The voracious appetite of the Israeli bourgeois state for the Palestinian territories began with the partition of the Palestinian land in 1947–1948, through a UN resolution that established the state of Israel and paved the way for the gradual swallowing up of the Palestinian territories. Since then, millions of Palestinians have been driven from their land. We are talking about a real uprooting, a planned appropriation of land and the population displacement of more than six million people from their land. Israel took control of 774 Palestinian towns and villages, of which 531 were completely destroyed and the rest were handed over to the occupying state. Millions of people who remained on their land, whether in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based, or in the Gaza Strip, have lived for generations under a regime of blockade, severe deprivation, discrimination and humiliation; in a word, apartheid. In the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, settlements have been and are still being built as a means of extending and consolidating the occupation and oppression of an entire people. In fact, about 40% of the West Bank, which has also been divided into three “security zones” by the occupying forces, is already in the hands of settlers, who have multiplied seven times since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and reached from 115,000 to 750,000. Over the years, Israel has denied the Palestinian people all their rights and rejects any possibility of a Palestinian state being established alongside it, as stipulated by the UN resolutions. Netanyahu’s presence at the UN General Assembly last year, where he presented a future map of the “New Middle East”, of course without a Palestinian state, is telling. Moreover, over the years, Israel has passed legislation to establish itself as a “Jewish state”, trampling on the rights of millions of other people who live there, with different ethnic origins, religious and cultural traditions. It seeks to oppress, annihilate and displace them. It is no coincidence that, even in our country, the figures show that the largest number of persecuted people who come as immigrants are Palestinians.
This any possibility of a Palestinian state being established alongside it, as stipulated by the UN resolutions. Netanyahu’s presence at the UN General Assembly last year, where he presented a future map of the “New Middle East”, of course without a Palestinian state, is telling. Moreover, over the years, Israel has passed legislation to establish itself as a “Jewish state”, trampling on the rights of millions of other people who live there, with different ethnic origins, religious and cultural traditions. It seeks to oppress, annihilate and displace them. It is no coincidence that, even in our country, the figures show that the largest number of persecuted people who come as immigrants are Palestinians.
This development has met with the reaction of the peoples, as well as of the neighbouring states and powers. The tangle of contradictions is becoming denser and denser and the fire of war threatens to engulf other countries. There is already the involvement of Yemen (Houthis) and Iran, while Israel’s hostilities with the Lebanese Hezbollah are escalating, leading to hundreds of deaths in southern Lebanon (455 people) and Israel (25 people), as well as the displacement of 150,000 Israelis from northern Israel and tens of thousands of Lebanese living in border areas with Israel[1]. It should be noted that the “widespread” use of banned white phosphorus munitions by the Israeli army in its clashes with Hezbollah has been reported in at least 17 areas of southern Lebanon since October 2023, including in densely populated areas.
In order to have the most complete assessment of the situation and the dangers it poses to the peoples, we should examine the main developments in the region through the prism of the contemporary processes at the global and regional levels, since they are the ones that have a catalytic effect on the region and, as the Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus, Syria, and Iran’s subsequent reaction show, may generalize the military conflict.
It is also necessary to focus on certain bourgeois and opportunist arguments concerning this war, to which the KKE is fundamentally opposed, as well as to trace the possible developments and the danger of expansion of the war conflict and its merger with the imperialist conflict in Ukraine.
ISRAEL'S OBJECTIVES AND THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THE CONFLICT IS TAKING PLACE
The main factor in the war in the Middle East is the occupying state of Israel. Israel’s aim is to cancel the two-state solution and to this end it does not hesitate to commit genocide against the Palestinian people and even to drive those who survive the Israeli massacre into the desert.
The Israeli bourgeoisie believes that it has the political-military and economic power to impose such a plan, which will make it a major power in the entire Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region, using both the carrot of economic agreements, such as the Abraham Accords, and the stick of military aggression, invasion and occupation of foreign territories and the military weakening of other rival bourgeois regimes in the region, such as, for example, Iran.
The role of the Israeli bourgeoisie can be enhanced by its geographical position as a transit hub between Asia and Europe, by the exploitation of the territories of the valuable coast of the Gaza Strip, which must come under Israeli control (or even occupation) at all costs, as well as by the exploitation of the hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean, including the EEZ, which should belong to the Palestinian state.
Aspects of this Israeli plan will be examined in more detail below, as will the international and regional context in which it is unfolding.
THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE EURO-ATLANTIC BLOC AND THE EURASIAN BLOC UNDER FORMATION
The developments in Palestine and in the wider Middle East, Red Sea and Persian Gulf region are influenced by the general rivalry for supremacy in the international imperialist system between the USA and China, as well as by the confrontation between the Euro-Atlantic axis, led by the USA-EU, and the Eurasian axis under formation, led by China and Russia. This confrontation has already led to the imperialist war in Ukraine, which has been raging for three years now and occasionally sparks conflicts over the future of Taiwan and the division of EEZs in the South China Sea (or East Sea), but also elsewhere, such as in Africa (e.g. the Sahel), the Arctic, etc. Iran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in July 2023 is not a detail or a minor event, nor is the enlargement of the BRICS in August 2023 with 6 new countries, 5 of which are in the wider Middle East region (Egypt, Ethiopia, UAE, Iran and Saudi Arabia).
The confrontation between the two sides is always presented under different pretexts, such as the “fight against terrorism” and the “right of self-defence”, which is exploited by the occupying state of Israel and its allies, or the formation of an “anti-imperialist axis”, fighting for a “just, multipolar world”, which is invoked by the opposing side.
In reality, the dispute is waged between the two sides for access to the region’s energy and mineral wealth, as an estimated 49.5% of the world’s proven hydrocarbon reserves (oil and gas) are located in the Middle East region[2], and for control of the key trade routes that cross the region and through which a significant part of the world’s trade to Asia, Europe and North Africa passes. 30% of maritime transport[3] passes through the Red Sea. Major powers that export their products to Europe, such as China and India, use this sea route. Notably, 80% of all Indian exports of goods to Europe pass through the Red Sea region, while China also relies on shipping for 95% of its exports and has a strong economic interest in keeping the Red Sea route open[4].
The access to these resources and the control of the transport routes affect the market shares, the economic and political-military power of both sides, which are interested in promoting the interests of their monopolies and having geopolitical footholds in the region.
At the same time, within the two blocs, the contradictions and deviations of the bourgeois classes from the general direction, which take place under conditions of uneven interdependence where their main powers have the first say, do not abate. The cases of Turkey, which is a NATO member state affiliated with the EU, but also of Ireland, Spain and Sweden, which recently recognized the Palestinian state, are particularly characteristic. They have thus joined the 145 countries that have recognized Palestine, along with Sweden (2014) and a number of other current EU member states that had recognized Palestine at a different time, just before the overthrows in Eastern Europe, namely Bulgaria (1988), Hungary (1988), Poland (1988) and Romania (1988).
