The Pied Piper is arguably more dangerous than the hunter, and neither should be discounted.

Background

Mamdani’s campaign started with a surge of popularity riding on radical anti-zionist talking points. A long-time “pro-Palestine” activist, supporter of BDS, and critic of zionist settler violence in Palestine, Mamdani has been a member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America since 2017, and the New York State Assembly since 2020. Using his elected position to amplify his particular brand of “radical” politics, Mamdani’s public visibility quickly ramped up following his condemnations of the genocidal zionist reprisals following the October 7, 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood uprising. By repeatedly stirring controversy within settler power structures and zionist media, Mamdani has spent the last two years building a popular image of a radical “socialist” Muslim within a key hotbed of settler political struggle, carefully ramping up the controversy to keep himself in the media spotlight by spouting radical rhetoric such as “globalize the intifada” and “abolish the police.” In October 2024, he announced his candidacy for the 2025 Mayoral race, winning the Democratic Party primary in June 2025. 

Surprising no-one paying attention, Mamdani began walking back his phony radicalism as soon as his candidacy was assured, currying alliances with key members of the NYC police force, choosing open zionists for his staff,¹ announcing his support for the zionist occupation’s “right to exist,” and declaring his intent to greatly expand the police budget for prosecuting anti-zionist activities. 

Principles of Settler Opportunism

The “socialists” who run for office are little more than political adventurists and opportunists. A political adventurist here means an individual who sees themselves as a heroic figure setting out to save the masses from their oppression. They believe they can “make a difference” by struggling within the system, so long as they retain their “principles.” They set aside the necessity of first constructing a class that is conscious of itself and able to coordinate political action according to a definite plan, and try to instead champion what they individually perceive to be the interests of this class (which does not yet exist!). This necessarily produces an eclectic undisciplined political line, because one individual, or group of individuals (like the many so-called “communist” parties) is not capable of producing a correct political line. Only a vanguard party with the backing of the masses, acting in their interests according to their will, can do this. Adventurists either do not know this, or do not care. They believe that by “showing the way,” the masses can be inspired to spontaneous action in support of their own liberation. They believe that by spurring the masses to all go to the polls, they are at the same time building working class unity, solidarity, consciousness, or whatever. Inevitably, they are ultimately defeated: either they fail to gain any purchase within the system and wash out, or they realize the futility of pushing a “revolutionary” line all by their lonesome and turn to opportunism. To this end, political adventurism is materially indistinguishable from opportunism.

Opportunists are in it for whatever they can get. They may agree in principle with a revolutionary line, but in practice they are more than willing to discard inconvenient segments of the masses in the interest of political expediency. Often they can be found eagerly doing this in anticipation of what they believe will win the most “support” at the polls. Inevitably, their most radical edges are rounded out and dulled by constant contact with the inertia of bourgeois/settler governance. In the game of musical chairs that is settler colonial privileges, the most vulnerable people are the first pushed out of the way, and the opportunists are the ones who take up the task of doing the pushing. Because it may be “politically inconvenient” to militantly struggle against the settler colonial occupation and genocide against Palestine, they tell us that these issues must be set aside “for now,” to be pursued “later” when the movement has built more momentum and mass power. Of course what they fail to mention here is that in doing this they are dividing the masses, weakening the movement by directing mounting class struggle into dead-end reformist avenues down which only a small section of the masses can advance. Their actions lead to the sacrifice of all principles on the altar of “pragmatism.”

Besides Mamdani’s tepid criticism of some of the most depraved zionist acts of violence, the key reforms he promised (and those which have won him such widespread support among the imperial left) are as follows: 

• To freeze rents and build “affordable” housing
• To crack down on “bad” landlords 
• To establish city-owned grocery stores
• To establish free public transit
• To raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 by 2030. (This in particular appears to be why the “progressive” settlers are so thrilled.) 

A full explanation of the flaws in the rent freeze is well beyond this article, but suffice to say that whatever attempt he may or may not make at expanding and stabilizing the private property regime, it won’t put a dent in the empire-wide land speculation that is the real cause of the housing crisis. Cracking down on “bad” landlords is laughable, considering the socialist position is not to hound out malfeasors, but to liquidate entire classes. And rather than feeding people directly, Mamdani would prefer to compete on the market by creating his own NYC brand grocery store!

This minimum wage increase will mostly benefit the service workers in the empire’s finance capital, the people who keep the gears turning in the nerve center of global imperialism. The claim being made by the settler “socialists,” is that this push for higher wages for some of the city’s workers is building the mass base necessary to push through some “real” reforms—just later on, at an unspecified date and time. There’s no word on how that’s to be accomplished or what the demands will be, but never mind that, they say, we’re getting paid. How exactly is socialism advanced by the appointment of a bourgeois politician as the mayor of the bourgeois finance capital of the empire in the middle of a holocaust being waged against Palestinians? That this disgusting mockery of human decency is being held up as a beacon of hope for the socialist cause hinges on the idea that wage increases are a victory in themselves, that advancing the conditions of some workers is always an advance for the socialist cause. We contend that this is simply not true. Let’s ask the real question: wage increases for who?

Simply being employed, however wretched that employment may be, is itself a position of privilege and power in the imperial system. Yes, the bourgeoisie remain the top dogs, but people who “work for a living” in the colonial economy are still a privileged group: their class position depends on the continued exploitation of people who can’t work for a living. 

There has never been a challenge to the employment problem, and a major reason why is that following along to the plans of the Imperialists keeps wages high and development uneven, securing employment while simultaneously securing unemployment. 

Example scenario: Capitalist introduces labor saving machines that double productivity. Rather than overproducing, they cut the workforce in half and raise the wages of the leftovers by 50%. Overall, the capitalist just reduced aggregate wages by 25%. The business operates at the same level. They don’t overproduce and break their market position, the workers who didn’t get cut have a huge wage increase that puts a contradiction between them and their laid off siblings.²

– @probablykaffe

Many people are excluded from the “productive” sphere on the basis of nationality, gender, ability, etc. We know that a Black person is much less likely to have access to employment than a white person—in fact, the Black unemployment rate in New York City is more than double that of whites (8% vs 3.5%). Disabled people are often completely excluded from a livable income, with less than 25% of people with any disability being employed, and fewer than 1 in 5 autistic people. According to the 2022 US transgender survey report, trans people in the US face a whopping 18% unemployment rate, more than four times the empire-wide average, which frankly should be considered a demographic crisis. These are entire populations of people who are excluded from the privilege of accessing employment, and those who do gain access are often limited to part time or sporadic/seasonal work. And all of this is before we even get into the issue of the role of US imperialism in inflating worker wages inside the empire at the expense of billions of global south workers. 

It can’t be dismissed how difficult it is to be a low wage worker in New York City. There’s a very good reason people are clamoring for this reform. But as the grip of capital tightens around your throat, disabled people who have been suffering under brutal austerity conditions for years are dying at atrocious rates under state eugenicist campaigns. The fact that these plans don’t address the needs of the most oppressed, and in fact perpetuate their oppression in a mystified and more acute form, should be a warning that Mamdani doesn’t deal in social revolution but rather in reinforcing the capitalist state with a “kinder” face. How does the “socialism” of Mamdami do anything to build solidarity between oppressed groups? What is the plan for carrying this movement to a higher stage of struggle? What is being accomplished here, except grabbing more for a select few while the most vulnerable people continue to languish and die in ever-increasing poverty and homelessness? Is the wealth supposed to trickle down from people with jobs to those without? Everyone needs to eat before you reach out your hand for seconds! If any group is forgotten or sacrificed on the altar of “progress” then inequality is reproduced and oppression persists. What does “universal emancipation” mean to you, seriously? If your “socialist” candidate isn’t running on the democratic mandate of the masses of the exploited, and held to account by that democratic mandate, following a definite plan to continually heighten the struggle and broaden the involvement of the masses, then they aren’t a socialist. Unfortunately, the democratic institutions necessary for this, a vanguard party or socialist state, do not yet exist in this land. Our efforts, therefore, should not be to run candidates accountable to no one, but to build the party capable of holding leaders accountable, so that we can finally seize the state. 

Whose Side Are You On?

We must be very clear on this point: Palestinian sovereignty is non-negotiable, just as much as all anti-colonialism is. There is no middle ground or compromise with the settler colonial system. Either we destroy it or it destroys us. Any position which leaves room for the continued existence of “israel” in any form is a denial of the sovereignty and humanity of Palestinians. In tossing out this issue, by “compromising” with genocide, they draw a line between themselves and the Palestinian people. They separate international humanity into two groups pitted against one-another: “us,” and “them.” In the arena of class warfare this division is fatal. When one section of our forces advances while leaving another behind, reactionary forces are afforded room to encircle and defeat both groups, usually by absorbing the opportunists and killing off the rest. Either all the oppressed advance in unison, or we get picked off one-by-one. Genuine revolutionaries demand that every oppressed group be respected, uplifted, and empowered; this will be done in opposition to the dominant groups, who recognize every gain for the oppressed as a loss for their profit. On the other hand, opportunists are content to allow reactionaries to pick off “inconvenient” groups, so long as they personally benefit in the end.

