Palestine: The Human Cost of Capitalist Exploitation

By Peter S. Baron

As the genocide in Palestine continues, we must confront the stark reality of American involvement. American taxpayer money is funding a continuous supply of bombs and war technology to Israel, weapons that are being used to kill Palestinians. Despite the political posturing, the U.S. government’s unwavering stance isn't about moral high ground or justice — it's about cold, calculated geopolitical and capitalist interests.

Escalation and Brutality Since October 7th, 2023

Since October 7th, 2023, Israel’s brutality in Gaza has escalated to unimaginable levels. Families have been torn apart, homes reduced to rubble, and entire communities shattered. The death toll is over 45,000, including more than 41,000 civilians, 15,620 children, and 10,173 women, according to Euro Med Monitor. When including “indirect deaths,” the Lancet estimates the true death toll is likely upwards of 186,000 people. With countless bodies buried under 40 million tons of rubble, the true number may never be known.

Children, who should be playing and learning, are instead facing death and destruction. Roughly 80% of Palestinian children have reported emotional distress and trauma. Think back to when you were a child, say nine years old. Could you imagine living in such a dystopian reality? According to UNICEF, at least 17,000 children have been orphaned or separated from their families. Over 2,750 people have been detained or forcibly disappeared by the Israeli Defense Force, leaving families in anguish and communities in fear.

Israel’s constant bombardment has left over 86,200 injured, overwhelming Palestine’s already crumbling healthcare system. The injured and sick have been abandoned with nowhere to go as over 30 hospitals, 100 clinics, and 275 ambulances have been targeted and destroyed by Israeli strikes. Health professionals, who should be saving lives, are themselves becoming casualties, with over 486 killed and 640 injured. Civil defense workers, crucial for emergency response and rescue operations, have not been spared, with over 259 killed or injured.

Palestine is being suffocated under a wave of deliberate, calculated suffering. A million people are gasping for air with acute respiratory infections, 577,000 are writhing in agony with severe diarrhea, and 107,000 are battling acute jaundice. Over 100,000 people are being devoured by scabies, 65,000 are enduring the relentless torment of skin rashes, 12,000 are passing blood through their bowels in sheer agony, and 11,000 children are suffering from chickenpox in conditions that are nothing short of hellish.

And it doesn't stop there. Hundreds are gripped by mumps and meningitis, diseases that thrive in the chaos and despair deliberately inflicted upon this population. The threat of a polio outbreak looms, like a vulture waiting to feast on a community already pushed to the brink.

Gaza has tragically become a vast graveyard, a land where the living walk among the dead, buried hastily and in desperation as the relentless bombardment continues. Once vibrant neighborhoods have been reduced to fields of graves, where bodies are laid to rest in backyards, beneath staircases, and along roadsides. Cemeteries overflow, and morgues can no longer contain the sheer number of the dead. The ground is dug up repeatedly, with graves being made on top of graves as space runs out. In some places, graves themselves have been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, leaving bones and remains scattered and exposed. The once sacred rituals of honoring the dead have been replaced by hurried, makeshift burials, often without the dignity of proper rites. Gaza has become not just a place of death, but a symbol of the utter devastation and inhumanity that has turned an entire territory into one massive, sorrow-filled cemetery.

Israel has completely destroyed over 141,920 Palestinian homes and partially damaged another 312,000, displacing at least 1.7 million people out of a population of 2.2 million. Can you fathom such enormous numbers? What about the terror of losing your home, your loved ones, and your sense of security, repeatedly over the course of eight long months? This mass displacement has left countless people without shelter, food, electricity, or basic necessities. Families are huddling in makeshift shelters, clinging to the hope of survival amidst relentless attacks.

Over 180 press headquarters, 2,500 industrial facilities, 460 schools, 690 mosques, 3 churches, and 200 heritage sites have been destroyed or damaged. This is the erasure of the history, culture, and identity of an entire people. This genocide has been the deadliest event on record for journalists in decades. Deliberately targeting reporters, killing over 140, aims to silence the truth and blind the world to the atrocities being committed.

The blockade on Palestine, which has been in place since 2007, has been elevated to a “complete siege,” significantly restricting the flow of food, water, electricity, humanitarian aid, and medical supplies ensuring that Palestinians remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, dependency, and despair. Israeli Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir, even went so far as to assert, “The only thing that needs to enter Palestine are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.” This blockade, justified under the guise of security, is in reality a brutal economic stranglehold designed to cripple the region and maintain geopolitical dominance.

The justifications for the blockade of Palestine, particularly claims like those highlighted by commentator Steven Bonnell, known online as "Destiny," that Hamas uses sugar from imported soda and sweets to manufacture rockets, are patently absurd. They insult the intelligence of the global community. The implausibility of using common sugar for military rocket propulsion is glaring. It belies established chemistry.

The real motivation for blocking basic goods is to make Palestine uninhabitable. The tactic of deliberate deprivation carried out by Israeli elites with American support coerces the Palestinian population into leaving their homeland behind or suffering intolerable living conditions, thereby clearing the way for further territorial control. Israeli Colonel Yogev BarSheshet revealed as much, saying, “Whoever returns here, if they return here, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”

The United States’ steadfast support of Israel’s manipulative use of basic human needs for geopolitical ends demonstrates a profound disregard, if not contempt, for the humanity of Palestinians. The death and devastation are not “mistakes.” This is a calculated campaign of destruction and control.

Economic Interests and Military-Industrial Complex

The United States’ unwavering funding for Israel’s actions in Palestine is driven by a web of economic, political, and ideological factors that prioritize profits and power over human lives.

The U.S.-Israel partnership is not just about direct military might; Israel's intelligence capabilities provide the U.S. with critical insights into Middle Eastern geopolitics, preempting threats to American economic dominance while generating profits for the elite.

Israel's advancements in cybersecurity, defense, and agriculture are exploited by U.S. industries to create profitable joint ventures and innovation hubs that benefit the wealthy few. The Iron Dome missile defense system, a joint U.S.-Israel project, is lauded for safeguarding Israeli cities, but it primarily serves to bolster the military-industrial complex, allowing U.S. defense companies to gain insights and innovations that they can apply to other projects. For example, the Iron Dome has introduced cutting-edge technology in missile interception, which the U.S. likely integrates into its own defense systems.

Of course, the production and maintenance of the Iron Dome system generate significant profits for U.S. defense contractors involved in the project. The Israeli corporation Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the U.S. corporation Raytheon have joined up to produce Iron Dome components and systems within the U.S. The partnership is propped up by over $7 billion in U.S. investments allocated to Israeli missile defense programs since the early 1990s.

The U.S. provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, which Israel then uses to purchase advanced weaponry and technology from American defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing. Outside of corporate executives, major shareholders, and a limited number of employees directly involved in the defense industry, very few people benefit from investments in these companies.

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Overall, about 61-63% of Americans own some form of stock, either directly or indirectly through mutual funds, retirement accounts, and other investment vehicles. Given the widespread investment in major indexes and mutual funds, which often include shares of these large defense companies, it is likely that a substantial portion of Americans who own stock indirectly hold shares in defense companies. For instance, many popular index funds and ETFs that track the S&P 500 or other major indexes include shares of these top defense contractors. However, this figure is misleading when it comes to the actual distribution of wealth. As of the third quarter of 2023, the top 10% of Americans held 93% of all stocks — the highest level ever recorded. In stark contrast, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks. This means that despite a majority of Americans technically owning stock, most people see very little financial benefit from the market, including any profits gained by defense companies. The economic and social costs of military engagements disproportionately impact the majority, who gain almost nothing from the stock market despite their indirect involvement.

The Stable-Unstable dynamic

More broadly, the relationship with Israel is vital for U.S. companies aiming to access, dominate, and control the Middle East's abundant resources — namely, oil and natural gas. Despite the U.S. achieving energy independence, regional “stability” remains crucial for the elite, because it allows them to maintain control over global energy prices, secure profitable trade routes, and preserve their geopolitical dominance, all of which protect their economic and strategic interests on a global scale.

Israel’s US funded military capabilities aims to prevent conflicts or political upheavals that could disrupt the U.S.’ dominance over the flow of oil and other goods through critical chokepoints like the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz, which are essential for maintaining global trade routes. According to Israel, for example, Israel’s Shin Bet — its FBI equivalent —  has foiled adversarial plots aimed at key targets, preventing attacks that could have disrupted global oil supplies.

But let’s be clear, what the elites seek to foster is not peaceful stability, but rather controlled instability.

Regional stability is essential in key areas like oil flow and trade routes because it ensures that oil and goods keep moving smoothly, without sudden disruptions that could hurt the profits of the elite. Stability here means oil tankers safely passing through shipping lanes without threats of piracy or war, and goods flowing from factories to markets without delays. Governments in these regions need to be cooperative, keeping things calm and under control so that business can continue as usual.

But in other regions, controlled chaos is part of the strategy. By stirring up conflict and instability in countries like Iraq, Syria, and Libya, the U.S. prevents any one country or group from becoming powerful enough to challenge American dominance. This kind of instability looks like ongoing civil wars, governments struggling to maintain control, and communities torn apart by violence. These conditions keep local leaders too busy trying to survive to focus on resisting U.S. influence or forming alliances with America’s rivals.

In this way, the U.S. ensures that no single country in these regions becomes strong enough to disrupt American interests. Instead, these countries remain weak, divided, and dependent on U.S. military aid and economic support to stay afloat. The chaos keeps them in check, while the stable regions keep the oil and goods flowing—both serving to maintain U.S. power and control in the world.

Therefore, what the elites truly seek is a balance: stability where it protects their economic interests and controlled instability where it ensures their geopolitical dominance.

Selective Stability, Controlled Instability

The U.S.-Israel military presence in the Middle East serves as the iron fist behind the smooth flow of oil and goods, ensuring that nothing disrupts the relentless pursuit of profit. Oil tankers, loaded with crude, glide through the Persian Gulf under the ever-watchful eyes of American and Israeli warships, their safety guaranteed by the threat of overwhelming force. These tankers are the arteries of the global economy, and the military presence ensures that they deliver their cargo without interruption. The calm waters mask a brutal reality: this enforced stability exists solely to protect the profits of oil magnates, ensuring that every drop of oil fuels the capitalist machine, keeping the elite firmly in power.

On land, the same dynamic plays out with trade routes from factories in the East to markets in the West. U.S. and Israeli forces act as enforcers, maintaining a system where compliant governments keep their populations in check, ensuring no disruption disturbs the flow of goods. This military presence suppresses any threat to the status quo, propping up regimes that prioritize business as usual over human rights.

Simultaneously, the U.S. military presence in the Gulf keeps the Middle East in perpetual turmoil. Israel's airstrikes on Hezbollah targets aren’t about self-defense—they’re about throwing gasoline on the fire. When bombs rip through crowded neighborhoods, it’s not just militants who suffer; it’s entire communities—families gathered around dinner tables, children laughing in the streets—obliterated in an instant. This isn’t collateral damage; it’s a strategy. The more destruction, the more Hezbollah is provoked, ensuring a vicious cycle of retaliation that justifies yet another wave of attacks. This relentless violence keeps the region seething with rage, just the way the arms dealers like it. With every missile launched, stock prices for American defense contractors soar, profits stained with the blood of innocents.

Saudi Arabia’s onslaught against the Houthis is no different. These so-called "precision" airstrikes routinely tear apart schools, hospitals, and marketplaces—places where everyday people go to survive, to live. But that’s exactly the point: to turn Yemen into a landscape of despair, ensuring it remains a theater of war. The more catastrophic the situation becomes, the more Saudi Arabia clings to American military support, feeding into the U.S.'s grand design. The bombs don’t just destroy buildings—they destroy any chance for peace, ensuring Yemen remains a battlefield where only the arms dealers prosper.

When local governments are weakened by instability, they become more desperate, more willing to sign deals that favor U.S. companies, especially in resource extraction and trade. These companies swoop in, exploiting the disarray to secure access to valuable resources at bargain prices, all while the region burns. Meanwhile, the ongoing turmoil makes it nearly impossible for rival powers like Russia and China to establish a stable presence or secure long-term investments. Every time they try to establish a foothold, the instability disrupts their plans, forcing them to pull back or lose billions in failed ventures. This ensures that U.S. interests face no real competition in the region, keeping American dominance secure.