At the same time, since 2019 there has been a more general realignment of forces, expressed in the relations between the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the return of Syria to the Arab League, etc., with the catalytic intervention of China.
Moreover, powerful bourgeois classes in the region, such as those of Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, etc., are taking an active role in the conflict, either as a potential part of it (e.g. Iran) or playing the role of mediator. In any case, their aim is to strengthen their position in the international imperialist pyramid, to remain unscathed in case of a generalization of the conflict and to benefit from it.
THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS AND SAUDI ARABIA
In August 2023, a spectacular rapprochement had taken place between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and everything pointed to this country joining the “Abraham’s Accords”. This was a US-Israeli inspired plan under which a number of Arab countries recognized and established relations with Israel, namely Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco (2020) and Sudan (2021). Earlier than that, Jordan and Egypt had re-established relations with Israel.
The Palestinian leadership assessed in 2020 that “the decision by the Emirates and Bahrain breaks with the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by all Arab states at the 2002 summit. This initiative seeks a just and comprehensive peace, with Israel’s withdrawal from all Arab territories in exchange for the full normalization of our relations with it. Israeli withdrawal first, then normalization of relations[5]”.
In practice, these agreements were aimed at increasing the business activities and profitability of the capitalists in the region, strengthening the political position of Israel, which occupies the territories of Syria and Lebanon in addition to the Palestinian territories, and facilitating the USA in its plans against China and Iran. The big loser was the Palestinian people, as in practice the abandonment of the UN resolutions on the establishment of the Palestinian state gained ground and the continuation of the Israeli occupation with the consequent oppression of the Palestinian people was promoted. The genocidal operation launched by Israel against the Palestinian people, invoking the false “right of self-defence” after the Hamas attack and causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, including more than 15,000 young children, led to a reversal of this plan.
THE DISPUTE OVER THE PALESTINIAN EEZ
The Palestinian territories before 4 June 1967, in which the Palestinian state was to be established with East Jerusalem as its capital, included the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land of 365 square kilometres where the Palestinian EEZ is located, as the rest of the Palestinian territory, i.e. the West Bank, has no access to the Mediterranean Sea. Since the Gaza Strip, as an integral part of the Palestinian state, has access to the Mediterranean Sea, it is entitled to have an EEZ that borders those of Egypt, Israel and Cyprus.
On 1 February 2015, Palestine acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by order of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On 10 October 2019, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki handed over to UN Secretary-General António Guterres a copy of the maps and coordinates of the maritime borders of the State of Palestine, based on the 1967 borders and UN Security Council Resolution 242. Al-Maliki asked Guterres to share these documents with UN member states in order to assist the Palestinians in their efforts to demarcate maritime borders, especially with regard to the EEZ. Al-Maliki said at the time that these documents would help the State of Palestine to assert its right to an EEZ in the Mediterranean, noting that the Palestinians have the right to exploit, invest and explore for gas and oil in this area.
The Gaza gas field was discovered in late 1999, and preliminary data indicated that it contained more than 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Palestinian Authority granted the right to explore and exploit hydrocarbons to a consortium consisting of the British company BP (later acquired by Shell, which subsequently withdrew), the Palestinian Investment Fund and the Consolidated Contractors Company of Palestinian interests[6], under a 25-year contract[7].
It is known that in previous years there were plans to exploit the deposits through a transnational partnership between Israel and Egypt, with a share of the profits going to the Palestinian Authority. Cooperation between Egypt and Israel has long been a preference of the USA. Egypt is the largest gas producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean and also the largest gas consuming market in the region due to its rapidly growing population, which has reached about 112 million. An underwater gas pipeline currently connects the Israeli city of Ashkelon with Al-Arish in Egypt. Israeli gas is liquefied in Egypt for export to European markets. Needless to say, Egypt is interested in exploiting the Gaza fields, which border its EEZ. In February 2021, the Egyptian company EGAS signed a memorandum of understanding with the gas consortium to develop the field “to meet the needs of the Palestinians for natural gas, with the possibility of exporting part of the production to Egypt[8]”.
At the same time, with the formal start of the imperialist war in Ukraine and the EU’s direction to decouple from Russian gas, Israel’s attempt to control and rob Palestine of its energy wealth has intensified. This is because the EU’s reaction led to a huge reduction in gas imports from Russia, without however achieving the goal of complete energy decoupling from Russia. At the same time, it has increased the EU’s need to import gas from the Middle East region and, of course, from the USA. In light of this global energy conflict, Netanyahu’s Office said in a statement in mid-June 2023: “In the framework of the existing efforts between the State of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with emphasis on Palestinian economic development and maintaining security stability in the region, it has been decided to develop the Gaza Marine gas field off the coast of Gaza. Implementing the project is subject to (...)the completion of inter ministerial staff work led by the National Security Council, in order to maintain the security and diplomatic interests of the State of Israel on the matter[9]”.
At the end of June 2023, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in an official statement: “The development of the Gaza Marine field is feasible after more than 24 years of Israeli obstacles that prevented its exploitation (...) We are working jointly with an Egyptian development company and the Palestinian Investment Fund (...). There were Israeli obstacles (...) and now it is possible to develop and exploit the field.”[10]
Later in the summer, there were actions by Hamas that were interpreted as preparations for a “gas war”. These included a diplomatic tour of the region in the framework of which Hamas’ Political Bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Egypt and Iran, as well as communications and visits by its representatives to Russia and Turkey[11].
At the time, analysts believed that Hamas was considering several options to prevent the plundering of Palestine’s energy wealth, including a military confrontation, which was then considered an unlikely possibility[12].
It goes without saying that the Israeli bourgeoisie’s appetite for the exclusive exploitation of this wealth is being whetted, as Israel is even drawing up a plan to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza into the desert or to other “willing” countries.
THE AREA IS A BONE OF CONTENTION OVER TRANSPORT ROUTES FOR TRADE AND ENERGY
The entire area is a trade corridor, as we have already pointed out. This does not mean that new trade routes, linked to competing interests and large capitalist investment projects, have ceased to be drawn.
One example is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which uses the port of Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. From there, a rail link will run through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to the port of Haifa and then on to the port of Piraeus, as well as to Italian and French ports. The initial plan is to extend the existing rail network linking the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Amman. This trade route would cost the monopolies less than the Suez Canal route. The USA, which favours this route, openly stated at the G20 meeting in New Delhi in 2023 that its plan is to undermine China’s “One Belt, One Road” trade corridor, also known as the “Silk Road[13]”.
