The pro-resistance stance on Palestine has been vindicated, & this must translate into support for Iran

The developments we’ve seen since October 7 have provided us all with tremendous lessons in what it means to wage a liberation struggle. In which practices assist the aggressors and oppressors, and what must be done in order to actually advance the fight for justice. The Palestinians, the Yemenis, and the other targets of imperialism’s violence had already absorbed these insights, because they’ve always been living the struggle. But those of us in the United States have needed to catch up with them; we’ve had to see our movements experience the losses that come from trying to reach “peace” with the imperial ruling class, and witness the progress of the forces which have been leading the fight against Zionism.

If we can get enough members of the pro-Palestine element to absorb these lessons, and apply them to the struggle’s next stage, then we’ll be able to carry forth the fight in a markedly more effective way than we have so far. We’ll be able to thwart the drive towards war with Iran, making the empire’s schemes against the Islamic Republic backfire. But first we’ll have to find our way out of the established habits within our political spheres; the habits that have kept the anti-imperialist movement largely confined to online politics, and therefore detached from the struggle. When we’re only online observers, there’s a huge gap in insight, a gap that can only be filled by gaining practical political experience. The progress which the resistance has made, and the enemy’s reactions to this progress, must bring us to the next phase in our development.

The simple lesson which becomes clear from looking at recent events—and which has already been internalized by the bulk of politically engaged young people—is that the forces fighting the occupation need to be supported. As soon as somebody unlearns all of the pro-Zionist indoctrination that our ruling class has pushed onto us, Palestine becomes the easiest conflict in the world to find the right side of. Those who are working to weaken the occupation deserve unqualified solidarity; they’re the variables which represent the hope for ending this genocide.

The resistance is not responsible for creating any war. What’s happening in Palestine isn’t truly a “war” but an extermination campaign, and this is crucial to clarify; all the “violence” that comes from the Palestinian side is an effort at ending Zionism’s constant murder and torture of defenseless people. In this way, the Palestinian side’s actions are not even “violence” by the word’s honest definition; when liberals denounce the “violence” of the oppressed, they’re pretending that it’s aggression. The reality is the opposite, and for the pro-Palestine movement to succeed, it will need to genuinely act like it understands this reality. This doesn’t just mean maintaining a vocal support for the resistance; it means building up the organizational forces within our communities, and within the workers movement, that can provide the resistance with serious allies.

Obviously the governments assisting the genocide outlaw any ties with orgs that they define as terrorist groups. But the pro-resistance organizers who are serious do not advocate for breaking the law, and they don’t let Zionists use the law to intimidate them into not taking meaningful action. What we can practically do is construct mass institutions which tangibly work to change the balance of power against Zionism’s favor, whether this means creating aid programs for the Palestinians, working to force institutions into divesting from the occupier, or organizing strikes against the genocide. As communists, everything we do is in service of revolution, and such legal measures are not our end goal; but they are indispensable.

These are projects that require gaining real political experience, and doing serious work to take the pro-Palestine movement into organized labor. Union organizing of course isn’t enough on its own, but that can’t deter us either; the other aspect is to build independent worker orgs, which let us escape the gatekeeping of the union bosses. These are the missions that we’ll need to become part of in order to truly weaken the genocidal machine; and given that these tasks require venturing so far outside the conventional political spheres, it’s no surprise that they’re never brought up by the most prominent “alternative” media commentators.

The phrase “alt media” shouldn’t be used as a blanket dismissal, but the reality is that within a monetized online landscape, the incentive is for creators to prioritize business over the political struggle. Maybe the worst manifestation of this dynamic is Russell Brand, who went from being pro-Palestine to promoting Zionism; but beyond that kind of blatant propagandizing, there are numerous ideas which subtly weaken the pro-Palestine cause. There’s the liberal Zionist argument that Hamas is a tool of Netanyahu, there’s the capitulationist attitude that the Gaza resistance should simply surrender, there’s the tendency to automatically call events false flags without real investigation.

If our ruling class uses a false flag to create consent for war with Iran, we should expose it as a false flag; but October 7 was not a false flag, and given all the evidence we’ve seen, neither was last month’s embassy shooting. These were real developments that came from real conditions, and we need to be able to analyze them as such.

We will only defeat the imperial enemy by orienting our practice around what the conditions require of us; around what the global mass liberation struggles need us to do. And to understand what’s happening, we have to broaden our perspective beyond the online realm.

The path forward is in connecting with the power struggle as it actually exists; in joining with the liberation efforts that have been making tangible gains. Without that connection, without that experience, it can appear pointless to support the anti-imperialist forces. And if we don’t participate in real organization, our statements of support for these forces will be weak in nature, harming our own credibility. This is a flaw that’s been prevalent within our movement, and it can only be overcome if we enter into the struggle.

In the perilous situation that the empire has created, where Washington has sabotaged all peace talks with Russia and may start war with Iran, there are two routes we can go down. We can listen to the advocates of appeasement, and vilify the anti-imperialist forces for not letting Washington assault them without a fight; or we can align ourselves with the resistance, which entails putting in substantial work outside the online sphere. Political struggle is the aspect that our movement has too often been missing; when we connect with this struggle, we’ll be in place to make the kinds of progress that our allies abroad have been making.

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