This is an excerpt from the book I’m writing, which will be called “When Tears Can’t Save Them: How The Pro-Palestine Movement Failed To Stop A Holocaust, & How It Can Still Win.”
In March of 2025, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff went on Tucker Carlson’s show. Throughout the podcast, he pitched the White House’s vision for an end to all of the present conflicts via diplomacy (i.e. getting the anti-imperialist governments to stop defending their people). During the exchange, Carlson said: “From an American perspective, it’s hard to even understand what Hamas is thinking, but it’s essential to understand. But I mean, as a procedural matter, we need to know. So is it hard for you to understand?” Witkoff’s response was:
Well it’s hard, I’ll give you an example of what makes it hard. I went to Gaza, and then I had this fabulous lunch with CENTCOM people…they showed me this film of what happened on October 7th, and the film is horrific. It is about mass rapes. There’s pictures of Hamas people cutting the head off of an Israeli soldier. I mean, it’s really terrible stuff beyond what I’ve ever seen. And it can really taint you, right? It can taint the way you’re going to feel about these people. And I think sometimes as a negotiator, you have to be dispassionate. It’s not easy to make decisions if you’re going to, but I had to see that film, Tucker. That film is a reality.
This is how today’s ostensibly antiwar leaders and commentators have reinforced the War on Terror’s narratives: by affirming the premise that the forces fighting against Palestine’s occupation are terrorist groups, based off of the Zionist lies which this idea depends on. We know that the film Witkoff was shown didn’t actually include any footage of rapes, because no footage has ever come out showing sexual assaults on October 7.
It’s this fabricated element that Witkoff and his handlers have used to portray Hamas’ confirmed actions as having been war crimes, when any further context undermines that narrative. A soldier is by definition a valid target in warfare, though Zionists tend to act like this doesn’t apply when the soldier is occupying Palestine. We also have little reason to trust Witkoff’s account of the alleged act; CENTCOM has every reason to lie about October 7, as does Witkoff himself.
A bait-and-switch before the extermination’s next phase
During the podcast episode, Witkoff told another obvious lie, this being that Trump sought to rescue the people of Gaza. He asserted that if the right factors came into play (with the implicit requirement being that evil Hamas gave up its terrorist mission), Trump would be able to carry out a development project inside the land strip.
At the moment when Witkoff told this lie, the Trump 2.0 administration was still new enough that somebody could make such a claim without getting too much pushback from within MAGA. But when Trump showed his true intentions by bombing Yemen, overseeing the GHF massacres, and striking Iran, even his own base became much less willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And the true extent of Witkoff’s dishonesty about the alleged Trump “peace” agenda was revealed in the reactions of the Palestinians to how Witkoff had acted towards Gaza.
As ever-more Palestinians get murdered, we must let everyone know the perspectives that have been put forth by the victims of this genocide who’ve had the opportunity to speak to the world about it. One of these perspectives is that the May 2025 mass murder the occupier perpetrated under the guise of “humanitarian aid” can properly be called the “Witkoff massacre.”
That’s the name many Palestinians have come to use for these atrocities; as reported by Jeremy Scahill in June 2025: “Many Palestinians are calling it the ‘Witkoff massacre,’ named after Steve Witkoff the Special Envoy, because anger is mounting inside of Gaza towards Trump and his administration because they feel like they are just completely taking Israel’s side, and trying to set the Palestinians up with a so-called truce or ceasefire deal that would enable Netanyahu to resume the intensity of the full genocide after either seven days or sixty days.”
This attempt at a bait-and-switch didn’t fool the Palestinian resistance, which has continued to wage its fight amid apocalyptic violence; but Witkoff’s psyop did succeed in tricking a crucial number of the USA’s people. This isn’t these people’s fault; the blame lies in the discourse actors who worked to rehabilitate Trump as a dissident figure, and to present Trump 2.0 as a strategic ally of the antiwar cause. It was because these actors propagated such false hopes that the Trump White House could facilitate the next phase of the extermination, while pretending that it was trying to get “peace.”
Without their assistance, the second Trump administration would have been going in with no discourse allies, beyond hardline Zionist neocons like Ben Shapiro. Shapiro’s brand of conservatism is old and unpopular, having lost favor when most Americans realized just how vile the Iraq war was; but this new kind of conservatism claims to be what can defeat the despised neocon paradigm. So when the “dissident right” worked to sell Trump as a genuine rebel at the same moment when the genocidal process was being accelerated, this let our government murder even more Palestinian people.
