While we are being anaesthetized by athletes’ performances, the national anthem and “Olympic festivities”, society continues to rot.

In Great Britain, the far right has used a sordid news story to provoke racist riots. In the Middle East, war could and may spread. By assassinating both a Hezbullah military leader in Beirut and a Hamas political leader in Tehran, Israeli leaders have deliberately taken the risk of setting the whole region ablaze.

American leaders have criticized these assassinations but at the same time they have also reinforced their military fleet in the Mediterranean in order to maintain the imperialist order if necessary. And since Western states know perfectly well that the Israeli provocation won’t go unanswered, they are urging their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

But the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, the Golan Heights and occupied Palestine as well as the laboring classes of Israel cannot flee. Yet again, they will be the first to suffer the consequences of both the policies carried out by the regimes in the region and the maneuvers of imperialist powers aiming to control the Middle East, its oil and strategic trade routes.

Over time, the state of Israel has become imperialism’s most reliable and battle-hardened armed force in that part of the world. That’s why Western leaders continue to provide their unwavering military and political support to Israel.

Israeli leaders have reduced Gaza to rubble, caused the death of tens of thousands of Gazans and condoned, if not encouraged, the torture of Palestinian prisoners. And yet, President Herzog was invited to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris and Netanyahu received a standing ovation in the U.S. Congress.

To justify the bombings in neighboring countries, the destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Palestinians, Netanyahu and his Western allies invoke Israel’s right to defend its existence, which they claim is under threat. What cynicism!

Israel was once a refuge for survivors of the Nazi genocide, but its founders and successive leaders have turned it into a besieged fortress by refusing to recognize the same rights for different peoples, regardless of their origin or religion.

By expelling Palestinians from their own land, turning them into second-class citizens, a colonized people or else lifelong refugees in neighboring countries, and by annexing vast territories, they have continually sown hatred. They are now reaping rebellion and war.

By assassinating Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the Israeli army eliminated a key player in the negotiations between Israel, regional powers and Palestinian political representatives, which were being conducted under U.S. supervision to make plans for Gaza’s future. It was a way of preventing any political solution from being found and of prolonging military action.

Since October 7, Netanyahu, his far-right allies and the Israeli military staff have been unable to defeat Hamas. They have been politically weakened and seem ready to prolong an endless deadly war.

By pushing Iran and its allies—regimes that claim to be anti-imperialist—to attack Israel, Netanyahu has forced the hand of American leaders who don’t want even more chaos but who are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain control over the region.

By digging the Palestinian population’s grave, by waging war against neighboring countries, Israeli leaders are condemning their own people to a long, dirty, degrading war. They have an overwhelming responsibility in this ongoing tragedy.

But Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime have nothing better to offer the Palestinians or the peoples whose interests they claim to defend. What has the attack orchestrated by Hamas on October 7 done for Gazans? What has 45 years under the Islamic Republic done for the workers, women and youth of Iran?

These regimes, just like those of neighboring Arab states and the Israeli state, have only blood and exploitation to offer their populations.

The different peoples of the Middle East could very well live together and cooperate on all fronts. But that would require overthrowing the dictatorship of capitalists around the world as well as the domination of the imperialist world powers that constantly pit one people against another.

That’s why the fate of the laboring classes in the Middle East is linked to our own here in France. Both here and over there, we must reject the call to national unity behind our leaders. Both here and over there, we must refuse to be divided according to our origins and instead come together and organize together as one exploited working class.

Nathalie Arthaud