The construction of an alternative canal to the Suez Canal, which is currently controlled by Egypt, is a truly pharaonic project. The new canal will run through Israel and will be named after its first prime minister, Ben-Gurion. The original conception of the canal dates back to 1963, as mentioned in the book The New Middle East, published in the late 1990s by the former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It envisaged the opening of a 250 km canal through the Negev desert using 520 underground nuclear explosions, linking the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea (the Israeli port of Eilat) with the Mediterranean Sea (the Israeli port of Ashkelon, just 12 km north of the Gaza Strip).
The latest version of the plan rejects the use of nuclear explosions to dig the canal and talks of 300,000 engineers and workers working for five years to open a canal 200 metres wide and 50 metres deep, which will allow two-way traffic and will be able to accommodate larger ships than those currently passing through the Suez Canal. It will be about 100 kilometres longer than the Suez Canal and will cost between $16 billion and $55 billion to build, but it will also be highly profitable, with a net profit of $6 billion (or perhaps more) dollars a year.
There are more than a few who link this construction project to the plan to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip for reasons of “security” and investment security, and to the use of this precious coastal strip of land for the transit purposes of the new canal’s business plans.[14]
There are certainly strong forces that want the above plans to fail, especially those who will be harmed by their construction. These are the monopoly groups and the bourgeois classes of many countries (China, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, etc.) that are not involved and will not benefit from them. Moreover, the opening of a new canal would ensure that Israel and the USA control the whole of the Red Sea, e.g. the Tiran and Sanafir Islands, ceded by Egypt to Saudi Arabia and located at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, which were occupied by Israel in 1956 (Suez crisis) and in 1967–1982. In addition, the entrance to the Red Sea, the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb, or the ‘Gate of Tears’, would also be under their control. It is, therefore, a plan that entails the intensification of the aggression of Israel and its allies in the Middle East. Let us not forget that in the region (e.g. in Djibouti) there are military bases not only of the United States but also of China and Russia, which recently carried out military exercises in the Persian Gulf together with Iran.
There are also other plans for gas pipelines, such as the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline (EastMed) and competing plans, such as sending the gas to Egypt or Cyprus for liquefaction and then shipping it to the markets. Moreover, a few days before the Hamas attack on Israel, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a private meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th UN General Assembly held in New York, reiterated the proposal to build an underwater pipeline to transport Israeli gas to the Turkish coast and then to the European market[15]. Of course, such a project seems impossible at this moment due to the Turkish bourgeoisie’s aspiration to present itself as the “protector” of the Palestinian people.
A similar undersea power cable is also being promoted, which would link power grids in Israel and Europe.
In any case, it must be stressed here that these or other trade and energy projects are exclusively aimed at serving the interests of the monopolies and have nothing to do with meeting the contemporary needs of the people. Moreover, they entail great risks for the peoples, since the profits of capital are at odds with the protection of the environment and the security of the peoples, and, as is already clear from the facts, they carry the seeds of the fierce competition and wars that spill the blood of the peoples for the interests of the monopolies.
A TUG OF WAR OVER INDIA AND ITS ROLE
It is important to consider India’s role in these developments and the clear desire of both the Euro-Atlantic axis and the Eurasian axis under formation to draw India closer to their plans. India, the largest country in the world in terms of population (1.41 billion), is one of the strongest and fastest growing capitalist economies (3rd with a 7.5% share of world GDP) and is the world’s 4th military power.
The USA is constantly trying to forge a political–military partnership with India, and to this end has set up the QUAD (USA, India, Japan and Australia), where the issue of containing the growth of Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region (Indian and Pacific Oceans) is openly raised.
On the other hand, India, despite its competition with China and the ongoing border disputes in the Himalayas, participates with China in a number of transnational unions, such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and is one of the largest buyers of Russian arms, as well as one of the main channels of the Russian capitalists to the outside world, after the numerous Euro-Atlantic sanctions that followed the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory.
Therefore, the creation of the IMEC corridor mentioned above is linked to the broader plans of the Euro-Atlantic bloc in the confrontation with China, in the fight for market shares in the Middle East and Europe. This path is linked to the strategic plan of the USA, on the one hand, to draw India closer into its alliance and, on the other hand, to reduce Chinese market shares in Europe. It is a double battle for the US over both India and Europe.
In view of the above, it is no coincidence that Israel’s political, military and economic relations with India, which began only as recently as in 1992, are developing significantly, particularly in the exchange of military know-how and weapons systems in the field of anti-missile systems and drones.
Of course, the other side, that of the Eurasian bloc that is being formed, is also developing similar relations and providing alternative routes for sending commodities produced in India to European markets, either through the North-South route, which goes through Iran, the Caspian Sea, Russia and from there to European markets, or through the Northern Sea Route and the use of Vladivostok, or even through a trade corridor that will run through Iraq and Turkey.
WAR AS AN OUTLET FOR STAGNANT CAPITAL
Today, the problem of the over-accumulation of capital, which can no longer guarantee satisfactory profitability has taken on enormous proportions. The bourgeois governments are trying to find ways to mitigate this phenomenon, on the one hand with the “green” transition (the notorious Green New Deal) and on the other hand with imperialist interventions and wars. Thus, “the ‘green transition’ creates new opportunities for big capitalist investments (e.g. large wind farms) and at the same time helps in the controlled destruction and devaluation of part of the existing capital (e.g. closure of lignite power plants). Similarly, imperialist war is beneficial to capitalist profitability. Both the military destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure and the ‘peaceful’ cancellation of the Russian-German ‘Nord Stream II’ pipeline open up a field for new profitable investments for capital. Already Draghi and other leading officials are talking about the need for a new Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Ukraine, which could exceed €1trillion[16].”
It becomes clear that “the green transition, as a key lever to relieve over-accumulation, seems unlikely to be enough to address the problem[17]”.
If we examine how war is used, we see that it has at least two aspects: 1) the increase in war spending, where over-accumulated capital is invested to bring huge profits to the capitalists and 2) the reconstruction of cities and infrastructures destroyed by wars, again for the profitability of the big construction companies.
The first aspect is the subject of a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which estimates that military spending set a new world record and, rising by 6.8% in real, inflation-adjusted terms to $2.44 trillion in 2023, up from $2.24 trillion in 2022, mainly due to the war in Ukraine[18].
At the same time, we should not fail to mention that “the war industry has historically been, and still is today, an important channel for defusing the crisis of over-accumulation, since it also constitutes a large pool of state spending that can stabilize the profitability of capital in several sectors. It should be noted, however, that the mitigation of over-accumulation through state spending on arms increases the need to use arms, otherwise there will be no destruction of capital[19]”.