The paradox of U.S. policy lies in using instability to achieve a form of controlled stability. By periodically destabilizing the region, U.S. elites maintain a balance of power that prevents any one nation from becoming too powerful while ensuring ongoing dependence on U.S. support.

Palestine isn't just a footnote in this power-hungry game; it's a centerpiece. The capitalist elite know that crushing Palestinians will ignite resistance, not just in Palestine but across the entire Middle East. And that's exactly what they want. This turmoil becomes the perfect excuse for Israel to beef up its military, all under the guise of "security," funded by billions of U.S. dollars. Every act of Palestinian defiance is twisted into a justification for Israel's brutal military machine, which the U.S. gleefully supports because it keeps their imperial ambitions alive.

“Orientalism” (as understood by Edward Said) provides further pretext for the atrocities in Palestine. Arabs and Muslims are depicted by corporate media and bad-faith social media personalities as violent, backward, and a threat to Western civilization, which views itself as rational and enlightened. This dehumanization makes it easier to justify and carry out extreme violence against them. The Israeli government speaks of fighting “human animals,” making Palestine a “slaughterhouse,”  and “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”

The skeptics among us might wonder, "Even if we are being overly destructive, isn't the core of this foreign policy in our best interests?" After all, our politicians constantly assure us that our military actions are meant to protect us and enhance our security.

No. This policy doesn't protect us; it undermines our security. The “stable instability” American elites create fosters resentment and extremism, breeding terrorist groups that then target innocent civilians, including us. The CIA has admitted that such actions generate significant "blowback," leading to increased threats that culminate in loss of lives. The fear and threats generated by our aggressive foreign policy lead to the erosion of our own civil liberties through measures like invasive airport security. One study demonstrated that despite spending over $550 million on TSA screening equipment and training, TSA agents failed to detect a threat in 67 out of 70 mock tests. This means that in 95% of the trials, the TSA missed planted threats. The elite are sacrificing our privacy and rights in the name of a security that remains elusive.

Elite Manipulation of Politicians

Historically, politicians have never hesitated to carry out the elite’s killing missions in exchange for political funding. The situation here is no different. The Israel lobby’s influence in the United States plays a significant role in maintaining this status quo. Powerful lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exert tremendous influence over U.S. politicians. Through campaign contributions and political pressure, these groups ensure that U.S. policies remain staunchly pro-Israel. Politicians, driven by the need to secure campaign financing and re-election, often align their policies with the interests of these lobbies.

Despite its relatively small financial contributions compared to other donors, AIPAC strategically targets key lawmakers to maximize its impact. By lobbying, fostering close relationships with politicians, and forming strategic alliances and partnerships with various interest groups, political entities, and organizations to advance their policy goals and support for Israel, AIPAC ensures that legislators align with its pro-Israel agenda.

Furthermore, AIPAC uses intimidation tactics, threatening to support challengers against incumbents who do not toe the line, thereby coercing politicians to adopt its views. Recently, the anti-Zionist Democrat Jamal Bowman lost his primary to Zionist candidate George Latimer, who received over $15 million from AIPAC in the most expensive primary race ever. Politicians witness the political fallout in races like NY-16 and quickly learn the severe consequences of defying the Israel lobby. This creates an oppressive environment where fear of backlash forces compliance, transforming the political landscape into a monolithic echo chamber where Zionism is the only acceptable stance.

The Cycle of Violence and Exploitation

Remove all the moral platitudes and justifications for our actions and what we are really talking about here is an obscene, ruthless pursuit of power and money, where the deaths of children and the destruction of homes are built into the business model. The elite have their sights set on Gaza today, with plans that starkly illustrate their predatory strategies. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor, highlighted the "very valuable" potential of Gaza's waterfront properties. In a revealing interview at Harvard University, Kushner suggested Israel should remove civilians from Gaza to "clean up" the area.

Israeli real estate developers, such as Harey Zahav, have proposed building beachfront properties over the ruins in Gaza, which have been heavily bombarded. Constructing settlements on the remains of demolished Palestinian homes evokes the harrowing history of the Nakba, during which over 500 Palestinian towns and villages were systematically destroyed by Zionist militias. Israeli General Elad Peled described the war crimes he committed during the Nakba, saying “we entered the village [and] planted a bomb next to every house.”

Ultimately, the more successful Israel is in wiping out Palestinians, the stronger the U.S.-Israeli stranglehold on this region becomes. More land becomes available to exploit, to expand settlements, and to control strategic trade routes, such as the Suez Canal where 30% of the world’s shipping containers must pass through and the Bab el-Mandeb strait where six million barrels of oil pass through every day.

The Zionist leaders of years past were clear about their intentions. In 1948, the founder and first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion said, “We must do everything to ensure [the Palestinians] never do return.” Moshe Sharret, the second prime minister, agreed, stating, “We… have come to conquer a country from the people inhabiting it.” Chaim Weizman, the first president of Israel, analogized Palestinians to “the rocks of Judea” — “obstacles that have to be cleared on a difficult path.”

At its core, Zionism is a capitalist project. It is about turning land — what should be communal — into a commodity for private profit. The Jewish State, a pamphlet written by the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, admits as much. He called for transforming previously non-commercial lands into productive economic zones through agriculture, urban planning, and infrastructure — efforts that would inevitably displace existing populations. Israeli authorities implemented this idea, strategically seizing and reclassifying Arab land to consolidate their control over it.

By forcibly removing Palestinians and appropriating their land, Zionism creates fertile ground for real estate ventures and new markets. This process is further bolstered by the military and security industries, cornerstones of capitalist economies, which profit from the instability and conflict.

The Zionist project does not merely parallel capitalism; it is a manifestation of it, embodying the drive to dispossess, commodify, and profit.

The Nauseating Reality

How sickening is this?

The endless churn of war keeps corporate profits soaring. Capitalism demands ever-growing profit margins, and the corporate overlords, with their iron grip on political power, won't let go. The U.S. must remain Israel's staunch ally, not for justice or security, but to keep the gears of the war machine turning, to keep the stock market fat, and to ensure the elite continue to float above the suffering they've engineered.

Without unwavering U.S. support, Israel would have to consider diplomacy, stripped of the military dominance that U.S. aid guarantees. This could finally reduce tensions, forcing other nations and groups in the region to soften their aggression, knowing the U.S. is no longer fueling the militarized madness.

However, in this late stage of capitalism, the elite cannot afford peace. Demand for weapons would plummet. The military-industrial complex, bloated by blood money, would see profits wither. Stock prices of defense companies would fall, dragging down the portfolios of the elite who thrive on this manufactured chaos.

The deep animosity between Israelis and Palestinians is a direct result of the calculated strategies employed by elites to maintain their stranglehold on power. This conflict is deeply rooted in the reality of Israel as a settler-colonial state, driven by a capitalist system that thrives on division and exploitation. The powerful deploy propaganda and systemic oppression to manipulate the masses into fighting each other, distracting them from uniting against their true oppressors — the elites themselves.

This situation mirrors the European settlers' ruthless exploitation and slaughter of Indigenous populations in North America. European elites indoctrinated and mobilized ordinary European settlers to commit genocide out of fear and hatred, but the elites were truly motivated by the opportunity to seize indigenous resources and grow obscenely wealthy. Similarly, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is motivated by an elite community’s rapacious desire to control land and resources. The elites stoke hatred and fear among ordinary Israelis, framing the conflict as an inevitable clash where both sides must annihilate the other. They position themselves as indispensable protectors in this endless cycle of bloodshed, manipulating public opinion to cement their power.

Many Israelis may genuinely feel that their security is at risk, leading them to support their government’s aggressive policies as a form of self-defense. This fear is skillfully manipulated by the elite through a relentless stream of propaganda. Settlers are not inherently evil; they have been indoctrinated—through schools, media, and political discourse—to believe that their safety requires they have an exclusive right to the land.

The truth is, no one has an inherent right to any land. The earth belongs to all people. Israelis aren't wrong simply for living in Palestine; they're wrong for denying Palestinians the same right to live there.

Recognizing this common oppression is crucial for building solidarity and working towards an equitable resolution. Otherwise, we fall back into the same old power struggles that the elite have always used to divide and conquer.

The Real Struggle

The real struggle is not between Israelis and Palestinians but between the oppressed masses and the elite forces that divide them and facilitate their exploitation in the pursuit of profit and power. Israeli society, like any other, is divided by class. The elites, who benefit from the conflict, use their power to maintain control and increase their wealth, manipulating the fears and prejudices of the broader population to sustain the status quo. The average Israeli, despite being on the dominant side of the conflict, is still part of the oppressed mass under capitalism. They are manipulated into supporting policies that perpetuate the occupation and the conflict, believing it necessary for their survival and security.

On the other side, Palestinians' anger and resentment are understandable, if not inevitable. Such feelings are born from their experiences of dispossession, violence, and systemic brutality. Both populations are oppressed by the same capitalist system that prioritizes profit over human lives, using division and hatred to maintain control and suppress any potential unity against the true oppressors. There is a vast difference in degree, but not in kind.

The true enemy is not the individual Israeli or Palestinian but the elite-driven capitalist system that fuels the Zionist project. Recognizing this common oppression is crucial for building solidarity and working towards a just and equitable resolution.

This entire situation reflects a broader reality; a tiny elite class routinely manipulates global politics and economies to their advantage. The genocide in Palestine is a means to an end — ensuring that share prices climb and profits soar, all while innocent lives are taken. Millions are deemed expendable by an elite class that orchestrates these horrors from boardrooms and government offices, far removed from the bloodshed and despair their decisions cause.

This is murder for money.

Peter S. Baron is the author of If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Israel, Palestine, and Feeling Unsafe

By Kenn Orphan

I just watched a child’s last breath. Lying on a gurney, bloodied and terrified. Red pools forming under his head. Eyes glazing over with the unmistakable shroud of death. This is Rafah. This is what is happening now.

And yet, I keep seeing people say they feel “unsafe” because of the mere existence of encampments on university campuses. Feeling unsafe because others are protesting a genocide. And I think about what it actually means to be unsafe. Is there anything more unsafe than being displaced, starved, endlessly bombed, shot at, or buried alive?

I think of all the universities that have been obliterated in Gaza. Of all the professors that have been slaughtered. How safe are the students who once attended them? I think of the mass graves found in hospital courtyards. Bodies with zip-tied wrists, catheters, medical gowns covered hastily with waste and mud. Bodies of children, old people, the sick and the medical teams who once assisted them. If you’ve done any work in human rights, you understand the horror that the term “mass grave” imbues. They are the absolute markers of atrocity.

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Some have wasted no time reminding us that this is simply the “reality of war”. But is this really a war? I cannot recall another war where one side was able to so easily shut off the water mains, the electricity, the food and medicine shipments at will. If it is a war, I wonder where the soldiers on the other side are. Because I haven’t seen them either. I haven’t seen the other side’s tanks or drones or destroyers or aircrafts. I’ve only seen children, the elderly, the sick and the starving.

But I have seen soldiers. Soldiers from one side of this so-called “conflict”. They have been posting endless videos of themselves smashing children’s toys, defecating in kitchens, and parading around in the lingerie of women who have vanished. I’ve seen them making wedding proposals and holding podcasts on the rubble of bombed out apartment buildings. I’ve seen them hauling off jewelry, clothes and money. I’ve seen them firing on people waving white flags or who were simply crossing a road.

Much of the media, pundits and many politicians of all political persuasions have been wasting no time demonizing the student protests. They keep telling us how they make some people feel unsafe. And they continually tell us that this all started on October 7th. That this is a “retaliatory war”. And it’s true that terrible things were done on October 7th. But they never mention the 80 years prior to that day. They never mention apartheid and forced displacement and night raids and indefinite detention of children and home demolitions and settler attacks and a crippling blockade. Wouldn’t those things make anyone feel perpetually unsafe?

The assault on Rafah has begun. Millions of starving, sick and displaced civilians are in harms way with no where to go. And yet I keep hearing pundits, politicians and the media demonize students for simply demanding that their schools stop funding it. And wringing their hands over some people feeling unsafe because of those demands.

