October 7, 2024 marks one year of the latest and most brutal stage of Israel’s genocide in Palestine—a continuation of more than 76 years of Nakba.
Since that day, Israel has murdered over 200,000 Palestinians. Because of the targeting of hospitals and public infrastructure the best estimates are likely undercountings of the true loss of life.
At the same time, Israel has assassinated ceasefire negotiators, used starvation as a weapon of war, tortured and detained children, and carried out a list of additional atrocities too numerous to list fully.
But this is not new, it is merely an acceleration of policy already in place and acted upon for decades. The slow strangulation of Gaza by “mowing the lawn”, “putting Palestinians on a diet”, killing peace activists and journalists, targeting civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, schools, and hospitals, and constantly expanding illegal settlements into the West Bank makes Israel’s final goal clear: eradication of the Palestinian people and the theft of all their land.
In the face of this what must be done? We have a clear moral obligation to call for the end to all weapon shipments to Israel. To resist the churning war machine at the heart of US imperialism, no matter who is in The White House after November. Our current federal administration has dragged Americans into funding billions of dollars worth of bombs while we abandon those impacted by climate catastrophes such as the victims of Hurricane Helene. Our state government continues to give tax breaks to war profiteers as it fails to tax the wealthy and forces austerity on schools. If the US stopped funding the Israeli military, this genocide and regional war escalation would stop tomorrow. But in a capitalist system, bombing children is a profitable priority while educating them is not.
We see the same xenophobia, repression, and violence that some of us remember from the start of endless war in the Middle East. We see our comrades face trial for civil disobedience and our friends murdered as they protest peacefully. Make no mistake: this is another US war of aggression in the Middle East, this time fought through its client state of Israel.
For decades, the international community, especially those with experience resisting imperialism and apartheid, have understood the asymmetry of power in the relationship between colonizer and colonized. Because of this international community we’ve seen calls from South Africa and others against the genocidal war. We have seen arrest warrants called for and issued for top Israeli war criminals. We have confirmed what we knew already, that the occupation is illegal, yet the US continues to undermine international law by supporting Israel’s crimes both economically and politically.
As we mourn the lives of the last year, we are more concerned than ever, as we have seen Israel assassinate leaders in Iran and Lebanon while refusing every ceasefire deal presented to them. We have seen them invade, bomb, and escalate this war in every possible sense with the intent of drawing other nations into their own genocidal fervor.
What may be unique about this moment, however, is the growing support for Palestinian liberation. Around the globe, millions of working people have taken action, risking their own safety, to stand with the people of Palestine. Marching and sitting in to disrupt business as usual, blocking industry and even trade routes. Right here on the West Coast, brave ILWU dockworkers in the Bay Area refused to load weapons to be shipped for Israel. This international solidarity movement has rightly made Israel a pariah state for their genocidal actions.
In Seattle DSA we are honored to be a part of that growing movement. We have been out in the streets for a year now. We fight alongside our Palestinian, Arab, and Jewish comrades and the many other organizations they are a part of. We have helped organize marches, rallies, sit-ins, passed union resolutions and signed up hundreds upon hundreds of people to commit to boycotting war profiteers. We will continue fighting for Palestine until the genocide ceases, until the occupation ends, until the apartheid is abolished, until the right of return to stolen homes is restored, until true liberation for Palestinians is achieved.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Solidarity,
Seattle DSA
