Above: bodies being delivered to a mass grave in Khan Younis in November 2023 (AA Photo)

Between the summer of 2024 and February 2025, the reality of the Palestinian Holocaust has been severely absent from our discourse. When last spring’s campus Gaza uprisings ended, the universities had the time to impose major new speech rules, and the media got an opportunity to redirect the discourse away from Gaza. By the time both presidential nominees were chosen, Gaza was no longer a regular part of the news cycle, and had been replaced by a constant stream of distraction stories. Therefore, the Zionist entity became able to commit even more massacres than it already was. Add half a year’s time to this, and you get the outcome we have today. An outcome where at the very least, the entity has murdered 200 thousand Gazans.

The irony is that many of the political actors who were supposed to fight against the genocide have come to hold a crucial role in getting things to this point. When Palestine was de-centered in the discourse, the organized left failed to sufficiently push against this trend; that’s because their foremost priority came to be anti-Trumpism. PSL, DSA, and the other major left orgs have tried to build a protest movement that’s specifically anti-Trump, rather than focused on Palestine as the central issue. And this has put the Palestinians in an even more vulnerable place. The Zionist entity has momentarily retreated from Gaza not because of the U.S. pro-Palestine movement—which has become highly weakened—but because of the strength of the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinians have been left to carry forth this fight on their own, and though they’ve gained a strategic victory, many more of them will be murdered unless we re-center Palestine.

The great danger which appeared after last month’s ceasefire agreement was that the empire’s narrative management machine would succeed at burying the genocide. That the prevailing narrative on Gaza would be one about Trump having brought “peace,” and ended what the media calls the “Israel-Hamas war.” This is the false story that the Zionists desperately want people to believe about those fifteen months after October 7. Their narrative is that this was all just a “war” between the Jewish people and the modern-day Nazis; and that many died in this “war,” but this was the fault of Hamas. The IDF soldiers didn’t want to kill all those defenseless people, say the Zionists; Hamas forced them to do this by using “human shields.”

There was no way this lie could succeed. Far too many have been able to understand that this was not a war, but a systematic, deliberate slaughter of a people as punishment for existing. Many also see that this wasn’t about defending the Jewish people. It was about trying to eliminate a population that stands in the way of U.S. imperialism’s quest for world domination, with the empire using Jewish fascists as its proxy for doing so.

By the time the ceasefire came, the bulk of our society had either gained this level of knowledge about the situation, or at least come to recognize that the bombing wasn’t justified. Under cover of the illusion about “peace” having been reached, the Zionist carried out more bombings of Gaza, acting like these were only exceptional actions meant to fight “terrorists infrastructure.” The aggressors were trying to see how much they could still get away with. Now, in these last few days, the entity has partnered with Trump to launch the next phase in the extermination effort. The president has promised to have the U.S. occupy Gaza, using American troops if necessary. Even if that military action doesn’t happen, Trump most certainly wants to facilitate an ethnic cleansing, and this Gaza statement is meant to pressure Egypt and Jordan into helping with that project. The evil nature of this plan is so brazen, it will create a new and far more effective pro-Palestine revolt; that is, if the new pro-Palestine struggle can learn from the errors of the old one.

We must avoid the trap of an “anti-Trump” movement. We must avoid adventurist tactics, like blocking roads. We must not seek to appease the NGOs, like the established left orgs do. Conversely, we shouldn’t support Trump, or act like he’s a genuine threat to the imperial project. In regards to MAGA, the correct posture to take is one of calling out Trump for his betrayals of MAGA’s goals.

We must be open to welcoming all parts of the masses who have revolutionary potential, whether they’re MAGA supporters, libertarians, former Democrat voters who’ve been disillusioned over Gaza, or independents. And when it comes to tactics, we need to do more than protests, which are essentially all that the organized left is doing; we must carry out worker organizing and community organizing, of the kinds that let us reach the broad masses. One of the organized left’s problems is that it only focuses on connecting with the students; the students must be merely one among the many elements we reach.