I cannot help but think of that little boy I just saw die on a gurney. I’m pretty sure he would’ve gladly traded places with any of the people who keep saying they feel unsafe because there are some nonviolent protests on some university campuses.

Echoes of Resistance: From 1968 to Gaza, the Unyielding Voices of Student Protests

[Pictured: Anti-genocide student protestors face a line of law enforcement during a demonstration at UT-Austin. Credit: Julius Shieh for The Texas Tribune]

By Peter S. Baron

As students continue to gather in protest, standing up for the humanity of Gazans being slaughtered by a maniacally genocidal coalition of ruling elites obsessed with profit and geopolitical maneuvering, it's insightful to reflect on the history of student protests. Understanding the impact of past movements can help gauge the potential of today's collective awakening.

A History of Student Resistance

In 1968, the air in France was charged with rebellion. It all started at the University of Nanterre, where students kicked against the strict, outdated rules of their university and the deeper issues of government authoritarianism and the Vietnam War. The authorities shut the university down on May 2, which only pushed the students to take their protests to the Sorbonne in Paris.

The situation escalated quickly.

The police clamped down hard on the protests at the Sorbonne, using force on students. This reaction sparked a massive response not just from other students but from workers across the country. Seeing their own struggles in the students’ fight, France’s major trade unions called a one-day general strike on May 13. What started as a protest became a nationwide shutdown.

The movement exploded. By the end of May, about 10 million workers—that's two-thirds of the French workforce—had stopped working. Factories, universities, and public services ground to a halt. Workers and students gathered in occupied spaces, debating and planning what France should become. They didn’t just want better wages or conditions; they were calling for a whole new way of running the country.

This was too much for President Charles de Gaulle, who saw his control slipping away. In a stunning move, he secretly fled to West Germany to meet with a loyal general, possibly to discuss using the military to regain control. This moment of panic highlighted just how serious things had become.

Despite the revolutionary fervor, the crisis did not culminate in a revolution. De Gaulle returned to France, dissolved the National Assembly, and called for new elections. This move, combined with negotiations that led to substantial wage increases and improved working conditions, caused the momentum of the protests to dissipate. In the June elections, de Gaulle’s party won a significant majority, reflecting a conservative backlash against the upheaval.

The initial response to the student protests in 1968 involved shutting down universities and deploying aggressive police tactics, much like what we're witnessing on college campuses today. These actions were clear attempts by the state to clamp down on dissent and regain control. However, as the movement expanded beyond students and began to mobilize the broader working class, the tactics of the state and capitalist interests evolved. Faced with a growing and powerful movement, they shifted towards strategies of co-optation and superficial reform, aiming to dilute the movement's momentum by seemingly addressing some grievances while preserving the underlying capitalist structure.

The concessions offered by President Charles de Gaulle—wage increases, improved working conditions, and the promise of educational reforms—should be seen as strategic moves to quell dissent. These reforms were significant enough to placate the immediate economic grievances of the working class and to demonstrate a responsiveness by the government, thereby splitting the coalition between students and workers. By integrating demands that did not threaten the core of capitalist structures, de Gaulle's administration managed to dissipate revolutionary momentum, demonstrating that state apparatuses function to reproduce the conditions of production favorable to the capitalist mode.

The resolution of the May 1968 events through electoral politics and limited social reforms highlights the function of the capitalist state as a mediator in class struggle, which subtly shifts societal alignments to favor the elite. This outcome exemplifies the stabilizing mechanisms of capitalist societies, which, through reformist policies, manage to integrate and neutralize opposition without addressing the underlying dynamics of capitalist accumulation and exploitation.

Lessons in Solidarity

The broader implication of these events teaches us that reformist policies are primarily implemented to address the immediate, most visible problems of social unrest, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the underlying capitalist structure. This dynamic ensures that while capitalism might appear more humane after reforms, its fundamental drives—primarily the accumulation of capital at the expense of mass labor—are left intact. This approach allows the capitalist framework to persist largely unchanged, as it continues to benefit those in power while giving the appearance of responsiveness and concern for social issues. As evidenced by the aftermath of the 1968 protests, this malicious strategy serves to delay or diffuse the revolutionary potential of mass movements, channeling grievances into reforms that do not alter the basic relations of power and production.

Thus, the 1968 student protests in France not only reveal the power of grassroots movements to enact significant changes but also highlight the complexities and limitations of such changes within the capitalist framework. The episode serves as a reminder of the enduring challenge for revolutionary movements: to navigate the delicate balance between achieving immediate improvements and maintaining the momentum necessary for profound systemic change.

Today, we must remain unyieldingly vigilant as guardians against those forces eager to co-opt the energy and direction of the student movement. We should criticize how figures touted as progressives, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have positioned themselves near the forefront, claiming solidarity with the students. Their actions betray their words. A genuine ally would not endorse and actively campaign for Joe Biden, who recently authorized an additional $26 billion in aid to Israel, amid ongoing reports of atrocities. Biden’s and the Democrats’ support of Israeli rulers continues nearly seven months into what can only be described as a genocide, with horrifying discoveries of mass graves that include hundreds of children and medical professionals, identified by their scrubs, executed with their hands bound and bullet wounds in their skulls. This is the same Israeli leadership that vilifies Gazans with dehumanizing rhetoric, labeling them as "human animals" and "monsters." Ask yourself, would a genuine ally funnel $260,000, collected from grassroots progressives, into the coffers of the DNC (as AOC has done)—the very organization backing the continued financial support of these atrocities?

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This supposed alliance comes as nearly 40,000 lives, including those of 15,000 children, have been extinguished. Hospitals, schools, churches, and mosques crumble under bombs, while essential humanitarian aid is obstructed, leaving millions to the brink of dehydration and starvation, with many forced to drink and bathe in dirty water while they eat grass to survive. Amid this barbarity, the cruel decision to cut electricity in Gaza inflicts unspeakable suffering, forcing children, their bodies crushed by the rubble of their own homes, to endure the brutal procedure of amputations without any anesthesia.

These acts of sheer inhumanity lay bare the merciless nature of the assault, exposing the vulnerable to unimaginable pain in their most desperate moments. These are not the acts of allies but of political actors playing their roles in a theater of cruelty and betrayal. We must reject these charades and build our movements away from the shadows of such treacherous alliances.

These so-called progressive politicians masquerade as the vanguards of change, yet their true motive is to herd our collective outrage by transforming it into campaign donations that serve as financial fuel for those who steadfastly maintain the oppressive status quo. The genocide unfolding before our eyes is not a mere clash of ideologies or religions, nor is it simply about backing allies. It's the direct result of a rapacious economic and political system driven by profit at any cost. Our leaders, slaves to their own ambition for power, prostrate themselves before their corporate masters. Their support for Israel isn't just about lobbying dollars from groups like AIPAC; it's fundamentally about the benefits the U.S. capitalist regime derives from Israel's strategic position. Indeed, as Joe Biden once starkly noted, “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel.”

The U.S.'s backing of Israel is intricately linked to the military-industrial complex, the control of oil, and the militarization of key global trade routes. This alliance fuels massive arms sales and defense contracts, enriching U.S. corporations and bolstering the military-industrial complex. By aligning with Israel, strategically located near pivotal oil-producing nations, the U.S. ensures its grip on crucial Middle Eastern oil reserves, a vital resource in the global economy. This geopolitical strategy extends to controlling vital trade routes, securing economic and military advantages by keeping these critical channels under Western dominance.

In a system incentivizing the corporate chase for monopolized total control, war becomes a necessity, serving as a means to redistribute and further concentrate the world's resources among the global elite while feeding the insatiable profit motives of the weapons industry. Inevitably, capitalism leaves destruction in its wake, whether it was the Vietnamese in 1968 or the Gazans today, bearing the brutal consequences of capitalism's genocidal tendencies.

A New Vision

Despite its shortcomings, the events of May 1968 changed France. They didn’t overthrow the government, but they broke through old barriers, changing laws and attitudes, especially in education and labor. The spirit of those weeks, when it seemed like anything was possible, still lights up the imagination of people fighting for a better world. The 1968 protests showed that when people come together, they can shake the foundations of power, even if they don’t knock them down completely.

Today, we must heed the lessons of 1968. In the spirit of a grassroots revolution, the transformation from student protests into a comprehensive movement built on the principles of disengagement from corrupted institutions and the establishment of mutual aid and free agreement begins with a profound collective realization. This realization is that the existing structures—be they educational, governmental, or corporate—are not only failing to address but are complicit in systemic injustices.

Our emerging movement starts as a series of interconnected local actions, where students and workers come together, recognizing their shared plight and common goals. As they gather, initially stirred by the desire to protest, they begin to form more structured groups—collective councils—comprising representatives from various student organizations, local labor unions, and community advocates. These councils serve as the initial scaffolding for a new kind of governance, one that operates on consensus and inclusivity, eschewing the hierarchical models they aim to dismantle.

Skill-sharing emerges as a fundamental activity within these groups, not just as a means to empower and educate, but as a cornerstone of building self-sufficiency. Workshops on urban agriculture, basic healthcare, community safety, and renewable energy initiatives are organized, utilizing occupied spaces such as unused university buildings or public parks, transforming them into hubs of learning and operation.

As the councils gain more traction, a general strike becomes the first major coordinated action, signaling the movement's seriousness and unity to a broader audience. This strike isn't just a cessation of work; it's a powerful act of reclaiming spaces and redirecting resources towards the newly forming mutual aid systems. These spaces become centers where resources—food, medical supplies, educational materials—are distributed not based on the ability to pay, but on need, a principle central to the philosophy of mutual aid.

Parallel to these practical endeavors, the movement begins to redefine education. It distances itself from traditional curricula that often perpetuate the dominant ideologies of the state and capitalism, and instead fosters a curriculum that includes critical pedagogy, decolonial studies, and practical skills for community and personal development. These classes are open to all, free of charge, and are taught by a rotating group of community members, each sharing their specific knowledge and skills.

Community defense groups also form, not as militias, but as protective bodies to ensure the safety of the spaces and their occupants. These groups practice non-violent tactics and community conflict resolution, embodying the principles of defense without aggression.

As these new systems begin to take root, they do not exist in isolation. The movement actively documents its processes and outcomes, creating detailed guides and resources that are shared widely with other groups nationally and internationally. This documentation is crucial, not just for transparency and learning, but also as a blueprint for others who wish to replicate the model in their own communities.

Networking with other similar movements creates a tapestry of resistance and mutual aid that spans borders, each node learning from and supporting others. Regular assemblies are held where experiences and ideas are exchanged, ensuring the movement remains dynamic and responsive to the needs of its participants.

Through all these phases, the guiding principles remain clear: a steadfast commitment to disengaging from and dismantling corrupted institutions; the establishment of mutual aid as a fundamental economic and social principle; and the adherence to free agreement, ensuring that every participant's voice is heard and valued in the decision-making process.

We must believe in this vision. This movement, guided by the principles of mutual aid and free agreement, will naturally take its own course, shaped by the specific needs and conditions of each community it touches. Our diversity will be our power, enhancing our resilience by fueling our capacity to innovate and effectively tackle challenges across our decentralized network. This is an organic, evolving revolution, grounded not just in the desire to protest, but to create viable, sustainable alternatives to the systems that have failed so many. Through these efforts, what begins as a series of local protests can evolve into a profound transformation of society, embodying the change that was once only dared imagined. As Ursula Le Guin reminded us in her groundbreaking novel The Dispossessed, all we have is solidarity with each other. Fortunately, that is all we need.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Nazis! The Fraught Politics of a Word and a People Besieged

[Pictured: Palestinian women cross an Israeli checkpoint, outside of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on April 15, 2022. (Flash90)]

By Gary Fields

Republished from Jadaliyya.

