In Defence of Marxism

Today is the eve of the last of what has been a string of holidays for Jews around the world. It starts with the Jewish New Year, and then there is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and the last one the feast of Tabernacles. And as is the custom here people greet you with “Happy Holiday”, (it always reminds me of those sci-fi films where the people have all been brainwashed into believing they are happy when in fact they are not) but I don’t answer.

How can it be a “Happy Holiday” when just a few hours drive away in Gaza a little girl was shot dead on her way to school? I think the news said she was just 13. She had entered a restricted zone, and the Israeli soldiers in an outlook tower thought she was a suicide bomber, because she was carrying a bag that they thought might contain a bomb, so they pumped 30 bullets into her. The bag of course contained only her schoolbooks. Life is cheap when you are a Palestinian living in the most crowded place on earth. Why that little girl strayed into that restricted zone we will never know; why she died is very clear.

They say that torture dehumanizes the torturer. The ongoing struggle between Israel and the Palestinians has had the same effect. Many of the Israeli soldiers who are sent into the occupied territories to do Sharon’s dirty work are in fact reserve soldiers, just ordinary working class people, who have children of their own and wives waiting for them when their tour of duty is up. So how do they stay human after having killed for the last month? Many answers are offered, “It’s just a job”; “It’s to protect my family, and stop the suicide bombers”.

Present day Israelis can be accused of many things, but politeness is not one of them. In the thirty odd years I’ve lived here I have seen how Israeli society has become more, and more aggressive, rude, corrupt and selfish. This is a direct result of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel, like its patron America, has turned from being a bully into a SUPER bully, with Mr. Super bully himself at the head, step forward and take a bow Mr. Ariel Sharon.

Hamas has been firing very crude rockets from Gaza into nearby Jewish settlements. One of these missiles killed two little girls. So Sharon sent two hundred tanks into Gaza. Now to put this into proportion it should be stated that the combined tank force that the US and the UK sent to Iraq to defeat Sadam Hussein’s entire army was 200 – 150 American and 50 British tanks. Those fifty British tanks represented a third of all the tanks in the British Army. So Israel sent more tanks to defeat a bunch of so-called terrorists than exists in the entire British army. Talk about overkill!

Israel is out of control; its economy is, like its patron, bankrupt. The division between rich and poor is the widest in the Western World. Soup kitchens are springing up all over the country, while the government slowly whittles away at what is left of the welfare state, and squanders billions of dollars on a security fence. Every morning at around 5am I’m woken up by the garbage trucks – the garbage bins are always full to over flowing with half eaten food that has been thrown away. Israel is infested with cats, nice well-fed cats. One can see them climbing onto the garbage bins all over the place having a good feed. One can also see people rummaging through those same bins!

About twenty years ago someone I worked with who had just come back from doing a tour of reserve duty in Gaza, told me how he had seen Palestinians looking for food in the rubbish bins on his army base. I remember how clearly shocked he was by that sight. So how far have we come in 20 years? We have come from the Palestinians being allowed onto an Israeli army base to look for food, to a little child being riddled with bullets for straying onto such a site. We have come from an Israel where there was good social welfare and plenty of work, to a country where now Jews look for food in garbage bins, and where there is massive unemployment.

One can see many cars these days with stickers on them saying, “Only God can help us” and next to my flat there is a used car plot with Israeli flags and a huge banner quoting from the Bible, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one”. With a Government that is being held together with bits of old string and an opposition (what there is one) led by a man who should be playing with his great grandchildren, is it any wonder that the people, having lost faith in those they can see, are turning to that which they cannot see?

So, how can I, as a socialist – who sees the world as it is, but knows that there is a better way, an honest way, the socialist way – wish anyone a happy holiday?