Since October 2023, the world has witnessed the emergence of a revolutionary movement challenging US imperialism and its extension: the Zionist project of colonialism in Palestine.
US imperialism’s violent power and ability to use its force anywhere on the planet manifests itself most vividly in the killing of Indigenous people, whether it be in the Americas, Asia, Africa, or Palestine.
In addition to this brutal and often lethal oppression, we now see the use of force by police across the US. Cops are violently repressing a movement that is being led by college students and young people.
The United States and Israel have used the same misleading language to denounce this student-led movement, claiming it is “antisemitic” to criticize Israel’s bombing of civilians, while defaming the Palestinian resistance as “terrorists.”
To deceive the public into supporting Israel, the US government portrays the settler-colonial state as a “victim”, while demonizing and suppressing activists and organizers who strive to counter injustices and put an end to a genocide.
According to Washington’s absurd narrative, opposing a genocide is now “antisemitic.”
The US government is actively facilitating and perpetuating Israel’s genocide to advance its imperial goals in a strategic region.
Clear evidence of this is found in Joe Biden’s remarks during his tenure as a senator, when he asserted, “It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
Today, as president, Joe Biden wants the public to think he lacks influence over Israel’s action in Gaza, despite the obvious fact that the US government possesses the capability to halt Israel’s siege in Gaza.
Eevery day that goes on, in which hundreds of Palestinians are massacred, Biden decides not to support peace.
This is why ordinary people in the US are mobilizing in all aspects of life to stop and shed light on the plight of Palestinians. Biden’s refusal to stop a genocide has ignited outrage, led to protests, and triggered a closer examination of the legitimacy of the US political system itself.
The Biden administration has voiced strong support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. However, Washington has condemned Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression, while supplying billions in weaponry to Tel Aviv.
This is despite the fact that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel can be investigated on charges of violating the Genocide Convention.
Palestine has no army, navy, police, or conventional armed forces to defend itself.
The hypocrisy of the Biden administration and the entire Western political elite has pushed the so-called “rules-based world order,” which they claim to champion, to an irreversible brink.
With full support, Western backing of Israel’s devastating actions in Gaza has starkly revealed the West’s double standards concerning human rights and international law.
There is no retreat now, and the US must squarely face the consequences of its hubris.
The Biden administration has lectured China, Iran, North Korea, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela about “democracy” and “human rights”, while presiding over an international system where it repeatedly vetoes calls for a ceasefire or a Palestinian state that is supported by the vast majority of humanity.
Millions of people are coming to recognize that the US empire deceives the world to maintain its dominance.
To advocate for a free Palestine, it is crucial to comprehend the accompanying state violence. Understanding the role of the US empire in Palestine is paramount.
The uprising across the US has exposed the contradictions of the capitalist system.
How the US government represses social movements
Across the US, this April, at least a dozen universities arrested more than 1,100 students who were peacefully protesting, exercising their fundamental right to assemble.
These students were advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine, while urging divestment from companies supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
When the masses of people organize against a common goal of justice, whether it is for Black Lives Matter, immigrant rights, the anti-war movement, Occupy Wall Street, North Dakota Access Pipeline (#NoDAPL), and many others, the state unleashes the police.
This is the central force behind state suppression. Cops are designated as “special bodies”, due to their unique authority to engage in actions forbidden to most members of society. They can use violence against others without consequence, conduct detentions and incarcerations, or initiate armed interventions against peaceful demonstrators with impunity.
The current movement to free Palestine in the US is turning what we are told are “American values” on its head.
Millions of working-class people find themselves incarcerated in immigration detention facilities, prisons, and jails across the country. Typically, their offenses revolve around petty theft or drug-related activities, or for entering the country undocumented.
Compare this to the large shareholders and wealthy CEOs of weapons manufacturers that are profiting from bombing hospitals, refugee camps, universities, mosques, churches, humanitarian aid workers, and apartment buildings. They face none of the consequences that working-class protesters face.
Universities throughout the US are profiting from investments in companies in the military-industrial complex, which was complicit in the deaths of more than 1 million Iraqis, and the ongoing atrocities in Palestine, among other grave violations of human rights.
Not one corporate executive has been arrested for pushing this genocide.
No US politician has faced consequences for supporting this genocide and endorsing the destruction of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli occupying forces over decades.
On the contrary, US politicians receive millions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to push pro-Israel legislation and policies.
Joe Biden has gotten $11,194,792 from AIPAC.
Kamala Harris received $185,747.
Hillary Clinton was given $3,539,958.
Nancy Pelosi got $618,250.
Barack Obama received $295,898.
And this is just to name a few.
This shows how US politicians are funded to push pro-Israel propaganda, to back the Pentagon in its imperial ambition of colonizing Palestine, to maintain a military presence in a strategic region, to control its natural resources to serve US interests.
Arab resistance versus US hegemony
For centuries, the US has seen Latin America as its so-called “backyard.” As a result, social movements have emerged in the region to break free from the colonial yoke of Yankee domination.
Administrations opposing US imperialism are the ruling governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, and even Washington’s long-time ally Colombia. In Cuba, the revolutionary government remains in power, despite more than 60 years of an illegal, suffocating US blockade.
In Peru in 2022, there was an indigenous uprising in response to the US-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected President Pedro Castillo.
