ON WEDNESDAY, the US vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution demanding ‘an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire’ in Gaza.
The draft resolution also called the situation in Gaza ‘catastrophic’ and demanded the ‘immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and to ensure its safe, unimpeded, and widespread distribution, including by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners.’
The other 14 members of the council, including the UK, voted in favour, with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, proclaiming after the vote: ‘The United States will continue to stand with Israel’.
The US has repeatedly obstructed or vetoed all efforts by the Security Council to pass resolutions calling for a ceasefire since Israel commenced it’s latest war on Gaza in October 2023.
In a statement, the Hamas movement said that ‘the US use of the veto power embodies the American administration’s blind bias towards the Israeli occupation and supports its crimes against humanity in Gaza.’
Hamas added: ‘The US position constitutes a green light for the war criminal Netanyahu to continue his brutal genocide against innocent civilians in Gaza.’
Hamas further noted that ‘the Security Council’s failure to stop the genocide raises serious questions about the role of international institutions and the effectiveness of international law.’
It concluded by calling on the international community to ‘urgently intervene to halt this moral and political collapse and to pressure for an end to the genocide.’
In Britain, Starmer’s Labour government may think it can shrug its shoulders and pose and claim credit for voting for the resolution, yet at the same time it continues to send military equipment to Israel used to butcher over 60,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, in Gaza.
In fact, the minor imperialist powers such as the UK were too frightened of their own workers to vote against the motion and got the US to do the dirty work for them!
For imperialism and its governments in the US and UK, the issues of humanitarianism and genocide are irrelevant, except in so far as they cause political upheaval at home from workers, youth and students.
The overriding motive for the imperialist nations is not to just wage war on the masses of Gaza, they want some time to prepare a war against their own workers at home, and across the world. This is why they declined to vote with the US and let it do their dirty work for them.
What we are living through is not simply the Israeli regime attempting to ethnically cleanse Gaza for the Zionist dream of a ‘greater Israel’ but the outcome of imperialist plans to dominate the vital Middle East region and crush all opposition to this domination.
That’s why all appeals to end the suffering of Palestinians fall on the deaf ears of the imperialist governments, and all the resolutions and findings of the International Courts are torn up and treated with contempt.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, two weeks ago, blurted out the truth when she said: ‘Israel is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the UK, just like Ukraine is on behalf of Western Europe against Russia’.
It couldn’t be plainer than that.
The murderous wars being conducted by the genocidal Zionists and the fascist-supported Ukrainian regime are ‘proxy’ wars on behalf of the UK, US and world imperialism.
The world economic crisis of capitalism is driving these wars to reorder the world for super-exploitation. It is also bearing down on the working class at home as the ruling class gets ready to wage similar battles to impose the crisis on the backs of workers.
In the US, Trump’s latest bill will cut the medical aid to tens of millions of the poorest Americans, while his onslaught on migrant workers has seen thousands already rounded up and deported – 17,000 people last month alone.
In Britain, Starmer’s government has attempted to carry out their own version of Musk’s savage cuts to public services, along with benefit attacks on the disabled and pensioners.
The burning issue today is for the working class internationally to stand with the Palestinians against the common enemy by forcing their trade union leaders to immediately organise mass strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and bring in workers’ governments and socialism. The way to defeat capitalism’s war on two fronts is through the victory of the world socialist revolution.
