The problem of Palestine is systemic. It’s impossible to understand Israel’s endless war on the Palestinian people without seeing it as part of a wider problem of imperialism.  

For the West, the need to control the Middle East is paramount because it is the most highly concentrated source of the world’s most coveted commodity— oil. Supporting Israel, and backing dictatorial regimes across the region, is our rulers’ mechanism of domination.  

And the capitalist system that stands behind the barbarity in Gaza is also responsible for the wars in Yemen, Sudan, and Ukraine.  The system is also to blame for the other threats to humanity.  

It’s capitalism’s insatiable need for profit that causes climate change. It’s capitalism’s need for division that spreads racist poison through every society. 

And it’s capitalism that drives millions of people into poverty and hardship worldwide.  The sheer destructiveness of capitalism is why it must go, and why we need a global intifada.  

We need a revolution in Palestine and the Middle East to slay the beast of imperialism, and we need a revolution in the West that can tear the head off the system.  

Only through a massive uprising involving workers, and the most downtrodden and oppressed globally, can we remake society anew.  

By drawing together all those who have no stake in the exploitation of fellow humans, we can begin to face the common and most urgent challenges.  

But for revolution to happen and to be successful, there must be political organisation.  

Here we are not talking about conventional parties that prioritise elections and putting people in high office. Instead, we need an organisation that brings together all the best fighters from every struggle.  

We need the most determined anti-racists, the most courageous fighters against imperialism, the bravest workplace militants who stand up for their colleagues, and the student and pensioner activists that rage against the system and environmental destruction.  

And we need them together, in one organisation, all pulling in the same direction.  Crucially, that revolutionary organisation must be capable of overcoming the tremendous divisions that exist among ordinary people—from sexism and homophobia to nationalism and racism.  

It must be able to convince the workplace union activists that taking up the issue of Palestine is a vital way of advancing the needs of their members if together we are to smash the system.  

And it must win the millions furious at imperialism to the crucial idea that it is workers and the poor that have the power to finally topple the ruling class through revolution. 

Those are the goals that the Socialist Workers Party has set itself.  But building such a party is no easy task. The ruling class have a monopoly not only of the deadliest military hardware and vicious police forces but it also dominates the means to spread ideas.  

Big business run the news organisations, the newspapers and the web and TV channels.  

That ideological domination finds a ready expression in the Labour Party and trade union movement. Labour has done its best to drive people away from Palestine protests, and Keir Starmer’s front bench even backs the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.  

And, following Starmer’s lead, the trade union movement has mostly tried to divert attention away from Palestine, insisting that it is not an issue for workplace activists.  

That’s why, unlike on most protest marches, so far there have been very few union banners on the streets with us. 

But that can change. Socialist Worker supporters in every union are arguing that a victory for the Palestinian resistance, and a wider revolt across the region, would deliver the ruling class a shattering blow.  That in turn would make it easier for everyone else fighting the system to win too. 

Every fight over wages, every battle over new oil fields and every struggle against oppression would emerge stronger if Palestine wins.  

The lesson of Palestine would be that even if you face incredible odds, you must stand up and fight —and if all of us fight together, this whole wretched system can be brought down.  

To make that argument in every workplace, school and college the Socialist Workers Party needs many new members. We hope everyone who reads our paper this week will join us.