Sunday, October 22: Solidarity Forever
It's Free Palestine yesterday, today, and every day until it's free
Yesterday I joined ~20 - 25,000 of my newest and closest friends to walk the streets of Chicago calling for an end to the genocide, occupation and apartheid taking place in Palestine. Tens of thousands of people showed out similarly in Washington DC. A solidarity protest in London featured a crowd numbering in the hundreds of thousands. In Los Angeles, ~50,000. Lyon, France: massive, in spite of a French ban on such protests. The list of cities and corresponding acts of solidarity goes on and on, truly an inspiring sight to witness and participate in.
But the genocide won’t stop just because we march in the streets wearing keffiyehs or waving our flags. And make no mistake, those heavily invested in the occupation won’t simply change their tune without first reaffirming their violent opposition to Palestinian liberation. At the solidarity march in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, NYC yesterday, protesters were violently confronted by officers of the NYPD who surrounded them and ordered them out of the roadway. Ironically, the heavily-armed police blocked all the exits and then began arresting protesters for not leaving, a small but perfect illustration of what the occupying Israeli military has done to 2 and a half million people in Gaza.
The apartheid-obsessed Israeli military dropped leaflets by drone yesterday, benevolently informing Gazans that if they choose to stay in their homes they will be considered terrorists or sympathizers of Hamas. The leaflets read:
"Urgent warning! To the residents of Gaza - your presence north of Wadi Gaza is putting your lives at risk. Anyone who chooses not to evacuate from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south of the Gaza Strip may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization."
This comes after Israel already ordered 1.1 million residents in the northern part of Gaza to evacuate to the south, with no guarantee of safety or return. This is also after the maniacal military has spent weeks indiscriminately bombed neighborhoods in Gaza, reducing what used to be home for hundreds of thousands into this. If you believe that this military is acting out of some goodwill or compassion, I’ve got a beautiful beachfront property in Iowa that you might be interested in.
At the same time, the apartheid regime in Israel is already taking the next step in their genocidal gameplan, expanding their violent efforts beyond Gaza and targeting the West Bank and even surrounding countries. The Israeli military conducted an air strike in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank earlier today, claiming that Hamas was using a mosque as a "terrorist compound". Palestinian officials said at least two people died when the Al-Ansar mosque was hit, adding to at least 74 Palestinians killed in the West Bank in the past two weeks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most of these Palestinians were murdered in acts of settler violence. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has been documenting some of the attacks and sharing videos online (warning, this is a video of a Palestinian man being shot at point blank range by an Israeli settler, accompanied by an Israeli soldier).
That convoy of 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid yesterday from Egypt was unsurprisingly nowhere near enough to meet the needs of even a fraction of the people in Gaza. The total shipment included just 44,000 bottles of drinking water, enough for ~22,000 people for one day, but not anywhere close to enough for the more than 2 million people trapped in the besieged area. Egypt followed up with 17 more trucks earlier today, an embarrassingly paltry number. While the US and western allies tout their negotiating skills, they overlook the fact that most Gazans won’t see any benefit from these trucks. This pathetically meager level of humanitarian assistance is kinda like your buddy asking you for a delicious feast after a hard day’s work, but instead of feeding him you simply allow him the privilege of smelling your morning breath.
The American department of state meanwhile, is busy releasing pointless video messages expressing how they “see” Palestinians, and “grieve with” Palestinians, and “mourn every loss of innocent life”, but they don’t seem to care enough to stop funding the genocide. How can you claim to “mourn with” the people whose kids and families you’re killing. We’re at a point where western politics has been entirely replaced with emotional gestures, and so-called ‘empathy’ has been sadistically weaponized. The state department has the audacity to claim that civilians aren’t to blame for the actions of Hamas, and shouldn’t suffer for the taking of hostages or military assaults on October 7th, but they’ll gladly stand by and arm the Israeli military carrying out the ethnic cleansing.
Two weeks of ethnic cleansing has provided so many people with all the evidence necessary to recognize that the current American political system doesn’t serve us in any way. Joe Biden can go to hell, and he can take Kamala Harris with him. A piece of advice to anyone foolish enough to continue supporting them; if you hear next year that Muslims in this country refuse to vote for Biden because he’s actively funding and supporting Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the correct response should be to urge Biden to stop supporting the ethnic cleansing, not to lecture people on how things would be worse under Trump. I have little doubt that the orange bozo would be worse, but I’m curious why Biden took our support for granted in enforcing a Middle East policy that is near indistinguishable from Trump’s.