Gaza:
Paradise Cannot Be Built Over Other People’s Hell

May 26, 2025

This article is translated from the May 23 issue, #2964 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

The Israeli government shifted to a new phase of war after reducing the Gaza Strip to a field of rubble, while famine prematurely aged thousands of children into geriatrics lacking the strength to walk or even cry.

The military resumed intense bombings in recent days, indiscriminately targeting homes, schools, marketplaces, and refugee camps. More than 460 Gazans died. Then on May 18, the Israeli army deployed tanks and bulldozers to conquer Palestinian territory by land.

Even while using blockade and famine as weapons of mass destruction, the regime declared negotiations were underway. But the negotiators in Dubai and Qatar showed no urgency. They were not being bombed. As for the Gazans themselves, they have no say in the talks. They cannot negotiate with bombs or starvation.

Now if Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas sign another truce and commit to some process to end the war, this will not stop the trauma for Palestinians.

By launching the ground invasion, Netanyahu intends to reoccupy and regain full control of the Gaza Strip, and by no means to let Palestinians live there in peace.

Netanyahu and other far right politicians in his administration aim to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, even though they don’t know how to achieve this goal or get it blessed by their allies, particularly the U.S.

From its birth, the construction of the state of Israel has been a mission of colonization, the brutal expulsion of Palestinians, and the denial of any possibility of fraternal and egalitarian coexistence between Jewish migrants and Palestinians. The oppression and dispossession of Palestinians from their land has continued seamlessly for 77 years, triggering ever deadlier confrontations.

This spiral has dug a trench of horror, death, and bloodshed between the two peoples, favoring the most extremist groups on both sides. Israel’s current leaders have taken this logic to its most extreme and barbaric end.

Israel’s far right has been more powerful than ever, following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. In the aftermath of this massacre, Jewish supremacists have vied with each other to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza. Some proposed using an atom bomb. Others proposed a deadly virus. And their allies are in office!

The current situation contains many unknowns. But Israeli governments have done their utmost for years to destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state, in Gaza or the West Bank. These supremacist officials have never been closer to success than now.

Imperialist leaders—particularly in the U.S.—have always supported the policies of Zionist leaders, because they allow U.S. imperialism to dominate the Middle East by force. American officials being the heirs of those who colonized and wiped out many other peoples in the past, the massacre of Palestinians doesn’t shake them. Trump only interferes in this war to force Netanyahu to act more subtly.

But Israelis can play a decisive role in changing the situation. More and more of them denounce Netanyahu’s war as madness for both Palestinians and Israelis. It is madness—because even while weakening Hamas today, this war also ensures Hamas’ future by daily creating new recruits whose only goal is revenge.

You cannot build paradise by throwing other people into hell. Peace cannot be built on a mountain of corpses or the deportation of millions of people. It can only be built by ending oppression and apartheid, stopping annexations and settlements, and recognizing equal rights between peoples.

Fraternal coexistence between the Israeli people and their neighboring Arab peoples can only be achieved within a revolutionary federation of the peoples of the Middle East. This will require overthrowing all the villains who currently speak in the name of the peoples—over there and right here!