A look at the data from the war in Ukraine shows the destruction of tens of thousands of vehicles, armoured and non-armoured, aircraft, helicopters and warships, while tonnes of ammunition and weapons were used. In early February 2024, military analysts estimated that 1,108 Israeli armoured vehicles had been destroyed in Gaza, equivalent to the destruction of 3 armoured divisions[20].
Furthermore, the cost of waging war is beyond imagination, considering, for example, that the interception of the Iranian air strike in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian officials by an Israeli bombing of a diplomatic building in Damascus, Syria, alone cost Israel $1.35 billion[21].
It is therefore no coincidence that Israel’s Aerospace Industries (IAI), a leading company in sea-based and ground-based air defence systems and drones, which last year bought 90.9% of Intracom Defense (IDE)[22] in our country, increased its profits by 49% in 2023[23].
The second aspect of capital’s profitability from wars, that of the rehabilitation and “reconstruction” of infrastructure, is also a profitable way out. It is telling that in the two and a half years of the war in Ukraine at least 106 hospitals and clinics, 109 religious sites (churches, temples, mosques and monasteries), 708 educational institutions (schools, colleges and universities) and 210,000 houses have been destroyed, according to conservative estimates[24].
The devastation in the Gaza Strip in just 9 months is also overwhelming. Based on imagery collected on 3 May 2024, the UN Satellite Centre, UNOSAT, reported that 55% of the buildings in Gaza (a total of 137,297, most of them residential) had been partially or totally destroyed[25]. According to media sources, 427 educational buildings, 248 hospitals and health facilities, 804 mosques, 3 churches and 206 archaeological sites have been destroyed[26]. And imagine that the war in Ukraine is being waged three times as long and stretches over a length of 1,000 kilometres, while the front in Gaza is only 40 kilometres long.
In summary, the reconstruction of war zones such as eastern Ukraine or the Gaza Strip is estimated to cost several billion euros and is yet another way to increase the profitability of construction companies.
THE ATTITUDE OF THE GREEK GOVERNMENT
The New Democracy government, like the previous SYRIZA government, claims that Greece supposedly has a “multidimensional policy” and is a “pillar of stability”. In practice, of course, our country is acting like a hinge of US-NATO imperialism between two hotbeds of war, with the ND government adding fuel to the fire of the wars. This is what the US military bases, the supply of ammunition and weapons systems and the participation of the Greek Armed Forces in the plans of the EU-NATO imperialists serve.
As far as the developments in the Middle East are concerned, the Mitsotakis government, following in the footsteps of the previous governments over the years, is promoting the false idea that alongside the USA, NATO and the EU there is Israel, an important “international player”, capable and efficient in protecting Greek sovereign rights, provided that we provide it “living space” and bind it closer to our economic interests. On the one hand, there is the military cooperation with Israel, the joint military exercises and, on the other hand, the aforementioned business plans, such as the projects for the gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, the power connection between Israel, Cyprus and Greece, and the “Bombay–Piraeus” trade route.
The perception cultivated by nationalist and other bourgeois circles, that the Greek government supports Israel as a counterweight to Turkish aggression, so that the Israeli military machine can support our country in the event of a military confrontation, is deeply misleading and dangerous. It is a myth that was most eloquently refuted by the outgoing Israeli ambassador to Greece when he stated that “no country should outsource its security to others[27]”.
Equally unfounded is the notion that Greek governments are weak-willed pawns of the USA and Israel, refusing to bargain by using Arab countries as a counterweight. This approach does not hold water, not only because Greek governments seek to develop relations with Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, etc., but also because it fails to mention that support for Israel is linked to major interests of the bourgeoisie and its allies. These are profoundly class reasons!
We see that the thorn in the flesh of such business plans to increase their profitability is the just cause of the Palestinian people, whom they want to annihilate. And since the “national interests” are also invoked by the government and its allies to justify their support for Israel, we must explicitly emphasize that no “national interest” of Greece or any other country justifies the slaughter of 15,000 children and many other civilians.
“The ‘national interest’ referred to by the government is identified with the interests and profits of the exploiters of our people. The enhancement of the role of the Greek monopolies is behind the involvement in the Israeli massacre of the Palestinians, the imperialist war in Ukraine between the USA–NATO–EU and capitalist Russia, the participation of warships in NATO operations and the concession of bases.”[28]
THE MILITARY INVOLVEMENT OF GREECE IN THE WAR
The Greek bourgeoisie, which expresses its own aggression in order to strengthen its position in the international imperialist system, is actively participating in the war plans of the Euro-Atlantic bloc in the region. For example, the operational headquarters of the ongoing naval operation “Aspides”, which has seen the deployment of the frigate “Hydra” followed by the frigate “Psara”, is located in Larissa under Greek command. This European operation is closely co-ordinated with EUNAVFOR “Atlanta”, a European maritime security operation in the Western Ocean and the Red Sea, in which Greek warships have participated in the past, and with the US-led operation “Prosperity Guardian”. Greece, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Denmark are participating in the latter, which will last twelve months.
Greece has also contributed a frigate to the “UNIFIL” force off Lebanon to monitor the arms embargo on the Lebanese political–military organization Hezbollah.
Since 2021, Greece has been participating in the international initiative “Integrated Air Missile Defense (IAMD) Concept”, to protect Saudi Arabia’s critical infrastructure from missile and drone attacks. A Patriot Missile Battery and its personnel, also known as the Greek Contingent to Saudi Arabia, has been deployed at a strategic location on the outskirts of Riyadh to provide an air defence umbrella over the facilities of the state-owned oil company ARAMCO.
Its presence there, in turn, involves Greece in the Middle East war. Significantly, the Greek Patriot battery was reportedly put on alert on the night of 13 April, when the Iranian attack on Israel took place. According to reports, the Greek system’s radar tracked the path of missiles and drones aimed at Israel as they passed over or near Saudi Arabian territory, and relayed the information to the US and UK operations centres activated for Israel’s defence[29].
THE IDEOLOGICAL–POLITICAL STRUGGLE OF THE KKE WITH BOURGEOIS AND OPPORTUNIST ARGUMENTS AND CURRENTS
ON “TERRORISM”
In order to justify its involvement in the war and in the developments in the Middle East, where it has taken the side of Israel and its allies, the ND government, together with SYRIZA, PASOK and the nationalist formations, labels the struggle of a entire people as “terrorism” and, in addition, tries to justify the massacre committed against them in the name of “Israel’s right of self-defence”. It even went so far as to abstain from voting on a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and a humanitarian truce in Gaza, which was voted for by 120 states. It also provocatively calls on everyone, including the KKE, to “condemn terrorism”.
