For International Workers Action to Stop Arms to Israel!
U.S. / Israel Genocide and “Scholasticide” in Gaza
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| Food distribution in Gaza, 2 August 2025. Famine is spreading and hundreds have died in desperate effort to feed their families. (Photo: Saher Alghorra for The New York Times) |
From the beginning of the Israeli assault on Gaza in October 2023, it has been clear that it is a genocidal war, intended to drive out or wipe out the Palestinian people in the “world’s largest open-air prison.” It has also been clear from the outset that this war of extermination would not have been possible without the munitions and warplanes supplied by the United States. We called to defeat the U.S./Israel genocidal war and to defend the Palestinian population against this mass murder, and called on the workers movement to bring to bear its power to stop the slaughter.
By late 2023, the ongoing genocide had become so obvious that the South African government-initiated proceedings against Israel in the International Court of Justice. While the ICJ is a largely toothless institution, and international law is a myth, the charge infuriated the war criminals atop the Zionist state and their backers, in Israel and abroad. So much so, that in the United States, in December 2023 Congressional hearings, right-wingers such as the fascistic Elise Stefank called for disciplinary action, including expulsion, of students who charge Israel with genocide, claiming that this equaled “bullying” of Jewish students.
When Gaza solidarity encampments sprang up on campuses around the U.S. in the spring of 2024, they were met with vicious repression and the arrests of more than 3,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Now, leading universities have begun expelling and even revoking university degrees of those who protest the Zionist murder machine. The central accusation is that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism, a vicious slander (in particular against the many Jewish protesters who oppose the slaughter being carried out in their name). [1]
There have also been attempts to prevent faculty and public school teachers and staff from speaking out against the monstrous crimes being committee by the Zionist militarists and their imperialist arms suppliers, both under the Democratic administration of “Genocide Joe” Biden and under Republican Donald Trump, who has called for removing the entire Palestinian Arab population from the Gaza Strip to turn it into valuable beachfront property. The CSEW mobilized rapidly against such threats, both in NYC public schools[2] and, together with the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth, at the City University of New York.[3]
Even as the Zionist military has systematically destroyed three-quarters of all buildings in Gaza, murdering upwards of 100,000 people (out of a total population of 2.1 million), many killed as their apartment buildings were bombed, Israel has particularly targeted schools. Out of 664 schools in Gaza, by August of last year 564 (85%) had been bombed in what U.N. experts termed “scholasticide.” This was not so-called “collateral damage,” but delibertely striking schools that were serving as shelter for tens of thousands of people whose homes had been destroyed. Moreover, all 13 universities in Gaza have been razed. In seeking to destroy an entire people, the genocidalists aim at destroying their culture and historical memory.
In these days, the Israeli government (with U.S. backing) has intensified the genocide by deliberately starving the people of Gaza. And with already minimal food deliveries slashed by 90%, well over 600 people have been killed near distribution sites by Israeli forces and mercenaries in the last two months. And now the Israeli government plans to push all Palestinians out of north Gaza. The horrific reality has become so patently obvious that now even the most prominent Israeli human rights groups have declared the war to be genocide. One pro-Israel academic wrote (New York Times, 15 July), “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”
But registering the undeniable fact will not change that reality, nor will consumer boycotts, appeals to powerless courts, humanitarian pleas to governments or endless calls for a ceasefire. It is necessary to appeal to the workers of the world to take action, as the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza did in a July 23 “Cry in the Face of Starvation and Death.” Since October 2023, we in the CSEW have been calling for workers action to stop arms deliveries to Israel. In the last several months, port workers in Morocco, Fos sur Mer, France and Piraeus, Greece have laudably refused to handle ships bearing these death cargos.
The Palestinian people of Gaza are experience a cataclysm. The working people of the world are their only salvation. The workers movement must take action now to shut down all transport to Israel! n
[1] See “Weaponized Zionist Big Lie: A Cover for Israel/U.S. Genocide,” in this issue of Marxism & Education.
[2] See “Down with the Gag Order Against NYC Teachers!” and “Marjorie Stamberg Protests Gag Order, Speaks Up for Palestinians” (both in this issue of Marxism & Education).
[2] See “Defend the Palestinians! Defy the Witch-Hunters! (24 October 2023) at https://igclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2023/10/defend-palestinians-defy-witch-hunters.html.