This strategy of divide and conquer, directed from the rear by the bourgeoisie and spearheaded by opportunism, goes back to the earliest days of the anti-capitalist movement. In particular it has come to dominate and define imperial politics over the last century. When the interests of those privileged enough to have jobs are prioritized ahead of those who aren’t, the material division between the two widens. The privileges of the advantaged group are reinforced at the expense of the disadvantaged group, which produces an incentive to keep it that way in the privileged group. This is how reaction breeds. The issue with homelessness is not “the lack of supply” but the capacity for landlords to evict tenants. Ensuring everybody is housed and safe needs to come ahead of reducing market prices on apartments.³ The speculative value produced by rent extraction is what drives the constant inflation of property prices, not “undersupply.” When the health and safety of disabled people is considered a secondary concern to the “comfort” of abled people, and (for example) masking is not enforced, disabled people are excluded from the movement, further weakening it. When trans rights are considered a “token” issue and worth ceding ground on in exchange for concessions for “the majority,” the movement further fragments as trans people are left behind to struggle to survive and to die alone. When Indigenous sovereignty is treated as a secondary concern, or a threat to the property “rights” of “the majority,” the settler-Indigenous divide deepens, and one of the most revolutionary elements of all human society is ejected from the movement. It is this way that, in the name of “the majority,” the opportunists carefully and meticulously carve up the movement into bite-sized chunks that the reactionaries are only too eager to devour. The bourgeoisie and settler masses will always demand that we sit down and shut up and in exchange they will grant some privileges to those of us who acquiesce while they slaughter those who won’t or can’t. Every “temporary” retreat from solidarity turns into a strategic defeat for the movement.

In the coming months, Mamdani supporters may pretend to be shocked at his complicity in settler violence and his leadership in maintaining the colonial occupation of Lenapehoking, just as they are now pretending to be critical of his zionism. The signs pointing towards his opportunism were always there for those willing to see. While he did condemn the zionist reprisals on October 8, 2023, he was quick to also condemn the Palestinian resistance within the weeks following, and since then has eagerly participated in spreading zionist propaganda lies about supposed “war crimes” committed by the resistance.⁴ Mamdani has carefully and consistently played both sides, spouting anti-zionist rhetoric out one side of his mouth while materially aligning himself with colonial hegemony with the other. This barefaced opportunism, and its inevitable tragic outcomes, should be wearily familiar by now to those of us with the slightest of principles. It’s plain as day now, just as it has been for years, that Mamdani is just another lying settler pig—perfectly content to take advantage of public outrage against the Palestinian Holocaust for his colonial ladder-climbing career. 

For as much ink that has been spilled and attention monopolized for this man, little mind has been paid to the social processes underlying his ascent to international fame and infamy. Mamdani’s popularity and controversy could well serve as a case-study in how the left wing of capital uses radical window-dressing to conceal maintenance of the status quo, but we’ve had enough such case studies to fill a library. What is happening to us on the ground? Whether you’re cheering and applauding or booing and hissing, you’re watching the show — so how has the so-called “revolutionary left” become so enraptured by what amounts to performance art on a stage inside a colonial garrison? The complete hegemony of the settler empire’s cultural influence continues to mislead and dull the senses of our aspiring revolutionaries, but not by lying to us to convince us that one settler politician or another is a radical. Even the most ineffectual liberal “socialist” will openly admit that they don’t believe Mamdani will deliver anything resembling a radical break. After all, they’ve “learned their lesson” from former DSA campaign outcomes, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s vile opportunism. But if they’ve learned their lesson and “don’t expect much” from Zohran Mamdani, what exactly are they doing? The answer is a parallel to Mamdani’s career.

The Social Technology of Settler Socialism

The mass base of Democratic Socialism is the lower and middle strata of settler colonists.⁵ These people are genuinely discontented with the system, but pay attention to their grievances! “Housing is unaffordable, wages are too low, social safety nets are not robust enough, and  education is too expensive.” Wealth and capital have become too concentrated in the hands of a minority, “the 1%,” and they aren’t getting what they see as their due share. Are these the grievances of a revolutionary, or of petulant settler youth and failed settler aspirants? Are these demands aiming towards the complete destruction of the colonial system and the restitution of Indigenous land sovereignty, or are these demands aiming at a “fairer” redivision of the spoils of colonial conquest and imperialist exploitation? Are the grievances rooted in a desire to end class society or to simply make it more comfortable for those fortunate enough to live within the colonial jurisdiction at which their reforms are aimed?

The DSA professes to be a “socialist” organization, so on the surface it appears to be approaching an alignment with national liberatory, decolonial, and communist struggles. But is this really the case? Remember to always analyze the class position of a given organization by the actions it takes, not by the ideology it professes. Ideology is always a more or less accurate reflection of class alignment, but recall the scientific tenet that the appearance of a thing does not perfectly match its content—therefore we have to look deeper. The reflection can be, and often is, inverted. Zionism purports itself to be a liberatory movement, which is an inverted reflection of reality. Amerikan liberalism purports to be interested in universal democracy, which again is an inverted reflection of reality. So, is DSA really socialist? What are the outcomes of DSA’s political activity? As of this writing, no militant organizations or movements have emerged from the DSA, and decades of organizing has yielded little but a few “more radical” Democratic politicians in colonial office positions. The standard explanation given by “communists” within the DSA for its lack of revolutionary action is that the masses have yet to be radicalized, and therefore struggle within the DSA is necessary to bring them the consciousness they need to begin to take revolutionary action. In 43 years, however, the DSA has largely remained ideologically stationary.

This “failure” to radicalize the masses is a constant point of debate and analysis. Many individuals and organizations within the communist milieu but outside the DSA contend that the source of this failure is because the organization is ideologically democratic socialist (i.e. not revolutionary in ideological outlook), and therefore a different, “more communist” organization is required to impart the necessary revolutionary outlook in its adherents. But this is putting the cart before the horse! Ideology does not dictate material alignment, material alignment dictates ideology. The DSA is not a stagnant ineffectual organization because of its backwards ideology—instead it has a backwards ideology because this is necessary to fulfill its actual goals. What are its goals? The purpose of a system is what it does, especially a system which has remained more or less stable and self-reproducing for over four decades. So what does the DSA do? It reels in members of oppressed groups (trans, queer, disabled, Black, Indigenous, etc) and disciplines their activities into serving the interests of its colonial middle-class leadership by mixing them into a single “organization” under middle-class leadership. The profession of “socialist” aims is a smokescreen to obscure the actual aims of the organization, which is ultimately little more than colonial, careerist ladder-climbing.

What of the internal criticisms levied at the organization? Many of the members are often very dissatisfied with the outcomes of their political activity, and among the common refrains is the need for more centralized leadership, for the ability to enforce a political line on the politicians they get into office, and for the organization to divest itself from cooperation with zionism. Yet despite a resolution passing in August⁶ enabling the expulsion of zionist membership (which was barely successful, succeeding with 56% percent of the vote), the openly zionist Mamdani continues to be backed by the DSA, and the overall strategy of the DSA continues to be to maintain its involvement in the zionist Democratic Party. The reality of the matter is, despite professing anti-zionism for the first time in its long history, the DSA remains a zionist organization, and its new “anti-zionist” mask is the same “anti-zionism” of the broader imperial left—an anti-zionism that affirms the necessity of the occupation to continue. Little more than a barefaced lie.

This is not exactly a new phenomenon. The settler empire has long since perfected the social technology of penetrating organizational and community structures built by, or being built by, the oppressed, with the aim of taking them over from within and submitting them to colonial interests. Where the oppressed see a dire need for unity and solidarity in the face of colonial genocide against our siblings in Palestine, the lower and middle strata of settlers see an upsurge in laboring subjects available to fill the ranks of their latest campaign for redivision of the imperialist spoils. That, in essence, is what the Democratic Socialists of America is: far from a dysfunctional organization which routinely fails to meet its goals, the DSA is a well-oiled machine of settler-colonial annexation. In which revolutionary currents among the oppressed are carefully cultivated within a narrowly bounded arena of struggle, both in order to prevent a dangerous rupture of the colonial system, and in order to ultimately benefit the settlers served by the DSA. That this process occasionally settlerizes individuals from oppressed demographics is part of the point—in order for the DSA to function as intended it’s necessary that the occasional individual from an oppressed demographic attains an internal leadership position or a colonial office position, but this is always predicated on the condition that they closely adhere to the interests of colonial maintenance; they must not engage in illegal activities, such as organizing and arming militant struggle. “Class peace” remains the priority ahead of anything else, even when the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children hinge on the taking up of armed struggle. To the settler socialists, their deaths are water under the bridge so long as wages are increased enough to broaden the number of people who can access the colonial land exchange.

For revolutionaries, what the success of the DSA and Mamdani’s campaign represents is a complete capitulation of the “Free Palestine” movement to settler annexationism and zionism. We’ve failed to differentiate between friends and enemies, failed to take the actions necessary to expel enemies from our organizations and communities, failed to build up the militant organizational capacity necessary to wage armed struggle against zionism, and in doing so failed to defend the lives of our Palestinian siblings in their hour of greatest need for two years ongoing. And yet, Mamdani’s electoral success is lauded as a victory for the left! Indeed, this is a triumph for the left wing of zionism. With hardly a word to the contrary, we’ve rolled over and allowed this travesty to unfold for two years, all the while repeating the inane mantra that “any day now” the masses of settler oppressors will “radicalize” and join forces with the oppressed to aid in the overthrow of their colonial system. In doing so, we’ve demonstrated our own willingness to be complicit in a holocaust so long as this complicity keeps us out of the prison cell and out of the line of fire.

Our Place in History

When freshly stolen land became scarce and prices rose in the late 1700s, the lower and middle masses of settlers eagerly aligned with the planter bourgeoisie to oppose British rule and expand the colonial system. Indigenous peoples bore the cost of their genocidal brutality.⁷ Since then this pattern has repeated itself over and over. At each moment of crisis in the colonial system, the dispossessed and poorer settlers will seek out temporary alliances wherever they can find them to bulk up their ranks for coming confrontation with the ruling strata, but always with the sole aim of securing their own slice of colonial land and their own share of imperial wages.⁸ As times change and ideologies shift and develop, the colonial redistributionists will find alliances in different places. During the period of protracted economic crisis in the 1930s, the redistributionists found alliance with rising Black nationalism, only to cast off their allies the moment a fresh flood of booty came pouring in following the empire’s successful conquests at the close of the Second World War, and by the 1950s the Communist Party USA had successfully liquidated all revolutionaries from its ranks and disavowed national liberation. In the 1960s, a new wave of national liberatory struggles rose, and by the 1970s, settler “radicals” had successfully played out their role in crushing all resistance. The defeated liberation movement became a victorious “Civil Rights Movement” in the settler history books.