Like many highly-educated individuals in Palestine today, Mohammed Q. cannot find work in his field of computer engineering, despite a master’s degree in computer science from Birzeit University, and as a result, he relies on the tourist industry to earn a living, drawing on his fluent English and knowledge of the fraught politics of the region.  In the aftermath of October 7th he was working in Ramallah at the same hotel where, by fate, I found myself as the only guest on a sabbatical that began October 6th.  Over coffee, he recounted to me an experience leading a group of German tourists to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.  As a West Bank Palestinian, Mohammed would normally be barred from entry to the Israeli capital, but because of his role on this occasion in shepherding a German tour group through the Holy Land, he was able to obtain the mandatory permit from Israeli authorities to enter the Holy City.  While at Yad Vashem, the group had a tour from one of the Museum docents who explained in detail the suffering endured by Jews at the hands of the Nazis 

As Mohammed recalls the episode, the guide described how the Nazi regime forced Jews to wear a yellow badge as a mark of identification that enabled Nazi authorities not only to stigmatize them, but to monitor and control their movements.  Alongside this measure, Nazis eliminated the rights of Jews to German citizenship, insisting that only those with “pure” Aryan blood could be Germans.  Bolstered by mobs of fascist-supporting vigilantes, Nazi authorities orchestrated modern-day pogroms against Jews including the ransacking of Jewish businesses and the theft of Jewish property designed to force Jews out of Germany.  Those Jews who tried to remain, the guide explained, fell victim to the night raids of the Nazi SS in arresting Jews and sending them to concentration camps.  In areas outside Germany under Nazi rule, Nazi policy ghettoized Jews as a prelude to a genocidal campaign of eliminating them as a people, and the guide spoke admiringly of the heroism of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto who resisted these measures.  “I did not know about all of this suffering,” Mohammed admitted to me, “and I felt sorry for these Jewish victims of Nazism.” At the same time, he could not help but reflect on the parallels with his own experience as a West Bank Palestinian living under Israeli military rule. 

Mohammed thanked the guide and admitted that he had not been fully aware of the suffering of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.  He then commented to the docent that many details in his story of the Jews resonated for him as a Palestinian living in the West Bank.  After Mohammed made this admission, however, the guide became angry and demanded to know how he was able to come to Jerusalem and gain entry to the Museum.  Mohammed explained that he had received the necessary permit from Israeli authorities to chaperone the German tour group at which point the guide became extremely irate and called Museum security.  “Security personnel from the Museum came,” he explains, “and took me to the exit of the Museum where they ousted me from the building.”  In this way, Yad Vashem evicted a Palestinian from its premises for sympathizing with Nazism’s Jewish victims while explaining how, in his own experience, Israeli rule over Palestinians resembled some of the same practices attributed by the Museum to those used by the Third Reich on European Jews.  Replete with irony, Mohammed’s eviction from Yad Vashem, in the context of the forced displacements and carnage unfolding in Gaza, recalls a traceable historical arc.

Nazis Among Us?

On December 4, 1948, the New York Times published an open letter penned by a group of Jewish luminaries including Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein who were protesting a visit to the U.S. by Menachem Begin, founder of the Herut (Freedom) Party of Israel.  Herut would later emerge as the foundation of the ultra-nationalist Likud Party of current Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.  Authors of the letter made note of “Fascist elements in Israel” and objected to Begin’s visit because, according to them, Herut was “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”  

In support of its claim, the letter referenced the massacre in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin committed earlier in 1948 by the paramilitary predecessor to Herut, the Zionist Irgun, labeled even by many Zionists of the time a terrorist militia.  The Irgun had come into the village, which had harbored no animus toward its Jewish neighbors, and “killed most of its inhabitants—240 men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem,” revealing a practice of cruelty toward Palestinians eerily similar to what Nazis did to the Jews.  Arendt was already on record as warily critical of exclusionary tendencies in the Zionist project, writing in “Zionism Reconsidered” (1943) how the Zionist movement stood for a kind of ethno-state in which Palestinians would have only “the choice of voluntary emigration or second-class citizenship.” In the end, Arendt, Einstein and co-signers of the 1948 open letter proffered a warning about Herut and its Fascist roots: “from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”

Apart from the reference to Deir Yassin, the letter did not specify what this kinship might portend but Fascism’s past practices highlight three themes.  First, Fascism is a mass movement animated by an extreme nationalist ethos whose adherents share a sense of collective victimhood caused by “outsiders” who are considered to have illegitimate claims of belonging to the nation and who emerge as the cause of collective national suffering. Second, Fascism channels this shared outlook of victimhood into collective hostility toward these outsiders whom Fascists consider as enemies seeking the nation’s demise.  Finally, Fascism enlists its backers to support liquidation of these enemies which drives it to untold levels of brutality and toward territorial expansion to ensure the completeness of the liquidation process, while keeping outsiders safely distant from the bounded space of the nation and those who belong to it. 

In the case of the Nazis, some of the signature behaviors that emerged from these contours and resonated so profoundly with Mohammed at Yad Vashem included Nazism’s exclusionary citizenship laws; its pogroms against Jewish businesses and property; night raids by the Nazi SS of Jewish homes along with arrests and deportations of Jews to concentration camps; and the ghettoization of Jews and their liquidation in these confined spaces. Although Mohammed recounts these practices as part of his own experience, it has become anathema, and in some places illegal even to raise the question suggested by his story:  How could heirs of those claiming to be Nazism’s most hapless victims assume the role of those who brutalized them, or in the words of Edward Said, how did Palestinians become “the victims of the victims”? 

It turns out that insight into this vexing puzzle beckons to two contemporaries from the nineteenth century with vastly different political persuasions. In his celebrated work, The Ancien Régime and the Revolution (1856), Alexis de Tocqueville asked how the luminaries of the French Revolution, with their “love of equality and the urge to freedom” ultimately crafted a system of authoritarian rule little different from the absolutism they so passionately set out to overturn.  In seeking to explain this paradox, de Tocqueville signaled a beguiling truth about these revolutionaries who he insists, “were men shaped by the old order.”  These individuals may have wanted to distance themselves from the ancien regime they so fervently wished to destroy, but years of conditioning under French absolutism had influenced their outlook and behavior.  Try as they might, these revolutionaries, “remained essentially the same, and in fact…never changed out of recognition.” Four years before de Tocqueville’s Ancien Regime, Karl Marx famously wrote how human beings make their own history, but they don’t make it as they please. They make it “under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”  In this way, both de Tocqueville and Marx emphasize how human actors emerge from the circumstances around them, and this history conditions and weighs upon them as they seek to remake the world of the present.  What kind of “dead weight” did the Nazi Holocaust cast on Zionism, Jews, and the State of Israel? 

Lords of the Landscape

As early as 1904, Zionists in Palestine associated with the Second Wave of Jewish immigration were already signaling the future character of the State of Israel when they promoted the idea of “Hebrew Land, Hebrew Labor.” Central to this slogan was an effort to build an exclusionary Jewish society by evicting Palestinian tenants from lands they purchased, and preventing Palestinian labor on Jewish-owned land. In this way, early Zionism was seeking to create a landscape of Jewish spaces free of Palestinians. What Zionism ultimately created to fulfill these exclusionary impulses, however, took shape after 1945 in the crucible of the long shadow cast upon world Jewry by the experience of the Holocaust when the State of Israel came into being. Its signature practices with respect to the Palestinians reveal a striking, if unsettling set of parallels with what was done to Jews by the Nazis. Two seminal moments in the evolution of the State of Israel are paramount in marking the development of these exclusionary behaviors.

The initial moment encompasses Israel’s early years, 1947-50 and focuses on three defining practices designed to create Jewish ascendancy on the land and render Palestinians a subjugated people. First, during this period, the “Jewish State”—a moniker that is something of a mischaracterization since that State contains a 20% Palestinian population—evicted 750,000 Palestinians from homes within its boundaries, and in a Cabinet decision of July 1948 declared that it would never allow these evictees to return. Second, was what the Israeli Government did to Bedouins from the Naqab desert who managed to remain in their ancestral homeland following the end of hostilities in 1949. The Israeli military rounded up the 13,000 remaining Bedouin and confined them in a prison-like encampment near Beersheva known as the Siyaj (Enclosure Zone) where they were without basic services, forced to obtain permits to enter and exit the Siyaj, and prevented from building permanent housing for themselves. Finally, in the early 1950s, the Israeli State passed a series of laws on property rights, notably, the Absentee Property Law (1950) that dispossessed refugees of their lands on the grounds that they were “absentees,” no longer living in their domains. This law, however, also confiscated the property of roughly 50% of Palestinians in the new state through a macabre legal designation for Palestinians temporarily displaced from their homes who were classified as “present absentees.” In effect, what the State of Israel did in its infancy in seeking to make the Jewish State free of Palestinians by evicting, dispossessing, and confining them, had an uncomfortable resonance with the aim of the Third Reich in making Germany and the Reich Judenrein, free of Jews.

The second historical moment focuses on the aftermath of the June War in 1967 in which the State of Israel sought to extend its domination over Palestinians into territories conquered in the 1967 campaign by settling those areas with Jewish Israelis – a clear violation of Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Convention. This practice expanded Jewish presence within the conquered space while shrinking Palestinian presence by confiscating an ever-expanding inventory of Palestinian property for settlement-building and limiting the territorial spaces accessible to Palestinians in the occupied areas. In this way, the Jewish State created a constantly growing Hebrew landscape in the areas under its military control.

Not surprisingly, the State of Israel has taken draconian measures to fortify its project of land confiscation and settlement, and to this end has created a carceral-like regime for control over a population that it perceives as hostile to Jewish supremacy on the land. In pursuit of this aim, the Jewish State has not only intensified a system of actual incarceration in which thousands of Palestinians fill Israeli jails as political detainees. The State of Israel has created a massive prison-like environment on the Palestinian landscape dubbed a “Matrix of Control,” for the subjugation of Palestinians. This “Matrix” consists of an elaborate system of checkpoints, including several large checkpoint terminals, diffused throughout the West Bank to control Palestinian circulation; guard towers situated at major transport junctions to monitor Palestinians and their movements; and a massive Wall built along a 450-kilometer route across the West Bank where Palestinian circulation is pre-empted and the territory partitioned in much the same way that Michel Foucault has described the attributes of modern prisons. These features on the land have imbued the Palestinian landscape with the unenviable moniker of “The Biggest Prison on Earth.” More critically, as Palestinians encounter these elements in queues of regimented bodies under the gaze of armed soldiers, the echoes of Nazi landscapes seem inescapable.

Added to this carceral environment is the effort of the Jewish State to weaken Palestinian presence on the land by destroying one of the primary anchors affixing Palestinians to place, the Palestinian home. At any one moment, a Palestinian home is routinely demolished, usually on the pretext of being built “illegally,” without permission, but the State of Israel also destroys Palestinian homes as retribution against entire families of alleged perpetrators of “terror” against the Jewish State. Complementing this destruction is the longstanding practice of Israeli military “raids” into Palestinian homes, casting a pall of terror over the Palestinian landscape. These raids not only witness the arrests of Palestinians who disappear into Israeli jails as political prisoners, but also the ransacking and vandalism of the Palestinian home. Such destruction of Palestinian homes and property, along with the arrests of Palestinians in these actions find resonance in the way Jews were subjected to raids by the Nazi SS and sent to prison camps while their homes were ransacked and looted in Nazi versions of the pogrom. 

In February of last year, the world witnessed a particularly savage outbreak of this kind of violence in the Palestinian town of Huwara perpetrated by settlers from nearby Israeli settlements who set fire to cars, businesses, and homes of Huwara residents and killed one resident by gunfire as Israeli soldiers looked on and even assisted the perpetrators in this mayhem. So depraved was this rampage that the Israeli military commander in the West Bank, Yehuda Fuchs even used the word, “pogrom,” to label this carnage, a word choice by an Israeli official that was especially poignant. The implication was that the Jews who perpetrated this violence possessed the same kind of racist animus as perpetrators of Christian and Nazi pogroms against Jews, and enlisted similar types of brutality against Palestinian civilians. At the time of events in Huwara, however, the uprooting of Palestinian croplands and the destruction of rural homes, livestock pens, and farm equipment by Jewish settlers in an effort to evict and drive out Palestinians had already become commonplace on the Palestinian landscape—with nary a condemnation by Israeli officials, and virtually no effort by Israeli authorities to prevent and punish this criminality. As it turned out, Huwara was but a prelude to the much more sweeping campaign of carnage visited on Palestinians in the aftermath of October of the same year. 

