ISRAELI troops crossed the border into southern Lebanon yesterday in what they described as ‘limited, localised and targeted ground raids’ after approval was given to a ground invasion by US imperialism.
Bolstered by the unswerving support of the US, and its pledge of military support to keep Israel from defeat, Netanyahu gave a speech on Monday night boasting: ‘There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.’
Israeli bombs and missiles have already rained down on Syria, Iraq and Yemen and now the Zionist regime, bloated by its claimed success in bombing residential buildings killing women and children in Lebanon after the genocide committed in Gaza, is boasting the entire Middle East is ‘within its sights’.
All this warlike boasting however cannot disguise the fact that Israel has significantly failed to crush the resistance of the Palestinians in Gaza or the occupied territories, and that its latest ground invasion of Lebanon is fraught with danger.
The history of previous military invasions by Zionist forces have resulted in Israel being forced into humiliating retreat.
In Hezbollah they face a formidable resistance force better equipped and trained than in these previous invasions, and they have failed to destroy the Hamas fighters in Gaza, despite nearly a year-long murderous campaign.
Above all, what is rapidly emerging is a force that is far stronger than the Zionist state and its imperialist masters.
In Spain on Friday, over 200 trade unions and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) carried out a 24 hour general strike under the banner ‘Against the genocide and occupation in Palestine’ – the first general strike in any European country in support of Palestine.
The central demand of the strike was for the Spanish government to break all ties with Israel and stop arming genocide.
The dominant feature of the Spanish general strike was its spontaneous character.
No political party organised or led the call. It was clear that while some left-wing parties showed their support they played no role in its organisation.
It was workers and their trade unions who led the strike which had the support of students and youth across the country.
Netanyahu may boast he has the Middle East in his sights but the working class throughout Europe, the UK and US have not just the Zionist regime but the entire capitalist world clearly in its sights.
Carman Arnaiz, from the General Confederation of Labour, which led the general strike, said: ‘The biggest action we can take as trade unions is a general strike’ and stressed the need to continue activities in support of Palestine around the world.
Arnaiz also said the strike is ‘symbolic’ yet ‘significant’.
It was much more than just symbolic, it represented the fast developing spontaneous mass movement of workers and youth across Europe, the UK and US against a world capitalist system that in its final stage of imperialism can only survive through wars.
It is a mass movement that is forcing a revolutionary situation to the point of eruption, as workers rise up against wars to impose capitalist domination over the masses of the world while simultaneously demanding that the working class at home pay the price for its economic crisis.
The spontaneous mass movement of workers and young people rising up is a dominant feature of a revolutionary situation that is spreading across the world.
A general strike raises above all else the issue of the working class seizing power and putting an end to capitalism with socialist revolution.
The same revolutionary pressure that led to the Spanish general strike is being felt across the world.
In Britain, the TUC Congress unanimously passed a motion calling for a ‘workplace day of action’ on Thursday 10th October.
Now is the time for workers in the UK and across the world to call an indefinite general strike on October 10 to bring down their capitalist governments and go forward to workers’ governments and socialism.
The urgent task today is to build the revolutionary parties of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the revolutionary leadership required to take the mass spontaneous movement of workers and youth forward to the victory of the word socialist revolution.
There is no time to lose.