Today the same pattern plays out yet again in real time before our eyes: with the colonial system’s internal stratification at historic highs, and faced with the objective necessity of violent armed struggle in support of the Palestinian resistance and against the US empire, the settler “left” floods into our organizations and our discussion spaces, reads our literature and learns our language of resistance, claims to be our allies in struggle, and spends two years marching in circles to maintain the facade, while shoring up support for their preferred reformist. Time and energy and resources that could be spent serving the needs of the most oppressed, building dual power institutions, organizing guerilla strikes against weapons manufacturers and zionist finance institutions, etcetera, gets repeatedly diverted into the same century-old discussions about whether socialists should vote. Those of us aiming to build the revolutionary forces necessary for winning this war find ourselves surrounded by the most dishonest dregs of humanity, grabbing and pulling us back from struggle to keep our labor squarely aimed at shoring up the structures of oppression holding us down. Make no mistake, when $30/hr is firmly in hand, these so-called radicals will ride into the sunset towards their very own mortgages on stolen land and pensions funded by imperialism. 

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for personal gain at the expense of the Palestinian resistance is not a betrayal of the “socialist” movement, but the blueprint to be followed by each of its adherents. We’ve already failed to lend Palestine the support it needs for two years ongoing. If the aspiring revolutionaries of our new rising wave of national liberation fail to recognize the myriad methods that settler opportunism uses to exploit our labors for individual gain, we too will take our place in the history books as the defeated “extreme fringe” of a successful movement to redistribute the spoils of genocide and oppression.

1.  Julian Gerson, political director for Mamdani’s electoral campaign, previously served as a campaign manager for US congressman Jerry Nadler. Nadler describes himself as a “committed Zionist” and “a strong supporter of Israel as a homeland for Jewish people.” Gerson is on record saying, “Jerry embodies the idea that one can absolutely be pro-Israel and progressive simultaneously.” ︎
2. From Kaffe in the same thread: “The ratio of the sub-employed population has been roughly the same for the last half century, even as the role of ‘housewife’ has eroded (good riddance), with the shift in joblessness going mostly to the Nationally Oppressed. The abolition of unemployment (a Soviet right), is so little entertained for two reasons:
   1. The Labor Aristocracy refuses to let go of wages and security, even if that value could be re-allocated for increased employment, and erase the security problem. 
   2. The work that desperately needs to be done (i.e. land healing), would reduce dependency on Imperial relations, making it more difficult to compel the working class to reproduce them.
   Instead: insecure-security, stratified wages, uneven development (the cause of high economic migration — the medium of insecurity and stratification), and the ‘public works’ cages a million people yearly, militarizes the population, and (re)builds Bourgeois terrorism.” ︎
3. Hence why housing was a right in the USSR, “Thus a worker cannot be put out of his room, even for non-payment of rent. His wages can be attached, but if he is unemployed his rent is free. He cannot be charged more than a certain low sum, fixed in proportion to his wages.” Anna Louise Strong, The First Time In History, (New York: Boni and Liverlight, 1924),149. ︎
4.  “…of course I condemn Hamas. Of course I have called October 7th what it was, which was a horrific war crime,…” ︎
5. According to the 2021 DSA Member Survey Report, 85% of membership is white, compared with only 4% Black representation. 28% of members are full upper-PB with household incomes of $100k or more. 80% of respondents had bachelor’s degrees, and approximately 60% of respondents occupy petty bourgeois or labor aristocratic positions, split between scholars, academics, white-collar, tech workers, non-profit organizations, public sector employees, healthcare or social work, self employed, writer, performer, arts, and political org/union. ︎
6. See resolution R22. ︎
7. “This pretense toward ‘freedom’ continued in 1776 when settlers revolted when London seemed to be loath to continue funding their wars of dispossession against indigenes and the constant conflict with enslaved Africans that was an adjunct of that process” Gerald Horne, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2017), 154 in the PDF. ︎
8. See J. Sakai Settlers Ch. 4.4, describing the process of the settler economy importing Chinese labor to displace the Mexican population of the southwest, only to then violently expropriate Chinese industry and landholdings. Afterwards, the same participants in these genocidal purges urged “unity” with Afrikan labor, as the next phase of the developing industrial unionism movement: “Terrance Powderly, the Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor (who had personally called for wiping out all Chinese in North America within one year), suddenly became the apostle of brotherhood when it came to persuading Afrikans to support his organization: ‘The color of a candidate shall not debar him from admission; rather let the coloring of his mind and heart be the test.’” ︎

What is the psychological impact on the children for whom their agency over their own bodies is violently ripped away from them, whose bodies are disfigured against their will, and their identities and very humanity denied them by friends, family, and society? These mechanisms of social abuse lead many trans people to attempt suicide. Rather than treat us as victims of social violence, reactionaries proudly tout “41%”, referencing the trans suicide attempt rate. It is of course nonsense to assert that being trans makes us suicidal, rather than the issue of the above denial of our fundamental humanity, and denial of our access to life-saving medical care, and denial to community, love, support, and respect, that produces suicidal individuals. It’s social murder. But that is naturally the aim of these policies. The cruelty is the point. They want us dead. This is a deliberate policy of genocide, which we have written about before (Transition or Death, Total War and Trans Liberation, Death Before Detransition: In Solidarity with Jaia Cruz). This assertion is in no sense hyperbole or exaggeration. Trans people are under genocidal assault by the settler state.

The proponents of this policy are well aware of this, and consider this forcible imposition of their own values onto the bodies of children to be “protecting” them. Protecting them from what? From the freedom to choose, which naturally builds on the innate drive to resist infringements on that choice. If children are permitted agency over their own lives, then what guarantee is there that girls will grow up into submissive subservient women, obediently serving the interests of abusive patriarchal fathers, husbands, and the state? What guarantee is there that boys will grow up to take their place in the home, workplace, and state as the violent enforcers of the patriarchal order? If given a choice, children can choose anything, and as far as the settler-colonial system is concerned, that is unacceptably dangerous. These children will be ruthlessly punished for choosing “wrong”, and so in a twisted sense stripping away their freedom to choose certainly does “protect” them.

It should be stressed that this danger perceived by the transphobic reactionaries is in fact real. We are a threat. By simply existing out in the open, trans people, particularly trans women, threaten the continued enforcement of transmisogynistic violence which undergirds the very fabric of the cispatriarchal regime and consequently the material reproductive base of the settler colonial occupation of Turtle Island. We lay bare the crying contradictions of this societal death cult. We exemplify in action as well as in words that you really do have a choice, you don’t have to submit, you can live the life that you want for yourself, you can be the person that YOU want to be. By demanding respect for our humanity and our agency, we demand in the same breath respect for everyone’s humanity and everyone’s agency.

The existence of trans people then is an irreconcilable contradiction, a revolution in process against the hegemony of patriarchy. This as-yet-incomplete revolution forces compromises by the regime. It begins to accept our existence, but only in part, in incomplete form, and it demands at the same time compromise from us. The forms of these compromises are varied, ranging from “stealth” where our existence as trans people is accepted only so long as we remain invisible and indistinguishable from cis people, to “respect” for our “identities” wherein our humanity is treated as a relatively harmless aberration, a “delusion” to be tolerated and humored, or a “mental illness” to be pitied rather than a revolution to be feared. But the fear is there nonetheless. We’re depicted in the news media and mythologized in horror movies as grotesque brutish caricatures of women, bent on the predation and murder of “real” (cisgender) women. A cold gripping terror of trans women is woven into the very fabric of this society. We are the worst thing you can possibly be, repulsive to all decent upstanding people. At least, that’s how the bourgeois media likes to present us, as a cultural boogeyman to be reviled. And as the empire’s grip on power declines, as its legitimacy in the hearts of the people falters, the fear turns to panic, and it begins clawing back what little it gave us. The empire itself is terrified of us and killing our trans children because of it.

Trans people, particularly trans women, have always been at the forefront of the Queer liberation struggle. From the Stonewall riots to STAR’s collaboration with the Black Panthers, trans women have consistently been on the bleeding edge of militant struggle, cutting into the heart of the empire. Today the Communist movement finds itself disproportionately represented by trans women. Nearly every org has us, and some of our orgs are majority trans. And the reason is simple: we’re marked for death by a society which has never had a place for us and never truly will. When our very lives are forfeit, we have absolutely nothing left to lose but our chains. We’re drawn to Communism because the settler colony leaves us no choice: revolt or die. Make no mistake, this assault will continue and it will escalate. The support by Communists for the Palestinian liberation struggle will be pointed to as evidence of “transgender terrorism”, necessitating additional crackdowns, surveillance, imprisonment, and disappearing. Cutting off trans children from lifesaving healthcare is accompanied by banning the discussion of trans issues among all children. We face punishment, arrest, and even death for simply talking to kids about this. They will begin to consider us unfit parents and those of us who have kids will face the reality of the state’s willingness to kidnap them in order to break the generational continuity of our revolutionary resistance. Don’t believe us? Disabled people already routinely face this, and are being pushed ever further into the margins of society where they can be left to die with nobody watching. 

This is nothing new. The AIDS epidemic was left to run rampant, deliberately exacerbated, research was blocked, and trans and queer people began to waste away and disappear, because they were afraid of us, because they wanted us dead, and those deaths set the revolutionary movement back by a whole generation. The genocide against us destroyed and continues to destroy countless lives and their accumulated experiences, knowledge, culture, and traditions of resistance. But this tendency towards genocide, and the tendency to target children, goes back even further—it is baked into the structure of settler colonial society. The empire’s genocidal hunger for control over this land faced militant resistance by the Indigenous nations for centuries, until finally the policy to “kill the Indian to save the man” was implemented. The state kidnapped children from their Native parents, forcing them into brutal reeducation camps disguised as “residential schools.”