Final Solution

In a riveting documentary, 1948: Creation and Catastrophe (2016), members of the Zionist Haganah militia interviewed in the film who were active in the military campaign of the period recounted their encounters with Palestinians during that critical time when the Jewish State came in to being. Hava Kellar, a Haganah veteran, spoke glowingly about her role in the expulsion of Palestinians from Bir-es Saba, seemingly oblivious to the expulsions of Jews during the Shoah. “I came to Beersheva, she recalls, and the commander said to me: ‘tomorrow we are going to throw out the Arabs from Beersheva.’ I said ‘wonderful, of course I’m going to help.’ Next day I got a gun, and we prepared 10-12 buses. We called all the Arabs from Beersheva to come to the buses and I was standing guard to make sure they went into the buses to go to Gaza—and they are still in Gaza today.” 

What we are witnessing in Gaza is another instance of, “Once Again,” only this time it is Zionist Jews who are wielding the guns and are the keepers of the camp, while it is Palestinians such as Mohammed who are being locked up, dispossessed, and face death.

Another Haganah veteran, Josef Ben-Eliezer, is even more explicit in admitting to the parallels of what he did as a solider and what he experienced as a boy at the hands of the Nazis. “I saw masses of people going through the checkpoint that we were ordered to oversee,” he says, “and they were searched for valuables. It reminded me of when I was a child. We were doing the same thing that people have done to us as Jews.” 

A common belief among defenders of Israel is that Jews, and all things associated with the Jewish people—including the State of Israel—could not possibly do what Josef Ben-Eliezer described as Jews imitating the Nazis. To even imagine such a possibility is to transgress into forbidden terrain. Nazism is invariably associated with humanity’s worst-ever atrocity—the elimination of the Jews as a people—a crime given the name in 1944 of genocide, and codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Among the stated goals of Nazism, for which some of its leaders were prosecuted under this law, was the idea of making Germany and the areas it occupied Judenrein, free of Jews. That Jews could be a party to such an idea is for many, completely blasphemous if not worse. Events after October 7, however, reveal this longstanding Zionist conceit to be problematic.

On October 13 of last year, the Israeli Intelligence Ministry, an opaque governmental body that produces policy research for other Israeli Government agencies, authored a document in which it outlined three options for the Jewish State in response to the breach of the barrier confining the Gazan people, and the killing by Hamas and other allied groups of Israeli military personnel, law enforcement officials and roughly 700 civilians. In this document, the Ministry recommends the third option—transfer of the entire Gaza population to the Egyptian Sinai – which document authors point out is “executable,” and will yield “the most positive long-term benefits” for the Jewish State. These authors understood how transfer of the 2.3 million Gazans into the Egyptian Sinai would entail an untold level of brutality against the people of Gaza triggering violations of the laws of war and even more serious charges, and would likely elicit broad global condemnation if not indictments. Nevertheless, the document urges policymakers in Israel to forge ahead with emptying Gaza, despite these challenges, and count on its alliance with the U.S. for backing while waging the necessary public relations campaign of incessantly portraying the Jewish State as victim. 

If there was any ambiguity about what this campaign of depopulation would entail, such doubts were put to rest almost from the start of the violence by the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. On October 9 at a meeting of Israeli military commanders at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheva, Gallant, acknowledged: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” An even more graphic specter of the motivation to eradicate the bare life of the Gazans came from Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu himself at the end of October after the Israeli Military had already killed 8000 Gazans and had evicted 1.2 million Gazans from their homes in the North of the Strip and instructed them to move South. Likening the campaign in Gaza to an ancient Biblical struggle by the Jews in the time of the Exodus to eradicate the Amalakites, Netanyahu exhorts his military and the people of Israel to “Remember what Amalek did to you” and he continues: “Our heroic soldiers have one supreme goal: To destroy the murderous enemy.”

Two days after Netanyahu’s Biblical invocation, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, in a calculated performative spectacle, denounced the United Nations for supposedly failing to condemn Hamas and duly pinned a yellow star to his blazer, reenacting the Nazi practice of stigmatizing Jews with this disparaging emblem so that the Nazi regime could more easily monitor them and ordinary Germans could more easily harass them. But Erdan’s bizarre stunt, assuming the role of a Nazi himself in pinning the Yellow Star to his own clothing, had a more sinister propaganda aim. “Don’t forget, we are the victims”—was his unmistakable subtext. Such a message, however, is difficult to reconcile alongside images of some of the world’s most impoverished human beings, with no military, no planes, no navy, no tanks, no anti-aircraft batteries, being bombarded at will by one of the most powerful military forces in the world while trying to escape the carnage raining down on them in overcrowded wooden carts pulled by donkeys, or for those less fortunate simply walking disconsolately on bombed and destroyed roads in lines resembling Palestinian refugees of 1948. Indeed, the disconnect between what Israeli ambassador Erdan wants the world to believe, and what the world can see with its own eyes is starkly Orwellian.

In 1944, a Polish lawyer, Raphäel Lemkin coined the term, genocide to describe the campaign of the Nazis to exterminate the Jews, but he also intended the concept to be applicable to a range of other crimes against humanity committed prior to the Holocaust. Four years later Lemkin’s idea was codified in what is now known as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Despite the European bias of the Convention, however, with its almost singular point of reference being the experience of the Nazis and European Jewry, and the absence in it of specific kinds of acts such as the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which adjucates the law with respect to countries, has repeatedly emphasized that the Convention embodies general principles. It is for this reason that the State of Israel, arguably born at least in part as reparations for the Nazi Genocide against European Jews, now finds itself on the opposite end not as victim but indeed as perpetrator. 

In January of this year, South Africa as a signatory to the Genocide Convention to prevent the commission of this crime, duly filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice charging the State of Israel with genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. In broad outline, genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention as “acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” and the Statute goes on to specify five scenarios in which the crime can be identified. Section C of South Africa’s 84-page document describes in detail the various campaigns of the Israel military in Gaza that conform to the definition of destroying in whole or in part Palestinian as a group. Among what is summarized in this section is the forced eviction of close to 2 million of the 2.3 Gazans from their homes; the destruction of 60% of the housing stock in the Gaza Strip; the deliberate and almost complete destruction of the health care sector including most of the hospitals; the destruction of schools and universities; and the targeting of food-producing outlets including farms and bakeries. Part of what has made genocide so difficult to prosecute, especially with respect to sovereign states, is proving intent on the part of alleged state perperators. In its document, the South African legal team has diligently gathered the various statements of the Israeli Defense Minister, Prime Minister, and other high-ranking Israeli Government officials that admit in plain language, to the genocidal intent of the Israeli military campaign. Taken together, the deeds of the Israeli military, and the words of Israeli officials testify to the aim of eliminating the Gazans from Gaza, that is, rendering Gaza free of Palestinians.    

For the past 17 years, Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, controlling the movement of people and goods that could enter and exit the territory, imbuing the Gaza Strip with the odious label of “the world’s largest open-air prison." Three years prior to the blockade, however, the State of Israel had sufficiently confined the people of Gaza in a walled and fenced enclosure to the point where former Israeli National Security Council Director, Giora Eiland conceded the territory to be “a huge concentration camp.” The choice of this descriptor by Eiland seems especially appropriate for a population blockaded and unable to circulate beyond the closed confines of the Strip and who are reliant on the whim of Israel for access to virtually all essentials for bare life. International law, however, suggests that a blockade imposed on a territorial space is an act of war. Even former Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban endorsed this view in reference to the June 1967 war. “The blockade is by definition an act of war,” Eban announced at the UN on June 19, 1967 in describing the actions of Egypt that supposedly provoked Israel into its surprise attack.  Israel is thus trying to argue to the world that it is defending itself in a war it did not want. In reality, the war did not begin October 7.  Israel has been waging war against Gaza with its blockade since 2007—not to mention four major military bombardments since 2006 killing thousands of Gazans—and the Jewish State presents itself as victim when the Gazans have attempted to break the siege and fight back. 

In December of last year, author Masha Gessen, in a courageous article for The New Yorker provided a different approach to framing the carceral spectacle in Gaza. For Gessen, the metaphor of the open-air prison was incomplete, if not inaccurate. In the context of the unmitigated carnage being visited upon the Gazans by Israeli military, what the Jewish State is undertaking, Gessen argued, is nothing less than a genocidal effort at “liquidating the ghetto” they have created in Gaza—much like the Nazis liquidating the Ghetto they had created in Warsaw. In this way, Gessen signaled an alternative way of seeing not only the savagery being visited on the 2.3 million Gazans, but also what Gaza had become under the Israeli blockade and bombardment—a ghetto that Israel is trying to eradicate as the Nazis did. How else is it possible to interpret a military campaign demanding Gazans evacuate their homes and move South where they have become more concentrated, and where they are still being incessantly bombed and killed?

At the moment of this writing, the Israeli military has delivered what is perhaps a final ultimatum to the Gazans. Concentrated now in the southernmost enclave in the Gaza Strip, the city of Rafah, where they have been ordered to move after a series of orders that has essentially cleared most of Gaza of its inhabitants since October, the Israeli military has now ordered the Gazans to leave—but there is no place left for them to go. Israel, in effect, appears poised on the precipice of implementing the aim of the Intelligence Ministry Report by forcing the Gazans into Egypt, or alternatively if Egypt continues to deny Israel’s request to let the Gazans into the Sinai, Israel will continue liquidating them. This is indeed an effort on the part of Israel to empty the ghetto!

What the world is witnessing in this effort to liquidate the ghetto of Gaza is shocking in the degree of violence that the State of Israel has unleashed on a defenseless group of people, but at the same time, it is explainable. Although the idea of the Jewish State committing genocide is blasphemy to those who hold that it was born as the supposed antithesis of genocide and the Holocaust, both Alexis de Tocqueville and Edward Said remind us that there is at times a cunning aspect in historical outcomes in which the oppressed somehow take on the attributes of their oppressors. In an interview of 2011, the celebrated physicist and Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer made this connection between Zionism and Nazism explicit when he said: “I saw in Auschwitz that if a dominant group wants to dehumanize others, as the Nazis wanted to dehumanize me, these dominant groups must first be dehumanized themselves…They [Zionists] have given up everything which has to do with humanity, for one thing: the state, the blood and the soil – just like the Nazis.” To those who naively proclaim the idea of “Never Again,” sadly what is upon us is that Palestinians have become the Jews, along with all of the other groups from the Namibians to the Rohingya that have suffered genocide. In this sense, what we are witnessing in Gaza is another instance of, “Once Again,” only this time it is Zionist Jews who are wielding the guns and are the keepers of the camp, while it is Palestinians such as Mohammed who are being locked up, dispossessed, and face death. 

Resistance is Ugly: Palestine, Israel, and the Nature of Struggle

By RJ Park

October seventh, for Israel, marked a point of no return. After demonstrations by their own civilians against the country’s lack of commitment to democracy, they have now been faced with the other side of their oppressive regime. Perhaps in an attempt to win over their dissatisfied civilians in the face of a ‘greater evil’, Prime Minister Netanayahu has refused to mince his words on what he believes Palestine’s revolutionary brewings mean for his country and the people therein, stating that Hamas, the lead organization in this recent wave of resistance, has ‘launched a murderous surprise attack against Israel and its citizens.’ [1] Clearly, he does not view this conflict as a mere addition to the ever-expanding list of violent encounters between Israeli and Palestinian forces. This is a battle for the existence of Israel and, at the same time, the necessary non-existence of Palestine that is a required qualifier for the success of the entire Zionist project. [2]

For Palestine, decades of relocation, colonization, and outright murder by the hands of Israel’s military branch, the IDF, has stockpiled tensions to an unbearable degree. They have tried to be diplomatic with Israel, to no avail. They have tried to protest peacefully, and were gunned down in the streets. [3] They have tried forceful forms of resistance, and were brutalized more harshly than they had been ever before. [4] It is clear why the only path forward seems to be a full-scale overthrow of the government which has kept them under its boot heel for the better part of the past one-hundred years. That is a difficult conclusion to disagree with.

