Version imprimableNothing seems to be able to change this, despite the fact that at least 50,000 people have already died, tens of thousands have been injured, entire families have disappeared, hospitals have been destroyed and the population has been repeatedly displaced, starved, terrorized and crushed. This scandal of scandals is no longer an event. Yet perhaps the worst is yet to come.
Maximum land with minimum Arabs
The Israeli government, led by the sinister finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has recently endorsed an explicit strategy for the complete colonial conquest of Gaza. The plan calls for the complete destruction of Gaza, the annexation of the territory, the establishment of settlements and the mass expulsion of Palestinians. A project that amounts to pure ethnic cleansing under international law, and mass deportation. This assertive project is in line with the colonial continuity of Zionism, based on the exclusive appropriation of land. Just a few days before 15 May, Nakba Day, the Smotrich plan echoes the Daleth plan, which orchestrated the 1948 catastrophe, with its attendant massacres, dispossessions and forced displacements, to clear the area. From 1948 to 2025, the aim is the same: to reduce the Palestinian presence from the river to the sea.
Famine as preparation for cleansing
Organized famine is the instrument of this plan. For over two months, nothing has been entering Gaza. The blockade has never been so ruthless. Humanitarian aid and food convoys are systematically blocked or bombed; farmland rendered infertile by the strikes; bakeries and civilian infrastructures reduced to dust. Gaza is now in the grip of a planned humanitarian crisis. For the first time, it is feared that Gazan civil society will disintegrate under the pressure of shortages. It’s an enterprise of methodical dehumanization aimed at breaking down even the possibility of resistance. The aim is not hidden: to make life impossible in order to force exodus, to starve in order to drive people to flee.
Here, smoke and repression
Meanwhile, in France, freedom of speech is confiscated. Supporters of the Israeli colonial state have free rein, free platforms, open microphones. On the right, apologists for genocide have free rein. On the left, it’s the tortured voices who have the floor, to express their infinite sadness at the human damage, while defending Israel and its “right to defend itself”. To put Israel’s moral bankruptcy at the centre of the debate, to avoid talking about a structure of oppression, with the pseudo-two-state solution to avoid demanding concrete rights such as equal rights and the right of return. We mourn a tragedy to talk about anything but decolonization and sanctions to put a stop to the horror.
Instead of reacting to the reality of the genocide and the open proclamation of the ethnic cleansing project, the French authorities are stepping up the repression of solidarity. After the dissolution of Palestine Vaincra, the planned dissolution of Urgence Palestine, the numerous proceedings for “apology for terrorism”, the vote in favour of the proposed law on universities aimed at muzzling student mobilizations and critical voices, everything reflects the desire to silence support for the Palestinian people.
Supporting the Palestinian people means rejecting fascism here and there
In this context, the mobilizations planned for Nakba Day take on particular importance. 17 May will be a test of resistance in the face of ongoing fascization. We need to be numerous, visible and determined. Our duty is to stop this death machine. To affirm that supporting the Palestinian people means rejecting fascism here and there. To refuse to let a project of ethnic cleansing triumph in indifference.
15 May 2025
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