Native children were abused and tortured into adopting the colonizer’s language, religion, and culture. Their spiritual and philosophical understanding of the world was beaten out of them. Their hair was cut short, their clothes were destroyed and replaced with what the colonizer deemed acceptable. Any “confusion” about gender roles (which the Indigenous nations had very different views on), was violently stamped out. Their very names were stolen from them, replaced with names suitable for “Christian” society, and unspeakable sexual violence was inflicted on them as a disciplinary measure. In breaking the Indigenous cultural continuity, the traditions and experiences of resistance were shattered. Traditional communal practices and modes of organization were erased, and the very language of resistance was lost (a process referred today as epistemicide).

This is why they are targeting trans kids first. Not because there’s any “reasonable scientifically-grounded” argument for blocking lifesaving healthcare for children, not because children are “threatened” by trans education, or by sex education, but because the empire itself is threatened by our tradition of resistance. It is terrified that we are forming part of the leadership of the revolutionary struggle that will overthrow it, and it is seeking to erase our history, culture, and knowledge through both exterminatory and “cultural” genocide. Similarly, the targeting and extermination of Palestinian children by the zionist occupation is far from an accident, but a deliberate measure to break the continuity of resistance, to stave off the revolution for generations to come. 

The Black, Indigenous, trans, and queer revolutionaries of yesterday were crushed by coordinated campaigns of genocidal propaganda, state terrorism, assassination, and biological warfare. Palestine faces the brunt of the current wave of the genocidal onslaught, (as of this writing the occupation is killing 150 Palestinians a day) but the violence won’t stop with them. The fate of colonized peoples everywhere, from Palestine to Turtle Island, is bound together by the violence of settler colonialism; and as a group fundamentally incompatible with the settler regime, the fate of trans people too is bound up with theirs, as is the fate of disabled people. We aren’t in this struggle alone! It is the solemn duty of the Communist movement to center and uplift the struggles of the most oppressed, to center the Black liberation struggle, the Indigenous/Palestinian liberation struggle, the Queer liberation struggle, the trans liberation struggle, the disability liberation struggle, the women’s liberation struggle. These forces can and will be united, they must be for all of us to survive. These are the forces of the revolutionary proletariat, whom Communists must weld together into a united class capable of leading the Revolution. Together, we will take the future into our own hands, by force, and carry forward the banner of humanity, marching hand-in-hand over the flaming wreckage of this most ruthless and destructive of empires, towards a shining future of peace and equality for all.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Let’s get to work.

However, white supremacists face an immediate contradiction due to the essential role of undocumented labor in the U.S. Some capitalists have already begun to beg the president to scale down the raids, complaining that ICE is taking all their best workers and hurting their profit margins. Every fascist accusation against the Global South is an admission², whether directed at Black people in South Afrika for “white genocide” or undocumented people in the imperial core for bringing violence to a society that seeks to exploit and assault them. 

30 years after apartheid, the 7% minority of white settlers continue to occupy 72% of South Afrika’s farmland. Legalistic mechanisms for land reforms have failed to address the problem; only 9% of the land has been returned to the Black people it was stolen from. Before it can return land, the government needs to provide compensation to the white settler. In other words, the law requires the government to pay thieves to return stolen land. Black South Afrikans can’t get their land back because doing so would bankrupt the country. The result? In 2025, South Afrika has the highest wealth inequality of any country in the world. The average Black household owns 5% of the wealth of the average white household. These statistics alone explain why South Afrikan white lobbying groups — who project false claims of supposed “racial persecution” throughout the world  — have spoken out against relocation to the U.S. Relocating white settlers would only hamper domestic settler efforts towards retaking full political power and overturning the basic legal rights won by the Black majority in 1994. One white pensioner spelled the situation out clearly: “If you haven’t got any problems here, why would you want to go?” 

Trump’s relocation of white settlers appears to be part of a larger U.S. attack on South Afrika’s government. In 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa enacted the “Land Expropriation Act” —  essentially an eminent domain law which allows the government to repurpose private land for the public benefit. According to the law, land can only be expropriated without compensation in limited scenarios, like when property is unused or abandoned. To this day, no land has been seized in South Africa without compensation. This is the law that Trump claims will cause “white genocide” in South Afrika. The U.S. had already cut off nearly all foreign aid to South Afrika back in February, throwing the country’s healthcare system into a new crisis overnight. 

Although Trump and his imperialist collaborators understand the reformist nature of South Afrika’s government, the country is still centered in the U.S.’ crosshairs because of its rejection of outright western colonial rule. South Afrika has been represented by the ANC (African National Congress) — the party of Nelson Mandela — since the end of apartheid. In all likelihood, the U.S. wants to remove the ANC from power and replace it with one of the more imperialist-friendly parties representing white interests. In its 30 years of rule, the ANC has built strong economic relationships with enemies of the U.S. such as China, Russia, and Iran. The South Afrikan lawsuit against so-called “israel” in the International Court of Justice — supposedly the highest court in the world — continues to isolate the zionist entity, which has lost sympathy even in the West. If the U.S. were to succeed in its regime change effort, they would replace the ANC with a party such as the Democratic Alliance. With its bedrock of white support, this party would be quick to submit to the U.S. by signing extortionist trade deals and dismissing the I.C.J. lawsuit. For Trump, the chance to bully an oppressed country like South Afrika while pandering to the white base at home was too convenient to pass up. 

From within the U.S., we can see how the relocation fiasco is in perfect alignment with the current fascist playbook. The illusions of a multi-racial participatory society in a racist settler colony are dissipating in the face of an explicit preference for white immigration, especially those who show loyalty to the imperial project. I.C.E. agents and deputized local police are snatching undocumented people from their homes and workplaces. The most immediate hurdle to the new terror project lies in the capitalist class itself, who keenly appreciate the essential role of undocumented immigrants in the Amerikan economy. Capitalists in both meatpacking and agriculture economic sectors pleaded directly to Trump that the ICE raids are having a bad effect on business. By working the hardest jobs for the least pay, undocumented workers ensure that Amerikans have access to cheap produce while guaranteeing a steady profit for the capitalist. The class collaboration between these capitalists and Amerikans at large is essential to the arrangement. Without undocumented labor, the already small profit margins in agriculture and meatpacking would vanish, which would then trigger skyrocketing food costs. The takeaway from this is that there was already ample reason to be in the streets before the ICE raids began. Instead of waving the Amerikan flag like the recently-arrived South Afrikan settlers, protesters should agitate based on the general conditions of racial hierarchies in labor. Violent ICE raids will of course continue, although the business enterprises of certain capitalists will now be spared by the Trump regime. The federal and municipal pigs will continue to arrest grandparents, parents, and children. 

While fascists balance the contradictions between their rhetoric and reality, they still agitate their base by attacking a sovereign nation with racist dog whistles. On June 2, 9 more settlers from South Afrika arrived in the U.S, and more will be on the way unless South Afrika bows under the pressure. We must never forget that Land Back is as desperately needed here on Turtle Island as it is in South Afrika. Amerikan fascists feign horror at Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of land repossession. Imagine their response to a real campaign for Land Back on what they consider to be their home territory. 

Spend these summer months engaged in social investigation or engaged in study. USU and the All-Empire Workers’ League are here to join you in struggle with materials and assistance as we work on tangible projects in the real world. Whatever you do, don’t let the summer pass you by as white supremacists continue their push to convert the mass fascist state into its final, deadly form. 

1.  The term “global flea market” is borrowed from George Jackson’s Blood in my Eye (page 118)  ︎
2. For further discussion of colonial psychology, see Chapter 2: The Historical Background in Robert Biel’s Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement, with special attention paid to page 32 (local page source) ︎

The news and the news media determine who gets to be considered “innocent” of crimes. Yet we know the zionist state makes use of “civilians” in order to further its goals. In a time of genocide, even reporters and propagandists can be found guilty under the Genocide Convention, which even the U.S. government claims to recognize (despite its name, the Genocide Convention is an international treaty making genocide an international crime, rather than a convention for genocidaires. One can be forgiven for mistaking it for the latter, however, as the United States, one of the most genocidal states in history, is a proud signatory to the convention. It  became a signatory to the Genocide Convention on December 11, 1948). At the Nuremburg trials, those who enabled the genocide were found guilty and executed. The zionist state utilizes Hasbara, the method of propaganda in which state actors, embedded as civilians, lie openly about the actions of the regime to launder its image and erode public trust in Palestinian sources. If the zionist state continues to utilize “civilians” and Hasbara, then we should not expect any citizens who support its genocidal forces to be considered “off limits” to counterterror. 

This trick — claiming colonized people are already guilty — is one that the U.S. imperialists have used for a long time. From Palestine to Sudan, the West has robbed the people of their right to innocence. Ibrahim Traore, president of Burkina Faso, for instance, is said to be a violent tyrant — so the U.S. can plot to assassinate him and pillage his country. Who is really innocent? What are the true crimes? If you listen to the U.S. government, you’ll never know.

There is a cradle of popular revolution rising. The zionist genocide is not merely confined to the borders of the zionist state. In fact, it is a genocide being carried out with the policy protections and active support of the United States government and our ruling class. It is a United States genocide. The United States has determined to expand its military borders to the four corners of the earth; its bases are located throughout the entire world. Its tendrils reach into every economy in every country. In such a case, the front, the frontier, the border, is everywhere. There is no “rear,” there are no “civilian populations.” Take the words of the genocidaires as true: there are those who are for and those who are against it.

“There are no innocent civilians,” according to the zionist embassies.