Yet for all the vocal support of Palestine that has emerged from across West’s political landscape, denunciation of Palestine’s actions in their ongoing struggle with Israel seem to be gradually gaining acceptance. This is expected of more conservative politicians and social critics, most of whom never endorsed Palestine in the first place. However, similar (occasionally identical) critiques have been adopted by individuals who previously supported Palestine in their ongoing struggle against the Israeli government. As soon as Palestinian groups like Hamas began resisting their occupation with violence, however, this support dissipated, and the same people who had called for their independence accused them of deliberately killing civilians, a claim which is a verifiable organization concocted for the sole purpose of playing into the Zionist trope  of barbaric Palestinians attacking innocent Israelis. This version of events implies that Israel’s citizens have nothing to do with the oppression of Palestinians, who are actively seeking wanton violence against Israel and all its inhabitants in order to satisfy a mindless drive for vengeance. 

When observing the history of Palestine’s struggle against Israel, both sides of this claim fall apart. Firstly, those who willingly leave their country of origin in order to live in Israel cease to be ‘innocent civilians’ the moment they step foot into the country, which is built upon occupied territory. Instead, they become active colonizers of Palestinian land, engaging in a form of violence that, although less direct, is no more forgivable than the violence enacted against Palestinians by the IDF. Secondly, it is impossible for Palestine to be the aggressor in their fight against Israel. Since they are the ones being actively oppressed, all that they do is in retaliation to that oppression. Any violent action they take is a component of their war for liberation, and their violence can only be understood in this context. Separating this violence from the history of violence committed against them by Israel does nothing but enhance Israel’s narrative of continual victimhood, which is essential to their ongoing war against Palestine.

But why have some of the most progressive voices in mainstream American politics succumbed to this narrative so easily? It seems that years of exposing Israel’s excessive use of force, their violation of human rights, and, most-relevantly, their tendency to deceive the international community by posturing as an oppressed minority despite being the most powerful country in the Middle East would have primed these politicians to be wary of any claims by Israel that their safety - not the safety of the Palestinian people - was under attack. Obviously, though, this has not been the case. These politicians have, at best, simultaneously denounced both the actions of Hamas and the IDF and, at worst, singled out Hamas as being especially malicious and bloodthirsty while excusing the actions of Israel.

Although there are many reasons for this trend, electability is a large factor. A person is a politician in the West so long as they can be elected to public office, and, as such, Westerners - including politicians themselves - view politics as a matter of marketability instead of principle. It does not appear at all odd for most of them to see a politician support a cause (such as the liberation of Palestine) while critiquing the means through which that very same cause is pursued. A degree of separation is considered acceptable between vocally supporting something and actually supporting something if the former is popular and the latter is not. 

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Observing that politicians maintain these contradictions within their individual political views goes a long way to explain why Western governments are regularly faced with deadlocks on a systemic level. Rather than electing representatives that believe in and pursue certain goals with a definite plan in mind, representatives are elected because they espouse certain beliefs without having formulated an overarching plan to put those beliefs into action, out of fear that the specifics of such a plan may have convinced less people to vote for them. So, when they actually inherit the responsibilities they were elected to wield, they have no actionable promises to fall back on. They act based on what they think will match public opinion, not what they think will help the public.

Politics do not operate like this the world over. In places like Palestine, in which the government is ostensibly subservient in the face of a military and political powerhouse like Israel, politics is a matter of on-the-ground change, not dealings in bureaucracy. Politics is a matter of life and death, not a popularity contest. Politics, ultimately,  is a very real, very definite thing, experienced consciously by every Palestinian each time they are reminded that they are in the process of being colonized, which they are reminded of fairly often. While, to the bourgeois West, political views can be divorced from the external world, Palestinians do not have this luxury. A conversation of mild disagreement between two moderates, one who leans conservative and one who leans liberal, could never take place between a Palestinian and an Israeli. The views they express are too closely tied to the nature of equality, the rights of man, and the validity of the Zionist project to be discussed in casual conversation. 

Many Western politicians, on the other hand, feel entitled to have such casual conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on behalf of the Israelis and Palestinians. No matter which group one supports, if this support is artificial, spurred on by a desire to be elected more than anything else, results in demeaning one group or the other (or both) for not living up to Western standards of compromise and decency. 

This view is rooted in sheer ignorance, namely ignorance of the fact that the Zionist project, from its inception, was explicitly hostile and violent towards Palestinians. Conflict between Israeli settlers and Gaza natives is not a recent development, emerging out of a difference of opinion as to which group is entitled to the land, in which neither opinion can be said to be more or less valid than the other. Zionism emerged as an unabashedly colonialist entity, with the intention of transforming Palestine from an Arab-majority country to a European-majority country, not through mutual agreement, but by force. Quoth Vladimir Jabotinsky, a 20th-century Zionist ideologue: ‘If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison on your behalf…Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force.’ [5] Clearly, the presence of violence in the establishment of Israel was never considered avoidable. Early Zionists knew that they were entering land in which other people lived, knew that those people would not be pleased with them dominating that land, and knew, because of this, that they would have to use force in order achieve their desired outcomes, yet chose to do so anyways. The recent outburst of retaliatory violence against Israel by Hamas is miniscule when compared to this decades-long ‘colonizing adventure,’ but the furious violence of Israel, which is inherent in Zionism itself and made manifest not only in military oppression by the IDF but also through avenues like property redistribution and cultural suppression, is usually ignored by the West, which will only ever briefly take note of it when it is too indefensible to gloss over. Meanwhile, the much smaller-scale violence of Palestine, which is born out of a desire for national liberation, is framed as a threat not only to Israel’s very nationhood but as a mad annihilation of innocent lives. 

All of this defamation of Palestine’s fight for freedom, all of this critique and harmful rhetoric about its methods of resistance is, once spoken by Israeli demagogues, absorbed uncritically by Western political voices, even those which outwardly express support for Palestine. The disconnect of their political imagination from the actual situation in Palestine is so severe, that, when they claim to endorse Palestinian liberation, the image they have in their mind is one of diplomacy and calm discussions in congressional halls. The actuality of liberation, the pain, the suffering, the violence, the death, comes as a surprise to them. Their fantasy of a wave of peaceful protests, meetings between community leaders, and, perhaps, an international summit of some kind being all that it takes to restore relations between the two countries (as if an amicable relationship existed in the first place) suddenly disappears before their eyes. In its place are shocking images of bombings and burning helicopters, and they are so shocked to find that the political process they imagined is not how any country can ever or will ever gain true, long-lasting freedom that they are inclined to accept the first explanation for all this chaos that somebody offers them. Unfortunately, this explanation tends to go as follows: ‘Israel is facing unprovoked attacks by Palestinian radicals.’

It is not hard to see that this explanation, beyond being overly simplistic, is also outright incorrect. In response, one may be inclined to search for an explanation through which middle ground can be found within this complex issue. Despite many popular maxims, though, the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis does not constitute a ‘complicated situation’ with ‘valid claims emerging from both sides.’ In the words of political commentator Michael Brooks: ‘It's not a complex issue. That's the big thing. It's super simple. There's one group [Israel] that has enormous power. It's the most powerful country in the Middle East. It's backed by the United States. It acts on another population of people with total impunity. It is never held accountable for anything. So, there's no symmetry in the relationship, period.’ As much as American politicians may claim to  represent a reasonable middle-ground on the issue of Palestinian liberation, this proposed ‘middle-ground’ does not and can not exist. When Israel uses violence on Palestinians, it is oppression. When Palestinians fight back against Israelis, it is self-defense. That much is certain. 

Notes

[1] Dahman, Ibrahim. Gold, Hadan. Iszo, Lauren. Netanyahu says Israel is ‘at war’ after Hamas launches surprise air and ground attack from Gaza, sec.7

[2] Kayyali, Abdul-Wahab. Zionism and Imperialism: The Historical Origins, p.110

[3] al-Mughrabi, Nidal. Israeli forces kill three Gaza border protesters, wound 600: medics, sec.1

[4] McGreal, Chris. Army pulls back from Gaza leaving 100 Palestinians dead, sec.1

[5] Jabotinsky, Vladimir. The Iron Law, pg. 26

How Israel Copied the USA

By Youhanna Haddad

Though Zionism has found a home in Palestine, the movement didn’t originate there. It was an exported ideology and only gained a foothold in the Middle East thanks to British patronage. Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was a secular Austrian Jew who didn’t use theology to argue for his colonial ambitions. Rather, he argued that Jews couldn’t live freely in Gentile nations and needed their own state to escape antisemitism. 

Herzl’s magnum opus, Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”), repeats frequently that the establishment of this state is a colonial endeavor. His colonial strategy revolved around the idea of a “Jewish chartered company,” similar to the infamous East India Company that plundered trillions of dollars from South Asia for the benefit of English capitalists. 

Herzl did not mince words. He used “colony” and “colonist” to describe his ambitions over 10 times in Der Judenstaat. He said the poorest Jewish settlers would become the “most vigorous conquerors, because a little despair is indispensable to the formation of a great undertaking,”. Herzl even believed European Jews would not come to Palestine without the guarantee that they would be legally superior to the indigenous Arab population:

“Immigration is consequently futile unless based on assured supremacy.”

Herzl also directly compared Zionist settlements to the “occupation of newly opened territory” in the United States. There are also uncanny rhetorical analogies. Both Zionists and Euro-American settlers claim supremacy to justify the conquering, displacement, and elimination of natives. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, for example, justified Israel’s violent West Bank settlement campaign in supremacist terms:

“Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock”

Shapiro’s rhetoric mirrors that of Enlightenment thinker John Locke, who believed God created land only for “the industrious and rational.” Euro-American settlers cited Locke to justify their own violent displacement of natives. This violence is inseparable from colonialism.

Zionists could not build their state without subjugating the Palestinians. And Palestinians could not maintain their sovereignty and cultural identity under the boot of a Zionist state. So began Palestine’s struggle for national liberation, and the steady loss of Palestinian land has continued to this day.

Every nation has a right to self-determination and freedom from imperialist aggression. The Zionist entity is one of the last standing apartheid states in the world, fully backed by Western Imperialist liberal democracies. Israel and its allies are more than willing to use violence to enforce their will in the region. We therefore cannot be blinded by the fantasy of a pure, perfectly nonviolent path to self-determination for the Palestinian people. 

As Malcolm X explained, “concerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.” Who could he be speaking to if not the Palestinians? There is no moral equivalence between the colonial violence of the Zionist state and the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves. The oppressed have an undeniable right to resist those who openly seek to destroy them. Just as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto valiantly resisted the Nazis hellbent on eliminating them, the Palestinians are resisting the Zionist forces that seek their elimination.

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Like the Zionists of today, American leaders have a long tradition of slandering indigenous resistance. The supposedly progressive president Theodore Roosevelt proudly spewed such lies to justify his conquest of the American West, saying:

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.” 

Clearly, Roosevelt had little regard for the original inhabitants of the United States. When he spoke on the United States military’s unprovoked slaughter of Cheyenne and Arapaho women and children at Sandy Creek, he proclaimed it was “as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier.” In his book The Winning of the West, Roosevelt ridiculed any sort of sympathy for victims of indigenous genocide:

‘‘All men of sane and wholesome thought must dismiss with impatient contempt the plea that these continents should be reserved for the use of scattered savage tribes…The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages … American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori — in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people.” 

It is no surprise that Roosevelt was a staunch Zionist. His belief in white people’s inherent right to violently expropriate colored lands fits perfectly with the Zionist mission. Israel’s founders held no illusions over what was necessary to create their ethnostate: total elimination of the Arab population. David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, did not accuse Arab states of acting irrationally against the Zionist project. He knew the Zionist mission was directly at odds with Palestinian and Arab survival in the region: 

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”

While modern Zionists blame “far too many Palestinians… intent on massacring Jews” for resistance against Zionism, Ben-Gurion didn’t entertain this delusion: 

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but… [o]ur God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

Ben-Gurion’s own words shatter the lie that Israel-Palestine is “complicated.” It’s theft and genocide — plain and simple. And Zionists justify these crimes by dehumanizing the victims — much like Euro-American colonists dehumanized Native Americans. Zionism is thus undoubtedly a settler-colonial and racially supremacist ideology. We must reject it.

