By Alberto Cruz
 
With the connivance, acquiescence and approval of the United Nations, Europe the United States and reactionary Arab governments, Israel is engaged in a campaign of extermination, a holocaust against the Palestinians. Israel has never wanted peace, only surrender. The Israeli vision of any peace process is based on a list of "no’s": no to the right of return, no to recognition of the historic and political rights of the Palestinians in Jerusalem, no to the dismantling of settlements, no to a sovereign Palestinian State.

With the final objective of dictating its own vision of peace, Israel is fully prepared to degrade the lives of Palestinians, limiting their freedom of movement by means of murders and arrests, blockades, destruction of homes, universities, mosques, hospitals and agricultural and fishery resources. The siege of Gaza is self-evident proof of the behaviour of 21st century nazis: the Zionists. The massacre of Gaza is self-evident proof of the new SS: Zionist soldiers. The alternatives to the Palestinians are clear: abandon Hamas or die, either by military means or by "civil" means like blockade and siege. A lesson in democracy in the purest form by the "Middle Eastern democracy" par excellence
 
For that purpose it can count on its best allies, who are not, despite appearances, the United States or the European Union, but the reactionary Arab regimes. Saudi Arabia and Egypt were informed in advance of the attack, as the daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported in its edition of Sunday December 28th. As proof that they could hardly care less: one hour before the attack started, Saudi communications media were already blaming Hamas for what happened while their London newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published an interview with Shimon Perez saying that Israel was not going to attack Gaza and that the Israelis were "ready for peace". Obviously, an interview that has to be regarded as one of the Zionist decoy manoeuvres so as to allow the massacre to be as complete as possible, a measure clearly explained by the reporter for Ha’aretz, the Israeli daily, in its edition that Sunday.
 
For days, Israeli newspapers had been reporting the "green light" given by reactionary Arab regimes for the elimination of the main leaders of Hamas. Just as they did during the Lebanon war in the summer of 2006, the reactionary Arab regimes feel a cold chill along their spine when political -military movements like Hizbollah defeat the omnipotent Zionist army or when political military movements like Hamas win democratic elections and are able to resist a siege lasting over a year and a half. The reactionary Arab regimes can endure one defeat (which Hizbollah dealt them, since one should not forget that thanks to that defeat they dusted off the Peace Plan approved by the inoperative and inefficient Arab League in 2002) but not two. And Hamas is not Hizbollah. It is much weaker and that fact has permitted and encouraged this massacre. The most obvious case is Egypt, which reinforced the closure of the Rafah crossing just a week prior to the Zionist massacre.
 
Hizbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is right when he accuses these regimes of collaboration and of acting in this way so as to defeat "the least glimmer of resistance" to the neo-colonial project advanced by imperialism in the Middle East. He knows what he is talking about because it had already been done to them in 2006. And so that no one forgets that Israeli arrogance has no limits and that the UN lets the Zionist regime do what it likes, on Sunday December 28th, while the Gaza massacre was in progress, five Zionist war planes again violated Lebanese air space, flying over Nabatiye, Marjaoun, Jiam and Arqoub. What did the UNIFIL troops do? As usual: nothing. They are there to protect the Israelis, not the Lebanese.
 
The reactionary Arab regimes are there to protect themselves, not the Palestinians. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have managed to put back until December 31st the "urgent meeting" of the inoperative and inefficient Arab League. Just as they did in Lebanon, they prefer to make time for Israel to finish off or weaken Hamas. For them that political military organization is the problem, not the Zionist regime.
 
Egypt has never forgotten that Hamas refused to accept bringing forward elections as Egypt had suggested so as to reinforce Abbas. Nor was it pleased when Hamas withdrew from the "national dialogue" talks overseen by Cairo until the Mubarak regime opened the Rafah frontier crossing. Egypt could not accept that and it has been the reason for its approval of the massacre carried out by Israel.
 
But the most wretched of all the Arab leaders is Mahmoud Abbas, who styles himself, "President of the Palestinian Authority" at the same time as he accuses Hamas of responsibility for the massacre for refusing to give in, as he himself has done, to Zionist and Western designs. Taking advantage of the bloodletting, he has already said he will take over the administration of Gaza if Hamas is defeated. We are faced with a Vichy-style West Bank regime, with Abbas as its Pétain, serving the 21st Century nazis, Israel.
 
Dumping such individuals into history’s dustbin is a duty. Overthrowing the reactionary Arab regimes is a right. Solidarity with Arab people’s movements and especially with Egyptian trades unionists (1) ought to be a leading priority for the world anti-imperialist movement.
 
And the same could be said as regards the European and United States governments. The Greek flame, like the Olympic one, should not just be allowed to go out but rather spread in the cause of peace and social justice. Capitalism offers only one kind of peace, the truly democratic one of the cemetery.

-Alberto Cruz is a journalist, political analyst and writer, specializing in international relations. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: albercruz@eresmas.com. (Centro de Estudios Pol