The war taking place in Palestine is the same as that in course in Afghanistan, Argentina, Iraq and throughout the Southern world: the war between the capitalist-terrorist "world order" of Bush, Berlusconi, Blair & Co. and the instances of struggle and liberation of the oppressed. In this war, the Palestinian masses find themselves having to face not only the State of Israel, but imperialism as a whole, which sustains, arms and finances the terrorist policy of Sharon and Peres from the West in order to strengthen its control over the oil and labour of the entire Middle East.

On the eve of triggering his "infinite war", Bush promised to establish a "Palestinian State" – a promise that immediately revealed itself to be exactly what it was: a squallid lie aimed at giving the Arab bourgeoisie compromised with the West (and in reality totally indifferent to the fate of the Palestinians) a minimum of legitimacy in the eyes of their people while he began his attack against Afghanistan. Imperialism and Israel are now presenting their bill. The bankrupt policy of Arafat is no longer enough for them: they want more. They want to eliminate even that minimum of administrative autonomy conceded so far, and fragment the occupied territories into a myriad of townships with puppet figureheads chosen by the Palestinian notabilities who are tired of the Intifada. They want to drown the revolt of the masses once and for all in a sea of blood.

The truth is that any peace process (however illusory) is dead and buried. Buried not only by the harshness of the new turn of the screw against the Palestinians, but also by the simultaneous relaunching of a policy of all-out aggression against the Arab and Islamic world – clear proof of the indissoluble tie between the Palestinian struggle and the fate of the working masses throughout the area. This underlines the need to return to the Intifada and definitively abandon any hope of any kind of negotiated solution or aid from American and European governments. It is the reality of the conflict that makes it necessary to call upon the entire world of the oppressed Arab and Islamic masses to join battle actively and directly not only against Israel and its imperialist backers, but also against the Arab bourgeois forces that outrightly connive in, or remain hypocritically silent about the suffocation of the Palestinian (and Afghan, Iraqi …) people. To change its still substantially passive sympathy for the Palestinian cause into a determined decision to fight on its side. This is also the only way to take advantage of the cracks emerging in Israeli society (and even in its army) in order to launch a bridgehead of struggle towards the people in Israel who are increasingly demonstrating their insufferance and hostility against the murderous and oppressive policy of their own State, and beginning to recognise for themselves the deceit of imperialism’s "solution" to the "Jewish question".

At the same time, it is necessary that the young people and workers here in the West also join the struggle in support of the Palestinian cause with determination and without any hesitation. We here must finally and totally rid ourselves of any misplaced illusion concerning a "possible different role of Europe and the UN". The rapacity of Italian and European imperialism is in no way different from that of its American gang leader: no aid can ever be expected from such hyenas, only further stabs in the back. Just as no aid will ever come from the likes of the UN which, from Korea to Vietnam, and from Iraq to Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, has always blessed and sponsored all of the crimes of the West. On the contrary, in joining forces with the Palestinians, we must recognise first and foremost that the enemy is among us! The real principals in the oppression and massacre of the Palestinian people are the same who (albeit in a differentiated manner) daily attack our own living and working conditions, the same who issue racist laws against immigrant workers: they are "our" financial and political institutions, "our" States and "our" governments. Our battle must be against them and unconditionally on the side of the struggle of the exploited in Palestine and throughout the Southern world.

This is the solidarity needed by the oppressed masses of Gaza, the West Bank and the whole of the Middle East. This is the solidarity that can really aid progress towards the only solution that can lead to real peace and true justice: that is, towards the unification of the oppressed throughout the area on the basis of a united programme of social liberation, the destruction of the State of Israel, the uprooting of imperialism from the Middle East, and the inauguration of a federation of worker soviets (of Arabs, Kurds and Jews…) in the region.

The workers and the oppressed in Palestine and the rest of the Southern world have always heroically done their part. It is up to the Western proletariat to echo the roar of struggle and add its decisive weight to the battle against imperialism and for international socialism.