The KKE is well aware that for several decades the concept of terrorism has been used by the bourgeois classes and imperialist powers to promote their anti-popular plans and to justify imperialist interventions and wars. “Terrorism” has become an elastic concept that can be used at will. In the EU, the so-called counter-terrorism laws are being promoted, which target the struggles of the workers, the farmers and the youth. Consequently, a mass demonstration or an occupation of a workplace or public space, such as a street, can be characterized as a “terrorist act” and the relevant legal provisions can be applied to prosecute the workers, farmers and students involved. Similarly, the “fight against terrorist action and radicalization” is used to justify measures of mass preventive surveillance and repression also within countries, for example in “emergency situations”, with a continuous tightening up of the repressive legislative —and not only— arsenal.
Similarly, the concept of “terrorism” is also used at the international level to serve the aims of the bourgeois classes. For example, the so-called Free Syrian Army, which is responsible for a number of crimes in Syria, is not a “terrorist organization” for the USA and its allies, while Hamas is considered as such. Similar examples can be found for other armed political–military organizations, such as the Taliban or the Kurds in Syria, depending on what suits the bourgeois classes around the world.
Moreover, the bourgeois propaganda lumps together organizations like “Al-Qaeda” and the Taliban, which were created, supported and armed by the imperialists for their own purposes before they lost control over them, with forces like Hamas, which came first in the 2006 elections, proving that this bourgeois power, for various reasons related to the violence of the Israeli occupation and the weaknesses in the action of other political forces in the Gaza Strip, was supported by the popular forces fighting for the liberation of Palestine.
The KKE has completely different ideological, political and philosophical views from this political–military organization. However, it will never allow the mass bombing of Gaza and the killing of thousands of small children, allegedly to eliminate Hamas, to enter into the consciousness of the people in order to justify the long-standing Israeli occupation, when all the evidence shows the real criminal aims of Israel against the Palestinian people.
Furthermore, we give no credence to the evidence of “ Hamas atrocities” fabricated by the Israeli authorities. Much of this fake news has already been debunked, including through the presentation of evidence at public events held by Greek journalists.
We take one more thing into account. The long-standing Israeli occupation, oppression and apartheid can indeed lead to great anger, retaliation and excesses. The war itself, waged for seven decades against the people of Palestine, is an atrocity in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered and tortured. It is crucial for workers to focus on the causes and nature of the war, on the tragic consequences of the long-standing Israeli occupation and on the massacre of the Palestinian people, who are fighting and have the right to fight for their liberation by all means, including armed uprising and struggle against invaders and occupiers.
ON THE “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS”
Some people rehash the confusing theory of the “clash of religions” or “clash of civilizations”[30], according to which all the above is due to the conflict between the Jewish or even the Judeo–Christian civilization and the Muslim civilization. There is no greater nonsense, as this approach obliterates the class contradictions, the struggle between classes, which is the real driving force of history. However, such an approach is very convenient for the bourgeois classes to co-opt the peoples into the system. Thus, today we see the “identity politics” and the “defence of traditional values” being used in the Euro-Atlantic bloc and in Russia, respectively, according to the priorities of each bourgeoisie.
In the case of the Middle East, the “Abraham Accords” signed in recent years by a number of Arab and Muslim countries with Israel to increase the profits of the capitalists —Arabs and Jews— underline the naivety or expediency of such approaches, such as the recent aid given by Jewish Israel to Muslim Azerbaijan to suppress the Christian Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
If we pull back the veil of disorienting views that try to blame different cultures and religions or, most often, Islamic terrorism, then we can discern all the aforementioned big business and capitalist interests, capitalism and its laws of motion, which are the cause of unjust wars under imperialism.
ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE STATE AND THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL
The emergence of the Israeli bourgeois state, which is a reality today, began a few years after the Second World War. The massacre of the Jews by the Nazis and the anti-Semitism promoted by the bourgeois classes in many capitalist countries before the Second World War led to the acceptance by the USSR and the international labour movement of the establishment of the Israeli state alongside the Palestinian state. This decision has been flagrantly violated by the bourgeois state of Israel, whose bourgeoisie has been trampling on the rights of the Palestinian people for decades by occupying a large part of the Palestinian territories.
The USA and the EU found their much-needed ally in the Israeli bourgeoisie and in its state, which gave them the right of arbitration together with the other bourgeois classes of the region, which also wanted to enhance their position. This geopolitical game, which has been played out in even more dramatic terms since the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, has as its victim an entire people, the Palestinian people, who have been promised a homeland all these years but whose dream remains unfulfilled.
The people of Israel are also paying the prise because they are victims of the policies of the Israeli bourgeoisie and its state. The KKE expresses its solidarity with the Communist Party of Israel, with the communists of Israel, Jews and Arabs, who are currently struggling in the lion’s den and raising a voice of resistance to the barbarity against the people of Palestine.
The KKE has expressed its full solidarity and support for the Palestinian people, for the need to have their own state and to be masters in their own land. At the same time, it emphasized that the the Israeli people are also a victim of the policies of the bourgeois state of Israel and the reactionary Netanyahu government.
This statement was met with hostility by certain forces of the “World Anti-Imperialist Platform”, which do not recognize the existence of the state of Israel, nor the existence of the Israeli bourgeoisie and the Israeli people, calling it a US base that must be destroyed.
These forces refuse to see that the root cause of everything that the peoples are experiencing is the barbaric exploitative system in its current stage, the monopoly one, where the struggle between the monopolies and the bourgeois classes is intensifying and is being waged by all means, for the exploitation not only of the workers of their countries but also of other countries for raw materials, transport routes for the commodities, geopolitical footholds and market shares. And the bourgeois state of Israel and its bourgeoisie is such a geopolitical foothold for the USA and the EU and not only a military base.
ON THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION AND THE BORDERS THAT EXISTED PRIOR TO 1967
Above we noted that the USSR supported the establishment of the State of Israel, and in particular the Soviet delegation to the UN stated that “the establishment of a single Arab-Jewish State with equal rights for the Jews and the Arabs may be considered as (...) one of the more noteworthy methods for the solution of this complicated problem”. At the same time, it highlighted that “If this plan proved impossible to implement, in view of the deterioration in the relations between the Jews and the Arabs then it would be necessary to consider the second plan (...) which provides for the partition of Palestine into two independent autonomous States, one Jewish and one Arab. I repeat that such a solution of the Palestine problem would be justifiable only if relations between the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine indeed proved to be so bad that it would be impossible to reconcile them and to ensure the peaceful co-existence of the Arabs and the Jews”. The Soviet delegation also criticized the “Western European states” stating that "the fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people, and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners, explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State”[31].
Pravda wrote that “the UN partition resolution (...) ensures the liberation of Palestine from foreign dependence, fulfils the national hopes of the Jewish and Arab peoples, enables the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine to become masters in their own land, free from foreign imperialist influence[32]”. The Arab-Israeli conflict was denounced as “the result of British and American policies” in the region.
