Alex Snowdon on squaring up to warmongers as they double down

Saturday’s huge demonstration in London was the 12th national demonstration for Palestine since October. It took place in the context of ongoing genocide in Gaza. 118,000 people – 5% of the territory’s population – have been killed or injured. It is also increasingly clear, however, that there are mounting dangers in the wider region. These dangers are being fuelled by US and UK foreign policy.

Iran’s recent strike on Israel was in response to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1st April (which killed several people). Iran’s ‘Operation True Promise’ on 14th April was a swarm attack involving more than 300 missiles. Iran gave advance warning and Israel was able – with Western support – to shoot down the vast majority of the incoming projectiles.

Iran felt it was necessary to respond in order to avoid humiliation, but restrained from going any further. It was a signal that Iran would not tolerate a direct military attack on its territory. It was accompanied by warnings that any further action by Israel would prompt a far greater response. Until then, Iran had been noticeably averse to getting involved in the war that has devastated Gaza.

Tensions between Israel and Iran have been growing for many years.  Since around the start of the century – and the collapse of the Oslo accords – Israeli politicians have ramped up anti-Iran rhetoric. This is partly rooted in genuinely perceiving it as a threat, but also has an element of exaggerated rhetoric for political ends. Successive Israeli governments have stoked fears about Iranian threats to security among the Israeli population, while suggesting that the Palestinians are aided by a major regional power. This rhetoric has reached fever pitch in the last few years.

Israel has, for some years, assassinated Iranian military figures, engaged in drone attacks and sabotaged nuclear facilities in its efforts to undermine Iran. It has avoided doing anything, however, that might plausibly provoke a regional war. Iran has sought influence in the wider Middle East through cooperation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and anti-Western forces in Iraq and Syria when those countries experienced massive strains following military occupation or civil war.

Conflict between Iran and both Israel and the US goes back to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. A genuinely popular revolution, on a huge scale, it overthrew the US-backed Shah and initially appeared to usher in a new phase of anti-colonial national liberation struggle. The cause of Palestine was proclaimed by those making the revolution. However, the evolution of the authoritarian Islamic Republic saw the persistence of anti-Israel rhetoric but little, in reality, to inspire those opposing imperialism and championing Palestinian liberation.

Iran’s war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988 helped re-shape the balance of power in the region. The US backed Iraq, while Iran became the major regional power opposed to both the US and the Israeli settler colonial garrison state. Iran became an isolated state, suffering sanctions, and also became more internally repressive and politically conservative.

Iran shifted from ambitious, all-out war to cultivating relationships with Hezbollah, Hamas and other forces resisting US or Israeli aggression. Hezbollah was a product of Israel’s war on Lebanon in 1982 and its subsequent occupation of parts of the country. Hamas, founded in 1987, was a product of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, but also the rise of Islamist politics in that period. The disastrous US-led occupation of Iraq after 2003 opened up space for Iran to cultivate much greater influence in Iraq, as the country’s political systems collapsed.

If Israel is keen to undermine and threaten Iran without provoking a regional conflict, the converse is also true. The Iranian regime has to assert itself while carefully avoiding a wider war that would almost certainly bring US military power into play.

This does not, however, mean we can afford any complacency. Israel’s genocide in Gaza has dramatically raised the stakes, while the support for Israel from the US, UK and some other Western states makes the situation more dangerous. Israel’s war on the Palestinians continues to be at the centre of a regional conflict that constantly threatens to escalate.

More money for war

One important dimension of this conflict is the arms race taking place in the West. In the UK, Tories and Labour are united in pledging big increases in arms spending, promising that it will constitute at least 2.5% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Rishi Sunak’s pledge to reach this target by 2030 will mean ‘an additional £75 billion into defence spending over that period’, according to defence secretary Grant Shapps. Iran was cited as one of the threats justifying this, together with China and Russia.

Anyone assuming that a change in government will stop this happening will be deeply disappointed that Labour’s front bench has made the same pledge. Whether it is Tories or Labour in office – and it will soon almost certainly be the latter – we can expect attacks on public spending so that more money can be channelled into militarism and war.

Polling suggests that higher military spending is not a priority for most of the public. Unsurprisingly, the NHS, education and public services are widely regarded as more deserving. In addition to being hugely wasteful, increases in arms spending make military conflict more likely.

The UK is already a very big spender on the military by European standards. Both the US and UK are also now pushing for NATO allies to increase their commitments. US military spending in 2023 was $916 billion – almost 40% of the global total.

Defend the right to protest

While boosting their states’ ability to wage war abroad, politicians are also keen to mobilise the state against anyone who protests against their deadly foreign policy – above all, support for Israeli genocide. In the US this has been made highly visible over the last week, with brutal clampdowns on student protests at some universities. The pictures and video footage have caused widespread outrage.

Supporters of Israel in the US have found it increasingly tough to defend such repression. They attempt to play the antisemitism card, but some of the students being assaulted are Jewish. Protests and polling alike reveal a sharp increase in younger American Jews turning against Israel and its violence. Joe Biden, a Democrat president, continues to support Israel, but massive parts of the Democrat voter base have greater sympathy for Palestine than for Israel’s apartheid regime.

In the UK, we see similar problems in the establishment when it seeks to demonise supporters of Palestine. Politicians, press and lobby groups continue to weaponise antisemitism, but with very little success.

A nasty and dishonest attack on the National Education Union last weekend, attempting to smear the union with antisemitism, went nowhere. The spuriously-named Campaign against Antisemitism triggered a big – and embarrassing – backlash after it sent a provocateur to cause trouble at a Palestine demonstration. It also cancelled a planned protest, supposedly on the grounds of safety, but clearly because it knew the turnout was going to be dismally small. The Jewish Bloc on Saturday’s Palestine demonstration was a reminder that many Jews take a different stance – and that Jewish people are perfectly safe on and around demonstrations against Israeli genocide.

This Wednesday’s workplace day of action for Palestine will be another opportunity to show that this movement reaches deep into British society. It provides a chance to deepen the movement in our trade unions in particular. Opposition to war and solidarity with Palestine are trade union causes. We need to insist on money for public services, workers’ pay and job creation not more and more military spending, while demanding an immediate end to our own government arming and supporting Israel.