Every act of resistance builds up friction inside the imperialist machine. It is right and brave to inhibit the empire from carrying out its genocidal tasks. Policy makers and imperial managers must be made to understand that they are not secure. They are not safe behind the walls of a U.S. border. There is no territory, there is no home, that cannot instantly become the frontlines of the fight. Only when the political actors and the ruling, owning, capitalist class realize that they cannot sit safely in their glass and steel towers and derelict the murder and massacre of millions across the globe will they relent, will they pause. For them there are only two considerations: 1) profit, and 2) geopolitical stability. That means the ability of the U.S. empire to continue supporting their businesses abroad and extracting profit. It can all be boiled down to profit and its continuation. If we want our collective voices to be heard, to be louder than the few additional dollars for the U.S. ruling class, then we must amplify them. We cannot speak, we must shout. We cannot talk, we must argue.

There is only one argument the enemy respects.

Last week, the popular consciousness once again exploded: Elias Rodriguez, unable to find an organization that was prepared to meaningfully confront the economic and political machinery of the U.S. state — unable to find some way to strike at the U.S. backbone for the zionists’ genocidal army — took desperate, direct, action. He killed two genocidaires in the heart of their rear base, the United States.

With this act, Elias has done more to expose the opportunists who wrap themselves in red flags than a century of angry condemnations. As the news and capitalist police rushed to connect Elias with the PSL that “party” for socialism and liberation issued a statement disowning him. “We have nothing to do with this shooting,” their media people wrote — but they didn’t stop there. “We have nothing to do with this shooting and we do not support it.”

OK, they’re under pressure to prevent the state from swinging its heavy hammer in their direction. It’s a cowardly but comprehensible move from an organization with no underground that has never laid out a clear theoretical path from the present moment to a future revolution. A Communist party cannot hide its plan for revolution!

The CPUSA then released a long-winded weepy statement condemning “MAGA” and Trump and openly denouncing violence. They never mention, of course, Joseph Robinette Biden or his genocidal advisors. Scores of Trotskyists began to wail and gnash their teeth, doing their best to deny Elias’ heroism.

These people have either forgotten or are intentionally distorting the goals and meaning of the Communist movement. Our aim is to carry the red flag forward, to rally all progressive forces to fight for liberation. Liberals, who make even their protests serve to uphold the capitalist-imperialist systems of oppression, despise liberatory violence. Pacifism is the credo not of the revolutionary, but of the priests of capitalism, of the adherents of order. Our work is to destroy the capitalist order.

One of the tasks of the Communists, especially now, while the revolutionary class in the West is scattered and incoherent, is to teach the masses to reach toward a revolutionary horizon; it’s to give the working class the power to imagine a future where they actually confront the enemy class and its footsoldiers, not metaphorically, but actually — with guns and bombs.

Anything that makes that job harder, like scandalizing the outbursts of liberatory violence that come with the sharpening of contradictions, is not only a poor tactic, it is actively reactionary.

Petty-bourgeois social democrats and “Communists” tend to be cowards. Unable to imagine revolution, unable to conceive of fighting or (imagine it!) dying for a better world, because they already have so much to risk, so much to lose. They have an instinctive fear of destabilization and violence. Psychologically, that occurs because the capitalist state and the status quo works for their class. They see, in the state and its politicians, their actual representatives, or at least their proxies. They see, in the state and the police, human beings; themselves.

Denouncing violence will not endear the working class to communism. It will not fool the agents of the capitalist state. It will not deflect scrutiny or prosecution. By denouncing explosions of liberatory violence, a Communist does not correct the “error” of the masses in their use of individual terror. Warping Lenin’s criticisms of the Social Revolutionaries can’t justify a Communist in rejecting liberatory acts of spontaneous terror. Adventurism is the act of an organization that disorganizes the masses, not the spontaneous expression of mass anger. There is no coherent class consciousness in the U.S. to disorganize, let alone a party that might disorganize it.

What is the source of this gross misdiagnosis? The Trotskyists and revisionists have identified Elias Rodriguez’s acts as the result of organized terrorism, directed by a theoretically insufficient party, like the violence of Narodnaya Volya or the Social Revolutionaries. What they fail to realize is that Russia had to pass through Narodism before it arrived at Marxism-Leninism; Narodism was the unconscious urge without scientific analysis that helped to organize the class. The second thing they fail to recognize is that there is no revolutionary party in the West. If there were, Elias Rodriguez would not have done what he did, because there would have been a viable organized alternative.

And yes.

That party might make use of terror against the state.

Mahmoud has not been charged with any listed offense; his crime is his support for the Palestinian national liberation movement. Mahmoud stood against the slaughter of his people and the ongoing theft of their homeland. The fascist Empire is committed to worldwide terror and the enslavement of humanity. The state would rather us remain silent, going about our cleaved lives apathetic to genocide — this is vile and unacceptable. 

Free speech is dead. Did it ever exist in the first place?

Our free speech rights go about as deep as a puddle on the side of the road. The American Fourth Reich, aided by the skeletal Democratic party, has gutted what little was left of so-called “civil liberties” in this country. The U.S.’s liberal democracy was founded on the “rights” of only the white, slave-owning, and propertied classes, leaving everyone else, especially enslaved peoples, grasping for the shards of a deadened life.

Regardless of what the slave owners who founded this country may have intended when they wrote the Constitution in 1791, the settler-imperial government has never meaningfully valued free speech. Just seven years and one president later, the John Adams administration would pass the Alien and Sedition Acts: the Sedition laws criminalized any negative speech against the government, while the Alien Acts let the president deport any foreign nationals. Adams, who was a federalist, used the Sedition Acts to arrest journalists supporting his political opponents, the Democratic Republicans. The minute differences between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans are not terribly significant — (both supported the slavery of New Afrikans and the genocide of Indigenous Turtle Islanders) — suffice to say they were the two dominant tendencies of early USian politics. Adams lost the political battle; the Democratic Republicans won the next election and repealed the Sedition Acts. And the Alien Acts? They remain in effect to this day. The president may therefore deport any foreign national they consider to be dangerous, based on this 225 year old law.  In essence, dystopian state repression is one of the hallmarks of liberal democracy.

The Alien and Sedition Acts would be the first major crackdown on free speech, but they are not the last, nor the most recent. The Democratic-Republicans had their own opportunity to silence mass dissent a few decades later when the abolition of slavery became a contentious issue. In 1836, an Andrew Jackson-controlled Congress ratified a gag order banning any mention of abolition in the halls of Congress. 

In light of the modern national security state, first amendment rights are shallow.  With state surveillance and a history of interference in liberation movements, an American citizen’s speech may be free, but only so long as their words remain barren and removed from action. The Black Panthers, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the American Indian Movement: when nationally oppressed groups peaceably assemble, we can see time and time again that the First Amendment often has a selective application. Perpetual surveillance, state assassinations; sharpened knives which they are ready to use against any defiant organization. 

Before the regime will criminalize your collective expression, two circumstances must generally be met. 

1. The expression must be dissent, i.e., it must go against the regime’s foreign or domestic policy.
2. The expression must be popular. The degree of popularity can vary, but generally, the dissenting speech or collective expression must be popular enough for the regime to consider it a threat to its rule or the implementation of its policy. 

Popular dissent is forbidden.  

If this clownish blockheaded President is trying to weaken free speech rights on campus, he is late to the party. Colleges and universities across the Empire beat him to the punch by launching a full scale offensive against the right to protest before the Fall 2024 semester. Protests now have formal time limits. They are banned in popular gathering spots. Fascism on the Amerikkkan campus is objectively bipartisan. Trump’s threat is a promise to build upon the groundwork that was laid last year. Do not be scared. For fear is your greatest enemy. Now, we’re all able to see clearly without the blinding, twisted distortions of Democrats who use identity essentialism as bait in order to duplicitously rally support for their graveyard of a party, and therefore gut the very undercarriage of revolutionary understanding and action of the mass of vexed workers.

Saturday’s attack on student resistance was orchestrated by the regime’s use of the word “terrorist;” it is, by all means, a propagandistic term in the modern U.S., the same way “communist” was in the past, and is in the present. The state of course uses the veneer of a mythical “antisemitism” to justify its draconian measures. Claims of a phantasmal antisemitism from the very same administration that goes around giving Nazi salutes. Remember, the Trumpian gendarmes are the very same ilk that said “Jews will not replace us.” The very same people whose base committed a massacre in a synagogue,  now want to wage a “holy war,” which they pretend is for the very Jewish people they tried to mass murder. 

However, we must recognize that we’re in the depths of a revolutionary moment. The inflection points of class war are nearing a breaking crescendo, and it is up to us in the anti-imperialist movement to understand this dialectic of intense struggle and form a clear and firm guide to action. Now is the time to unite with left and progressive forces (While not compromising the proven Marxists analysis) to defeat the fascist juggernaut. In the age of techno-imperialism and the mass slaughter of our people, we must do away with the muddled Trotskyist tendency of splintering into groups of 50 (that has historically gutted the left in this country) and form a temporary alliance to defeat the strangling repression of the Trump regime. We, the mass reserved army of labor must pick up the red banner and fight for the liberation of all those colonized, imprisoned, and hyper-exploited. 

Over the coming weeks and years the three stages of the ceasefire agreement are supposed to be completed (that is, if the zionists do not reverse the process). The conditions are: the beginning of a ceasefire, the releasing of settler hostages, the freeing of Palestinian political prisoners, the clearing of IOF forces out of Gaza, and humanitarian relief. Stage two formally establishes the ceasefire and consists of more freeing of Palestinian political prisoners. Stage three is the great reconstruction of Gaza.

In the past, Democrats pointed fingers at the Bush family for their genocides in Iraq. Now, Palestine, Gaza, this is their genocide. The Democratic Party genocide. The Biden-Harris genocide. They said the other party would do genocide worse — but now it is wholly the operation of the Democratic Party. Still, arguing Trump is worse when it comes to Gaza can be ascribed only to ignorance and lies. Every Democrat who said there was no way to stop the genocide has nothing to say now. Nothing remains in the bank of excuses — it is empty, they have no choice but to embrace reaction even more explicitly and to deny the blatant reality that has arrested their efforts.