While corporate media continues to pump out tropes of the “Arab barbarian,” we cannot forget that all indigenous liberation movements throughout history have been smeared in the same fashion. For the moment, the establishment will smear those who stand with Palestine as antisemites and terrorist sympathizers. But history will remember us fondly, once the Zionist chapter is far behind us. 

Youhanna Haddad is a North American Marxist of the Arab diaspora. Through his writing, he seeks to combat the Western liberal dogmas that uphold racial capitalism.

Decolonisation Isn't Pretty Or Complicated: When Violence Is Humanising

By Derek Ford

The first pro-Palestine demonstration called after the latest counterattack by a host of Palestinian forces on October 7, endorsed by Students for Justice in Palestine, the ANSWER Coalition and others, put matters very plainly:

Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near. Catching the enemy completely by surprise, the Palestinian resistance has captured over a dozen settlements surrounding Gaza, along with many occupation soldiers and military vehicles. This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies but armed confrontation with the oppressors.

Of course, the colonisers do not want to hear such realities and hypocritically condemn them as ‘violent’ and ‘terrorist.’ In Indianapolis, we had to keep our coalition together in the face of the fear-mongering by both Democrat and Republican politicians. Unfortunately, many on the academic ‘left’ – already predisposed to conciliatory readjustments – continue echoing the same talking points as the State Department.

Henry Giroux, for example, contends that ‘The reach of violence and death in Israel by Hamas is shocking in its depravity and has been well-publicised in the mainstream media and in other cultural apparatuses.’ For a ‘critical’ scholar, it should instinctively raise questions when one finds truth in the pro-Zionist media and cultural outlets and remains merely satisfied with noting the ‘one-sidedness’ of such coverage. Giroux goes further still, calling us to do more than ‘exclusively condemn Hamas’s atrocious violence as a violation of human rights’ and to hold Israel’s apparently asymmetrical violence to equal condemnation. ‘Refusing to hold all sides in this war to the standards of international law is a violation of human dignity, justice and democratic principles,’ Giroux proclaims.

Palestinian resistance: Armed love

I recommend revisiting Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he unequivocally denounces such false equivalences. ‘Never in history,’ he writes, ‘has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators if they themselves are the result of violence?’ It is rather the oppressors who trigger violence and ‘not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror.’ Furthermore, the counter-insurgency of the oppressed, the ‘violence’ or ‘terror’ they wield, is in reality ‘a gesture of love.’

For Giroux, however, Hamas’s heroic attack on October 7 is ‘brutal and heinous’ and ‘horrific.’ To be fair, he acknowledges that Israeli Occupation Forces have murdered more children than ‘Hamas.’ Yet he swiftly returns to the equation, arguing that both Israel and Hama are united by ‘the violence done against children,’ which is apparently ‘used simply as a prop to legitimate and continue the war and the ongoing death and suffering of children, women, and civilians.’

Simultaneously, in the article titled ‘Killing Children: The Burdens of Conscience and the Israel-Hamas War,’ Giroux commands us not to equate Hamas with Palestine. Fair enough; no single entity represents an entire people. Yet Hamas is one of many resistance forces operating under a united front, along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Al-Quds Brigades and countless others. This is beside the point: those of us in the US have absolutely no business telling the colonised how to resist colonisation, nor what armed groups should resist and on what grounds!

One wonders what such academics would have written about Nat Turner’s historic 1831 rebellion in Virginia. In August of that year, Turner led a group of six slaves to freedom. They killed their slaver, Joseph Travis and his family before traversing plantations to free more enslaved Africans by force. Along the way, ‘free’ Blacks joined their army of about 70 people.

They took money, supplies and weapons as they moved and eliminated over 55 white slave owners and their families. Their violence was not altogether indiscriminate, and, in fact, Turner ordered his troops to leave the homes of poor white people alone. Still, they killed children in their march towards freedom.

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Should we remember this remarkable uprising as a tragedy to be condemned, albeit less so than the violence of the slavers? No! We celebrate Turner’s rebellion as we do all revolts of the oppressed worldwide throughout history!

Their violence was humanising, a necessary measure to prevent them from enslaving others and part of a long tradition of insurrection that ultimately overthrew chattel slavery in the US.

No demonisation of the oppressed

After an amazingly long chase, once the slavers found and killed Turner, the white supremacist papers condemned him and his motley crew for their barbaric violence. How would you respond? ‘Yes, it was terrible, but slavery is worse?’

Things are different today. All imperialist wars are for ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights.’ So it was with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, you name it. In each instance, the propaganda is quickly absorbed by our critical intellectuals. I remember Noam Chomsky endorsing UN Resolution 1973, put forward by the ‘saviours’ of humanity like Italy and the United States on March 17, 2011, imposing a ‘No-Fly Zone’ over Libya. Of course, this only applied to the Libyan air force, not to the US and its NATO allies.

There was relentless propaganda about an ‘impending massacre’ in Benghazi when, in reality, the small armed uprising was on the verge of defeat by the massively popular (and, it goes without saying, flawed) Jamahiriya government of Moammar Gaddafi. It turns out there was no impending massacre, nor was there any validity to the accusations of ‘mass rape.’

The same is true of October 7, 2023. As it turns out, the Israelis massacred their own people. The air force admitted one commander ‘instructed the other fighters in the air to shoot at everything they see in the area of the fence, and at a certain point also attacked an IDF station with trapped soldiers in order to help the fighters of Navy commando unit 13 attack it and liberate it.’ Yasmin Porat confirmed the Israeli army massacred civilians after the courageous Hamas counterattack and, moreover, said Palestinian resistance forces who ‘kidnapped’ her did not treat her inhumanely and did not intend to murder her.

For those with a cursory knowledge of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, this is not surprising.

No purity in the fight against oppression

Let’s imagine that the lies told by the State Department and distributed by their stenographers in the media were all true. Even then, why would anyone in the US or any imperialist nation that is currently sponsoring the Israeli genocide feel any need to ‘condemn’ or even denounce the heroism of those fighting back?

The answer is simple: standing up to the demonisation campaign is difficult, especially early on. Yet how many have heard the endless outrageous lies used to dehumanise primarily Black and Brown heads of state, governments, militaries, and populations? The real question is: how many of us have heard the retractions? How many of us have questioned our national chauvinism and privilege? Why would anyone entertain the notion that Hamas wants Israel to continue bombing its people and infrastructure?

It goes without saying that I don’t share a political allegiance to Hamas, and neither do the myriad forces uniting with them to defend their people – and the people of the region and world – from the genocidal apartheid regime of Israel!

Moral purity is an idealism only those cloistered in their academic offices can afford. Still, it’s a waste of money. I guess, at the very least, it shows us what critical academics are willing to criticise the oppressors and not the oppressed. Me? I’m unequivocally and proudly on the side of the oppressed.

The Imperative to Organize: What Palestine Needs from Us Now

[Photo Credit: Ringo H.W. Chiu, AP]

By Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso and Salma Hamamy

On October 7th, the Islamic Resistance Movement — a Palestinian political and military organization based in Gaza better known as Hamas — began a multi-faceted attack against the settler colony of Israel. The operation included aerial rocket launches and on-the-ground operations. The attack marked only the latest bout of Palestinian resistance against the sieges, occupations, and ethnic cleansing campaigns that have fundamentally characterized the Israeli state, an entity built on these very atrocities since its founding in 1948. With a dreadful immediacy, Israel responded to the attack in kind, and then some.

The war crimes and genocidal exploits that have unfolded since the fighting began are too multitudinous to list in full. But suffice it to say that Israel has unleashed an endless shower of hospital and school bombings — collective punishment galore. As of December 18th, Israel has slaughtered almost 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 70% of whom were women and children. Meanwhile, the Israeli death toll stands at about 1,200. 

Immediately following October 7th, the United States predictably offered Israel — its client state — unconditional support. Soon thereafter, they expanded the gesture by offering military contributions and punishing domestic dissent. In contrast, the American public has largely opposed their government’s pro-Israel posture. An estimated 300,000 protesters marched on Washington in support of Palestine last month. The event featured speakers such as writer Mohammed El-Kurd, musician Macklemore, and lawyer Noura Erakat. It brought together groups from 22 states including California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Two of the largest labor unions in the country — the United Auto Workers and the American Postal Workers Union — have voiced their support for a ceasefire in the region.

Waves of pro-Palestine advocacy have overtaken social media, much to the chagrin of executives and algorithmic gatekeepers. Popular methods of demonstrating solidarity also include calling, emailing, and faxing politicians, donating to pro-Palestine organizations and humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, boycotting pro-Israel companies, and attending protests and direct actions such as strikes and walkouts. These tactics have all made major headway in nurturing a greater collective consciousness in the United States that supports the Palestinian cause and feels evermore compelled to apply liberatory praxis wherever systemic oppression rears its hegemonic head.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza worsens by the hour. The twice-renewed humanitarian pause that began on November 24th ended on December 1st, doing little to ameliorate the displacement, destruction, and brutality that Israel has subjected Gazans to for over two months now. The moment demands an additional layer of action on the part of comrades living outside the occupied territories. Beyond the more traditional forms of activism, we must also embody the organizer spirit in our daily lives. In other words, allies of the Palestinian cause must view our various social relationships and networks as breeding grounds for heightened awareness and collective action. 

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Individualized actions done in unison may spark a wave. But organized actions done in community build a tide. As agents in this transformational moment, we now have a responsibility — to our Palestinian comrades and to ourselves — to organize our immediate surroundings, ensuring that no stone goes unturned. Workplaces, friend groups, family units, neighborhoods, and the like all provide pre-established groupings within which communal awareness and collective action can grow. Beginning with the most promising group, the first step is to start organizational conversations with fellow group members.

These interactions can take many forms, such as further publicizing one’s support for Palestine, pushing back against pro-Israel rhetoric and apologia, wearing clothing that physically depicts solidarity with the Palestinian cause (e.g., keffiyeh), etc. But, generally speaking, the aim is to establish an accurate conception of the individual’s stance on the issue in question, making sure to note any potential gaps in knowledge or qualities that stand out as particularly ripe for agitation. These gaps may include an ignorance of Palestinian history, American ties to Israel, or Israeli ties to imperialist efforts abroad. Ripe points of agitation may include intersecting issues (e.g., the role of co-opted queer liberatory rhetoric in Israeli propaganda), points of reference (e.g., Israeli settler-colonialism as compared to its American counterpart), or personally relatable phenomena (e.g., labor exploitation as seen in both the occupied territories and the United States political economy).

Such efforts will provide a clear portrait of the group’s relationship to said issue. With this layout in mind, subsequent organizing conversations and broader discussions of majority opinion can begin. The hope is that, as this process unfolds, group consciousness will gradually increase, previously unaddressed imperatives will become glaringly obvious, and collective action will inevitably form. From here, discussions to determine group-wide initiatives will become ever more commonplace, until they eventually culminate in a collective decision to pursue a democratically agreed-upon program. 

This organizational method embodies the full meaning of collective action where the reach of individualized initiatives falls short. It penetrates our existence as atomized subjects of imperial capitalism by forcing a collectivization of ideology, commitment, and praxis. It also creates a sociopolitical infrastructure through which we can continue to wield collective action going forward, whether it be for Palestine or for any other issue.

The engagement with the Palestinian cause we’ve seen from Americans in the last couple of months most definitely comprises a host of noteworthy waves, many of which have significantly toppled political affiliations and institutional prestige across sectors. But, now, only the embodiment of an organizational spirit by each and every one of us will do the work of constructing a tide — one that may just push us over the revolutionary edge into a world where Palestine is free, from the river to the sea. 

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso is a Colombian writer, organizer, and artist. In his writing, he seeks to interrogate the nuances of socialist thought and praxis.

Salma Hamamy is a Palestinian student-activist and the president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Michigan, known as Students Allied for Freedom and Equality.

Muslim and Arab-American Voters Show Black People How to Exercise Political Power

By Margaret Kimberley

Republished from Black Agenda Report.

Black voters feel trapped in the duopoly but other groups are giving a master class in political courage. The Abandon Biden campaign shows the way.