I blame the right opportunists in this respect not just because they took scrutiny off of Trump on Palestine, but also because they’ve helped demobilize the pro-Palestine movement at the time when it’s needed to act the most. And this is the core issue with these efforts to sell Trump as an anti-establishment hero, or to do so with any other right “populist” leader: it diverts the people away from pursuing collective organization, which is the only way we can truly defeat the capitalist interests behind this genocide.
Applying scrutiny to the genocide’s perpetrators is important, since we’ve seen it does help constrain what the Zionist occupier can do; but as a general rule, we have reached a stage where “speaking truth to power” is no longer enough. Our government doesn’t care about hiding its crimes in the ways it used to; it now acts with a sense of virtual impunity. This is why Carlson and other alternative media voices can regularly challenge establishment narratives: speaking against power does not necessarily threaten power. As long as dissent can be recaptured, and turned away from a direction that would lead towards mass organization, it’s actually useful at this stage for our ruling class to allow sources of “dissent” to exist.
“Anti-war” as a substitute for anti-imperialism
When October 7 happened, and the left came to no longer be the main tool for radical recapture, the forces that sought to neutralize the pro-Palestine movement embraced a new strategy: push the idea that with Trump 2.0, we really would get progress this time.
To sell this promise, these propaganda agents first needed to present a warped version of what patriotic or revolutionary struggle means. They had to divert the conversation about Palestine away from national liberation, and towards a vague concept of “peace”; which is something the NGO left also does, but with the Trump 2.0 psyop, this kind of propaganda looked different. It looked like a revolt against the liberal, NGO wing of our ruling class, or at least something with the appearance of one. This version of MAGA was tailored to give off the sense that it would achieve what Trump 1.0 failed to do; that Trump would supposedly respond to the increased revolutionary consciousness among the American masses, and exact serious changes.
Trump would respond to these popular sentiments, but not to the effect that he’d truly fight against the imperial system; in reality, what he’s done is rebrand this system. He’s pivoted towards new imperialist warfare strategies, while claiming to be pursuing “peace.” This ruse has depended on the expectation that if the U.S. gets a deal-maker president, one who’s willing to engage in detente with Washington’s adversaries, America’s wars will be brought to an end. Which depends on the omission of imperialism from this entire discourse.
As long as the U.S. remains under the control of a capitalist ruling class, it will stay an imperialist power. And an imperialist power can only ever be either waging wars, or preparing for new wars; constant efforts to conquer and control the world are what the monopoly finance capital requires in order to survive. Imperialism is not a policy, able to be abolished through mere reforms to an imperialist country’s government; imperialism is a system, and it can only end when that country’s state is overthrown. But according to the worldview that’s been presented by this opportunistic iteration of MAGA, the wars which are produced by imperialism can be stopped by voting for the right candidate.
The authentic part of MAGA, the one that comes from the movement’s popular elements, does want to free America from monopoly capital. MAGA arose in response to the wars started by the monopolist Bush neocons, the depression that was engineered by the big banks, anger towards monopolies like big pharma, and a desire to defeat the intelligence agencies that have subverted the USA’s constitution. The problem was that Trump turned this mass energy in the wrong direction, and used it as a way to reinforce establishment narratives that hadn’t yet been rejected by the bulk of Americans. Narratives like the idea that it’s patriotic to support the Zionist Nazi state.
The Zionists within MAGA were able to sell this lie for a long time, because most Americans hadn’t yet been paying attention to Gaza; but when October 7 came, the narrative management strategy needed to change. The ensuing consciousness shift on “Israel” impacted Americans across the ideological spectrum, weakening the propaganda power of Christian Zionism and alerting many more libertarians to what their tax dollars were being used for in Palestine. So the “dissident” wing within Trump world, the one that presents itself as an enemy of Zionist Trump donors like the Adelson family, began a campaign to make it appear like something truly revolutionary was coming from Trump’s campaign.
This is where it became so important for the right opportunists to obscure the meaning of imperialism—or rather to omit the word “imperialism” from the conversation altogether. The cause of these wars could not be recognized as something inherent to capitalism; it had to be due to an aberration within capitalism, one that can be ended if we simply make the right reforms. This is the explanation that JQers have for why Zionism has so much control over our government: the government has been hijacked by a Jewish conspiracy, which means Zionism and its related wars can be ended by solving the “Jewish question.”