The movement against US dominance has also grown more potent in West Asia (the so-called Middle East). The US military is in a weaker position in the region, and has encountered setbacks.
Yemen’s Ansarallah seizes a cargo ship in the Red Sea
The US faced defeat in its wars on both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq’s current government has repeatedly expressed its desire for the withdrawal of US troops from its soil, and has voted in favor of such measures.
The Pentagon failed in overthrowing the Syrian government. Syria’s support for Hezbollah and Iran has been a major obstacle to Israel being able to strike Palestinians.
If Syria had fallen to US proxies, it would have been difficult for Iran to provide the Palestinian resistance with the supplies it needs to defend itself against Israeli colonial aggression.
Yemen’s Ansarallah movement likewise declared that it had joined the battle against Israel.
Yemen defeated the US-Saudi war against it that started in 2015. The Saudis used US-made weapons to bomb schools, weddings, and civilian infrastructure. Yet, the Yemeni people were able to overcome such attacks by the Saudis.
Today, Yemen seeks to block ships from traveling through the Red Sea to Israel.
The Palestinian resistance against US imperialism has grown more robust in the region. Support for the resistance has increased, with more and more groups dedicated to resisting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.
On top of that, most Americans disapprove of what Israel is doing in Gaza. A Gallup Poll published in March stated that 55 percent of respondents disapproved of Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip, which was up from 45 percent in November 2023.
Meanwhile, Israel is losing the ground war against the resistance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing pressure from Israeli society, and it is widely suspected that the number of dead soldiers is higher than what is reported in Israeli media.
For the last 45 years, the US has attempted to overthrow the revolutionary government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for daring to take control of its nation.
The US has imposed illegal sanctions on Iran. As a result, it has faced various restrictions from shipping, insurance, ports, banking, and trade, which have severed or complicated Iran’s commercial enterprises to the rest of the world.
Despite the challenges of working around US sanctions, Iran has survived and continues to defend its sovereignty.
On April 13, Iran launched a direct strike on Israel, in retaliation for an Israeli attack against it. This was a deterrence win for Iran. It hit Israeli targets using old drones, while Israel needed the assistance of the US, UK, France, and Jordan.
On the other hand, the development and rise of the People’s Republic of China have been crucial.
Just a few decades ago, the threat of US sanctions resulted in famine and isolation. Today that is no longer as much of a threat, as China is willing to trade with everyone, and as Chinese markets can adjust and absorb goods the US will not buy.
In the past decade, most countries in the global South have significantly increased their trade with China, while becoming less dependent on trade with the US. As a result, they are left less vulnerable to US economic pressure.
The world is also witnessing a new kind of globalization with the BRICS+, which consists of founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, plus new members Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.
While the US is increasingly using the dollar as a weapon of financial mass destruction, BRICS+ allows countries to develop and trade with each other, without being dictated by Washington.
BRICS+ tilts the balance of economic development for the global South.
The US is still a significant power in the region. However, history shows that the primary catalyst for substantial change often stems from military defeats. And US military interventions are on a losing streak.
Palestine has been the pulse of West Asian anti-imperialist resistance since 1948.
Israel has not been able to eradicate Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other resistance group. Iran and the Iraqi resistance have become stronger.
In 2006, Israel failed in its invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah forced the Israeli occupation forces to retreat without meeting their war aims.
The US empire may be the biggest in human history, but it is marked not by victory but by destruction.
Protesters gather to protect the encampment from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) at UCLA.
The generation of resistance
In the aftermath of October 7, 2023, millions of people around the world took to the streets to show solidarity with Palestine.
As Israel intensified its attacks on refugee camps, mosques, humanitarian aid convoys, civilian homes, and much more, it drove more people worldwide to march.
Soon, protesters were interrupting speeches by virtually every US politician. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and many other US politicians have been interrupted and called out for remaining silent on the genocide.
No politician can go anywhere without being confronted by someone supporting Palestine.
Soon after, US protesters began doing banner drops and holding caravans, waving Palestine flags across the country.
Now the movement has evolved, with students at universities nationwide organizing Gaza solidarity encampments.
In the face of relentless repression from the police and the state, the youth are bravely sacrificing their comforts to pressure their educational institutions to divest from companies with connections to Israel.
Students at UCLA facing off the Los Angeles Police Department on May 1 (photo credit: UCLA student organizer)
Today’s youth are igniting a shift in consciousness across the country.
For decades, talking about support for Palestine was silenced. Critics of Israel’s racist policies feared being hit with baseless accusations of anti-Semitism.
These ridiculous smears are still a threat, but the public support for free Palestine is now undisputed.
Empowered by social media, young voices are dismantling the lies propagated by the White House, Pentagon, and corporate media, which acts as an echo chamber for the war machine.
March for Palestine in Los Angeles (photo credit: Abraham Márquez)
While the Biden administration denies the scale of Israel-inflicted casualties, social media bears witness to the tragic reality.
Biden asserts Israel’s “right to self-defense” but denies Palestinians their actual right to self-defense, while showing little regard for Palestinian lives.
Millions, like never before, have taken to the streets of the US to call for an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine and for an end to US funding for Israel.
The corporate media misleadingly frames this as an “Israel-Hamas” war, but the world knows that this is a genocide sponsored by US imperialism. That is why people continue to protest.
