Supporters of Hamas’ murderous attack on Jews in Israel have launched an escalating series of threats, violent assaults and other provocative actions around the world in an attempt to intimidate Jews and anyone who supports the right of Israel to exist as a refuge for Jews.
One key center for their threats and violence is New York City, which has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel, including many who are workers.
On June 10, hundreds of people organized by Within Our Lifetime, an outfit that calls for the destruction of Israel, protested outside a New York exhibit showing the brutality of the Tehran-backed Hamas death squads’ attack on the Nova music festival in Israel Oct. 7. (See article.)
One prominent sign at the action said, “Zionists are not Jews and are not humans: They are the evil in the world.” In the slogans of these groups, the word “Zionist” is simply a code word for “Jew.” As for saying “Zionists are not humans,” there is no mistaking the Nazi-like threat.
Protesters at the action waved Hamas and Hezbollah flags, carrying a banner proclaiming, “Long live Oct. 7th.”
The assault on the Nova festival was a key part of Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 people in Israel Oct. 7, the taking of 250 hostages, the wounding of thousands and the rape of dozens of women. It was the largest anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust.
On June 11 the homes of several trustees of the Brooklyn Museum were smeared with fake blood and inverted red triangles, the symbol Hamas uses to identify targets in Gaza for assault. In front of the home of Museum Director Anne Pasternak, who is Jewish, they strung a banner charging she is a “white-supremacist Zionist.”
“Our task,” Within Our Lifetime threatened in a June 21 statement, is to “disrupt, destroy, and bring down every single Zionist and imperialist system in the U.S.”
Similar attacks have multiplied in France, Canada, the U.K., Australia and elsewhere.
Increase in Jew-hatred
Jew-hatred and attacks on Jews had been on the rise worldwide well before Oct. 7, as documented in a new report by the Anti-Defamation League and Tel Aviv University. Attacks mushroomed after the Hamas pogrom, when Stalinist and other middle-class radicals took to the streets to celebrate its murderous assault.
Jew-hatred is a central feature of the imperialist epoch. Whenever the capitalist rulers face a deep economic and social crisis and sharpening conflicts with their rivals over markets, profits and spheres of influence, they turn to rightist thugs and Jew-hatred. Their aim is to provide a scapegoat to divert crushed middle-class layers and demoralized workers from seeing the real source of their problems — the profit-driven capitalist system.
Organizing and involving the unions to fight against Jew-hatred is decisive for working-class battles today and advancing revolutionary opportunities to come.
Hamas apologists have become more provocative, violent and blatant in targeting Jews as the war in Gaza has progressed. They are emboldened by calls by President Joseph Biden and other imperialist rulers, backed by the craven liberal bourgeois news media, to pressure Israel to end its war to eliminate Hamas.
The June 17 New York Times Magazine published a lengthy story entitled, “Pregnant in Gaza With Nowhere to Go.” It follows the challenges and calamities facing the Muhaisens, a better-off Gazan family, as they have to flee Gaza City following Israeli troops intervention to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 pogrom.
The family heeds a warning from the Israel Defense Forces to leave their home, located in a civilian area Hamas forces are using as a shield.
Maise, one of their children, asks why is there fighting. The article never mentions the Hamas pogrom. The closest they come is to mention an Al Jazeera broadcast saying, “It was about an incursion into Israel.”
All of the blame for the destruction and carnage is laid at the doorstep of Israel.
But the provocative actions by Hamas supporters and the middle-class left are also a sign of their frustration as Israeli forces continue to make progress in dismantling Hamas in Gaza.
One Israeli military official told the Jerusalem Post that Israel Defense Forces “have caused significant damage to Hamas’ production and armament capabilities.” Israeli forces have taken control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, part of its advances in Rafah, making it more difficult for Hamas to replace its weapons and ammunition. Hundreds more of their fighters there have been either killed or captured.
While support for Hamas is declining in Gaza, thousands of Hamas thugs are still there, and the group and its allies still hold more than 100 living or dead hostages. Israel’s capitalist rulers are grappling with who will take charge of a new government in Gaza, once the IDF makes more progress in dismantling the Jew-hating group’s remaining battalions.
As they advance, working people in Gaza feel more room to speak out against Hamas’ dictatorial rule and look for ways to take greater control over their lives.