These are the steps required for rescuing the pro-Palestine movement—and all other aspects of popular struggle—from petty-bourgeois radicalism. Gus Hall explained the reasoning behind petty-bourgeois radicalism; it’s the same inwardly focused mentality that’s led to actions like the PSL’s road blockages:

The very premise of petty-bourgeois radicalism is that it is impossible to win the working class in the struggle against capitalism. From this it follows that mass concepts of struggle are not possible, necessary or realistic. This leads to actions based on small elite groups––or to individual action. Because this concept is not concerned with winning over masses, it promotes and condones actions that alienate masses. There is an inner logic to this path. Specific actions are taken because there is a lack of confidence in mass–in class–actions. These ill-considered actions result in widening the gap between the petty-bourgeois radical movements and the masses. This widening gap then becomes “proof” that you cannot win masses and therefore the line of conduct of these movements is justified. Each step leads to a further isolation. This is the inner logic of petty-bourgeois radicalism.

Because the nature of petty-bourgeois radicalism is to undermine itself, during this last year all the orgs which represent this problem have destroyed their own relevance. At least since November 2024, the left hasn’t held the influence which it had during the bulk of the Biden era. The pro-Palestine mass upsurge gave the left an opportunity to fail on a massive scale; these orgs took on the task of leading this vast movement, and then they squandered its immense strength. Just because the anti-Zionist cause was set back, though, doesn’t mean the mass support for it is gone; there’s more support for it than ever. Amid the self-defeat of the actors which harmed the movement, we have an opening to rebuild it in a new form.

These petty-bourgeois radical forces still have the ability to guide protests, but protests aren’t everything; the anti-imperialists who seek to rectify the movement’s errors can also guide the struggle. We’re in place to make Palestine an issue that transcends the traditional ideological divides. That unifies the bulk of our society, in the way opposition towards slavery came to do. The supporters of the genocide remain vocal, and they’ll keep getting more aggressive; but the side of justice is the side that’s headed for victory.

Regime change, subversion, and other forms of lethal meddling are vital to the Empire. They won't be retired any time soon, or ever, as long as the Empire is around.

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Anyone who’s simply saying Donald Trump has dismantled USAID, without including the other parts of this story, is putting forth a narrative of false hope. The potential for ending U.S. imperialism’s global destabilization efforts cannot be found within any top-down policy change; it can only be found within the effort to overthrow our capitalist state. The Trump White House hasn’t been pressured into dismantling the regime change network, and if Trump were to do this, the imperialist deep state would assassinate him. The thing he’s actually done is transfer resources from the State Department and its non-governmental organizations, to the covert operations programs of the CIA. Which means the destabilization efforts are now going to be much better hidden, and those who oppose them will need to be more diligent in detecting and exposing them. 

This is absolutely a sign of the U.S. empire’s decline. For Washington to stop advertising its foreign meddling efforts, when it used to feel comfortable having them out in the open, shows how the U.S. ruling class no longer trusts its people to go along with imperialism’s crimes. Gaza was the thing that put much more mass attention upon the activities of the United States government, and created a sense that these activities must become more concealed. The enemy we’re up against has come to have unprecedented vulnerabilities; when the pro-Palestine movement gained serious momentum around a year ago, our ruling class scrambled to divert the national conversation, because suddenly the war machine was in jeopardy.

The main problem we face at this stage is how difficult it is to keep the dialogue centered around Palestine. This ceasefire has happened not because of the pro-Palestine movement, but because of the efforts of the Palestinian resistance itself; since last summer, the USA’s Gaza protests have lacked the impact they initially had. And because the task of resistance has been fully placed upon the Palestinians themselves, this “peace” deal is only a partial concession. The Zionist entity has continued bombing Gaza to the extent that it feels it can get away with this. And should Trump carry out his plan to invade Gaza, he won’t have to confront a strong pro-Palestine movement; this movement has been greatly weakened, and to obstruct the invasion we’ll need to rebuild what we lost.

The mainstream media isn’t the only thing preventing us from doing this. Another obstacle is the “alternative” media, which has demonstrated a profound unwillingness to honestly report on imperialism’s crimes. And because the alt media is supposed to be what antiwar people can trust, it poses a greater danger of misleading those with partial revolutionary consciousness.