As the Trump brand continues to unravel, the JQ iteration of this kind of thinking is now gaining more traction; the JQ is the next phase within right opportunism, the new primary way to recapture anti-Zionist sentiments. To combat the JQ, we need to understand which revolutionary ideas it’s designed to neutralize, and argue for those ideas in a way that accounts for the rhetorical tools right opportunists use.
When it comes to Palestine, both the Trump 2.0 psyop and the JQ psyop have centrally been focused on obfuscating the question of national liberation struggle. Like with the topic of imperialism, the promoters of these narrative tricks avoid bringing up settler-colonialism while discussing Palestine; they also tend to avoid talking about the resistance, with the standard right-wing “dissident” narrative being that the resistance fighters are terrorists. This is how the “Israel created Hamas” lie is able to gain a major foothold within today’s antiwar discourse, and how the right-wing populist wing of Zionism is able to sell false solutions to conservatives who sympathize with Palestine.
The ploy that Witkoff and Trump have used is one where they’ve claimed to want to save Gaza’s people, waited for the Zionist occupier to sabotage the next negotiations with Hamas, and then blamed the resistance for supposedly ruining the Trump White House’s altruistic plans. Whether you believe the outwardly racist narrative about Palestinians being inherently violent, or believe the liberal Zionist narrative that Netanyahu is using Palestine’s resistance, the White House’s logic appears to make sense within this anti-resistance worldview. The arguments that vilify Palestine’s liberation struggle come in different forms, but they all have the same effect: to weaken the efforts at stopping the genocide, and at ending Palestine’s colonization.
Ignoring the contributions of Palestine’s resistance
For these right-wing “dissident” media actors, the damage towards the Palestinian cause did not necessarily come from the things they said; it came from the things they left out. When October 7 arose, and everyone in these spaces needed to discuss Palestine, what figures like Russell Brand did was repeat the standard “alt” media statements on the conflict; the statements about how Netanyahu has tried to use Hamas as a tool for dividing Palestine.
The problem with these types of commentary is the framing. They cover only one part of the story, while forsaking any deeper analysis that would put attention on Palestine’s national liberation struggle. When Brand interviewed Chris Hedges in January 2024 about Netanyahu’s strategy for managing Hamas, the conversation didn’t delve into how Hamas has entered a coalition with other armed liberation fighting forces, or the strategic goals these forces had when they executed Al Aqsa Flood.
The discussion was limited to Hamas as it’s related to Netanyahu, which let Brand’s audience keep internalizing the perception about Hamas being an Al Qaeda equivalent. Hedges said that Netanyahu’s strategy with Hamas was a “miscalculation” which had “failed,” but the missing context was why it had failed. Without a recognition of the revolutionary role that Hamas plays, and that its coalition partners play, crucial parts of the argument are automatically ceded towards the “Israel has a right to defend itself” crowd. The rationale behind the genocide is that the “terrorists” must be stopped; and this narrative gets enabled when somebody discusses Hamas without truly challenging that framing, as Brand’s segment failed to do.
To challenge establishment narratives in a flawed way is not the worst thing to do, and we need to be open towards alliances with those who have a positive impact even though they’re flawed; Hedges, to his credit, has recognized Hamas as a national liberation movement. It’s likely that Brand had only been interested in interviewing Hedges about Hamas, insofar as this could be used to emphasize that Netanyahu connection. There are plenty of commentators and thinkers on Palestine who can be criticized in certain respects, while playing a good role. The serious issue lies in the actors who’ve not just responded towards October 7 and its fallout in an imperfect way, but worked to funnel anti-Zionist attitudes into controlled opposition projects that actively help the holocaust continue.
This is part of why I accuse Brand of being such a cynical actor: he’s one of the most widely platformed people in “dissident” media who’s helped sell those false hopes about Trump 2.0. The other part is that due to this right opportunist turn, Brand ultimately switched from being pro-Palestine to outright supporting the Zionist entity.
When Brand came out as a Zionist, this alienated the many conservatives who’ve been radicalized against Zionism. But he’d already fulfilled his role as a propagator of right-wing “dissident” and “antiwar” politics, where Zionism is seen as something we can defeat without supporting the resistance. Instead of defending the resistance, Brand has worked to sell Trump as an ally to the Palestinians, even after the Trump White House has gotten enough time to prove itself as genocidal. It was Brand who helped the U.S. and “Israel” sell the creation of the GHF; during the week prior to the start of the GHF’s operations, Brand reacted to a statement Trump had made about how Washington was preparing to get aid to Gaza’s people, and said that Trump “seems like a person I would trust way beyond how much I’d trust Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.”
