Went to a Palestinian solidarity protest/rally with some new folks who’d become radicalised against America/the West over the last six months. They aren’t socialists (yet, I’m working on it) - but they’re good people. So, seeing the genocide and its support by our governments filled them with disgust. We talked about the Nakba, the history of Zionism, and the current apartheid etc.
Now, we come to the protest.
Overall, the atmosphere was incredible. Lots of cool signs, different kinds of people, and, of course the pigs. That’s not the problem.
The problem was the fucking speakers. I swear, at least half of them had to be feds whose entire job was to turn people away from turning up at these events.
Some of them, and I mean this literally, wanted the crowd to chant “we support October 7” and “we stand with Hamas”.
I swear, the way the people I was with turned to look at me.
Not every speaker was like this - most were genuine. They talked of labor solidarity, campus organizing, personal anecdotes. But all of that made these speakers stand out all the more.
The worst part is that when it would happen, the organisers was one of them. So this entire thing was a sham from the start.
I feel so bad. I shouldn’t have just brought people to a random protest I saw and should’ve vetted it first.
Like, seriously. I can’t fucking get over this. Who organizes a protests of people from all walks of life in support of Palestine and wants them to chant we stand with Hamas and let’s do one hundred more October 7s?.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Like, of fucking course Hamas is a natural reaction to apartheid and ethnic cleansing and genocide. And of course Oct 7 is nothing compared to the 200 days that followed since (or the 75 years that preceded it). But come the fuck on.
I stand with Hamas and support October 7th
I've seen photos of protestors with Hezbollah flags. We don't have to apologize for Hamas.
hezbollah, ansarallah and hamas are all showing solidarity with the western protests, and shitlibs like OP want to throw them under the bus for optics
this is why the western left sucks
You can repeat this a dozen times in this post and I won’t care (I’ll roll my eyes at you, but I won’t care). My point is simple.
If you’re going to organise a protest, at least let there be some fucking sign (I don’t mean a literal sign, just a mention on the website, the posters, the socials, something) that your gonna be shouting “I stand with Hamas” and are proud of Oct 7 out there - so I don’t end up bringing the folks I brought to it.
Ambushing them (and me) like that doesn’t work. It’ll make you feel better and like you pulled one over us, but that’s it. And the next time you organise a protest, the people you blindsided won’t turn up.
[All this assuming you’re genuine and not a fed.]
You can have the kind of radical protest you want - but it has to have the kind of radical protesters you need. Advertising it like a general one, and then pulling shit like this is fed behaviour, and if you can’t see that, then, well…
tell your lib friends that october 7th needs to happen again and again until israel ceases to exist because that's reality.
when the russian invasion happened everyone got mad at me for saying I support Russia and they need to crush Ukraine. Now everyone has come around to my position. Don't apologize for being right.
Hezbollah, Ansarallah & Hamas have all shown solidarity with western protests. The least you could do is return the favor and not be a cuck to western lib optics
My brother was a left-liberal up until October 7th. When I talked to him about it, I immediately told him “this is what the Israelis deserve and it is a military action against colonizers”.
Now he is a communist and goes to more Palestine rallies than I do. He said my answer freaked him out but made him curious to dig further.
Unapologetically standing up for the truth and for anti-imperialism worked on a Liberal. Mealy-mouthed shit did not. By optics cucking yourself you are surrendering your most powerful tool for converting Liberals, being correct. People can smell the insecurity when you handwring and beat around the bush. They respect straightforward honesty.
Your contention doesn’t seem to be that we shouldn’t critically support Hamas. It seems to be that we should keep that quiet. Cowardice, weakness, insecurity. A communist disdains to conceal their views.
You weren't ambushed, you were just naive. It's not organizers' fault that you cling to this liberalism, either.
Glad the organizers were infinitely cooler than this post.
lmao are you doing a bit
Shut the fuck up, if you want to decide what's chanted you can organise the fucking protests, you don't get to turn up to someone else's work and whine that being political is scaring off your dickhead friends.
For real, instead of just side eyeing their friends and being like "wow such violent antisemitism, amirite?" they could have taken the opportunity to explain why 10/7 happened, the reality of the uprising, and why violent resistance can be effective. Out here posting L's
You're not wrong, but it further raises the question of why OP hasn't already had that conversation with their friends. They've obviously talked enough to get them to the protest, but aren't challenging those kinds of conceptions? "To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong" etc
I’m kind of wondering here how caving to libs worked during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
Sounds like your friends are losers.
hell yeah me too
The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves, including militarily. That is not in dispute.
Civilian casualties are always regrettable. Resistance ideally targets the state's apparatus of repression.
Just as there were white South Africans who took a role in resisting apartheid, there are Israeli Jews doing so now.µ
It is indeed important not to alienate liberals. We are at a point where we are gaining wider support among the masses. The size of the protest and the extent to which it is supported by broad sections of the population do matter.
Pro-Hamas slogans have no positive role in the current wave of protests. Why do we protest? To achieve concrete victories that complicate Israeli imperialism (and in the process grow revolutionary organisations), in casu cease cooperation with Israeli universities (which often have ties to the military) and to disinvest in that country. These things are achievable, which we know because similar demands have already won in quieter contexts. However, shouting pro-hamas slogans now unnecessarily alienates us from people who agree with our demands.
People's political consciousness follows from their lived experience. If they see or experience repression at a protest with demands they agree with, their political awareness will progress by leaps and bounds. The chances of that happening because of a slogan is much smaller.
Hamas was supported for years by the Israeli state because it was to their advantage to divide the Palestinian resistance and it was a strategic goal to limit the influence of revolutionary Marxists. This has been partially successful.
Despite the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance, we should also be aware of who is organising the resistance and what kind of society they want to create. In the Iranian revolution, the communist party collaborated with the religious movement. Immediately after the revolution, the communists were massacred by the clerics. The society Hamas wants to create is not the one Marxists aspire to. So why alienate yourself from potential allies in your immediate environment by unequivocally supporting Hamas?
A quote from Lenin to end of with:
The same atittude towards pro-Palestinian protesters who are currently insufficiently revolutionary can be witnessed in this thread.