We note all this to underline that there is a historical continuity in this issue and that the UN resolution on the two-state solution has evolved over the years[33], while what is true today is that the Israeli state is an occupying state that blatantly violates this UN resolution and the rights of the Palestinian people.
Today, therefore, approaches such as that of MeRA25 (Y. Varoufakis) and its international alliance Diem 25, which opposes the two-state solution since 2021, arguing that it is now impossible for a Palestinian state to exist given that the Israeli settlements have created a fait accompli that must be accepted, kowtow to Israel’s aggression and accept the reality imposed by its military power and that of its allies. This approach, which calls on us to renounce the right of the Palestinian people to establish their own state on the borders that existed prior to 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, which is the most widely accepted international demand (145 states have recognized it), and to turn the Palestinian question from a “national question into a human rights question” is in fact an acceptance of the Israeli occupation; an acceptance that the Palestinian people will not have a homeland, as long as some “human rights” are granted to the Palestinians under occupation. This cosmopolitan approach, which erases national and other characteristics of peoples in the name of a vague “universalism”, is anything but progressive, because it seeks to sow defeatism among the Palestinian people and all the peoples struggling within an international negative correlation of forces.
THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIALISM AND THE NATIONAL LIBERATION QUESTION
Various Trotskyist forces, which have an inherent tendency to obfuscate issues concerning the struggle for socialism and to deny the possibility of building it in one country, express a concern about the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people and about whether such a struggle can exist under imperialism, especially when we say that our era is the era of transition from capitalism to socialism. Some criticize the KKE, saying that while in all other cases it speaks about the necessity and timeliness of socialism, in this case it focuses only on the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state[34].
However, these forces seem to ignore the fact that, although the entire world is dominated by monopolies and we are in the monopoly stage of capitalism, which Lenin defined as imperialism, this does not mean that national liberation struggles against foreign occupation cannot take place. On the Palestinian side, such a just national liberation war is being waged; a war against occupation, with the aim of asserting the right of the Palestinian people to their homeland. There can be no doubt or debate about this. On the side of Israel and its allies (USA, NATO, EU), it is an unjust imperialist war to perpetuate the occupation and to serve their interests in the region.
After all, it was in the era of imperialism that the KKE led such a struggle, forming the National Liberation Front (EAM), the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) and the other resistance organizations against the foreign (German, Italian and Bulgarian) fascist occupation in the period from 1941 to 1944. The KKE was the mind, the organizer and the lifeblood of this great epic of resistance. We are proud of our Party for having been at the forefront of this struggle, and any criticism we make concerns the ideological and political inability of our Party to link this great struggle to the cause of workers’ power.
For the KKE, socialism is necessary and timely for the entire world, for every capitalist country. However, in the conditions under which the workers’–people’s struggle is waged in every country, important “links” emerge that can give impetus to the class struggle. It is a crucial question for the Communist Party and the labour movement in preparing, rallying and mobilizing the workers’–people’s forces to take these links into account in the struggle for socialism. And in Palestine today, the key “link” is the throwing off of the foreign Israeli occupation and the struggle for the establishment of the Palestinian state.
Therefore, it is the task of the Palestinian working class and its vanguard, the CP, to formulate such a line that connects this “link” with the cause of the struggle for social emancipation, workers’ power and the building of the new, socialist society.
Our task, that of the workers and youth in other countries, is to support this struggle and to stand by its side now in the conflict with the occupying forces. The KKE maintains relations with the Palestinian CP and the Palestinian People’s Party, which emerged from the split within the CP of Palestine in 1991, and has contacts with the Popular Front and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Our Party respects the struggle of all these forces, which is taking place under particularly difficult conditions, and expresses its solidarity with them in various ways on every possible occasion.
THE ALLEGED “RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENCE”
Today, International Law is becoming more and more reactionary and is used by the imperialist powers as they see fit, in the context of their competition and to the detriment of the peoples. The communists must fight against views that obscure this fact. One such case is the invocation of “Israel’s right of self-defence”, which has been rehashed in Greece by the ND government and the other bourgeois parties (SYRIZA, PASOK, etc.) that voted for a series of resolutions in the European Parliament that legitimize Israel’s crimes in the name of its “right of self-defence”.
Formally, International Law currently provides for three cases of conducting military operations on the territory of another state: 1) by resolution of the United Nations Security Council, as in the case of Libya; 2) at the invitation of the legitimate government of the state in question, as in the case of Russia’s military operations in Syria; and 3) for reasons of “self-defence”.
“Self-defence” and “Article 51” of the UN Charter have been invoked by the USA and Turkey from the very beginning to justify their air and ground military operations in Syria.
It is worth noting that Article 51 of the UN Charter, which concerns a country’s right of self-defence against armed attack, was not always formulated in this way. Originally, it applied only in the case of an “invasion by a foreign army” of a UN member state and gave it the right, until the relevant UN Security Council resolution was adopted, to respond to this attack against the attacking state with a strike in self-defence, even outside its borders.
However, after 11 September 2001, the USA appealed to the UN Security Council for an “expanded interpretation” of this article, so that it could be invoked in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, in the war against the Taliban. The UN Security Council (and Russia) accepted the US request and now self-defence does not refer to a response to an attack (military invasion) by a specific state, but to armed attack in general, which is obviously open to interpretation.
In the case of Israel, the invocation of this right is an unprecedented provocation, since it has flagrantly violated every concept of international law, occupies foreign territory, refuses to comply with UN resolutions (e.g. on the return of refugees), has established illegal settlements and is essentially an occupying power, acting as such and committing genocide against a people. Those who invoke “Israel’s right of self-defence”, i.e. the right of an occupying power to defend itself, are like those who justify the Nazi massacres in Distomo, Kalavrita, Kommeno and so many other crimes committed by the fascist occupiers in our country as “self-defence”.
THE UNACCEPTABLE EQUATION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE WITH ANTI-SEMITISM
In a number of capitalist countries whose bourgeois classes openly support the murderous acts of Israel, such as the USA and Germany, a repressive mechanism has been unleashed against demonstrations in solidarity with the massacred Palestinians, in contradiction even with the bourgeois proclamations of “freedom of speech”. In the USA, students and professors have been arrested and expelled from universities, while in a number of cities in Germany demonstrations in favour of the Palestinian people have been banned.
The entire repressive operation is dressed up with the unacceptable equation of solidarity with the Palestinian people with anti-Semitism. Solidarity is labelled as hate speech in order to legitimize many more measures of censorship, even preventive ones. In Greece, a part of the media and some government officials have drawn a similar equation. The statements of the Minister of Education, K. Pierrakakis, after a meeting with members of the Presidium of the Central Board of Jewish Communities, in which he tried to identify the solidarity of the teachers’ trade union movement with the people of Palestine with anti-Semitism, were telling.
