9/11 and 10/7, A Comparison
9/11 and the Al Aqsa Flood — a comparison
Many people have compared 10/7/2023 in Israel with 9/11/2001 in the U.S. In both, opponents of the state attacked non-combatants to show their rejection of Zionism in one case and U.S. imperialism in the other. Most politicians and pundits, reporters and officials denounced these attacks as inhumane terrorism. Most of them went on to justify harsh retaliation against the attackers and anyone supposedly allied with them. In 2001 the U.S. used the excuse of 9/11 to wage war against Afghanistan and then Iraq that ended up killing 10s of thousands. In 2023, Israel used 10/7 as an excuse to attempt genocide against Gaza and to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank. This has already cost over 22,000 lives.
The Attacks on 9/11
“The 9/11 attack was immoral in the sense that the attackers killed people not responsible for the carrying out of U.S. foreign policy. It was also detrimental to creating solidarity against imperialism. It shifted the U.S. political climate to the right. It convinced many people to support repression like the U.S.A. Patriot Act. It whipped up a wave of islamophobia both officially and on the streets. It even engendered support for U.S. around the world as a victim of terror. This undercut anti-imperialism internationally.”
While the response at the official political level to both events was similar, there were fundamental differences between the two. This resulted in basic differences in how Marxist revolutionaries evaluated the events.
The attackers on 9/11 were right wingers not allied with any actual liberation struggle. The attackers on 10/7 were part of a 75+ year national liberation struggle by Palestinians.
The victims of 9/11 were largely innocent. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time. They were recipients of a backlash against U.S. imperialism. As tax payers and providers of cannon fodder they were hurt by imperialism even before 9/11. Even establishment commentators sometimes admitted that 9/11 was blowback against U.S. imperialism.
The 9/11 attack was immoral in the sense that the attackers killed people not responsible for the carrying out of U.S. foreign policy. It was also detrimental to creating solidarity against imperialism. It shifted the U.S. political climate to the right. It convinced many people to support repression like the U.S.A. Patriot Act. It whipped up a wave of islamophobia both officially and on the streets. It even engendered support for U.S. around the world as a victim of terror. This undercut anti-imperialism internationally.
9/11 attacked the very people who could have been won over to anti-imperialism, people who were also hurt by imperialism. It was either purposely or stupidly an attack that undermined solidarity.
The response of the revolutionary left to 9/11
“The left must first of all denounce capitalism and imperialism as the ultimate cause of even misguided actions. It should not play into the hands of the state by seeming to justify repression of the terrorists.”
Virtually no one on the revolutionary left justified the 9/11 attacks. However, from the very beginning, the revolutionary left campaigned against a U.S. war and repression. The International Socialist Organization for example immediately put out a special edition of Socialist Worker proclaiming “Don’t Turn Tragedy into War.”
The Marxist left spilled little ink denouncing the 9/11 attackers. Without justifying the attacks, they tried to explain where 9/11 came from. They used the attacks as part of their argument against U.S. imperialism. They put the blame for the terrorist attacks back on U.S. imperialism as the ultimate cause.
The lesson of this is that even when the left opposes a particular tactic as counterproductive or even immoral, it needs to keep the focus where it belongs. The left must first of all denounce capitalism and imperialism as the ultimate cause of even misguided actions. It should not play into the hands of the state by seeming to justify repression of the terrorists.
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
“On a moral level, 10/7 could not be more different from 9/11. Instead of misguidedly attacking potential allies, the Palestinians attacked beneficiaries and perpetrators of Zionist dispossession.”
On 10/7, Palestinians broke out of their Gaza ghetto and open-air prison. They attacked the colonial settler state of Israel after 75 years of mostly non-violent struggle for liberation. Virtually the whole Israeli Jewish population is part of the Zionist military establishment. Israel receives monetary and military backing from the U.S. and the international Zionist movement. This backing benefits the whole Israeli Jewish population. Israel would not be a viable state without that support. The “civilian” population of Israel are colonial settlers who are involved in the continuing dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians. They have a material interest in maintaining the dispossession and oppression of Palestinians. This material interest is a basis for the overwhelming support of Zionism and genocidal attacks on Palestinians among the Israeli Jewish population.
Palestinians are right to see the Zionist settlers as their enemy. The settlers are not a force that can be won over to supporting Palestinian Liberation. The “terrorist” action did not alienate potential allies. On a moral level, 10/7 could not be more different from 9/11. Instead of misguidedly attacking potential allies, the Palestinians attacked beneficiaries and perpetrators of Zionist dispossession. Even if any of those hurt or killed in the attack are seen as innocent victims, they are victims of Zionism which created the necessity for the attack. — — just as the U.S. civilians killed in 9/11 were actually victims of U.S. imperialism.
The political results of Al-Aqsa Flood have been very different from the results of the 9/11 attacks. The later shifted national and international opinion in a pro-imperialist direction. 10/7 instead has provoked the largest international movement for Palestinian liberation since 1948! People across the world understand why Palestinians had to attack Israel. In spite of moralist hand wringing, a majority of young people in the U.S. support the Palestinian attack on Israel. Israel is more isolated than ever before.
The Response of the Left To 10/7
There have been many excellent articles from the left demanding solidarity with the Palestinian movement and the 10/7 action.
https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/12/what-solidarity-requires/
https://firebrand.red/2023/12/support-palestinians-when-they-fight-not-just-when-they-die/
https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/12/against-colonial-narcissism/
However, the left has been divided on whether to support or oppose Al-Aqsa Flood. Consistent revolutionary Marxists such as Firebrand (firebrand. Red) have defended the right of Palestinians to resist “by any means necessary”:
https://firebrand.red/2024/01/why-we-support-palestinian-armed-resistance/
Others who say they are socialists, have used abstract morality to oppose the 10/7 actions. They have claimed to oppose the Israeli bombing of Gaza but also oppose Hamas’ attacks on Israel. In spite of supposed opposition to genocide, their arguments support the Israeli justification for the bombing of Gaza.
https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/12/the-legacy-of-october-7/ary
Instead of siding clearly with Palestinians in the face of the on-going slaughter, they have given aid and comfort to the enemies of Palestinian liberation by supporting Israeli opposition to “terrorism”.
The vehement moral opposition to the 10/7 military action by supposed leftists is a giant step backward from the revolutionary left response to 9/11. In that case, even though the whole left opposed the 9/11 attacks, the revolutionary left spent virtually no time criticizing the terrorists. Instead, the left organized against the repression, against Islamophobia and against imperialism.
The struggle of Palestinians against Israel is a just fight of national liberation that all decent people should support unconditionally, without equivocation and self-serving moralism.
The Left should follow Lenin’s attitude to the fight of oppressed nations against imperialism:
” If tomorrow, Morocco was to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just” “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory “great” powers.” (Socialism and War)
The left doesn’t have to agree with the ultimate political goal of Hamas, but it should want the Palestinians to defeat Zionism. Unconditional support to Palestinian liberation and unconditional opposition to Zionism and imperialism!
