Some movement issues
The Zionists charge anyone opposing their state and its policies with ANTISEMITISM, and they ridiculously lay this charge against the Palestine solidarity movement even though large numbers of Jews are involved in it. But with swastikas now being painted on synagogues and assaults on Jews, it's clear that real antisemitism remains an issue in society. Moreover, tiny groups of neo-nazis and white nationalists have begun to infiltrate pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the east, where they were denounced.
ISLAMOPHOBIA. Seeing so many Arabs and Muslims marching in the streets is stirring the islamophobes to violence. In Illinois, an Islamophobic landlord murdered a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy with a knife, and seriously wounded his Palestinian mother. Assaults on Muslim women have increased. At Stanford University, a driver accelerated his vehicle in order to run over a Muslim student, and then drove away while shouting, “f++k you people.”
HAMAS is led by fundamentalist-reactionaries who won the 2006 election with 44% of the vote, but have never held another. They're now corrupt, they send the police to crush protests, and they try to force their morality onto the Gazan women, LGBTQ people and youth. And their resistance strategy has been to indiscriminately lob missiles into Israel that usually killed civilians. The October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood raid continued this strategy, but this time Hamas murdered hundreds of innocent Jewish-Israelis, dozens of Arab-Israelis, and at least 50 migrant workers, most of whom were from Thailand. And also this time it took at least 242 people hostage.
So this was a crime, and pointing out that the Zionist's crimes are much larger than it doesn't hide the fact that it was. What's more, it acted to push Israeli Jews into the arms of Netanyahu and the worst ultra-Zionists, who conflate the entire Palestinian national struggle with Hamas, and who use this to to justify their present slaughter in Gaza. Meanwhile, a small part of the solidarity movement actually supports the Al-Aqsa Flood raid, while a larger part remains silent about it. This will not do. Many people outside the movement rightly sympathize with the innocent victims of the Hamas attack and they rightly sympathize with the Palestinians, but they're going to question joining a movement that won't speak against Hamas and October 7. After all, such actions as Al-Aqsa Flood drive a wedge between the Palestinian cause and the mass of working people around the world, when the unity of working people everywhere for the Palestinian cause is needed.
The Zionist press pundits are stepping up propaganda against the slogan, “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!” They say it means the Muslims (and not all Palestinians are Muslim) want to oppress the Jews in a new state, drive them out, etc. But they know this is a lie. The historic demand of the Palestinian national movement has been for one secular and democratic state from the river to the sea: one person, one vote. And after the 1948 Nakba, the demand for the right of return of the refugees was added. In the early 90s, however, under pressure from Washington, the dominant Fatah party, plus some other parties in the PLO abandoned this solution in favor of a two-state solution. (This threw the Palestinian movement into a crisis that has yet to resolved.) But while the Zionist leaders agreed to talk, they were never going to agree to letting the refugees return to Israeli soil, nor were they going to agree to having a viable Palestinian state next door. Thus, while the talking went on and on, the Zionists built their apartheid separation wall and segregated road system, they steadily increased the settlements in the West Bank, and they committed atrocity after atrocity against the Palestinians. Biden, who knows this history, is now giving speeches advocating the two-state non-solution. In this way he's pretending to be a man of peace while arming Israel as it slaughters the Gazans.
And Biden is rightfully being targeted by the movement. He has increased military aid to Israel; he's sent aircraft carrier groups to back up the IDF; he refuses to call for a ceasefire, thus giving Israel the go-ahead; the U.S. was one of a very few nations in the UN to vote against a call for a ceasefire.
from
Help build the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people!
Denounce Israel's U.S.-supported slaughter in Gaza!
by Seattle Workers' Voice, Nov. 6, 2023
http://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-231109.html
Some movement issues
Re: Some movement issues
Following is a letter I wrote to the Washington Post's "5-Minute Fix feedback" about a column posted on their "5-Minute Fix" on May 2. The column was written by Amber Phillips. On Tuesday, April 30, Phillips wrote a column declaring that the student protests against the murderous onslaught in Gaza by Israel were generally peaceful. But by Thursday, May 2, her assessment had changed, and she supported the police suppression of the demonstrations. What had changed? The police had completed their great victory, the Conquest of Hind's Hall, and their victory was celebrated by leading politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties. Phillips now declared that the students had stepped over the line by "upping the ante", whatever that means. My letter criticized her for changing her tune just to swing in tune with the powers-that-be.
