YESTERDAY, the Israeli state deliberately shut down all communication services in Gaza, cutting off approximately 800,000 Palestinians in the Strip from the outside world.
This move to bring the shutters down is an attempt to hide from the workers and masses throughout the world the extent of the savage genocide being unleashed by Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) troops and aircraft to drive Palestinians out of Gaza City.
Al Jazeera news agency reported that this shut down coincided with the advance of Israeli army vehicles into the city’s north western neighbourhoods while the ongoing bombing and destruction of residential towers and communications infrastructure has caused a complete communications blackout.
Gaza City itself had been under a complete internet and communications blackout for a second day yesterday following Israeli airstrike destroying infrastructure.
The Zionist state is desperate to silence the voices of Palestinians who every hour of the day face murderous attacks from a regime that the most damning report yet from a UN body officially found guilty of committing the crime of genocide.
Attempts to impose a blackout on information about the latest atrocities being committed with the support and approval of the US government will not, however, succeed in holding back the huge tide of anger sweeping the working class and youth across the US, UK and Europe.
This mass movement has brought intolerable pressure on governments to be seen to take limited actions against the genocidal Zionist state, with the EU bickering over proposals to block trade deals, while several European countries and the UK are proposing to formally recognise the State of Palestine at the next meeting of the UN.
With tens of millions of workers and young people rising up and demanding real action to end all complicity with genocide these measures are seen for what they are – mere sops to try and shield their governments from taking any decisive action.
The tsunami of demands for real action is being acutely felt by the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime.
At a finance ministry conference in Jerusalem on Monday, Netanyahu said ‘Israel is in a sort of isolation’ and called for economic ‘self-sufficiency’, citing the dangers of Israel finding itself in a ‘situation where our arms industries are blocked’.
Israel’s arms industry is the only section of the economy that hasn’t collapsed. The rest, from construction to the very valuable tourist industry, have crashed and the entire Israeli economy is only kept from bankruptcy by the massive injection of money from the US, including $14 billion in military ‘aid’.
Netanyahu blamed the massive demand for action and embargoes being called for across the world, on the ‘unlimited migration to western European nations by Muslim minorities’! A sentiment that would have won applause for Netanyahu at last weekend’s rally in London by ultra-right wing fascist thugs.
In his rant, Netanyahu called for Israel to become a ‘super-Sparta’ referring to the ancient Greek city-state, a small armed, isolated state with a rigid military structure.
Stocks in the Tel Aviv exchange immediately dropped as traders, much more educated in history, noted that the ancient Sparta city state was crushed and exists today primarily as a demented vision of an economically isolated nation of ‘warriors’ perpetually at war with the rest of civilisation.
What Netanyahu’s speech revealed was the weak and precarious nature of the Zionist state that relies exclusively on the arms and support of the US and minor imperialist nations in the UK and EU.
The working class has the power to end Zionist genocide by demanding its trade union leaders take action to end this support.
The working class in the UK, EU and US must force these leaders to call general strikes to bring down the governments that enable Zionist genocide and go forward to workers governments.
Workers government that will immediately break with the Israeli regime, recognise the independent state of Palestine and provide all the necessary financial and military support required to defeat occupation and Zionist genocide, going forward to a free Palestine where all races and religions can live in peace.
This is the way forward!