Italy: the Freedom Flotilla and the escalation of the Palestine movement

A broad movement against the massacre in Gaza and in defence of the Palestinian people is taking shape in Italy. It is a shake-up of the stagnant Italian political scene that we greet with enthusiasm, and one that the Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario will continue to invest its energies in. This movement will spread because it expresses a deep-seated sentiment in society, a visceral exasperation at the horrors we are witnessing live from Palestine. Up to this point, this sentiment has lacked a channel for expression. Now, it has finally exploded.

[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]

Gaza is an open-air concentration camp. The Zionist government systematically uses the humanitarian emergency as a weapon, condemning hundreds of thousands of people to misery and starvation. Meanwhile, the siege, bombings, and blockade of aid continue unabated.

Millions of people around the world have shown their support for the Palestinian cause in recent months.

In Italy, a majority of the population was immediately opposed to the Israeli aggression and showed solidarity with the Palestinian people. This sentiment has only grown stronger with time. This is both because of the atrocities committed by the IDF on one hand; and the government, employers, media, and the whole establishment siding with Israel on the other. It was clear which side the oppressors and the oppressed were on.

Initially, following Israel’s attack on Gaza, there were some important demonstrations organised by the Palestinian community. But these did not translate into a widespread movement. The position of the main trade unions and left-wing parties – starting with the CGIL trade union federation and the Democratic Party (PD) – at the time was scandalously one of ‘equidistance’, i.e. de facto working against the mobilisations.

Last year, the US encampment movement – in which students occupied their campuses in protest of their complicity with Israel’s genocide – found an echo in Italy, leading to a movement that developed in universities. But these too were limited in scope, despite the widespread sympathy for the Palestinian cause. This is partly because of the focus on symbolic actions carried out by a few activists, rather than involving a wider layer of students.

Since then, there have been no significant mobilisations. And yet, month after month, disgust and anger at the genocide has only increased, leading to a growing radicalisation. According to a June poll, only 7 to 18 percent of Italians sympathise with Israel in the ongoing conflict. Opposition to the massacre has become increasingly frequent in all areas of society: in schools, universities, but also in sport, cinema – as at the recent Venice Film Festival – and on social media. No matter the political issue, Palestine flags have appeared at all demonstrations, as they have on many balconies. The tension in society was bound to explode sooner or later.

The Israeli government is pursuing a systematic plan to occupy the entire territory of Palestine / Image: Ashraf Amra, Wikimedia Commons

The turning point eventually came with the demonstration on 30 August in Genoa, where 50,000 people took to the streets to show their support for the 50-boat convoy headed to Gaza in an attempt to break the siege: the Global Sumud Flotilla. The turnout was largely spontaneous, and far exceeded the organisers’ expectations, forcing even the mayor – a member of the PD – to make a speech opposing the genocide and supporting the flotilla.

At the same demonstration, a collective of Genoa dockworkers declared that an attack on the Flotilla should be met with a blockade of ports across Europe. The CGIL trade union in Genoa said that in the event of an attack, it was ready to declare a general strike in the city. This gives an indication of the pressure from below under which the trade union leaderships are operating.

The demonstrations quickly spread in the following days: 15,000 people in Catania, tens of thousands in Rome, there were demonstrations in all Italian cities. Following the drone attack on the flotilla off the coast of Tunisia, there was a second wave of demonstrations. And next week, with the opening of schools, the student movement will most likely enter the fray.

The idea behind these protests is ‘enough with empty statements, we need to do something’. It's a fair point: we've heard enough speeches in parliament that are just for show. This is precisely why we can't just settle for expressing our outrage or taking symbolic action; we need real solutions.

We must start with an assessment of the concrete situation: those responsible for the massacre of the Palestinian people have names and surnames.

The Israeli government is pursuing a systematic plan to occupy the entire territory of Palestine, which is the shared goal of the entire Zionist ruling class, regardless of internal divisions on the timing of this, or the best methods. After two years of war in Gaza, it is unthinkable that simply calling for a ceasefire or humanitarian access will achieve anything. It is necessary to fight to overthrow Netanyahu and the Zionist state of Israel.

