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
Aug 19, 2024
An armed mob of over 100 Israeli thugs carried out a coordinated attack on the village of Jit in Israeli occupied West Bank. Some in the gang were armed with knives and at least one machine gun; others threw stones and Molotov cocktails. They burned homes and cars and punctured water tankers. When some young Palestinians attempted to resist, the settlers fatally shot one, 23-year-old Rasheed Seda, and critically wounded another.
One Palestinian man who managed to escape with his family, later returned to find his home burned. He said the settlers threatened him, saying “We’ll come back and kill you!” and said he should go to Jordan or Syria.
Over 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 6, in addition to the over 40,000 killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza. After the latest rampage, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu dutifully condemned the attack, claiming that those who carried out the attack would be prosecuted. His words ring hollow, however, since Israeli settlers who carry out violence against Palestinians are rarely even arrested and even fewer actually prosecuted. In 2022, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that charges were only pressed in 3.8% of cases of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
The attack was so blatantly violent that Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israelis shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.
This is simply lip service coming from a powerful figure who has incited such violence. When 10 soldiers were arrested for the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner and a far-right mob attempted to free the soldiers, Ben-Gvir said that any action, including gang rape, was permissible if it is undertaken for the security of the State of Israel.
Attacks by Israeli settler mobs like the one in Jit amount to pogroms, not unlike the ethnic-cleansing attacks carried out against Jews throughout history in Eastern Europe and Russia. If Israel’s history is any indication, the Zionist state will simply look the other way while encouraging further violence.