To find an alternative to AOC’s “democratic socialism,” we must investigate why exactly these politics are harmful to Palestine, and all other areas in the popular struggle. Putting forth such an alternative is an important part of critiquing social democrats, because without presenting a credible solution, we’ll fall into ultra-leftist patterns. When I decry social democrat politicians as a Marxist, I am doing so with the awareness that these figures are the only version of “socialism” which their supporters have overall been exposed to. And to draw these working-class Americans away from social democracy, which is now a highly urgent task, we must explain which forces of popular revolution the socdems have set themselves up against.
In global terms, these forces are the mass movements that have been waging wars of resistance against U.S. imperial aggression, with the Palestinian resistance being the foremost struggle that leaders like AOC oppose. We know they oppose this struggle because every one of these “progressive” leaders, when they’ve come across opportunities to align with Palestine’s fight for liberation, have done what the occupier prefers. They’ve served as “progressive” launderers for Zionism at a moment when Zionism is in unprecedented existential danger, is surrounded by a world that hates it more than ever, and needs spokespeople who can put a friendly face on it.
Because the bulk of Gen Z have come to understand why Zionism is irredeemable, every time these politicians betray the Palestinian cause they further alienate themselves from their primary base. Bernie Sanders and AOC have voted to continue funding the Zionist occupier’s “defensive” military equipment, and Zohran has taken the Zionist position by affirming the occupier’s supposed right to exist. Now, AOC has again shown a lack of commitment to fighting against aid to the occupation by stating that due to existing U.S. foreign aid policies, “I believe the Israeli government is well able to fund the Iron Dome system, which has proven critical to keep innocent civilians safe from rocket attacks and bombardment.” This was how AOC qualified her pledge not to continue voting for the Iron Dome aid, which evidently still comes with a fundamental desire to counter Gaza’s resistance coalition; AOC’s language clearly implies that this choice comes from a confidence in the occupier being able to wage its colonial war without her help. When this changes, AOC will get behind the occupier, along with every other “soft” Zionist leader.
Because of how transparent AOC’s opportunism is, it’s harder for AOC to keep up a “pro-Palestine” image than it is for someone in Zohran’s position. These figures are always going to play a gatekeeping role in relation to Palestine, though. And one indication of this is that Zohrah still doesn’t appear to be pursuing his campaign promise of having New York City implement BDS.
Instead he’s taken a position in the middle, and revoked a previous anti-BDS measure while not going all the way. And we should draw attention to this failure, as it illustrates how much of an impact these figures would have if they were to truly act principled on Palestine; NYC adopting BDS would have a gargantuan domino effect, encouraging other cities to do the same. It was exciting prospects like this one that gained Zohran such a large base. Yet these prospects are not materializing, which isn’t something Marxists are glad about; we we don’t want it to be true that the biggest “socialist” faction is obstructing the fight against the Gaza genocide. We aren’t here to be ankle-biters against these leaders, but to offer a mode of struggle where the popular masses are truly in control.
I’m not just talking about my own communist party the ACP; a party is only a vehicle for advancing the interests of the masses, who are the core drivers of the struggle. And in the case of the Palestinian liberation struggle, the primary masses who we must account for are the Palestinian people themselves. This is something that the Palestinian community’s internal critics of reformism and capitulationism have stressed. One example of this is a statement from March 10, attributed by Al-Akhbar to numerous Palestinian and Arab thinkers. They explain how
Concepts of liberation and the national project must be formulated from the real material conditions of resistance environments: the refugee camp, the village, the prison cell, the trench and the tunnel. We reject imported liberal frameworks and ready-made formulas designed according to the preferences and interests of comprador forces and the colonial core. These models are used as tools for social engineering to freeze and neutralize Arab social and political forces from the real struggle, while the enemy continues to pursue its goals ruthlessly to their conclusion. True liberation begins with dismantling epistemic colonialism as a prerequisite for full liberation…
This charter calls for reclaiming national decision-making from elites accustomed to acting as intermediaries and agents, and returning it to the masses and the social environments that sustain resistance and shape history through their sacrifices. It is a call to move beyond the politics of begging towards the dismantling of colonial structures.
This is the posture that the Palestinian resistance takes, and our own movements must adopt the equivalent of this posture in order to succeed. We have to take example from Palestine’s liberation movement, and the other Global South struggles, by rejecting the false allies who are collaborators with capital.
After the 1967 Zionist land grab, Palestine’s communists concluded that they had to identify who their cause’s core allies were among the different Palestinian economic classes, with the enslaved proletarians and the imprisoned masses being the ones they decided to prioritize. And this reckoning with the question of class has allowed the struggle to get much further since then. In the case of the American popular struggle, applying this practice looks like aligning ourselves with such working-class forces within Palestine and all other countries, while recognizing who our foremost class allies are domestically.
We must reject the compatible left politics that seeks alignment with the professional-managerial class, which is the element that these pro-imperialist “progressives” most seek to serve. There are indications that our ruling class will soon act to expand the PMC by bribing many more U.S. workers with imperialist super-profits, thus creating a larger social base for the empire’s next wars. But this strategy will fail if we don’t cede the working class to the socdems, and bring them into the proletarian struggle before our enemies intercept them; while also reaching into the parts of the American masses who won’t be given these benefits. Rural America is where we must especially look while undertaking this mission, because though our ruling class can rebuild the labor aristocracy, liberalism inevitably exacerbates the contradiction between the metropole and the countryside.
It is in these parts of the masses where we’ll find the most reliable allies of the Palestinian resistance, and of the wider effort to overthrow monopoly financial rule. The socdems seek to build an alliance between the bourgeoisified American workers—who they may soon create more of—and the comprador elites who protect Zionism with the rhetoric of progress. We will overwhelm them from below, building an alliance between those who share an interest in the imperial order’s destruction.
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