Dear Amber Phillips:
Your column of today is a good example of slimy, cowardly reporting. You begin by saying "I said on Tuesday that the protests have been largely peaceful." OK, good. Do you still hold that view? Well, you say, "politicians have said they are not ..." and "President Biden says they crossed a red line ..." and "Trump hailed the arrests ...." Yes, but what do you say? Were the protests peaceful or not? You've shifted the conversation from reporting about the protests to reporting about what these sold-out politicians say about the protests, what kind of excuses they've giving for supporting genocide in Gaza.
Well, you say, the students "upped the ante." What if they did? Does that mean the protests became non-peaceful? You imply that they did by repeating various comments that they became "intimidating", etc. But nowhere do you provide any evidence that the protests were not peaceful.
The most outrageous thing is when you blame the protesters at UCLA for the violence perpetrated on them by Zionist thugs Tuesday night. This is your final nail in the coffin, your proof that the protests were violent, because "violence broke out Tuesday night at UCLA." Yes, it did, but by whom? For what purpose? You cover that up with a shift to the passive voice, "violence somehow broke out", without mentioning who committed that violence. It wasn't the protesters, and you do them a dastardly disservice by covering that up.
Your original comment, "I said on Tuesday the protests were peaceful", is a poor attempt to salve your conscience. Now that real violence has broken out, with the police violence at Columbia, CCNY, Wisconsin, etc., and the organized gang attack in LA, it's a pathetic attempt to say, "I tried once to be an honest reporter."
Carl Peters
5/2/2024 10:50 PM
Dear Amber Phillips:
Your column of today is a good example of slimy, cowardly reporting. You begin by saying "I said on Tuesday that the protests have been largely peaceful." OK, good. Do you still hold that view? Well, you say, "politicians have said they are not ..." and "President Biden says they crossed a red line ..." and "Trump hailed the arrests ...." Yes, but what do you say? Were the protests peaceful or not? You've shifted the conversation from reporting about the protests to reporting about what these sold-out politicians say about the protests, what kind of excuses they've giving for supporting genocide in Gaza.
Well, you say, the students "upped the ante." What if they did? Does that mean the protests became non-peaceful? You imply that they did by repeating various comments that they became "intimidating", etc. But nowhere do you provide any evidence that the protests were not peaceful.
The most outrageous thing is when you blame the protesters at UCLA for the violence perpetrated on them by Zionist thugs Tuesday night. This is your final nail in the coffin, your proof that the protests were violent, because "violence broke out Tuesday night at UCLA." Yes, it did, but by whom? For what purpose? You cover that up with a shift to the passive voice, "violence somehow broke out", without mentioning who committed that violence. It wasn't the protesters, and you do them a dastardly disservice by covering that up.
Your original comment, "I said on Tuesday the protests were peaceful", is a poor attempt to salve your conscience. Now that real violence has broken out, with the police violence at Columbia, CCNY, Wisconsin, etc., and the organized gang attack in LA, it's a pathetic attempt to say, "I tried once to be an honest reporter."
Carl Peters
5/2/2024 10:50 PM
Re: Some movement issues
Attached is a letter I wrote to the Detroit Free Press concerning an opinion column by Mitch Albom, the Free Press's famous sportswriter, novelist, and all-round cultural commentator. Albom's column purported to be an expose of the real purpose behind student campus protests. They pretend to be about Israeli genocidal attacks on Gaza, Albom says, but hiding behind that is the old antisemitism whose aim is to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, the only place where Jews can feel at home surrounded by a majority of their own. Albom has not grasped the elementary point made at all the student protests, that opposing Zionism does not make you an antisemite. Opposing Israeli genocidal attacks on Gaza does not make you a Jew-hater. It only makes you a decent human being.
Re: Some movement issues
“This kind of crap shows Hamas in the worst light, as copying the rotten methods of the Israeli government.”
I'm uncomfortable with using “copying” because it can imply that the Hamas leaders didn't come up with these methods on their own. Something like “as using the same rotten methods as the Israeli government does” seems better.
I wonder if you should give an example of a shortcoming in the article.
I'm uncomfortable with using “copying” because it can imply that the Hamas leaders didn't come up with these methods on their own. Something like “as using the same rotten methods as the Israeli government does” seems better.
I wonder if you should give an example of a shortcoming in the article.
