MASSIVE demonstrations are sweeping the United States in support of Palestine. There have been big marches and rallies in New York, Chicago, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia, as well as in Richmond. Today (Saturday May 29) a National March for Palestine takes place in the US capital Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial. It is expected to be the largest pro-Palestinian protest in US history against ‘Israel’s settler-colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation’.
An entire generation of American youth, the student movement, academics and US workers have all been deeply moved by the Palestinans’ resistance to the Israeli war especially to the attempt to crush Gaza with missiles, gas and bombs.
There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations in many countries around the world. However, the biggest have been in the US and the UK where the ruling classes have played a special role in setting up the Zionist regime of Israel, in financing it and in arming Israel to the teeth.
In 2020, the US gave Israel an extraordinary $3.8 billion dollars worth of aid. They are not just selling Israel weapons – they are giving them away!
This ‘aid’ is used to acquire more armoured tanks, F-16 fighter planes, battleships, automatic weapons and the very missiles which for 11 days and nights rained down on the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Over two million Gazans live in an area 25 miles long and seven and a half miles wide. During the latest Israeli onslaught, 254 Palestinians, including 66 children, have died. No doubt they were killed using the very weapons provided by the US and UK governments.
The National March for Palestine is part of the new ‘Sanction Israel’ campaign demanding the Biden administration and Congress sanction Israel and stop giving it billions in US tax dollars and military hardware. Across the United States, there is a growing movement of academics that have issued statements demanding a boycott of Israel.
The faculties at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Georgetown, City University of New York, and the University of California at Berkeley and Davis have all issued statements in support of Palestine and calling for a boycott.
The United Educators of San Francisco, representing 6,200 teachers and staff, became the first teachers union to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Just a section of the statement of perhaps the most famous of America’s educational institutions, Harvard, shows the great depth of feeling for Palestine across the States:
‘As US-based scholars who oppose racism and colonial violence in all its forms, we write to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination.
‘Israeli state violence has devastated Palestinian life through a combination of warfare, territorial theft, and violent displacement.
‘Unwavering US financial, military, and political support has fuelled an apartheid system that institutionalises the domination and repression of Palestinians …
‘US-based scholars cannot be silent. We demand an end to US support for Israel’s apartheid regime, condemn Israeli state aggression, and affirm our support for the Palestinian liberation struggle.’ The 72 signatories represent over 50 Harvard departments.
There is a revolutionary surge forward taking place across the United States, where the working class, the youth and sections of the middle class have been inspired by the defiance of the Palestinian struggle, to take action against the US ruling class.
US workers and youth realise that they have the same enemy as the people of Palestine and that their enemy is at home. It is the US ruling class that sustains Zionism and imperialism worldwide, and threatens the future of humanity.
Just as the US ruling class arms the Israeli Zionists to kill Palestinians on a daily basis, it also arms the US police force and a capitalist state machine that kills American workers on a daily basis.
The same US ruling class that hands $3.8 billion dollars over to the Israeli ruling class starves the US working class of healthcare, jobs, pay and any real future. There are over half a million Americans homeless and millions are unemployed.
The US working class has learnt that their enemy is at home and a victory for the Palestinian people will be their victory!
