The conflicting interests of Washington and Israel are clearer than ever as the Donald Trump administration pushes to reach a deal with the Iranian regime. Washington’s war on Iran and its on-again, off-again negotiations with Tehran are both aimed at advancing the U.S. imperialists’ own interests in the Middle East.
The U.S. rulers want stability so they can increase their plunder of the oil, gas and other resources in the region, deepen their exploitation of working people there and extend their domination of world oil markets. They seek to push back the rising influence of Beijing, their main capitalist rival on a world scale.
Unlike U.S. imperialism, Israel is a small capitalist country of just 10 million, compared to over 93 million people in Iran. It does not seek to dominate the Middle East, but is fighting to defend its existence as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms, in a world where violent assaults on Jews are rising sharply.
And it’s no secret that the regime in Tehran wants to wipe Israel — and the Jews who live there — off the face of the earth. Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that must be removed, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said May 26, reiterating the course the reactionary regime there has acted on for decades.
Tehran’s so-called axis of resistance — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran-created militias in Iraq — though greatly weakened by Israeli blows since Oct. 7, 2023, is still a deadly threat.
But the White House is determined to keep Israel from disrupting the U.S. rulers’ goal of imposing a new Pax Americana on the peoples of the Middle East.
To advance this, Trump says he wants the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey and others to join the Abraham Accords. These pacts normalized diplomatic and economic relations between the governments of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and Kosovo in 2020 and 2021.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone May 23 amid press reports that Washington and Tehran were discussing a tentative accord that would not be to Israel’s liking.
The accord reportedly would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, impose a permanent ceasefire in Lebanon, and put off further discussions of Washington’s demand that Tehran hand over its store of enriched uranium that could be used to make nuclear weapons and promise not to enrich more for 20 years. Neither Tehran’s ballistic missiles nor its financing and arming of proxies that target Israel were mentioned.
Trump: Netanyahu must do as I say
Afterward Trump claimed Netanyahu will “do whatever I want him to do.”
Washington uses Israel’s dependence on U.S. weapons and some $3.8 billion a year in military aid to pressure Israel to acquiesce to its demands. But Israel finds ways to defend itself.
The ceasefire imposed by the U.S. government in Gaza prevented Israel from dismantling Hamas. Trump claimed the ceasefire deal would lead to the disarmament of Hamas, the establishment of an independent police force and the reconstruction of Gaza, but none of this has happened.
Seven months later, while Hamas rebuilds its armed forces, the White House continues to claim that Trump’s Board of Peace will somehow convince Hamas to disarm.
Tehran is demanding that any accord deny Israel the right to further combat in Lebanon, leaving Hezbollah free to continue its attacks. Under pressure from Washington Israel has ceased attacking Hezbollah in northern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah, aided by Iran, has built up its supply of drones, relaunching airstrikes on communities in northern Israel repeatedly from March 2. In one recent one-week period, Hezbollah fired hundreds of drones and rockets at both Israel and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Worried that a U.S.-Tehran deal could force more restrictions on Israel, Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to intensify its operations against Hezbollah May 25.
Israel will end dependence on U.S.
While Netanyahu says U.S. imperialism is on the side of Israel, he acts on the fact that Israel must be prepared to defend itself on its own. To cut back on the U.S. rulers’ ability to pressure Israel, Netanyahu seeks to cut back its reliance on U.S. military aid and weapons.
“I want to draw down to zero the American financial support” to Israel’s military over the next decade, Netanyahu told the CBS program “60 Minutes” May 10. In November he announced plans to advance Israel’s arms industry.
Netanyahu also pointed to the growing impact of the anti-Israel propaganda promoted by Hamas apologists. A year ago he told a reporter that “we’ve not been winning” the propaganda war. “There are vast forces arrayed against us.”
In fact, an array of Hamas supporters, Maoists and others on the middle-class left, reinforced by bourgeois liberals in the “democratic” imperialist powers, as well as rightist Jew-haters all promote the lie that Israel is an apartheid state guilty of genocide.
1948: founding of Israel inevitable
To do this they lie about the real history of Israel, claiming it is built on the dispossession of the Palestinians.
The establishment of Israel in 1948 had become inevitable in the wake of the Second World War.
The working class worldwide paid a terrible price for the betrayal by Stalin-led Communist Parties, which prevented working people from uniting and taking political power into their own hands. In the 1930s these parties sabotaged revolutionary opportunities, from Germany to Spain. Had workers there been led to take power, the Second World War — and with it the Nazi’s slaughter of 6 million Jews — could have been prevented.
Before and during the Holocaust, imperialist ruling powers, including Washington, London and Ottawa, slammed their doors on the Jews, often sending them back to their deaths. After the war, they were still denied entry and forced into “displaced persons” camps. But they refused to accept their fate and made their way to Palestine. Where else were they to go?
Jewish organizations accepted the United Nations partition plan, which set aside a small part of Palestine for a state that would be a refuge for Jews. But reactionary, semifeudal leaders who dominated the Arab world refused. Armies from five Arab nations invaded the newly created state of Israel in 1948.
With heavy losses on both sides, Israel emerged victorious. Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled, told to do so by reactionary Arab leaders or out of fear. Many were expelled by Israeli forces during the war. But thousands stayed.
During and after that war tens of thousands of Jews from Arab countries were attacked and expelled by reactionary regimes across the Middle East and moved to Israel.
Today some 20% of the population of Israel are Arab citizens. Jews and Arabs often work side by side and belong to the same trade unions.
Seeing Hamas kill not only Jews on Oct. 7, 2023, but Arabs who worked with Jews, and suffering attacks from Tehran and Hezbollah in the wars that followed, Arab citizens feel a growing connection to Israel today.