The conservatives who’ve been drawn towards Brand, Carlson, and these other alt media figures do have a lot of revolutionary consciousness; that so many of them have become actively opposed to Zionism means the American masses are now largely immune to neocon propaganda in a way they weren’t a generation ago. Growing awareness about the “Israel” lobby is a big part of this consciousness shift, which is why it would be an error for the pro-Palestine movement to act like that lobby doesn’t matter. The danger is that this positive popular trend will be recaptured, like the NGO left is working to recapture pro-resistance Gen Z-ers.
With both the NGOs and right-wing “alt” media, the strategy is to divorce Palestine supporters from the actual liberation struggle, making for a “pro-Palestine” politics that’s in effect anti-resistance even if its proponents claim not to be. And the way you can maintain this separation is by keeping the class struggle out of your “anti-Zionist” or “pro-peace” analyses. This kind of politics recognizes the power of the lobby, but it obfuscates the lobby’s class origins. Which leaves the discourse open to being hijacked by the JQers, and diverts Palestine’s supporters away from the organized worker actions that can materially help the resistance win.
Setting things up for war with China
This is where the anti-China aspect of the “dissident” right becomes highly consequential, and highly damaging towards Palestine. Socialist China is the largest workers state; and most importantly for Palestine, China is a gigantic asset in the effort to weaken the occupier.
China’s rise was instrumental in the global power shift that ended Palestine’s era of isolation on the world stage, and China is responsible for diplomatic breakthroughs that have made Palestine more internally unified; the August 2024 declaration of unity between Palestine’s different governmental factions, which will be pivotal towards establishing an interim government for all of Palestine, was signed in Beijing and facilitated by China.
China is also the core target for U.S. imperialism in the present age; everything that Washington is doing abroad has the broader purpose of weakening China, which is the only way to extend the “American century.” The U.S. started the Ukraine war because it wanted to destabilize Russia, China’s biggest strategic partner; and the campaign to save the Zionist entity is foremost about keeping China from gaining further strength, as the existence of an “Israel” lets Washington restrict Eurasian trading power within a crucial strategic location.
Defending China is instrumental towards the Palestinian cause, as much as defending Russia is; yet these right-wing “anti-Zionist” influencers have gone along with the anti-China campaign. Which shows just how empty their “antiwar” posturing is, and what purpose they’re serving when they advocate for the U.S. to become friendly with China’s strategic partners.
One of Carlson’s tactics for vilifying China has been to connect the PRC with the Zionist entity; in one May 2025 podcast, Carlson emphasized how the entity has been sending military shipments to China, with his argument being that this means Washington is indirectly supporting its main adversary. This actually spoke to one of the more valid criticisms of China, which is that it’s been a major trading partner with “Israel.” (Though we may see this change following China’s participation in the July 2025 Bogota meeting, where the present countries agreed to re-evaluate contracts with the Zionist occupier). The problem was that Carlson had been arguing not from a place of good-faith critical analysis, but from the angle of an anti-China hawk; which entails depicting China as a moral equivalent to “Israel.”
This is how anti-China political actors have brought their American chauvinist agenda into the post-October 7 era, when U.S. imperialism’s violence has been fully exposed. It’s what the most brazenly pro-imperialist NGOs have done when they’ve revived the hoax about China committing genocide against Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims, which was a propaganda campaign that had largely lost momentum prior to when Gaza made the empire require a narrative diversion.
For influencers like Carlson to rally anti-Zionist Americans against China, they need to steer the discourse away from class conflict and national liberation. They need to portray the fight against Zionism as being not a fight against capitalism, but a battle to save the American capitalist empire from elements that have corrupted it from within. The worldview of these right opportunists sees an American empire as a good thing, separable from the monopoly finance system; but America is an empire precisely because it’s been captured by finance capital.
We’ll only see an end to the imperial system, and to imperialist projects like Zionism, when the globe’s capitalist core has been overthrown from within. This false “peace” rhetoric, propagated by actors who seek the PRC’s destruction, is about obstructing the efforts to bring such a victory for the people. And the ones suffering from it the most are the Palestinian people, whose efforts to resist their colonization have been cast as a threat towards this “peace” vision.
————————————————————————
If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here.
To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment