The “flour massacre”: Israel's latest war crime against the Palestinians

As the presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, I condemn Israel’s massacre in Gaza City on Thursday, the latest horrific war crime in the nearly five-month genocidal assault on Gaza. Israeli tanks opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians desperately seeking food aid, killing at least 112 and injuring more than 750.

The Israeli regime is implementing a plan, in place well before the events of October 7, for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. The official death toll stands at more than 30,000, the vast majority women and children. Nearly 2 million people have been driven from their homes. The aim is to kill or force out all Palestinians remaining in the occupied territories in a genocidal campaign that can only be compared to the worst atrocities of Nazi Germany in the 20th century.

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It is not only the Netanyahu regime that is responsible, however. All the governments of the US-NATO axis have blood on their hands. They have armed, financed and politically justified the actions of the Netanyahu government.

On Friday, President Biden said the US would “airdrop” aid to Gaza, while not mentioning, let alone condemning, the massacre in Gaza City. This is a futile effort to cover his own culpability. American imperialism has repeatedly vetoed UN resolutions calling for a cease fire, and Biden is demanding passage of a military spending bill that includes more than $14 billion to finance the Israeli military.

There is not one war taking place, there are two. The same states, the same ruling elites, that are backing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians are escalating the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine, while plotting war against both Iran and China.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that sending NATO troops to Ukraine is “not ruled out.” Macron was not just speaking for himself. In the face of an escalating crisis for the right-wing regime in Ukraine, the NATO powers have already worked out the strategy and plan for the deployment of ground troops to the conflict, which would mean open war against Russia, the world’s second largest nuclear power.

Having instigated the war, the Biden administration is intent on military victory. The central preoccupation of the Democratic Party is to secure passage of $60 billion for military weapons to Ukraine. On Thursday, Biden traveled to Texas where, flanked by border police, he urged Trump to “join” him in passing legislation that would massively intensify the assault on immigrants and the right to asylum—in exchange for bipartisan agreement on war policy.

If the Israeli assault on Gaza has “normalized” genocide as an instrument of state policy, the US-NATO war against Russia has “normalized” nuclear war as a legitimate component of imperialist geopolitical strategy.

The genocide in Gaza exposes all those political forces, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, who backed the US-NATO war against Russia, promoting the lie that a war in Ukraine had anything to do with defending “democracy” or “freedom.” The two wars are in fact two components of a broader imperialist war of global conquest.

There does exist a social force that is powerful enough to abolish imperialism and carry out a revolutionary transformation of the world—the American and international working class. The war abroad is at the same time a war at home. While the ruling class allocates trillions of dollars to death and destruction, there is supposedly no money for decent jobs or basic social programs such as public education and healthcare.

The strength of the working class can only be realized, however, to the extent that it is organized and politically directed. The Socialist Equality Party is intervening in the 2024 elections to fight for an independent movement of the working class against imperialism and capitalism.

The SEP calls on workers in the US and throughout the world to take collective action to block the shipment of arms to Israel, along with other assistance that is being used to carry out the genocide in Gaza. This requires the building of rank-and-file committees, independent of the AFL-CIO trade union apparatus, which supports the war policy of the ruling class. We call for workers to take up the fight against the US-NATO war against Russia and reject all the lies of the ruling elite and the media.

This must be combined with a political offensive against the ruling class and all of its parties. The capitalist system is historically obsolete and is leading humanity to a catastrophe. The alternative that confronts mankind is socialism or capitalist barbarism.