A year into the genocide

Even a year of genocide has not stopped the Palestinian resistance. In the crucible of Gaza, under the annihilating cloud of Israeli aggression, in the West Bank in the face of settler invasion and pogroms, they fight back, they endure. Steadfast kites are flown amidst the rubble. People still capture joyful images from the sea on their phones for the world to see along with the catastrophe of the dust and blood of another hospital or school destroyed by a bomb delivered by the U.S. via the Zionist entity. And they still fight back while they also upload videos of cooking tutorials despite the starvation campaign of the IOF and the U.S. The full extent of the devastation counts the dead as far more than just those murdered by direct bombardment, perhaps over 200 thousand. More than 8 percent of the entire population of Gaza. As the anniversary of October 7 arrives, it evokes the question asked by one anthem of the Palestinian struggle: “Where are the millions?”

Who stands with those who endure, the Palestinians who heroically fight on against the combined forces of world imperialism, against the capitalist vultures who circle above, trading in death?

The solidarity with Palestinians has filled the streets over the past year, in cities across the world, made possible by the tireless organizing of protests every single week over the entire year. It is shown in the diversity and extent of the civil disobedience, the blocking of streets and infrastructure, the sabotage of weapons manufacturers, the harrying of politicians, and the inspiring student encampments that spread over U.S. campuses last spring. In too many cases these encampments were broken up violently by phalanxes of cops sent in by university administrators, with the backing of Democratic Party mayors, under the watch of a Democratic president, and with the hectoring support of their propaganda operations. Yet, in a country where Palestine was once a third-rail issue, a majority now want a ceasefire and more far-reaching demands for an arms embargo are gaining popularity.

A new movement has been born, a new movement that brings tremendous hope, a new movement to free Palestine and against imperialism. At the same time a new movement that feels humbled by the task ahead of it. A new movement in which it feels palpably like we have a long way to go, but impatient with not having the luxury of the time needed. Meanwhile, the torrential beat of Israeli bombs heavily thud down on Gaza, the West Bank, Beirut, Hodeidah, Damascus, and around the middle east as the joint U.S.-Israeli war on the peoples of the region leaves death and destruction in its wake.

For the forces arrayed before us are vast. Israel’s rabid destructive violence directed at Palestinians has spread into Lebanon, with Israel leveling neighborhoods and willfully pushing and baiting Iran into escalating a regional war that has already begun. And yet the talking heads of the US State Department, Joe Biden, and both presidential candidates drone on about Israel’s “right to defend” itself. The curtain has been torn away from the entire U.S.-led international “rules-based-order,” shown to be nothing but blood and disorder for them and disaster for us. The United Nations is a complete farce, and in the marble halls of international diplomacy states are full of either complicity and excuses for genocide or vapid concern and condemnatory speeches with no relief in sight for those under the baleful clouds of Zionist aggression.

While Netanyahu and the far-right forces in his government are the primary antagonists operating as a rogue force of havoc and revenge, they are not the cause. What is occurring is the logical progression of the settler colonial project itself; a project birthed and raised by over a century of imperial planning. And now the U.S. has committed itself wholly to this genocidal process. It aims to consolidate power in the region, and has largely integrated much of the Arab states into its hegemony and further isolated the Palestinian people. Support for the Palestinian struggle and opposition to the resources, political backing, and weapons sent by the U.S. government was consistently and repeatedly a untouchable issue in the U.S. anti-war movement. Now, it is the unifying demand that preoccupies the entire Left. That the demands for ceasefire and the growing solidarity with Palestine are so widely and deeply felt, while the entire political class is running circles to defend Israel at all costs, should tell us something about the significance of this demand. But it has also been a year-long signifier of how tilted the balance of forces are against us at the current time.

Building a movement for Palestine inside the belly of the beast is fundamentally a question of how we build an independent Left in the U.S.; a Left that can stand clearly against imperialism, educate people who are new to the struggle, and coordinate actions that can force the U.S. government to stop providing the munitions for genocide. These goals cannot be met through a strategy that sees support for Democratic Party candidates as the road to amassing the forces needed to win an arms embargo and to really challenge the imperial interests the political class in this country exists to protect. Have they not made their commitments sufficiently clear to us all?

The revitalized and urgent movement for Palestine is forcing participants to connect the dots in order to make sense of the escalating horror and state complicity. We must not underestimate the significance of this last year of protest. It has sowed the ground for the further development of the Palestine movement in particular and the Left in general. For people throughout the world to see the level and depth of protest taking place against the actions of the U.S. government, has had an international impact. The spread of the campus encampments was a particular flashpoint that helped inspire and spread the defiance to authority from Bangladesh to Egypt, Yemen, across Europe and beyond. There is a mutually reinforcing impact that these international struggles draw from one another. These mass international expressions of people taking action in coordinated and imaginative ways is a necessary component of how Zionism and U.S. imperialism can be defeated.

Our organizing, as people outside of Palestine, must be built on unconditional support for the Palestinian struggle. This means centering the right of occupied people to resist and the necessity of armed resistance as an important part of that resistance. Guided by that commitment, we must simultaneously direct all of our strategic and tactical considerations into the strengthening of activity that can meaningfully and successfully challenge the material support to Israel that the United States government provides. The past year increasingly reflects that armed resistance—principled and legitimate, and a right of the oppressed—will not alone be able to bring liberation. The challenge of our movements is to also bring our social, political, and moral force to bear against those states, and their ruling classes and allies that are supporting the genocide and the Zionist settler colonialism project.

The goal of putting a stop to the weapons, the political backing, and the endless aid to Israel, cannot be won through a vote in Congress and will not be forced through emergency street protests on their own. For this demand to take root will mean figuring out how to dramatically expand the existing movement around the horizon of fundamentally challenging state support for Israel.

The power to take on the U.S. state comes from mass, rooted, working-class disruption like strikes and occupations. For this reason, we need to think about opening up, growing and expanding our movement beyond what it currently represents. Ultimately, our power lies in the nexus of radical demands and the ability to carry these out through a mass movement—which means convincing many who are not yet embedded or active to join.

This is why it is imperative that we pour our attention into expanding the entry-points and viability of participation in the ongoing organizing for Palestine so that it might grow and create pathways to new organizations of the Left that are clear and convincing about what we are up against and what it will take to win. Right now, we can and must build BDS campaigns, labor for Palestine formations, educational spaces and democratically organized groups that can be shaped by all who want to take part. We also need to learn as a movement to distinguish between what are disagreements with our unconditional support for Palestine, and what are strategic and tactical debates among comrades—assessing our strengths and mistakes together as a crucial way to learn and grow. These are pathways to expanding and building on the significant advances of the last year.

A year of genocide is painful and humbling. Tempest members across the country are fully committed to being part of the process that is underway, of strengthening and growing our solidarity movements, guided by our unconditional support for the Palestinian struggle against apartheid and genocide.