That so many alt media figures have uncritically repeated the myth of Trump ending U.S. regime change operations proves the extent of its failure. In judging whether a given discourse actor is guilty of this, the important question is how they choose to frame the news about USAID being defunded. There’s extra context to this topic, and to omit that context is to put forth a dangerously false view. One of the biggest Twitter accounts that’s done this is BRICS News, and the way in which it’s done this is indicative of a deeper issue. When BRICS News has made posts about the USAID de-funding, it’s often presented Elon Musk as an admirable figure within this supposed anti-imperialist effort, writing statements like: “JUST IN: Elon Musk says ‘USAID is a criminal organization.’ Do you agree?” There’s no effort to provide deeper insight into the situation; only short and quippy bulletins that tell a small aspect of the story.

The essence of the problem is that unless an alternative media source has a class analysis behind it, or at least is being run with a dedication towards anti-imperialism, then it can’t properly inform; its role is simply to gain currency within the attention marketplace. Which incentivizes the creators behind it to only tell people what they want to hear, and omit crucial realities about how imperialism works. Imperialism isn’t a policy; it isn’t something the core capitalist countries view as optional. When a capitalist country has the socioeconomic advantages that allow for it to be imperialist, it will have an imperialist role, and the only way to stop this is through class struggle. The empire’s destabilization efforts won’t end until the USA’s people have overthrown the capitalist state, and the empire itself ceases to exist. To defeat the state, we must operate with the knowledge that there are no easy victories; that the enemy we face is never going to willingly stop exacting violence.

To understand the nature of the violence which the enemy intends to inflict next, we can look at the CIA’s plans for Gaza. The Biden administration put together a scheme to create concentration camps for Gaza’s people, with the CIA being assigned to run these facilities. Because the Trump administration explicitly seeks to ethnically cleanse Gaza, this scheme absolutely continues to be in motion, and the transfer of funds to covert ops means Washington is now concentrating its efforts behind the project. That’s why Egypt and the “Israeli” settler entity are the two states which have been totally exempt from the foreign aid reduction: these are the states which encircle Gaza, and will be tasked with the operation for regime change in Gaza. Wrote Dan Cohen about the Biden White House’s ideas for using the CIA to achieve this final solution in Gaza:

The company at the forefront of this plan is called Global Delivery Company, described in its promotional materials as a “Uber for war zones.” Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana owns it and employs several top Israeli and American military intelligence officials…Kahana has played a key role in the dirty war against Syria in the 2010s and worked with the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army to provide food and medical care to militants and civilians alike…Kahana’s Gaza plan has been in the works since at least February, 2024. He presented the plan to establish these electronic cantons – what Jewish News referred to as “gated communities” – to the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, as well as Netanyahu. U.S. officials did not respond. While the Israeli military had agreed, the Israeli prime minister shot it down. “What’s the rush?” he quipped. The Israeli military has also been in talks with Kahana to deploy its mercenaries to secure the Netzarim corridor, which bisects the Gaza Strip. The GDC’s CIA mercenaries would be in full control of humanitarian aid, thereby supplanting Hamas and ending its governance, they figure, achieving a long-term goal of the Israeli war.

This is one among countless ways these covert ops are going to manifest. It’s apparent that a major goal behind this project is to manage populations; to put them behind walls. Wherever the peoples of the world can’t defend themselves from imperialism, this is what imperialism will do to them; it’s what’s been happening to Syria’s people since the U.S. overthrew Assad two months ago, and “Israel” got enabled to occupy much more of the country. The Zionist entity is now expanding its military presence inside Syria, with the plan being to set up settlements on the newly stolen land.

The solution is to commit to the fight against the hegemon, which the Palestinians have shown everyone how to do. Because of their obstinate struggle, the plans to clear out Gaza and establish these death camps have been foiled. If the ethnic cleansing project still hasn’t succeeded after fifteen months of genocidal siege, then the invaders can only expect to keep meeting insurmountable obstacles. The people’s resolve has not been weakened, and the Al Qassam brigades have seen their numbers grow since October 7; when a resistance project is dedicated, the attempts to crush the people end up backfiring.

The notion that we can vote out imperialism has again been disproved. And the revolutionary path, represented by the Palestinian resistance, has again been vindicated. By refusing to abandon this fight, and not embracing any illusions about negotiating with the enemy, the Palestinians have tangibly weakened their foes. They’ve brought the Zionist entity closer to collapse than ever, and forced the empire to change its strategy. During the struggle’s next stage, many more of the globe’s people will join with the Palestinians in taking this path. We have no choice but to join them; the circumstances have shown this is our only option.

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