This is the task of the Middle Eastern working class, starting with the Arab masses who are also clashing with their own regimes, which are not lifting a finger against the genocide.

Only revolutionary means can achieve peace in the Middle East. Through collectivising resources, making them public and available to all the peoples in the region, it is possible to establish coexistence which cuts across the religious and ethnic divisions that are deliberately fomented by imperialism, in order to divide and rule the exploited.

The enemy at home

But what happens back at home, in Italy and elsewhere, is equally decisive. Israel can only do what it does because it is supported militarily, politically, and economically by US and European imperialism, which includes the Meloni government, which has enormous interests in the region. For this reason, we must begin with a struggle against our own ruling class.

We are not concerned with obtaining superficial recognition of Palestine from our governments, who all have blood on their hands / Image: European Union, Wikimedia Commons

Groups such as the PD propose nothing more than the recognition of the Palestinian state, something already promised by Macron and others, and now promoted even by Ursula Von Der Leyen. We are not concerned with obtaining superficial recognition of Palestine from our governments, who all have blood on their hands, but to fight to bring down our genocide-backing governments altogether.

It should be pointed out that the Palestinian National Authority already formally exists, having been established by the Oslo Accords of 1993; this has not prevented Israel from occupying, colonising, devastating, and annexing Palestinian territories.

The idea of 'two peoples, two states' on a capitalist basis is a reactionary utopia. Today it is used as a fig leaf by those governments that want to hide their ties with Israel. There can never be a truly free and sovereign state on a capitalist basis.

Macron and others, including the Italian government, talk of recognising a Palestinian state, and yet they continue to arm the IDF to the teeth. We reject this nauseating hypocrisy that hides the true interests of the capitalist economic system and companies such as Leonardo, that make huge profits at the expense of the people.

Alliances like NATO only serve to defend common imperialist interests, which bind Europe to the USA and Israel. It is no coincidence that the governments of member countries, with Giorgia Meloni in the forefront, approve austerity policies of blood and tears to bring military spending to 5 percent of GDP, fuelling the escalation of militarism.

Shut down the country to stop the war

What the ruling classes fear most is a mass uprising in the West and the Middle East, because they know it is the only thing that would really stop their plundering. This is why international calls for restraint on Netanyahu have increased in recent months: not out of compassion, but because they feel the situation could explode.

Their fear is precisely what we must work for. We need a fight that will overwhelm them.

We endorse the declaration to block all ports in Europe if contact with the Flotilla is lost / Image: public domain

Mobilisation among young people and workers must be extended, with assemblies and protest initiatives in schools, universities, and workplaces.

Some comrades sincerely declare 'not in our name'. Such personal declarations are insufficient: if the massacres continue, it matters little whether or not we approve.

Instead, we demand the overthrow of governments that support Israel, the breaking of military agreements with Israel, the expropriation of companies whose products or services contribute to the genocide, the nationalisation of the military industry under workers' control and its conversion for socially useful purposes, the cutting of military spending in order to fund schools and healthcare.

The only solution lies with the international mobilisation of the working class, which is the only force capable of paralysing the Israeli military machine and the system that supports it.

We endorse the declaration to block all ports in Europe if contact with the Flotilla is lost, and we support the struggle of the dockers who in Barcelona, Genoa, and Piraeus have prevented the sending of weapons to Israel.

This is an important starting point, which must be extended to all ports. In order to escalate the struggle, it is necessary for the working class as a whole to take action. We call on all trade union organisations to organise a general strike, against the siege of Gaza and the Meloni government, accomplice of the murderer Netanyahu.

As the great revolutionary Karl Liebknecht used to say: “the main enemy is at home”.

• Homes, not barracks. Books, not bombs!
• Peace between peoples, war on capitalists!
• Italy out of NATO!
• Stop the genocide in Palestine!
• For a socialist federation of the Middle East!