Reactionaries will try to sell the lie that this ceasefire changes the entire situation. Fundamentally, no change in the relation between colonizer and colonized has been affected. Palestine remains in antagonism with the zionist entity; struggle for the liberation of Palestine continues as long as the zionist entity continues to exist. It is a temporary move, not a permanent qualitative leap.

It is important to stress this because as we write these words, the zionist imperialist running dogs are now proceeding to storm the streets of Jenin in the West Bank (after already having stormed Jenin time and time again in the years of constant attack and bombardment). Zionists are ordering displacement of Palestinian people in Jenin and are trying to kill the Palestinian resistance there, which is itself, like Gaza, a home of refugees displaced from other Palestinian communities. To the degree that Gaza is able to live in so-called “peace” shall be the degree to which Jenin is being bombed and raided.

Gaza — every city; north, south and central — is left completely in ruins. Not a single part has been untouched, there are but rubble and broken families scattered about, the people dreaming of relatives that today only exist as memories. Already before October, Gaza suffered high rates of PTSD, depression, and poor mental health — particularly among youth. How much has it risen, after 400 days? Now more than ever before, the terrorized Palestinian people will fight for their nation; the Palestinian people have repeatedly had to bury entire family lines and have been militarized by it. If it was to be argued that this was about clearing Gaza of resistance fighters, even the highest-ranking zionist officials know (though perhaps want to forget) that this is impossible — unless every Palestinian person is murdered. The women and youth are now militarized. Gaza’s streets were filled with civilians chanting “we’d rather die than be humiliated.” And this is why zionism can only mean the complete extermination of the Palestinian people. A permanent ceasefire is impossible — it will not hold, it is simply extra time for the zionist entity; a ceasefire is an unsolved antagonism, it will last as long as the previous ceasefire that was agreed to in 2021. There have been many ceasefire agreements — practically every zionist operation in Gaza has ended with a ceasefire, though the firing never ceases — and soon after the zionist offensive against Palestine started back up in full swing.

We have to stay vigilant. Palestine must remain our pulsing priority, all the more so because we are in the imperial core — the decaying, moribund, spiritually dead core that has been trying and failing miserably to wash its hands of all of the Palestinian blood that has stained it. 

What, in any case, is a ceasefire when the West Bank is still under attack? What is ceasefire while relentless, unyielding settler expansion continues into Gaza, along with the continued colonialist whitewashing and demolition of everything Palestinian? What is a ceasefire when Palestine is still under blockade, when Palestine still cannot control its resources and the zionists can cut them off at any time, when Palestinians do not even have houses to live in during wintertime?

Criticism must be made of those who insisted only upon “ceasefire now” in the west: a westerner is someone drowned in material privileges from the super exploitation of the entire world. On this basis, chauvinism is a conditioned trait of the westerner. To be cured of it they must be persistently, unceasingly educated in a decolonial Marxist politic that leads them to supporting resistance of the third world against “their own” bourgeoisie, imperialism, and colonialism. “Ceasefire now” accomplishes nothing in this direction — it only requires temporary attention to a colony, rather than the persistent demand for the immediate liberation of the colony. We will not stop and shall not rest until the dissolution of zionism. “Ceasefire now” only means taking the knife out of the back of the oppressed by a few inches. It neither removes the knife nor covers the wound. It does not start any process of healing and restoration. This demand being so strongly emphasized will bring with it many “pro-Palestine” westerners who only care for Palestine when the terror is most explicit — and they will be distracted and apathetic. These people will forget about Palestine and will turn away to join the rest of the world in its collective amnesia and complicity. 

We have a ceasefire, but it is a ceasefire within the bounds of genocide. On the part of zionists and the imperialists which direct them, the point is still to make Palestine nonexistent, and to make the Palestinian people a bygone fact. Netanyahu tried to delay the ceasefire agreement — one of the many signs that the zionist entity is simply, by virtue of existence, incompatible with peace. And on the morning of January 29th, a zionist air strike murdered ten Palestinians in the West Bank, purportedly “militants.” Every Palestinian is a militant to the zionist entity because the Palestinians have dared to not be eradicated. 

It is being argued this ceasefire is an agreement the Trump administration helped push — this interpretation is incorrect. A certain use for this claim might be found as a jab at the genocidal Biden administration and the genocidal Democratic Party to show how, for all their supposed “progressivism” and “concern for human rights,” they did not stop the genocide or even bring about the ceasefire. Instead, they did the opposite. But this forgets what is crucial; the ceasefire agreed to was the same one the Palestinian resistance itself several months ago proposed, which the zionists initially rejected. When it comes to the ceasefire, one point must be borne in mind: the Palestinian resistance has forced it through political-military power. They have forced it through mortars and explosives, through liquidating tanks and by shooting back at zionist invaders. It was not the doing of any one person, but rather of the Palestinian resistance going on the offensive. The zionist entity spent 400 days fighting against the Palestinians for daring to refuse quiet submission to holocaust. The spirit of the Warsaw ghetto uprising existed within them, and all the passion went into fighting zionism. All the genocide, all the killing, and yet the Palestinian resistance has only become stronger. By the end of it, the zionist entity was simply losing, and they couldn’t possibly make it appear otherwise except to their most rabid supporters.

The zionists cannot win what they have already lost. They bombed all of Gaza, terrorized all its people but Hamas and Al-Qassam are still standing in Gaza today. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al-Quds brigades are still standing. The PFLP and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades are still standing. And more brigades are emerging in the embrace of mass spontaneous demonstrations.

Marxists will always support armed resistance by Gaza and Palestine. “Well-meaning” young Marxists like to argue that zionists are first to attack in nine cases out of ten, and that in the case of October, the al-Aqsa flood, they had no choice; that the root cause stems back far before October. Perhaps in the context of talking to very confused people, this is sensible (hasbara monopolizes upon the insistence that there was no sign of this uprising coming and that it was some wanton act of violence), and most certainly this has to do with social context before October — but ideologically speaking, this is fundamentally not the point, because regardless of when the oppression began, Marxists support uprisings of the Palestinian resistance, supports national liberation wars, and supports them with utmost enthusiasm regardless of who attacks first, regardless of if it seems “unexpected” or not, regardless of whether or not it seems to have been timed correctly or strategically, regardless of all the ploys of the oppressor to placate the population and surrounding countries with deceptive promises and false peace treaties. With Palestine, the concern is not whether one side or the other attacked first. The concern is national liberation and the blow against imperialism and settler colonialism — an attack on capitalism itself. The violence of the oppressed is supported because it is scientific and a cleansing force against colonialism and imperialism.

All eyes must remain on Gaza because the zionists will violate the ceasefire again; it is not a matter of if but of when. It will come in the form of savage zionist terror that manages to surprise the entire world again and become even worse than before. 

All eyes must remain on Palestine, but also on Lebanon and Yemen, both of which the zionist entity will repeatedly aggress against regardless of this ceasefire agreement. 

And all eyes must remain on all the agents of terror who in one way or another perpetuated this genocide. They must not be allowed to sleep in peace. We shall swamp them with the irate and strenuously haunt them with the deceased. And when the ceasefire inevitably fails, it is they who will be at fault for all of the renewed suffering and the renewed terror.

Hanan, who grew up in a refugee camp near Bethlehem, won the award for her work supporting children traumatized by violence, a violence she knew all too well when her 9-year-old twins and 6-year-old son were shot at by IDF soldiers during the second Intifada. Only around 10 years earlier had her husband, a chemist, been released by Israeli authorities after a decade-long incarceration.

Violence targeting and affecting the educational infrastructure of the Palestinian State, specifically inside of the Gaza Strip concentration camp, is no outlier when it comes to the strategy of the zionist military. On the 10th of October, 2023, the IOF bombed the first university established in the strip, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), destroying multiple buildings and disrupting the lives of thousands of students and faculty. Around the same time, Palestine Technical College announced two of their students had been killed in airstrikes, while a PhD student and his family on vacation in the strip were also victims of zionist air-to-surface missiles. What Palestinian students and teachers have been subjected to what can only be described as scholasticide, with most having not attended school for over a year under the relentless destruction caused by the invading forces of the zionist entity.

A Brief History of Higher Education in the Gaza Strip

Before 1967, no universities existed in either the occupied West Bank nor the Gaza Strip. Palestinian students, however, enjoyed free access to numerous Arab universities across the Middle East. Due to the fact that people in the West Bank were considered Jordanian citizens, most had direct access to the University of Jordan. Likewise, those in the strip could go to Egypt to complete their degrees.

This access was curbed when the zionists, after their crushing victory in the 1967 Six-Day War,  enforced their occupation, stiffening border security and harassing those leaving and reentering alike, making a trip abroad almost completely impossible. It was around this time that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) started to heavily consider independent higher education inside Palestine itself. By 1978, a few existing junior colleges had been expanded and two universities, the An-Najah National University in the West Bank and the aforementioned IUG, had been founded. 

The zionists, of course, could not handle what it saw as an attempt to subvert their authority, and began to burden the schools with numerous obstacles. Licensing was time consuming and strictly enforced on an annual basis, building permits were stalled and fought tooth-and-nail all the way to the Supreme Court, and military authorities illegally withheld tax exemptions on construction, materials, and books. Censorship of books and other written material on school campuses was regular under the pretence of “security reasons,” as was withholding work permits for international faculty and Palestinians with Jordanian citizenship. Yet more, this battle of red tape paled in comparison to the military-enforced shutdowns that schools were regularly subjected to, a sinister prelude to the scholasticide we see happening today. 