The KKE and the trade unions were quick to take a stand against these disorienting statements, which are based on ignorance of the role played not only by the USSR but also by the organized trade union movement in the creation of the Israeli state. For example, the founding conference of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in 1945 adopted a special resolution in favour of the establishment of the Israeli state[35], while a few years later the WFTU again condemned Israel’s aggressive and expansionist actions against the Arab peoples[36]. To this day, the WFTU continues to struggle for a free and independent Palestine on the borders that existed prior to 1967.
As far as our country is concerned, it is well known that during the Nazi occupation and when part of the bourgeoisie collaborated with the Nazis and implemented the plans of the Holocaust of the Jews, the role of EAM and ELAS stood out, which, following the direction given by the KKE, rescued Jews from the Nazi atrocities and recruited many of them to the armed liberation struggle[37].
Today, the demonstrations in the USA, Germany, other European countries and Israel, with the participation of many Jews, against the anti-popular policies of the reactionary Netanyahu government, are the best answer to this unhistorical approach. It is obvious to any reasonable person that criticism, even polemic, against bourgeois states and governments, for example against the USA or the reactionary Ukrainian Zelenskiy government, is in no way identified with nationalist hatred against the US or the Ukrainian people. There is a clear distinction, and this is also true in the case of the separation between the criminal state of Israel and the condemnation of its crimes, and the Jews in general, or the Jewish population of Israel.
THE DISTORTED CONCEPT OF THE “TWO AXES”
Given that the war in Palestine is objectively intertwined with the competition between the imperialist powers (USA, NATO, EU on the one hand and Russia, China, Iran, etc. on the other) in the region and internationally, two different, but equally wrong perceptions arise:
a) One which claims that an “anti-imperialist axis”(Iran-Russia-China) is being formed that must be supported against the US imperialists and their allies;
b) A second, less widespread at present but equally erroneous, which says that we cannot support the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation because it is part of the imperialist conflict.
These two approaches start from the correct observation that blocs of opposing forces are forming; on the one hand, there is the imperialist bloc of the Euro-Atlantic forces, and on the other hand, the formation of the Eurasian bloc (Russia-China-Iran etc.) is evident, which the first view distorts as an alleged “anti-imperialist axis”.
Thus, in practice, the class-oriented approach is abandoned and imperialism is limited to the aggressive policy of the USA and its allies, ignoring that monopolies prevail in China and Russia and that the bourgeois classes of these countries are also trying to promote their plans.
Russia, China and Iran do not support the Palestinian people because they support their just cause, but because they want to hinder and damage the USA’s plans in the region. Therefore, there is no “anti-imperialist axis” formed by these powers; they are working for their own interests and monopolies, and that is why they cannot be consistent in supporting the Palestinian struggle. It is another thing that the Palestinians, like any national liberation or even revolutionary movement, are right to exploit these contradictions in their struggle against the Israeli occupation.
The second view, while correctly approaching the class nature of the imperialist blocs involved, makes the big mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as it rejects the just struggle of the Palestinian people in the name of imperialist war. However, as history has shown, under conditions of international imperialist confrontation, even war, the outbreak of just national liberation wars is not excluded. Lenin dealt with these questions in detail under the conditions of the First World War, in response to the corresponding erroneous positions of Luxemburg.
Today, when there is indeed a real possibility of a generalization of the conflict in the Middle East, even its merger with the war in Ukraine or the opening of new fronts, the imperialist nature of the conflict and of the main powers that are competing for their own geopolitical aspirations, should not lead to a withdrawal of the support for the Palestinian people. On the contrary, it is imperative to continue supporting their just struggle even further.
The KKE is on the right side of history both in the case of the conflict in Ukraine and in the case of Palestine, because it stands with the people and struggles against the imperialists, the monopolies and capitalism, which are shedding the blood of the peoples.
THE RISKS OF A GENERALIZATION OF THE CONFLICT AND ITS CONFLUENCE WITH THE WAR FRONT IN UKRAINE
At various points in this article we have already mentioned the relationship and interaction between the two wars taking place in Ukraine and Palestine. This interaction has to do with the opening of new trade and energy routes or the closing of others and the cementing or breaking off of economic, political and military relations between bourgeois states. The question is whether these two wars can be merged into one, which could lead to a conflagration.
Looking at the map, there are three areas where an ignition of conflicts currently considered local, small-scale or latent could lead to a geographical convergence of the two hotbeds of war.
1) The developments in the Balkans revolve around the unacceptable claims of the Turkish bourgeoisie in the Aegean, which raise questions of sovereign rights and sovereignty, a possible new flare-up in the protectorate of Kosovo (mainly incited by the “Greater Albania” narrative), a hitch in the protectorate of Bosnia (which could lead to its sudden end), the volatile political situation in Moldova (in which Romania and Russia are actively involved) and the breakaway region of Transnistria, the resurgence of irredentism in North Macedonia, which was swept under the carpet by the Prespa Agreement in order to allow the country’s accession to NATO to proceed, and so on. In this particular region, there could be a potent upsurge of the “Great Idea”, which in the last century led to wars, of irredentism and border changes, in which the strongest capitalist countries could be involved.
2) In the Caucasus, where developments in the war in Ukraine have already left a mark. The decline in rail flows from Asia to Europe via Russia has led to the revival of the solution of the Azerbaijan–Turkey rail link, also known as the Middle Corridor. The route was blocked by the Armenian military presence at the Zangezur crossing, a fact that changed with the victory of Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey and Israel, in the armed conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. This development, which affects Iran’s interests, as well as the expulsion of tens of thousands of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, creates further volatility, as do developments in Georgia, which has lost 20% of its territory, since Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared their “independence” and established relations with Russia. In Georgia, the intra-bourgeois struggle over the international alliances of the bourgeoisie is gaining momentum.
3) In Central Asia, although the countries of the region are part of regional unions with Russia as the driving force, at the same time, there are underlying conflicts between the bourgeois classes of the region. The most characteristic conflicts are the one between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan over water and the one between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where both sides are exploiting ethnic and linguistic issues and the specificities of the populations of the region, while behind it lies their fierce competition for raw materials and transport routes for the commodities, a conflict in which stronger imperialist powers are also involved.
CONCLUSION
From the above it is clear that the war in the Middle East, marked by the brutality of the occupying state of Israel against the people of Palestine, provides a fertile ground for the generalization and expansion of the bloodshed.
Today, the impressive struggles of the peoples and the youth in many countries around the world, against the propaganda of the bourgeois classes of Israel, the USA and the EU, have a great impact, first of all within the countries. They exert pressure on the bourgeois governments, as shown by the decision of some countries to recognize Palestine, or by the prevention of the plans to abolish the humanitarian aid through UNRWA by invoking its relations with Hamas, or even the hypocritical adaptation of the US tactics. These and other examples show the power of the workers’–peoples’ movement, the youth and students to influence national and international developments.
