when you're colonizers with no legitimacy and have no resemblance to the land, the region, or anyone in it, you just have to keep killing and going to war with everyone around you.
a more contemptible lot has never lived.
The U.S. left really does not understand the damage it is doing to the Palestinian liberation struggle.
No serious Palestinian engaged in the struggle for liberation, whether in Palestine or in exile, would ever condemn or denounce the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, apartheid, and genocide by any means necessary.
Yet we are increasingly told that people who do exactly that are part of the movement, and that anyone who challenges them is divisive, unreasonable, or an “op.”
What this actually does is place Palestinians who remain committed to our political principles in the crosshairs of everyone: Zionists, the right wing, the state, and now even sectors of the left. It marginalizes Palestinians, portrays us as extremists for upholding positions that have always been central to our national liberation struggle, and pressures us to abandon our own political consensus in order to accommodate American political sensibilities.
The result is the isolation of Palestinians from our own movement.
And beyond being wrong, it simply does not work. Palestinians have always been told to mute criticism, soften demands, and overlook real political differences with elected officials because doing otherwise might hurt their chances of winning. We are told they secretly agree with us, that they just cannot say it publicly yet, and that once they gain power things will be different.
But the opposite keeps happening. Politicians benefit from the energy and legitimacy of the Palestine movement, then distance themselves from it once they are in office. Palestinians are expected to accept that distance, accept new compromises, and accept the constant narrowing of our politics, all in the name of pragmatism.
Meanwhile, Zionists are free to pressure those same politicians from the right without restraint, while Palestinians are told that applying pressure from our own political position is unacceptable.
If our support is always conditional on staying quiet, abandoning our principles, and never criticizing elected officials, then what is being asked of us is political obedience, and that has never advanced Palestinian liberation.