Return of the Jedi

I’m writing today to celebrate an important victory for the grassroots movement challenging the genocide in Gaza. Amid other glimmers of hope emerging as the Israeli starvation campaign continues to horrify the world, it offers an indication of growing support for peace and human rights in a critical sector poised to force human rights on Washington, despite the corruption of the two corporate political parties and their consensus favoring genocide.

New voices joining the struggle

In the last few days, voices clamoring for an end to the genocide include not only United Nations officials shaming world leaders for their willful ignorance of previous warnings, but also hundreds of former Israeli security officials.

Their voices join those of millions around the world who have spoken out in innumerable ways to defend human rights and the right to exist. Just this weekend, hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists raised their voices in Sydney, Australia, demonstrating global resistance to the escalating state violence, murder en masse, and mayhem to which Israel has remained committed for years under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Voices standing in solidarity with Gaza have increasingly extended beyond the grassroots, including government officials in nearly 150 different countries comprising three-quarters of the United Nations.

Ireland called for a Palestinian state over 40 years ago, and recently joined 25 other countries (including Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Japan) in exhorting an end to the genocide and promising that they “are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.”

Between international grassroots mobilization, and the expanding array of officials and former officials voicing their concerns, it appears the Israeli assault on Gaza and international human rights principles might have finally earned Israel the opprobrium it deserves.

That earned enmity culminated over the weekend in the arrest of Israeli soldiers in Belgium on war crimes charges. If there is any justice in the world, it will be followed by more arrests of figures including senior officials most responsible for the international human rights abuses of Israeli forces.

A hero returns

I’ve written about Chris Smalls at least twice, including once last week after he was detained and assaulted by Israeli authorities when trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza alongside 21 other international activists aboard the ship Handala.

Last weekend, Chris returned home. He was greeted by supporters at JFK airport in New York City, where he promised, “We're gonna send another flotilla. Another one after that. And we're never gonna quit and give up.”

It’s worth noting that U.S. State Department officials ignored pleas from his family and supporters to intervene, effectively abandoning Chris to his fate. His release and return home were not victories for the United States or its government, but it was a tremendous victory for We, the People of a country run amok.

Chris had previously exhorted the labor movement to show solidarity with Gaza and Palestine, reminding labor leaders and the rank & file alike that “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

Coming from someone with his prolific history of challenging notoriously abusive titans of industry and emerging victorious, his call for solidarity—and subsequent return after enduring state violence—could invite further concerns from any number of figures in organized labor. Because labor is so remarkably influential when mobilized, the engagement of that sector could dramatically change the balance of interests considered by (ultimately self-interested) world leaders, including our own.

Joseph Campbell wrote at some length about the capacity of heroes to inspire, as well as common elements of their paths to the realization of their power. Most heroes remain rooted in the realm of myth, but others—like Chris, or whoever is holding down the next vigil for Gaza in your community—walk among us today.

What’s at stake?

History offers many examples of labor mobilizations challenging the decisions of elected officials and business leaders. I’ve long dreamed of a general strike, and advocated for one in many forums. Even short of that seemingly mythical possibility, mobilization by organized labor within any number of sectors, particularly including shipping and transportation, could grind the economy to a halt.

While our nation’s leaders remain committed to assaulting human rights, the one thing they do seem to still care about is (at least perceptions of) economic performance.

More than once this spring, President Trump announced policies only to reverse course after financial markets confirmed the concerns of global capital. The pattern grew so routine that critics described it via acronym: TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).

On Friday, he prompted rare bipartisan outrage by firing Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Elected officials even within his own party—who have repeatedly contorted themselves to avoid criticizing him—raised concerns. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) summed up the underlying issue: “You can’t really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting.”

Nothing, even politically damaging economic statistics, would force the president’s hand more strongly than strikes impeding critical industries.

Has anyone learned anything?

The casualties of the Israeli genocide in Gaza stretch beyond hundreds of thousands of lives, the hopes of parents, and the futures of children selectively murdered or maimed by American weapons in the hands of unaccountable war criminals.

The genocide in Gaza definitively disproved any pretense of human progress. Many students of history falsely imagine a narrative of inevitable progress over time, but the regression of international human rights currently spearheaded by Israel and the United States reveals that any illusion of progress is either historically circumstantial, imaginary, or both.

The genocide in Gaza also revealed the true nature of the Internet, which was promised to us as a way to enable global connections and enable accountability that would otherwise have been missing. In fact, major technology platforms have spent years relentlessly censoring users to silence and obscure speech aimed to defend human rights and expose official state crimes for which Israeli officials are wanted around the world.

In addition, the Israeli genocide in Gaza exposed the fraud of Zionism and its co-optation of the international Jewish community. We are witnessing human rights abuses at a scale, and with an impunity, unseen since the Holocaust. By some measures, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has proven even more successful than the German attempt in Europe that appears to have inspired it.

On the one hand, far more Jews died in the death chambers of Nazi Germany than Palestinians have under Israeli & American bombs. But the community of Jews was able to persist and find a future, whereas the Palestinian civilization in Gaza has been effectively destroyed.

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Finally, the genocide in Gaza seems to have finally forced the rest of the world to recognize that the United States no longer supports the human rights we once pioneered. One may plausibly wonder why, after the brutality evident from Vietnam in the 1970s to Iraq in the 2000s, it took the devastation of Gaza in the 2020s to expose that reality to so many international observers.

However late to the proverbial party, the arrival of the international community—if not mobilization by organized labor within the U.S.—might yet force the hand of Washington & Tel Aviv.

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