Together with the firm expression of solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for their just cause, it is necessary to further strengthen the struggle against the involvement of our country in imperialist plans, for the return of all the Greek Armed Forces in various imperialist missions abroad. For the closure of the US-NATO bases, which are a springboard for wars and target our people. For the disengagement of our country from the imperialist unions, with the people masters in their own land, in conflict with the bourgeoisie and its aspirations for geostrategic enhancement, against the ND government, SYRIZA, PASOK, Greek Solution and the other bourgeois parties, which together support and implement the Euro-Atlantic strategy and imperialist plans.
[1] Newspaper EFSYN, 5 and 6 June 2024
[2] According to a report published on the Arabic site https://attaqa.net/ in late 2023, sourced from data published in “Global oil and natural gas reserves both increase”, https://www.ogj.com/general-interest/economics-markets/article/14302481/global-oil-and-natural-gas-reserves-both-increase
[3] Association for International & European Affairs, “Red Sea: the ‘Great Game’ and the European Aspides Operation”, https://odeth.eu/%CE%B5%CF%81%CF%85%CE%B8%CF%81%CE%AC-%CE%B8%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%B3%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%BF-%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%87%CE%BD%CE%AF%CE%B4%CE%B9-%CE%BA/
[4] “Red Sea: the global trade chain is creaking”, https://www.newsit.gr/oikonomia/erythra-thalassa-trizei-i-alysida-tou-pagkosmiou-emporiou/3964847/
[5] Mahmoud Abbas, “The issue at stake for Palestine in the East Med Gas Forum is the EEZ and the regional market”, https://energypress.gr/index.php/news/ampas-aoz-kai-perifereiaki-agora-ta-zitoymena-gia-tin-palaistini-apo-east-med-gas-forum
[6] Based in Athens
[7] Walid Khadduri, “Gaza Marine: What Fate After the War?”, https://www.palestine studies.org/en/node/1654991
[8] Ahmad Ismail, “Earlier than planned. Development of the Palestinian ‘Gaza Marine’ field to begin next October”, September 2023, https://cnnbusinessarabic.com/
[9] Prime Minister’s Office Directs that the Development Project for the Gas Field off the Coast of Gaza be Implemented, https://www.gov.il/en/pages/spoke-gas180623
[10] Mohammad Shtayyeh, “The development of the ‘Gaza Marine’ field has become feasible”, 19.6.23, https://www.aa.com.tr/ar/
[11] Nur Abwaisa & Iyad Nabulsi, “How will Hamas deal with development of the Gaza Marine gas field?”, https://www.aa.com.tr/ar/
[12] Ibid
[13] “IMEC: What is included in the plans of the India-Europe trade corridor?”, https://www.powergame.gr/diethni/510998/imec-ti-provlepei-o-eborikos-diadromos-indias-evropis/
[14] Gennady Smakov, “The Ben-Gurion Canal as a Factor in Military Action in the Middle East” ,https://fondsk.ru/news/2023/11/10/kanal-ben-gurion-kak-faktor-voennykh-deystviy-na-blizhnem-vostoke.html
[15] https://hellasjournal.com, 20.9.23.
[16] Makis Papadopoulos, “Green supporters of war and energy poverty”, Communist Review, Issue 3/2022
[17] Grigoris Lionis, “Developments in the war industry and the positions of the KKE”, Communist Review, Issue 3/2023
[18] “Global military spending skyrockets. Over $2.4 trillion in 2023”, https://www.902.gr/eidisi/kosmos/362376/ektoxeytikan-oi-stratiotikes-dapanes-pagkosmios-pano-apo-24-tris-dolaria-2023, 22.4.24
[19] Grigoris Lionis, “Developments in the war industry and the positions of the KKE”, Communist Review, Issue 3/2023
[23] “Israel Aerospace Industries sees 49% increase in net income in 2023”, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-791966
[24] NYT, “More buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine than if every building in Manhattan were to be leveled four times over”, https://www.liberal.gr/diethni-themata/nyt-i-rosia-katestrepse-210000-spitia-stin-oykrania-tesseris-fores-tin-ektasi-toy
[25] UNOSAT, “Gaza Strip 7th Comprehensive Damage Assessment - May 2024”, https://unosat.org/products/3861
[26] Statistics of the attack on the Gaza Strip, https://m.sa24.co/
[27] Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Greece speaks to Kathimerini, https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/interviews/1186559/no-country-should-outsource-its-security-to-others/
[28] Giorgos Marinos, “We strengthen our solidarity with the Palestinian people, we increase our vigilance in the face of developments”, Communist Review, issue 5/2023
[29] “Developments with the Greek Patriot in Saudi Arabia - New military cooperation programme”,https://www.kathimerini.gr/politics/563022976/exelixeis-me-toys-ellinikoys-patriot-sti-saoydiki-aravia-neo-programma-stratiotikis-synergasias/, 13.5.24
[30] Pandelis Kapsis, “A clash of civilizations?”, https://www.athensvoice.gr/epikairotita/diethni/820544/israil-palaistini/ , Konstantinos Ginis, “The Hamas terrorist attack and the clash of civilisations”, https://www.liberal.gr/diethni-themata/i-tromokratiki-epithesi-tis-hamas-kai-i-sygkroysi-politismon
[31] United Nations, The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977), https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-ii-1947-1977/
[32] Pravda, 29.5.1948. Pravda was the organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party - Bolsheviks (as the CPSU was called before 1952)
[33] For more, see Anastasis Gikas’ feature article, “Historical review on the roots and evolution of the Palestinian issue”, published in Rizospastis in 6 installments (from 4.11.23 to 2.3.24)
[34] Jorge Martín, “The Communist Party of Greece and the struggle for the liberation of Palestine: a necessary debate”, https://www.marxist.com/the-communist-party-of-greece-and-the-struggle-for-the-liberation-of-palestine-a-necessary-debate.htm
[35] Digital Jewish Encyclopedia, “The USSR’s relations with Israel”, https://eleven.co.il/
[36] G.V. Sharapov, “World Federation of Trade Unions”, https://www.booksite.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/007/057.htm
[37] Ioanna Kotsiavra, “On the participation of the Jewish population in the Resistance, the anti-fascist struggle and the armed liberation struggle in the ranks of EAM-ELAS”, https://www.katiousa.gr/istoria/gia-ti-symmetochi-tou-evraikou-plithysmou-stin-antistasi-stin-antifasistiki-pali-kai-ton-apeleftherotiko-enoplo-agona-me-to-eam-elas/