Link with anti-war movement in Israel-Palestine!

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. The ICC has also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, for his suspected role in the 7 October attacks, although Deif is thought to have been killed in a recent Israeli strike. The warrants are a powerful symbol of the increasingly hostile attitude to Israel’s war within mainstream, state-level international opinion. They mean that Netanyahu and Gallant could be arrested if they travel to any of the 124 international signatories to the treaty that founded the ICC.

Grind on

Whilst greater pressure on the Israeli state through the mechanisms of international law and diplomacy are welcome, its impact may be limited. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin in May 2023. Although it has somewhat restricted Putin’s personal movements, it has had no appreciable effect on Russia’s war on Ukraine, which grinds on.

US officials continue to talk up the “positive progress” they claim is being made in talks to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist paramilitary party based in Lebanon. The war there has killed over 3,500 people, and cost an already crippled Lebanese economy over £6 billion, according to the World Bank. But at the United Nations, the USA has again exercised its veto on the Security Council to block a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, despite 14 nations voting in favour.

As well as demands for external pressure, socialists must forge direct links with those struggling against the war on the ground, inside Palestine and Israel. This must include both links with the Palestinian labour movement and civil society organisations, and support for the anti-war, anti-occupation left in Israel.

Ceasefire! Peace: a real independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel! Equal rights! Jewish-Palestinian workers’ unity!