Once again, defend Palestine!

Once again, the high-tech Israeli military, bought and paid for with U.S. taxpayers’ money, has launched a murderous assault on the Palestinian people. On June 28 Israeli warplanes fired at least nine missiles at the only power station in Gaza, cutting electricity to 65 percent of the densely populated strip, and destroyed a major bridge. The power plant was left in flames, creating a humanitarian crisis by knocking out both the power and water supplies.

This was followed by Israeli tanks, which blasted their way into Gaza for the first time since Tel Aviv made a big point of withdrawing from the impoverished area last August.

Israeli planes also broke international law once again when they flew low over the house of Syrian President Bashar Assad in a gesture that threatened retaliation for any help Syria might give its Palestinian neighbors.

And once again, the U.S. is abetting this aggression, calling it a “response” to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants in Gaza.

No matter what happens, Israel is always “responding” and the Pales tinians are always “attacking,” according to the U.S. government and media.

So it’s important to look once again at how this seemingly endless conflict began.

The fact is that, although Israel was set up in 1948 under the Zionist slogan of a “land without a people for a people without a land,” there were millions of people living there—the Palestinians. Zionist terror bands—the Irgun—drove millions into exile and massacred many who resisted.

From the beginning, the state of Israel denied the rights of the Palestinians and even their existence as a people.

So it is more than disingenuous when Tel Aviv today says it can’t talk to the Hamas-led elected government because the Palestinians won’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, and then uses this—once again—as the excuse for trying to starve out the Palestinian people and break up their political organizations.

Since Hamas took office in March, Israel has frozen tax revenues it collects from the Palestinian people that are supposed to go to the Palestinian Authority. Amounting to $52 million a month, this deficit has left 130,000 public employees without paychecks. Israel has also closed the borders around Palestinian territory, causing shortages in food and medicine and a halt in exports.

Now, with the destruction of their power plant, the 1.4 million residents of Gaza face the worsening of what is already a dire situation.

Israel is Washington’s right-hand in the Middle East. It is favored by the U.S. ruling class because it can be depended on in any struggle between imperialism and the Arab and Muslim masses. Just like the war in Iraq, these struggles are basically over who will control the oil, the most precious resource in the region.

The Palestinian struggle for self-determination is central to the worldwide struggle of oppressed peoples against imperialism. Free, free Palestine!