Netanyahu's terror attack against "world central kitchen": not unintended

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
3 April 2024

There's something distasteful in the hypocritical condemnation by Foreign Secretary "Lord" Cameron and Prime Minister Sunak of the Israeli military's shelling of the World Central Kitchen's aid vehicles.

    Cameron and Sunak say they find the latest actions of the Israeli forces "dreadful" and "appalling". Biden is "outraged and heartbroken".

    So the killing of 6 "white" aid/security workers (and one Palestinian driver) suddenly breaks their hearts? While the bombing to death of more than 33,000 dark-skinned women, children and men over the past six months does not?

    In fact these same western leaders still support and arm the Israeli's state‘s "war" – which everyone knows can never achieve its stated objective of "eradicating Hamas". But never mind. The "excuses" for this ongoing and unprecedented carnage are many. US Democrat congressman Richie Torres for instance, compliments Israeli Defence Minister Gallant on how he is "prosecuting a defensive war in the most complex warzone in human history" and is praised in Israeli media for "getting it". Yes, according to twisted minds like his, to "get" Hamas, everyone who lives in this most densely-populated land-strip in the world must also be "got". Or starved to death. Today, the denial of food and repeated terror attacks against aid workers have become another weapon in the Israeli state's armoury.

Calling an invasion "self defence "

Israeli spokespersons, including Netanyahu himself - almost smiling - claimed this targeting of the World Central Kitchen vehicles was "unintended". "This is war", he said.

    But no, the killing of Red Cross workers, humanitarian workers, doctors, or indeed journalists, doesn't "normally" happen in wars which are (somewhat inconceivably!) governed by international laws and conventions. That said, serial breaker of international law, aka Britain's Tory government, which is now complaining about the Israeli state's illegal conduct, can hardly point a finger.

     But what Netanyahu calls "collateral damage" is clearly systematic targeting - and it has happened over and over again in this offensive war against Gaza's people. Yes, clearly not a war of "self defence" as Netanyahu claims, in any sane person's book.

    Did the Israeli pilots "go rogue" on Monday night, or were they "just following orders"? We'll probably never know. But whether it's aid workers or Palestinians who're targeted, it makes no difference. Neither should be dying under Israeli attack.

     A report from Al Jazeera says that the vehicles were targeted one by one. After the injured in the first vehicle had been transferred to the second, it drove some distance and then was itself blown up. The third vehicle then tried to turn off the main road in an attempt to evade its own shelling - in vain. So yes, this was a deliberate act.

Against Netanyahu, but not the system

This latest IDF atrocity hasn't changed anything. The leaders of Britain, the USA, Canada, Poland and Australia whose citizens were hit on Monday, still arm the Israeli state and recognise its leader, Netanyahu. Yes, even while thousands of Israeli citizens are on the streets today calling for him to step down.

     Unfortunately, these demonstrators (mostly) don't protest out of sympathy for the unarmed Palestinians, nor aid workers who're dying every day under Israeli fire, but because they simply want the Israeli hostages to be released.

     However, this release depends on a permanent ceasefire and thus the withdrawal of the Israeli army's threat of a ground invasion of Rafah - which was supposed to be Netanyahu's endgame against Hamas. He and his generals refuse to withdraw. The question now is whether Netanyahu can find a good enough reason to hold fire for good, abandon his rabid rhetoric, and not lose face...

     As for Biden, Cameron and Sunak, and indeed proto-Zionist, Keir Starmer, who singled out these aid workers for their tears, they are nothing but old-time colonial racists: supporting land-grab, oppression and an apartheid state.

     Their forebears created the contradictions which plague the Middle East today; and, as their unsavoury progeny and followers, they cannot solve them.

     Already in the 2003 the US was unable to control the monster it had previously created to push the Russians out of Afghanistan - when it morphed into Al Qaeda. Today there are many more such monsters - including the Israeli state's own creation, Hamas. And what about the monstrous Israeli state itself, which has no qualms about extending its war further to target Hezbollah and "Iran"?

     This is the challenge facing the working classes of all countries today - here and in the Middle East: how to end the grip of imperialist capitalism and its monsters for good. It's within workers' power, because we produce their machinery of war and we keep it running for them... So we can stop it - if we decide to.