Washington, London and other “democratic” imperialist governments refused to offer Jews facing the Nazi Holocaust a refuge before, during and after World War II. The Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews. With nowhere else to go, thousands of Jews interned in displacement camps after the war tried to reach Palestine. In 1947 over 4,500 Jewish refugees on the Exodus were seized by British forces and returned to Germany at gunpoint.
During World War II not one of the “democratic” imperialist rulers attempted to bomb the rail lines used to transport Jews to annihilation in Hitler’s death camps. This underscores the fact that no imperialist rulers can be relied on to defend the Jewish people.
And any hope they might do so today is a dangerous illusion. The only concern of the U.S. rulers, who preside over capitalism’s last empire, is protection of their sway over resources, markets and spheres of influence worldwide.
Jew-hatred is virulent in the imperialist epoch, but it can be defeated once and for all. This requires forging a proletarian party capable of leading a fight for workers power, to uproot exploitation by capital, end all national oppression and build a socialist world.
For the first time in history, capitalism brings into existence a force with the capacities to end class exploitation and oppression. By taking power into its own hands, the working class opens the door to building a different world.
But when deepening working-class struggles head in that direction and the capitalist rulers feel their rule is truly threatened, they will not hesitate to turn to fascist outfits. Jew-hatred is the reactionary banner fascists will rally behind as they seek to crush working people to shore up capitalist rule.
Speaking out against Jew-hatred is a key question for the working class and the unions — from the targeting of Jews at the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles June 23; to the death threats scrawled at the home of the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum in New York; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati; and the glorification of Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7 pogrom by middle-class radicals. Tens of millions of working people find Jew-hatred abhorrent.
What happened to passengers on the Exodus sheds light on why the establishment of Israel became inevitable. The Nazi’s Holocaust led to the slaughter of 40% of the world’s Jewish population. All the democratic imperialist powers slammed their doors shut to Jews.
The horrors of World War II could have been prevented. But the Stalinist regime in Moscow, backed by Stalinist parties worldwide, betrayed powerful revolutionary struggles in Germany, Spain and elsewhere prior to the war. These betrayals, followed by the Stalin-Hitler Pact, made the second imperialist slaughter unavoidable. After the war, new revolutionary struggles in France, Greece and Italy were blocked by Stalinist parties.
In 1948 Israel was established as a sanctuary for Jews. But Israel is not a solution to the reality of Jew-hatred in the imperialist epoch. As long as the capitalist class holds power there is no way to end the scapegoating and targeting of Jews. Building the proletarian leadership working people need can only come out of class-struggle experience. Blows dealt to Hamas, which says it will carry out more pogroms against Jews, aiming for the “Final Solution,” open the door for common struggle by workers of all religions and nationalities.
Above all, working people must take power in the U.S. This is the perspective presented today by the Socialist Workers Party’s 2024 presidential campaign.