning with the geopolitical interests of China and Russia. Some even espouse anti-Semitism, sympathising with Hitler’s extermination of Jews. Oppression should never justify creating more oppression. We oppose all forms of racism, not just against specific races and ethnicities.

For over seventy years, the Palestinian people have suffered from Israeli oppression backed by world imperialism. However, this time, we have witnessed Arabian ruling classes’ betrayal of the Palestinian people: the Egyptian government collaborating with Israel to construct walls around Gaza, Syria and Jordan suppressing Palestinian refugees and dissenters, Iran primarily concerned with fostering Hamas to expand its influence in Palestine, and Lebanon suppressing leftist organisations among Palestinian refugees. Relying solely on local Palestinian efforts is insufficient to end Israel’s colonialism and apartheid. The Palestinian people need support from mass movements in the Middle East and across the world. The wave of revolt against reactionary forces in West Asia and North Africa, as well as the Iranian theocracy, will pave the way for the autonomous resistance of the Palestinian people. The cause of Palestine’s liberation is the cause of the working class and the oppressed people around the world.

The workers’ struggles in the Middle East, together with the Palestinian refugees residing in various countries, often intertwines. Such resistance shall by no means choose sides among different imperialist or regional powers, but rely on struggles waged by working class self-organisation independently with the end of the collective defeat of all imperialist powers. Various self-organised grassroot committees in the Syrian revolution, people’s representative assemblies in Algeria’s popular movement, labour movements in Tunisia, feminist protests and workers’ strikes in Iran, the Sudanese Professional Association representing the struggle of the working class against military dictatorship in Sudan, all of them serve as a necessary starting point for future struggles that will eventually dismantle the power of bourgeois states in the Middle East, end the basis for Israel’s Zionism, and facilitate the establishment of a multi-ethnic, equal, democratic, secular and socialist Palestine, encompassing Arabs, Jews and others. To achieve the Palestinian liberation and prevent the fruits of struggle from being exploited by reactionary forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, we argue for the establishment of revolutionary labour parties in the region and beyond.

We hereby propose the following demands:

End the Zionist rule of Israel!

Workers and people in West Asia and North Africa unite!

A GROUP OF REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS IN CHINA