by Monica Isaac
I recently heard a clip from a speech with Journalist and Author Chris Hedges proclaiming very solemnly that we, as people living in the US empire, have failed the people of Palestine. It was a statement filled with honest emotions and genuine tears of disappointment. I understood this feeling. The US government and its allies have failed the Palestinian people on every level of humanity since the early portion of the twentieth century. But his admission to failure also felt like an admission to resolve. Because to admit defeat in this moment is to wash our hands of these eighty plus days and move on. We do not have the luxury nor the moral fortitude to do such a thing while Palestinian people have tirelessly demonstrated for decades that defeat is not an option.
We are being tested at this moment as the pendulum has swung into a place of utter deterioration in Gaza. Never in our lifetimes has genocide been so brazen and simultaneously shared physical and visual space with cooking influencers and morally bereft people attempting acts of bizarre normalcy. This sensory and spiritual assault is a fraction of the sheer daily terrorism bestowed on the Palestinian people, yet to witness is a major player here: Are you a spectator? Are you moved to tangible action? Are you allowing the grief of watching to satisfy self indulgence or a weird perverse fantasy and move on? While some in the West grapple with the answers to these questions, there is no doubt that the reality of the Zionist entity is a temporary one. We are witnessing, in real time, not only an ethnic cleansing but a complete collapse of the State of Israel. Its ability to annihilate Palestinians with impunity is a direct response to repeated failed military operations from an ill trained and mentally tortured group of soldiers.
There are not enough dollars to pour into embarrassingly marketed propaganda ads, billboards, and videos that will change public opinion. Nor will they convince the millions of people around the world that what we are seeing is anything less than an ethnic cleansing. Their attempts to dehumanize the tiny Palestinian hands they are targeting is a complete failure. Yet Zionist propaganda is still repeating the same justification for slaughtering civilians in their homes and hospitals, parroting a US military narrative used during The Vietnam War. From the UC Press Blog in regards to the My Lai Massacre in 1968 that killed 500 Vietnamese civilians: “If there is one thing that remains unspeakable about the My Lai massacre in the United States, it is that the violence was not an aberration, but routine and systemic. The soldiers were told by Capt. Ernest Medina the day before, “There are no innocent civilians in this area,” and that the enemy was “anybody that was running away from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy.” Sound familiar? Like Arabs and Palestinians, The people of Vietnam were also similarly labeled as “animals and terrorists” as a justification for heinous war crimes. These tactics of dehumanization have origins rooted in Indigenous American History as “the new world needed to become civilized from the violent barbarians”. This marked the wholesale slaughter of babies and women, targeting limbs specifically to disable young people and the spread of disease, a “scorched earth” tactic currently used in Palestine by cutting off water, and food supplies, killing livestock, and destruction of plant life in cold temperatures.
The US is a failure by every moral and international standard imparted by humanity. It has routinely played the role of dehumanizer, international destabilizer, and Imperialist warlord in the global south. But are the acts of this government a representation of its people?
Our ultimate failure could be two things:
To become them. To allow their tactics of dehumanization to fester a lack of empathy and consciousness to the world around us. To stunt not only our minds but our hearts. With every generation of Palestinians that has stewarded the land and protected their olive trees, our understanding of these relations grows deeper. And as it does, we act as an intentional counter narrative to these dehumanizing tactics which allows us the power to write, record, teach, and mobilize. With every public shift and every step towards decolonization, there must be a belief that the full scope of liberation is possible. As a people in pursuit of this, we understand that as our people suffer internationally, we must use collective strength to allow for people in catastrophic conditions to regain stability in the ways they determine for themselves. As in, no one suffers or carries the weight of oppression alone.
The second would be to become weary in this moment and decide that the fight for liberation is futile, hopeless and lay down our pens, bodies, and consciousness. This part is critical and we must continue to move through these moments and employ strategic planning and organizing, a continuous building of a strong workers collective, economic boycotting, political pressure, education, and art.
But.. failure is not an option.
To paraphrase writer Arundhati Roy: we must confront the Empire, shame and mock them in every instance, in every way. We will paint their shame on walls and challenge younger generations to refuse their imperialist and supremacist values as normal.
