Went to a Palestinian solidarity protest/rally with some new folks who’d become radicalised against America/the West over the last six months. They aren’t socialists (yet, I’m working on it) - but they’re good people. So, seeing the genocide and its support by our governments filled them with disgust. We talked about the Nakba, the history of Zionism, and the current apartheid etc.
Now, we come to the protest.
Overall, the atmosphere was incredible. Lots of cool signs, different kinds of people, and, of course the pigs. That’s not the problem.
The problem was the fucking speakers. I swear, at least half of them had to be feds whose entire job was to turn people away from turning up at these events.
Some of them, and I mean this literally, wanted the crowd to chant “we support October 7” and “we stand with Hamas”.
I swear, the way the people I was with turned to look at me.
Not every speaker was like this - most were genuine. They talked of labor solidarity, campus organizing, personal anecdotes. But all of that made these speakers stand out all the more.
The worst part is that when it would happen, the organisers was one of them. So this entire thing was a sham from the start.
I feel so bad. I shouldn’t have just brought people to a random protest I saw and should’ve vetted it first.
Like, seriously. I can’t fucking get over this. Who organizes a protests of people from all walks of life in support of Palestine and wants them to chant we stand with Hamas and let’s do one hundred more October 7s?.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Like, of fucking course Hamas is a natural reaction to apartheid and ethnic cleansing and genocide. And of course Oct 7 is nothing compared to the 200 days that followed since (or the 75 years that preceded it). But come the fuck on.
I disagree with the pearl clutching, but what actually is the point of chanting in favor of Hamas at a protest? Is there a path where there could be solidarity between American student groups and Hamas, channels to send aid to Hamas specifically to support their resistance? It seems pretty much impossible to me. Why not just focus on the message that's most effective for divesting from Israel, which is all we can really hope for by protesting anyway?
The situation just reeks of the same kind of impulse to show ideological purity that made the Weather Underground a small group of kids doing random acts of violence instead of a mass movement. Sure, they were ideologically correct and morally justified, but what's the point of being right if you don't have a path to political power?
Idk, could be useful in opening a conversation about the realities of 10/7. There are numerous accounts of Israelis in tanks, helicopters, and on the ground indiscriminately killing anything that moves. By explicitly calling out these events and support for the resistance it allows people like OP or other organizers to explain to their lib friends where the majority of civilian deaths actually came from instead of only allowing MSM to tell them how to feel (that somehow Hamas had hellfire missiles/were roving gangs of rapists)