Re: Some movement issues
Frank: Thanks for your comments. I agree with you on the "copying" phrase. Who knows where the Hamas leaders came up with their ridiculous excuses? It just struck me as very similar to the kind of excuse often offered by Israel when some attack on a Palestinian village occurs.
In the last paragraph, where it says, "Despite some shortcomings, ..." I meant those referred to in the previous two paragraphs. In the next to last paragraph, it says the article "misses the point of ridiculing Hamas' excuse" for the atrocities of Oct. 7. Maybe the authors of the article never heard the Hamas leaders' excuse; I don't know how widely publicized it was, so I don't know if that was a conscious decision of theirs to ignore it. In either case, it's a shortcoming of an article critical of Hamas. In the paragraph before that, it says "Much more could be said" about how Hamas' tactics reflect their basic class stand. Those are the shortcomings I was referring to.
In the last paragraph, where it says, "Despite some shortcomings, ..." I meant those referred to in the previous two paragraphs. In the next to last paragraph, it says the article "misses the point of ridiculing Hamas' excuse" for the atrocities of Oct. 7. Maybe the authors of the article never heard the Hamas leaders' excuse; I don't know how widely publicized it was, so I don't know if that was a conscious decision of theirs to ignore it. In either case, it's a shortcoming of an article critical of Hamas. In the paragraph before that, it says "Much more could be said" about how Hamas' tactics reflect their basic class stand. Those are the shortcomings I was referring to.
Re: Some movement issues
The Debate Inside DSA -
commenting on material from "Reform and Revolution"
commenting on material from "Reform and Revolution"
Re: Some movement issues
Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
October 16, 2024
Some recent experience in organizing support for the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples
by Frank Arango, Seattle Workers’ Voice
For the five days leading up to the October 5 demonstration I relied on handing out the Seattle Workers’ Voice leaflet at https://www.communistvoice.org/Sea240929.pdf, and I was encouraged by the results.
For example, one morning at Seattle Community College I gave out 160 copies of the leaflet—a record number for this place where I regularly distribute SWV—and the next morning I gave out 130. . . . I would estimate that 800-1,000 people turned out for the October 5 rally and march . . .
I know that there are nearly always some Hamas supporters at the solidarity demonstrations, but they're usually silent about expressing their support, and I've never knowingly talked with one. Now I have. A young white woman who said she'd read the SWV leaflet, told me I was spreading false information. What was false? Hamas didn't murder of 796 Israeli civilians on October 7, the Israeli Defense Forces murdered them, and not a dozen or 25 of them, but all of them. . . . and it turned out that she also vehemently supported Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I think this woman's choosing to ignore the facts about Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRI (which others in the movement also do) is based in some kind of desperate, non-class politics that leads them to frantically proclaim that anything goes in the fight against the zionists and U.S. imperialism, and to argue that the enemy of my enemy is automatically my friend. In this way they unwittingly become a mirror images of the Israeli and U.S. ruling classes they oppose, and actually support the reactionary global status quo.
For the full text, see https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241016.pdf.
October 16, 2024
Some recent experience in organizing support for the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples
by Frank Arango, Seattle Workers’ Voice
For the five days leading up to the October 5 demonstration I relied on handing out the Seattle Workers’ Voice leaflet at https://www.communistvoice.org/Sea240929.pdf, and I was encouraged by the results.
For example, one morning at Seattle Community College I gave out 160 copies of the leaflet—a record number for this place where I regularly distribute SWV—and the next morning I gave out 130. . . . I would estimate that 800-1,000 people turned out for the October 5 rally and march . . .
I know that there are nearly always some Hamas supporters at the solidarity demonstrations, but they're usually silent about expressing their support, and I've never knowingly talked with one. Now I have. A young white woman who said she'd read the SWV leaflet, told me I was spreading false information. What was false? Hamas didn't murder of 796 Israeli civilians on October 7, the Israeli Defense Forces murdered them, and not a dozen or 25 of them, but all of them. . . . and it turned out that she also vehemently supported Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I think this woman's choosing to ignore the facts about Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRI (which others in the movement also do) is based in some kind of desperate, non-class politics that leads them to frantically proclaim that anything goes in the fight against the zionists and U.S. imperialism, and to argue that the enemy of my enemy is automatically my friend. In this way they unwittingly become a mirror images of the Israeli and U.S. ruling classes they oppose, and actually support the reactionary global status quo.
For the full text, see https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241016.pdf.