The State of Education in Gaza Today

Since the zionist onslaught on the Gaza Strip renewed in October, 2023, access to education has been reduced to nearly zero. What remains of structured education has been limited to rudimentary study groups within tents turned makeshift classrooms. Even this, as bare bones as it sounds, is regularly uprooted by constant “evacuation orders” and random airstrikes. The destruction of more than 378 schools and universities across the strip led to these conditions, and the pariah state of “israel” sees no reason to stop their crimes against humanity.

It is estimated that, at the very least, 11,500 students below the age of 18 have been murdered, along with 750 of their teachers as of September. Because of the lack of resources, finding a true body count is impossible at this stage, leaving the Ministry of Health and international organizations alike in the dark about any sort of real estimate. This inability to properly count casualties, of course, plays into the narrative that ANY number given is false and created by “Hamas” to discredit “israel”, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and also suggests that any official count is a vast underestimate. We can easily transfer this logic of an undercount to the official number of teachers and students who have been made victims in the year-long massacre, showing the extent of pure devastation that has been wrought on the education system of Gaza. There is a clear line between the targeted military shutdowns of the past to the genocide by air we see being committed today; it is clear that the zionist entity sees education, not only of the higher variety but of elementary and secondary as well, as a form of independence for Palestinian people that it just cannot let live, and a direct threat to the legitimacy of the ethno-state occupying Palestinian lands.

Scholasticide as an Imperial strategy

What we see in Gaza is an extension of imperial science; no cultural institution may get in the way of empire’s ambitions. If the institution, or even the subjects within the institution, start to fall out of line with said strategy, certain advantages once enjoyed by said institution can be readily taken away. An example of this is the spring and summer of 2024, when students across the United States and Canada rose up, occupying campuses and buildings alike in an attempt to force these imperial entities to stop supporting what the zionists’ genocide of Palestinians. What should have been accepted as a show of our great “first amendment rights” turned into a state crackdown, supported by both parties in the U.S. government and spurred on by President Joe Biden. What these crackdowns show is how easily the privileged status of colleges and universities can be revoked when the students and faculty take even one step out of the bounds set by the imperial masters, the status quo that reinforces the norm of violence unto those in the peripheries.

The zionists did not invent this strategy. The attacks being inflicted on vital Palestinian educational infrastructure is an age-old colonial tactic, one that must be combatted at all costs, with vehement opposition from those in the imperial core being used to amplify the voices of those within the periphery. Palestine must be free, and its education must be allowed to flourish to nourish a vibrant national identity. We in the metropole must do our part in aiding them in their valiant attempt to throw off their oppressors.

Education and National Identity

The removal of education – already established as a fundamental strategy of the IOF in Gaza – can be seen as an extension of the goal the entity has had since even before the Nakba of 1948: the total elimination of a Palestinian nationality. Strong national ties to a state’s higher institutions have helped cultivate the culture and language of any one given region, giving certain peoples a “permission to narrate” their own story as said by Edward Said. Imagine England without Oxford, Germany sans Heidelberg, and the United States itself without its precious prodigious Ivy League schools. To have these is to have a certain authority, one which, despite the myriad mistakes and problems within them as they exist at present, lends a certain credence to the people associated. Criticisms aside, academia has the unique ability to assist the progression of a group, especially when academics stay within their locales. Cuba, despite crushing sanctions on the tiny island, has produced, beyond its limits, world-class doctors. These doctors have, to the chagrin of many Western nations (specifically the U.S.) elevated the status of the country. If a region does not suffer a brain drain, these college educated people can lead to a drastically more self-sufficient society.

The zionists know this, and they may have discovered it after they created their own so-called “problem.” As noted before, Palestinians were only able to leave to get any higher education. The West Bank alone was Jordanian territory. Israel itself created the conditions that led to the establishment of universities after their 1967 victory, isolating Palestinians to the Gaza Strip and the aforementioned West Bank, which no longer fell under Jordanian jurisdiction. Only after this isolation from other Arab states forced upon them by the occupation did the PLO even consider the need for higher learning within Palestinian territory. A reliance on Arab nationalism may have stifled any ideas for this before, but now there was a necessity. 

The establishment of universities in 1978 coincided with the slow movement of the Palestinians away from strict Arab nationalism and into a homegrown identity of those still within the borders of Gaza and the West Bank. By the late 80’s and the First Intifada, most of the leadership of the PLO had not stepped foot into Palestine proper in decades. The rise and subsequent popularity of Hamas thereafter shows a clear split from those abroad and those within the territories actively under occupation by Israel.

Doctors and researchers were not absent; in fact the lack of mobility actually led to the majority of educated people in Palestine to stay there, to foster their skills and use them to full effect. This has led to highly skilled, highly motivated, and, to the zionists’ dissatisfaction, a highly homogenous populace. Those in Gaza and the West Bank aren’t, for a lack of a better word, stupid, nor are they confused, unfocused, helpless refugees. Palestinians have, despite everything stacked against them, fostered a deep academic tradition that has ushered them out of the PLO years where they relied heavily on their Arab siblings. When that reliance failed, they, undeterred, set out to carve their own path. Resolutely and unabashedly, the people within Palestine did what zionism could not bear; they chose to take back their permission to narrate, their ability to tell their own story with their own words, and become self-reliant within and despite the structures of occupation that hang over their heads decade after decade. 

Zionism cannot let such things persist, because if they do, if a single school still stands, that means, with their settler-colonial mindset, Palestine as a people, as a nation, still has hope. For zionism to survive, this hope must be snuffed out at all costs. Zionism must block the light that is a Palestinian tomorrow.

The seats of power in the imperial core — Biden, Scholz, Macron, Starmer, etc. — who have the power to end this genocide with a phone call decide instead to brazenly defy the wishes of their own people, who have been protesting for Palestine nonstop for over a year.In such a context, it’s easy to feel dismayed. It’s easy to feel like nothing we do matters, like we have no power to change it.

But this is exactly what our imperial masters want us to think. They want us to stop supporting Palestine, to stop calling for an end to their meddling. The less they are challenged, the more they can continue the genocide on unimpeded. They want us to be complacent and quiet, but doing the opposite of what our enemy wants is already a step towards victory!

Be careful of actors who urge us to stay quiet and still, who try to redirect the riled up masses towards ineffective means of protest — or even stop them in their tracks.

What would have happened if Vietnam had said, “We can’t take on the might of the U.S. army, let’s surrender”? Or if Cuba had said, “The Batista regime is propped up by U.S. money, we’ll never win”?

What if Palestine had said, “This is hopeless, let’s accept our death”?

We can take inspiration from popular movements that succeeded, and study their tactics to apply them. But we have to do so on our terms, not on the terms our enemies decide are best for us.

In the West, we have long abandoned violence as a systematic means of political protest. It wasn’t so long ago that it used to be commonplace: just look at worker strikes in the late 19th century to see how they used to protest for things we now take for granted, such as universal health insurance or the eight hour workday. Over time, the bourgeoisie gave us token concessions to protect their power, and this had the (intended) effect of calming workers down. It’s harder to die for a cause when you have something to lose.

People like Gandhi are lionized over contemporaries like Bhagat Singh. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are heralded as champions of non-violence, despite both using violence (in different ways). And the John Browns, Malcolm Xs, and James Connollys of history are made out to be monsters.

The message is clear: to be a “good” citizen is to be peaceful, to make no waves, not to upset the social order. Non-violence has become a synonym for peace. Thus we have become accustomed to extending the olive branch to our violent political enemies in the name of peace, i.e. maintaining the status quo. But, as Kwame Ture said: “There’s a difference between peace and liberation, is there not? You can have injustice and have peace. So peace isn’t the answer, liberation is the answer. [To the question ‘you seem free at the moment’] I seem peaceful at the moment.”

Violence still exists around us — institutional violence, that is. Palestinian children are being bombed with our weapons. They’re being starved with our policies. Our governments demand peacefulness and compliance while they happily ignore popular demands and enact immense violence both abroad and at home. This is hypocrisy, and it’s built into the system.

The Palestinian Resistance has repeatedly expressed support for the massive movements of solidarity across the world, from marches to boycotts to student encampments. They want us to do more of this. We must listen to them, because they know best what will help Palestine, not “Israelis,” and certainly not Biden — the resistance knows best because they have been fighting the occupier for decades and have now made it into a global pariah, achieving all the goals the Operation Flood al-Aqsa sought to achieve; whereas zionists want to keep killing all Palestinians and would rather you not make a fuss or call attention to their genocide.

The International Court of Justice, a U.N. organ, agrees that “Israel” is committing a genocide and has ordered it to stop, to no avail. Now, their peacekeeping forces are being shot at — something which UNIFIL reports on the daily. “Israel’s” disobedience of U.N. orders is providing us with justification to keep the pressure on, and do each what we can to intensify that pressure.

I don’t know what the prognosis on Gaza looks like. I don’t think “Israel” knows either. This is reason enough to fight; nothing is settled until it’s over. We can only be sure about what’s happening right now, and the situation at this moment is this: there is no way “Israel” comes out of Gaza as anything other than a pariah state.

With every day that passes, zionists expose themselves just a little bit more as the deranged killers that they are. And through supporting them, our governments show themselves to be on the wrong side of the issue — and that this isn’t solely a problem with one or two individuals in government, or a problem of ignorance (that they don’t know what they’re supporting), but that this is calculated, institutional, and that it has gone on for decades even as different parties and individuals succeeded each other in office.

Zionists still expect to go about their lives unimpeded, when we’ve all watched babies mangled beyond recognition by missiles. After all they’ve done, they still expect to be able to fly their settler flags without consequences or promote zionism unchallenged in public.

They don’t grasp just how bad the situation will get for them yet. They will have no more friends. Much like “Israel” is ostracized from the world, so must we ostracize zionists from all circles. This means going against our instilled sense of peacefulness, which we have been brought up on to respect authority and politeness in all situations.

When you cheer for the killing of babies and families so you can own a beachfront property, you clearly position yourself as an enemy of all people, everywhere.

