Earlier this year, Security and Civil Protection of Chiapas Secretary Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca announced the initiation of discussions with the Israeli Defense Forces.
In an attempt to weaken the influence of Zapatista forces and regain control in the southernmost state of Mexico, Llaven is hoping to gain insight from counter-insurgency veterans.
While the IDF has contributed to maintaining capitalist hegemony in Mexico by selling arms to the Mexican government for decades, it is now directly engaged in squashing resistance to global capitalism.
Zapatista struggle
On Jan. 1, 1994, the same day the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) went public. With the release of the First Declaration from the Lacandón Jungle, the EZLN declared war on the Mexican state. Meanwhile, 3,000 armed EZLN insurgents seized towns and cities in Chiapas.
Refusing to accept the terms of NAFTA, which would inevitably result in increased income inequality in the country and destroy the indigenous communities’ agricultural sustenance, the Zapatistas sought to ignite a revolution.
After severe government repression, the Zapatistas ceased armed struggle in favor of running autonomous municipalities in Chiapas and engaging in media campaigns to bring light to the detrimental effects of free-trade agreements.
The Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ) enable the Zapatistas and the peoples of Chiapas to operate independently from the Mexican state. Overseeing local community programs on food, health, education and taxation places the power into the hands of indigenous and working-class peoples in the region.
Foreign investors fear the MAREZ as a threat to investment stability in Mexico. As a result, the Mexican state has made consistent efforts to destroy what the Zapatistas have accomplished.
Israel serves as U.S. proxy
This is not the first time that Israel has provided a key service to the U.S. by taking part in operations when it is not expedient for the U.S. to do so directly.
An example of this was Israel’s long-term military assistance to apartheid South Africa. By the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan was under intense pressure to stop U.S. support for South Africa. In April 1985, the Republican majority in the Senate voted overwhelmingly to condemn apartheid. Thereafter, much of U.S. support for South Africa had to continue through the Israeli state, which maintained its strategic alliance with apartheid until 1987.
Strong sentiments and the anti-apartheid movement made it impossible for the U.S. to continue direct support. Today, the U.S. government finds it politically costly to provide direct support for the repression of the indigenous movement in southern Mexico. It is more convenient to outsource the job to Israel.
Solidarity between Zapatistas and Palestinians
The Zapatistas have long expressed solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine. Since the creation of the settler-colonial Israeli state in 1948 and forcible eviction of the Palestinian people, Palestinians have been subjected to racism, human rights violations and extreme violence at the hands of Israeli settlers and the IDF, with the financial and political support of U.S. imperialism.
In spite of this oppression, the Palestinian people’s will to achieve self-determination has not been broken. For decades, Palestinians have been engaged in militant resistance for national liberation, which has inspired revolutionaries around the globe.
The alliance of the Mexican state and the IDF signifies another type of global solidarity, however. A threat to the capitalist order in one corner of the globe is a threat to the entire system.
“Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, right here next to us, the Israeli government’s heavily trained and armed military continues its march of death and destruction.”—Zapatista spokesperson Subcommandante Marcos, Jan. 4, 2009