Face the Nation Host Margaret Brennan: Thasin, you did change your mind on the president. Why?
Thasin: I was a champion for Joe Biden until October 7. I feel he disowned us, disenfranchised us, with his stance on Gaza.
Brennan: What do you mean by that?
Thasin: He’s not listening to us. We’re asking for a cease fire at this time. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Too many lives have been lost at this time. I was never a single issue voter and in fact I used to argue with people not to be single issue voters but for me this is a deal breaker. Way too many lives have been lost. 
Brennan: When you say “us” you’re Muslim, is that what you mean? You think the Muslim community here feels as you do?
Thasin: Yes. I think the vast majority of Muslims, Arab-Americans, progressives, I identify myself as a progressive, and many people I talk to in my circles are not going to be voting for Joe Biden.

- Michigan Voter Focus Group on CBS news program, Face the Nation

Historically, Black people in this country have allowed themselves to feel trapped by the racialized political duopoly. A feature of U.S. politics is to allow only two parties to play a decisive role in elections and for one of them to be designated as the white people’s party and the other as the Black party. 

Beginning after the civil war and until the 1960s, the democrats were the party of the segregated south, and thus the party for white people generally. Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln, became the de facto preference for Black people despite their willingness to shove Black interests under the bus when they felt the need to placate white voters. 

In 1872 Frederick Douglass spoke at the National Convention of the Colored People and famously spoke these words. “For colored men the Republican party is the deck, all outside is the sea.” Douglass and other Black people counseled continued support for the republicans, even when they made deals to withdraw federal troops from the south, or refused to codify the Civil Rights Act of 1875 into law after the Supreme Court declared it to be unconstitutional. 

Democrats were the party of the confederacy and thus could not be countenanced under any circumstance, even republican betrayals.

This dynamic played out for the next 100 years when the two teams made a switch which lasts until today. The last time a majority of white people supported a democrat in a presidential election was 1964. Ever since that time they have given a majority of their votes to republicans and Black people have done likewise with the democrats. 

Unfortunately the role that Black political action played in forcing democrat Lyndon Johnson to advocate for and sign the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Right Act of 1964 into law have been forgotten. Black people won legislative victory through their own efforts in creating a mass movement and a political crisis that brought about change. This era has been fetishized, without any understanding of its real importance and meaning. The truth has been turned on its head, and we are taught that Black people owe loyalty to democrats, when that party should reward loyalty with policies that Black people want to see enacted.

But every group in the country has not been cowed. Voters who identify as Muslims or who have Middle Eastern ancestry have put Joe Biden on notice that his aiding and abetting of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza will cost him politically. Michigan has the largest Arab-American community of any state and plays a pivotal role in presidential elections. Democrats take great care to mobilize voters in this key “swing” state. Hillary Clinton’s failure to do so in 2016 resulted in Donald Trump’s victory there by a small margin of 13,000 votes and he prevailed in the Electoral College when Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were also neglected by the democrats and flipped to the republican column. 

Joe Biden won in Michigan in 2020 by a 154,000 vote margin in a state where 200,000 registered voters identify as Muslim and 300,000 claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa. Michigan is not the only state Biden won by a small margin thanks to Arab and Muslim voters. In Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota, and Wisconsin he also owed his victory in part to members of this community.

A group of Muslim leaders in swing states are rightly using their electoral power with the #AbandonBiden campaign. They are not so frightened of a Trump presidency that they have allowed themselves to vote for the man who through his proxy Israel has killed some 24,000 people in Gaza and despite phony claims of “working behind the scenes” shows no inclination to change policy and save lives.

It is true that these communities do not share Black people’s history of enslavement and Jim Crow segregation. As such they have a greater willingness to show independence but there are lessons here for Black people in how to exercise their power.

Joe Biden and every democrat elected in the last 60 years owes his presidency to Black voters. The same is true of politicians in city halls, state legislatures, and in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Black people have political muscle but through a combination of misleadership chicanery and ignorance of the right lessons of history, act as supplicants instead of as political players.  

Arab-Americans have not forgotten Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, when citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen were barred from entering the country. Yet they do not act fearfully despite the fact that Trump is again a candidate for the office he once held and pledges to bring back the ban and even to deport people who protest U.S. policy towards Palestine.

Fortunately the #AbandonBiden campaign has shown no signs of letting up because its leadership knows how to get results and because they refuse to disrespect themselves and their people by rewarding a genocidaire with another term in the white house. How much could Black people achieve with similar determination?

In 2024 and beyond, the words “but Trump” should lose their power. How much has Biden done for Black people in the last three years? The covid era programs of small stimulus payments and the Child Tax Credit are over. Millions of people eligible for Medicaid and SNAP food benefits have been kicked off the rolls in many states with no intervention from the federal government. The pardon for federal marijuana convictions freed no one from jail. Police continue their killing spree with more than 1,300 victims in 2023. Mass incarceration continues as 1 million Black people are locked up, more than anywhere else in the world with the help of the most draconian sentences in the world. Of course Senator Joe Biden bragged about his role in the Clinton era Crime Bill which put so many Black people behind bars. There was good reason not to vote for him in 2020.

As it seems Black people have forgotten how to demonstrate political power, perhaps lessons from other groups are a means of regaining what has been lost. Black people can abandon Biden too, along with all of the democrats who owe their elected office to a group of people they routinely ignore or use for “dog whistle” politics appealing to white voters. 

Donald Trump is not the biggest enemy, he is just the loudest and the least refined. Abandoning Biden and his minions can be a reality which may produce some worthy result. Feeling trapped by the duopoly has been and continues to be a losing proposition.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com

The History Behind the So-called "Israel-Hamas War"

(Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

By Dylan Jones

Where we start a narrative makes a big difference. If we start the narrative on October 7th, when Palestinian resistance launched rockets into Israel, then it’s easier to justify a military response from Israel. However, is this an honest place to start telling the story from? What different conclusions would we draw if we started the story from 75 years ago? Or thousands of years ago? Starting the narrative in a different place by adding historical context allows us to understand the obstacles to everyone's liberation in this situation.

First, I would like to acknowledge that there is no doubt important Jewish cultural and spiritual ties to Palestine. And indeed, before Israel was founded there were many Jews living peacefully alongside Muslims and Christians in Palestine. Palestinians have lived there since time immemorial, with genetic ties going back to the Canaanites[1]; they have social, cultural, and spiritual ties to the land. In this way, Palestinians are indigenous to the land. This is not to say that non-Palestinian Jews are not also Indigenous to Palestine, a question which I will show has absolutely no bearing on the current situation. An Indigenous person from a given area can also act as a colonizer/settler under the conditions of a settler colonial nation state such as Israel. This becomes clear when we analyze the last 75 years— since Israel’s founding.

The modern state of Israel has its roots in Western colonialism. Theodore Herzl in the 1800s defined the goal of today’s zionism, to create a home for white Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. He decided it could be in Argentina, Uganda, or Palestine. At this time, Britain controlled Palestine as a colony and, under the Balfour Declaration (1917), it promised an area of Palestine to the zionists in order to quell anti-semitism in Europe. Palestinians had no say in this decision. As tensions heightened due to Israeli settlers converging in Palestine and inevitably seizing property from its inhabitants, the U.N. announced a partition plan in 1947 which would designate over half of Palestine to establish the nation state of Israel. When Palestinians rejected the plan, Israel committed genocide to take it by force. In what is called the Nakba, Israeli military forces and vigilante settlers murdered 15,000 Palestinians overnight, displaced 850,000 people, and destroyed 550 villages. After this initial genocidal campaign, Israel took even more land than it was promised in the UN partition plan. To this day, Israel actively prevents those it displaced from returning. Israel meets protests asserting the right to return with violence.

Since the Nakba, over the course of decades, Israel has consistently evicted more Palestinians from their land, forcefully displacing families and entire communities. It arbitrarily imprisons Palestinians, including children. It has developed an apartheid system that denies basic human rights to Palestinians. There are policies of environmental racism such as not allowing Palestinians to drill for well water and spraying herbicide on Palestinian farms to destroy their sources of food and economic livelihood. This is state terrorism. This is a settler colonial state in operation. Israel is displacing, invading, ethnically cleansing Palestinians, and occupying more and more of Palestine in order to replace the existing society with its own.

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Israel regularly bombs Palestine, hardly warranting a few articles in mainstream news. But when the rockets launched on October 7th, mainstream news immediately stated condemnation. When a white Israeli citizen dies, it is news. When an Israeli bomb severs a Palestinian child’s head from their body, it is normal; we can immediately jump to justifications. Similar to its response to other Palestinian resistance, Israel is using October 7th to justify a second genocide, a second Nakba. Since October 7th, Israel has murdered more than 15,000 Palestinians, over 6,000 children, and over 4,000 women. They have blocked water and food. They have bombed schools, hospitals, and refugee camps. Israel has hundreds of child hostages but has the power to define them as prisoners. There are around 10,000 Palestinian hostages in Israel. Every hour, Israel drops 42 bombs and half of the population of Gaza is children.

According to Israeli officials themselves, the goal is not to hunt down Hamas but rather to seize this opportunity to murder and displace Palestinians living on the land Israel would like for its own. Netanyahu himself says “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our holy bible, we do remember,” referring to the ancient enemy of the Israelites in scripture. This references a call to exterminate the entire population of Amalekites—every man, woman, child, and piece of property.[2] A former Israeli intelligence chief, Rami Igra on CNN said, “the non-combatant population in the Gaza strip is really a nonexistent term. All of Gaza voted for Hamas and as we have seen on the 7th of October most of the population in Gaza strip are Hamas”.[3] Imagine if the same outrageous claim were made about Israelis having voted for Netanyahu. The Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Avi Dichter announces, “we are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” “Gaza Nakba 2023”.[4] In this way, Israeli officials are clear that the intention is not to hunt down Hamas, it is a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Despite how clearly Israeli officials admit genocide and ethnic cleansing, western media still focuses on the “hunt for Hamas” narrative. We must reject this narrative and when we are asked to condemn Hamas, we should say instead…

Israel—as a terrorist, settler colonial nation state—is dependent on violence against Palestinians and it thereby jeopardizes the health and safety of its own inhabitants, rather than protecting them. It supposes that one people’s self-determination, rights, and lives have to come at the expense of others. Among Zionists goals are creating a safe space for Jewish people and creating a relationship with an important spiritual place to Jewish people living around the world. There are peaceful ways to do this that respect the existing Palestinian society. Establishing the theocratic settler colonial ethnostate of Israel erases Palestinian society. Therefore, the dismantling of zionism is the only truly just and safe path for Palestinians and Jews. If the Palestinian resistance stops its resistance, Israel will only continue its occupation, annexing more land, extra-judicially imprisoning Palestinians—including children (read: taking as hostages), and bombing Gaza. This characterizes life under the boot of Israel since it was founded. This does not advocate violent resistance as the only option, but points out that the root of all the violence rests clearly with the settler colonial state of Israel. Free Palestine is not a cry for retribution. It does not advocate violence against Israelis. Free Palestine means dismantling the social and political project of zionism and moving toward liberation for everyone.

I believe most people have wondered what they would have done during the holocaust when Nazi Germany slaughtered millions of Jews, Romanis, Sintis, people with disabilities, and others. I say emphatically you do not have to wonder what you would have done. What you would have done is what you’re doing right now for Palestinians living in Israel’s death camps. Attend and/or uplift: rallies for a permanent ceasefire, vigils, assembly meetings, sit-ins, and shutdowns. Call legislators and demand a ceasefire. Advocate for Palestine among your friends and family. Whether we would like to be activists or not, our tax dollars are funding the bombs eviscerating Palestinian people. At a moral bare minimum, we are called to be activists now. I do not believe I would have come to support Palestine if it were not for the values for love and kindness that my family and friends taught me. Now I call on all my friends and family to live out these values. Long live Palestine! Long live Gaza! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Notes

[1] https://www.brown.uk.com/teaching/HEST5001/Palestinians.pdf

[2]https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics

[3]https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/anderson-cooper-360/episodes/d61ee373-605b-4ec4-82dd-b0a9001d97a9

[4]https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-nakba-israels-far-right-palestinian-fears-hamas-war-rcna123909