Zionism is not popular. In fact, zionism is so unpopular that our politicians have to make believe that their constituents are zionist, the media has to run sob stories about the poor IOF bulldozer drivers who ran over hundreds of Palestinians to get us to sympathize with them, social media has to ban us for posting anything against “Israel,” authorities have to crack down on protestors, and “private” interest groups have to spend millions doxxing students and buying out politicians to speak in favor of “Israel.”

If the protests were not effective, then they would not have required the repressive baton of the police to stop them. All of these acts of repression are meant to beat us into submission, to teach us learned helplessness. The major problem collective acts pose to the ruler is that they let us see we are far from alone, that there are millions of people on our side, and comparatively very few on theirs.

If zionism was so right, then the state of “Israel” wouldn’t need to be pouring millions into hasbara, making entire books filled with talking points that other zionists should use to defend their stolen homes and the massacres they cheer for.

They have the power of bombs on their side, but they don’t have the power of the masses. Those who have institutional power use different tactics than those who don’t. There’s already an imbalance of power, and so the balance of tactics must be equalized by other means than their bombs and their money.

We are expected to still carry polite conversation with zionists because our upbringing demands that we “respect our differences,” while they would never extend this politeness to us were we Palestinians — or even in the way of something they desire. They are polite with us because they think they can convert us to their death cult; the moment they realize we’re not buying, they will wish for our death all the same. Anyone who prevents settlers from stealing land might as well die, for they will not be useful to the grand plan.

All of this must change, and it will change. There is no world in which we can watch a 19-year-old burn alive in his hospital bed and still call to respect “both sides.” Anyone who does so has an agenda and is being duplicitous, and the first step for change is realizing when they’re doing this.

People on the fence must be corrected about their misconceptions and taught. Nobody is born with instilled science, we live and we learn. Many have spoken about how they “only” became firmly anti-zionist after October 7, when they saw the response from “Israel.” We must accept them — better late than never. But, we must see that they are genuine; again, don’t let the enemy tell you what to think. Many zionists like to pretend to be “concerned about civilians on both sides,” a position from which they will try to get you to abandon the fight and render you ineffectual. Anything short of the complete dismantlement of “Israel” is a concession to the enemy that they will use to drop more bombs and missiles and commit more open-grave massacres.

To do this, we must ourselves be exhaustively educated about zionism. Theory and practice go together, there can not be one without the other. Read and learn, and then apply that knowledge in the material world to effect material change: protest, strike, unionize, boycott! Refuse to order or ship items to “Israel” at your place of work, if you’re able. Take longer to deal with clients there. Misplace their orders, accidentally bump their items against a corner if you work in logistics. Get involved with local organizations that are doing direct action for Palestine!

Only you can decide how far you are able to get involved, but the first step is to recognize that together, we are stronger than they are. Start talking about Palestine with those around you, and find people in your proximity that feel the same way we all do after one year of open genocide. Talk to them, listen to each other: you’re not alone.

If we don’t want this genocide in Palestine to succeed, if we don’t want to send a message that genocide is tolerated and will happen with our silence from now on, if we don’t want genocide to the be new normal — then we must act!

The world is upside down. It is entering the height of its contradictions. They are culminating and soon a leap will happen: everything will change all at once in ways we cannot fully predict yet. But things are in motion already.

This is the law of dialectics, and it’s always faithfully happened.

I don’t want genocide to be the new normal, and if you don’t want that either, then ask yourself: what can I do right now to play my part?

On Monday, July 1, the delegates of this million-member church voted to divest from “israeli” bonds, to pressure two corporations, Palantir and General Electric, to divest from the colony, and to pass a resolution to “reject Christian zionism in all its forms.”

Christian zionism, according to the April panel’s host Reverend Dr. Cynthia Holder Rich, is based on the idea that Jesus’s awaited return relies on Jews having power over the land of Palestine. This ideology, among other problems, conflates biblical Israel with the genocidal colony today. In a resolution just passed, PCUSA commits to “clarifying, in liturgy and through education, a basic distinction between biblical Israel and the modern State of Israel, in order to avoid a conflation of the two.” The panelists also went beyond clarifying the occupation’s name, clarifying that what has been called a “war” by western media is a genocide. 

Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac, the first panelist, delivered a powerful analysis of the political nature of Christian zionism. “This is all possible by three inseparable factors, and those would be: coloniality, racism/supremacy, and theology,” said Isaac, who defines coloniality as “the coming together of economic, cultural, political, and military power that constitutes a system of domination led by powerful nations to protect and defend their own interests.” He went on to explain that “israel” is a settler colonial project within the U.S. Empire. “At the heart of this empire is this American exceptionalism, and it’s really, really hard to isolate zionism from American exceptionalism.” On the topic of U.S. responsibility, Dr. Isaac also condemned the war criminal Biden’s patronizing statements as having a “very elitist, racist attitude.” 

The reverend stressed the role of Christian zionism in the U.S., arguing it is not a naive belief or reading of the Bible, as it’s often considered, but is in fact a Christian lobby that serves U.S. interests. Further, this imperialist politic is not limited to the farthest right wing, rather it infects the full spectrum of the Empire’s liberals. “Christian zionism is very, very strong, even among Christian liberals.” Rabbi Brant Rosen, another panelist, further clarified “‘Christian zionism’ specifically refers to a form of evangelical Christianity that has a very specific ideology that is millennarian and apocalyptic in nature, but there are plenty of Christians who are zionist.”

According to Reverend Isaac, statements from western churches demonstrate their service to empire. Churches, regardless of particular ideology, have toed the same genocidal line — that Hamas must be condemned as barbaric terrorists, that the occupation has the right to defend itself from those they brutally occupy, that violence against Palestinians is the fault of the Palestinians themselves — cynically accompanied with calls to pray for peace. One of PCUSA’s new resolutions expands on this complicity: “As much of the world watches in horror at the devastation and suffering, Christian zionist organizations use media such as religious music videos glorifying Israeli soldiers in action, online advertising, and televangelists to seek donations from Christians to keep funding and promoting the war.” 

Individual Christians or churches are far from the only ones funding and promoting genocide. The occupation’s godfather, the U.S. Empire, profits massively from its investments in occupation, through the government, corporations, schools, and other institutions. Take General Electric, one of the corporations PCUSA will urge to divest from “israel” by threatening to pull the church’s $1 million in investments. G.E. supplies the colony with the aircraft engines that rain terror on the heads of sleeping Palestinians and with power infrastructure that enables settlers to comfortably expand their range of theft, rape, and murder. 

Notably, the resolution to condemn, On Confessing our Complicity in Christian Zionism, still contains covert zionism in suggestions of an equivalence between Palestinians and their oppressors, as well as references to the occupation as one specifically occurring in the 1967 borders, conceding much of Palestine to the settlers.

Dr. Isaac, however, did not equivocate, stating that zionists displaced Palestinians when they first came to occupy the land, clearing the way by ethnic cleansing. “The Biblical case for Christian zionism is the Biblical case for apartheid, for settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing, because this is what zionism is… If we continue to support that as Christians, there is something wrong with the credibility of our Christian witness.” 

Rabbi Brant Rosen brought an anti-zionist Jewish voice to the panel: “Evangelical Christian zionism, I believe, has very, very profound and important and troubling implications for the Jewish community.” He asserted that understanding zionism as uniquely Jewish denies the true history — zionism actually arose from European Christians in the 17th century. Today, not only are there more Christian zionists than Jewish zionists, there are more than all Jews in the U.S. Rabbi Rosen added that, religiously, mass return of Jews to Palestine before the return of the messiah has long been condemned by rabbis as “an anathema.” It was only after Christians dreamt of the displacement of Jews out of Europe and into Palestine that Europe’s Jews began taking up zionism in response to antisemitism.

However, the rabbi made clear that this response was not actually to free Jews from persecution, but a “Faustian bargain… to further imperial interests” in western Asia.  “Zionism has always curried favor with antisemites, from the very beginning. One of the most obvious examples of this is the Balfour Declaration.” The Balfour Declaration legitimized the occupation and ensured Britain’s land-grab of a valuable Mediterranean coast. The same Balfour was the man who oversaw the 1905 Aliens Act, which closed the U.K.’s doors to Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. 

“This evangelical Christian zionist ideology is, at its core, an antisemitic one. I think this cannot be understated,” Rosen said. The Red Clarion previously reported greater detail of this antisemitic history in To Stop Marx, They Made Zion. By slicing Europe’s Jews into a superior and inferior race (“Jews” and “Yids,” respectively) Jewish zionists were able to cozy up to antisemites by sacrificing the Jews they considered lesser, particularly left wing Jews who threatened the interests of imperialism. Rabbi Rosen reiterated that zionism “wants to instrumentalize the Jewish people,” including a hope for the elimination of Jews through conversion to Christianity or by hellfire, “It has no interest in the wellbeing of the Jewish people.” The PCUSA resolution confirms, “About 1/3 of evangelical Christians in the U.S. believe that support for such actions from Israel will help hasten the desired end of the world. While most theologians consider it heresy, many Christians hold this far-right ideology.”  

The final panelist Reverend Marietta Macy, a member of the PCUSA Israel-Palestine Mission Network’s steering committee, pleaded for broader commitment to education on the settler-colony. “[W]e have a strong history of uplifting education,” she began, “and not shying away when that education leads us to wrestle with really complex issues… Christian zionism and its relation to our U.S. policy and to how we relate to our siblings around the world is one of these issues.”

Macy spoke on the religious aspect of Christian zionism as being rooted in white supremacy and widely absorbed by Christians in the U.S. “This kind of dividing theology and excluding theology makes it impossible for us to recognize our place in God’s plan and damages our own view of ourselves,” she said. The reverend explained the difference she sees between “empire theology and Matthew 25 theology,” the latter of which calls on care for the hungry, sick, prisoners, and poor, while empire theology is one that “keeps people hungry and imprisoned, and sick and in need.”