the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 30, 2023
This article is translated from the October 27 issue, #2882 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
Militarism devours the whole of Israeli society. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), per capita military spending will reach $2,623 in 2022, three times more than in France.
Military service is three years for men and two years for women. In the event of conflict, reservists provide the bulk of the troops. After October 7, the State of Israel mobilized 360,000 reservists, a figure unseen since the Yom Kippur War fifty years ago.
Reputed to be one of the best-equipped armies in the world, Israel’s army has benefited from the financial and military support of American imperialism from the outset. Its military aid has represented billions of dollars since the creation of the State of Israel. Recently, it has continued to pour in at the rate of four billion dollars a year, and Biden has just announced the dispatch of additional munitions and weapons. Weapons such as the “Iron Dome,” designed to intercept rockets and short-range shells from Lebanon and Gaza, are being financed, as are offensive weapons. Like Ukraine, armed by American imperialism to confront Russia, the State of Israel has been transformed into one of its military appendages, with the aim of weighing heavily on the Middle East, with the Israeli population providing soldiers ready to die.
After the Hamas attack, the U.S. military sent the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford to the Middle East. The world’s largest warship, it is cruising off Lebanon at the head of a squadron comprising a cruiser, four destroyers, and several nuclear submarines. A second naval air group around the aircraft carrier Eisenhower was dispatched a few days later. According to General Kurilla, who coordinates U.S. operations in the Middle East, the mission of these forces is to "stand firmly by our Israeli and regional partners, to meet the risk posed by any party seeking to expand the conflict".
The main risk of war in the Middle East stems from the presence of imperialism and its armaments.