Israel has resumed its butchery in Gaza. At the time of writing, airstrikes and a ground operation have killed over 500 people, including more than 200 children. Trump’s January ceasefire is dead, and the situation is spiraling out of control, with dire consequences for the entire world.

Netanyahu wants war

Israel justified its latest aggression by accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire. The truth is different. Netanyahu never wanted a ceasefire in the first place, but caved to pressure from Trump.

The deal promised to end the war over three phases—at least on paper. In the first phase, 33 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 1,900 Palestinians. Phase two was supposed to be a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. But when the first stage ended on March 1, Netanyahu refused to proceed to the second.

The Israeli prime minister has a personal interest in keeping the war going. He is under investigation for corruption. The only sure way he can stay out of jail is by staying in power, and that means maintaining a wartime coalition propped up by extreme Zionist parties.

Netanyahu was unpopular in Israel well before October 7, 2023, and despite a wartime boost, remains on shaky ground today. Thousands of Israelis regularly protest his deliberate failure to free the hostages. The war has crippled the Israeli economy, reducing investment and disrupting the labor market. Labor productivity fell by nearly 7% at the start of the war and, even now, remains below prewar levels, while inflation is rising.

The Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, are investigating the “security failures” behind the October 7 attack—and placing much of the blame on Netanyahu himself. Above all, Bibi has failed to achieve his chief war aim, destroying Hamas.

His fanatical coalition partners would have brought his government down if the war had not been resumed. That’s why the ceasefire was largely a fiction. Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza throughout phase one, while simultaneously ramping up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

As soon as March 1 arrived, Israel imposed a new blockade of aid, gas, electricity, and even water into the Gaza Strip, further starving innocent civilians already reeling from 17 months of genocidal assault.

What is imperialist “peace”?

A ceasefire deal with nearly the exact same terms was on the table in May 2024, but “Genocide Joe” Biden backed Netanyahu’s continuation of the war. For his part, Trump posed as the “peace candidate” during the election. As he tweeted during his first term in 2019:

The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.

Craving a quick foreign policy success to brag about, he forced through the ceasefire in January. But as Lenin explained, so long as capitalism continues to exist, imperialist peace is merely a continuation of imperialist war by other means—and a preparation for future slaughter and conquest.

As soon as the ceasefire was in place and Trump got his photo op, the “peace president” showed his true imperialist colors. He called for removing two million Palestinians from Gaza and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Now he’s given Netanyahu the green light to resume the bloodletting.

Inflammable material everywhere

In anticipation of Israel’s renewed offensive, Trump launched massive airstrikes on the Ansar Allah in Yemen, also known as the Houthis. He knew they would restart their attacks on US-aligned shipping in the Red Sea, a vital maritime corridor, once Netanyahu broke the ceasefire. Trump has made no secret of his aim: “to restore navigational freedom,” that is, to ensure the right of shipping magnates to make a buck and provide weapons and supplies to Israel.

Trump has vowed to “annihilate” the Houthis if they don’t give in. But the Houthis have outlasted the combined militaries of Saudi Arabia and the US for over a decade. By terrorizing Yemeni civilians, Trump will only bolster their support and antagonize their allies in Tehran—who Trump has also threatened with military force.

From the beginning, Netanyahu has tried to drag America into a war with Iran. But Trump wants to avoid a region wide conflagration which would distract from his attempts to retrench American imperialism in the Western hemisphere while pivoting to Asia.

The rise in oil prices from a regional war would shock an already unstable global economy and tank any last hopes of  delivering a “new golden age” of American capitalism. Trump’s gamble is that he can bomb the Houthis and Iran to the bargaining table. But his provocations could backfire, further destabilizing the entire planet.

Meanwhile, the people of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have watched “their” rulers aid Israel’s US-backed genocide of their Palestinian brothers and sisters. There is seething discontent in all these countries among the workers and poor, who are the only real friends the Palestinians have in the region.

As we wrote after the ceasefire was agreed in January,

For nearly a century, the Palestinian people have provided humanity with a heroic example of resistance and resilience. But they cannot defeat Zionist imperialism through their own efforts alone. Nothing short of a worldwide communist revolution can end the nightmare. Only the united strength of the working class, in the Middle East, and across the world, can liberate Palestine from imperialism.

The RCA is building the party necessary for American workers to do their part to take down the most reactionary force on the planet: US imperialism.

Peace between peoples, war on the billionaires!

No war but the class war!