If you’re in the empire’s core, how can you make sure that these growing disadvantages of our enemies bring about the end of Zionism? By recognizing how much of an opportunity we in the United States have for mobilizing our society’s people against the imperial system, and seizing this opportunity.
This isn’t something all of the modern U.S. left is willing to do, because there’s an idea within these left spaces that our society’s people aren’t overall compatible with the revolutionary cause. That in order to be part of the pro-Palestine struggle, or any other social movement, all the participants in these causes must first conform to leftism’s own ideological standards. This excludes anybody who’s socially conservative, or who isn’t of the mindset that U.S. patriotism should be discarded, or who rejects even quite fringe ideas (like the often dogmatic academic theories which many leftists espouse). This reluctance to accept help from the country’s masses on anti-imperialism, even though these masses have now mostly turned against both the Ukraine and “Israel” proxy wars, comes from a misunderstanding of the nature of our conditions.
A common impulse among disillusioned radicals is to look at the real or perceived ways in which their country’s people hold backward views, and conclude that this means the people are fundamentally reactionary. To illustrate why this perception is skewed, I’ll compare the USA’s people to the “Israeli” people. Because if you want to know what a fundamentally reactionary population actually looks like, you only need to look at the overwhelming majority of “Israelis.” There are great differences between this population, and what the USA’s population is like.
The big diversion between the two is that whereas the USA’s people have been reacting to the 21st century’s crises by growing increasingly hostile towards the imperialist system, the settlers within “Israel” have only gotten more defensive of the oppressive old order. This inverse kind of development has applied the most to young people in both the U.S. and “Israel.”
Whereas in the USA we’re seeing a generational divide over Zionism, especially among Jewish people, in “Israel” the younger generation has been more attracted to right-wing politics than the older ones. Because these youths have grown up in a time when they’re more insulated from conflict than any past generation in “Israel,” government propaganda has been able to condition them especially well towards rejecting empathy. They’re among the most inclined to support the extreme and inhumane “solutions” for Palestine which Netanyahu and his far-right governing coalition put forth. Aside from the heroic few who do the right thing when they’re drafted, and resign themselves to incarceration rather than participating in genocide, nearly all within this generation have been going along with the rightist institutional trend in “Israel.” An element of dissenters is there, but it’s not anywhere near as substantial as the resistance that young Americans mounted against the Vietnam war.
With the depression that working-class Americans have been in since 2008, though, today’s U.S. youth have even more revolutionary potential than the country’s youth from fifty years ago did. Whereas socialism was marginal during the time of 60s and 70s radicalism, today almost half of younger Americans actively like socialism more than capitalism. Even more of them recognize that “Israel” is committing genocide. Why is the USA going in this direction, while “Israel” is going in an opposite direction, even though both countries are founded on settler-colonialism? Because the U.S. has ironically become so successful in its colonial project that it’s not capable of keeping its broad masses loyal towards its social system.
“Israel” is physically tiny, only as big as a few California counties. Within this small space, the U.S. empire has cultivated a racial supremacist welfare colony. A place where people from one ethnic group are incentivized to move to, so that they can receive benefits from U.S. tax dollars. And even this isn’t enough to let the Zionist state truly feel secure. Because though the majority of people in “Israel” are Arab Jews, around 20% of them are non-Jewish Arabs, and the state feels the need to heavily crack down on their potential means for gaining representation. In the United States, where the settler state which was founded in the 18th century has since grabbed up an entire continent, the state is facing great threats from its own people. It’s being challenged both by its highly substantial nonwhite population, and by the many whites who’ve gained revolutionary potential.
This is what happens when a settler state becomes big enough to effectively encompass numerous different nations, and when it’s become the center of imperialism. The modern U.S. is incapable of being homogeneous either ethnically or culturally, and its imperialist system makes for austerity to be imposed on its working class. There’s great diversity within our society, and a great sense of shared disenfranchisement by our government. So a revolutionary consciousness is developing among U.S. workers of all colors.
This threat towards the imperial system’s future comes from not just the left-leaning Americans, who are most inclined to oppose Zionism, but also from the MAGA base. The problem we must overcome is that these elements have broken from the pro-imperialist ideology in different ways. The left wing is the most pro-Palestine, yet is the most inclined to be anti-Russia. While conservatives are the most inclined to support Russia, yet the least willing to support Palestine. This divide is absolutely the product of ruling class psyops, and to win we’re going to need to do two things: 1) build a united front among the different ideological elements which are willing to collaborate on antiwar issues, and 2) educate more of the public on the lies their government has told them about Washington’s target countries. Then we’ll be able to carry out a resistance towards U.S. foreign policy that’s sustainable, not able to be divided, and not able to be co-opted.
That’s how we strike a blow against Zionism: rally the USA’s people around an effort to cut “Israel” off from the American support which it overwhelmingly relies on. Zionism is fundamentally weak. Only the population of tiny “Israel” supports Zionism’s genocidal goals in such an overwhelming and stubborn way. The Zionist state has isolated itself from the globe, including a growing number of the people within its closest partnered country. The perpetual radicalization of its population towards genocidal zeal can only act to speed up its demise, and to make more Americans realize that Zionism is unsalvageable.
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