A discussion on tactics
By DAN BELLE
After more than six months of Israel’s offensive on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Washington faces growing troubles that flow from its partnership in the destruction of Palestinian society. These range from the economic and political consequences of the war’s expansion (including interruption of the Suez canal) to increasing global isolation.
Perhaps one of the most telling recent signs is the public resignation of State Department staffer Anelle Sheline. Sheline’s resignation letter is neither diplomatic nor ambiguous. It holds the U.S. to be directly responsible for genocide, identifies specific American laws that are violated, and ends by quoting Aaron Bushnell, an Air Force service member who set himself on fire to protest the American-Israeli war on Palestine.
Maybe most significantly, Sheline states that while working for the State Department in the Middle East, members of civil society stopped responding to her, and that her work had “become almost impossible.” And not only that; she indicated that she would have resigned privately, had not her co-workers begged her to speak up for them. The resignation is thus an indicator of the deepening international isolation facing the United States and the growing crisis this poses in a world with rising inter-imperialist competition and shifting alliances.
Alongside the international challenge is a deepening domestic opposition that already is spreading to unexpected places. Amidst ceaseless demonstrations, polls find that U.S. support for the genocidal war continues to fall. And whether Sheline believes her resignation letter may afford her better career opportunities, or whether she experienced a genuine moral crisis, it is no small question if Washington cannot be sure of its own staff’s loyalty. Such resignations were part of the crises produced by the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
In response, Biden and layers of the Democratic Party are making tactical shifts in their stance towards the war. These shifts are intended to soften isolation abroad and also to derail the solidarity movement in the U.S. itself. If the movement is to grow stronger, it will need to respond to these shifts appropriately.
One approach, exemplified by Senator Chuck Schumer, is to deflect criticism of Israel and U.S. support for it by focusing attacks on Prime Minister Netanyahu—as if a new Israeli government would end the offensive on Palestinians that Washington is so faithfully supplying.
Another approach is to focus criticism on ill-defined methods of war. Though they may tie such criticism to threats of conditioning aid to Israel, this approach gives American officials and politicians plenty of room to maneuver. It is exposed quickly by the fact that the U.S. continues to supply Israel with the 2000-pound bombs that allow it to kill such an extraordinary number of civilians and flatten infrastructure—bombs that even the U.S. hasn’t used in its recent wars.
The demand for a “ceasefire”
Perhaps most dangerous is the use of the “ceasefire” demand. The call for a ceasefire has now been used at several junctures to attack and undermine the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance and provide justification for Israel’s offensive. The first instance was months ago, when Washington blamed Hamas for the collapse of the negotiations following the ceasefire of Nov. 24-30. Then a U.S. ceasefire proposal made in early March was used by Kamala Harris (and others) to accuse Hamas of being responsible for the continuation of the war.
The March 22 U.S. proposal to the UN Security Council is now regularly used by Biden and others to place blame for the continuation of the war on Hamas. More local Democrats are taking up this line. For instance, when defending Biden, the Democratic governor of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, said that he backs “Biden’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza tied to the release of the hostages held by Hamas.”
Unfortunately, six months in, much of the solidarity movement in the United States still raises the demand for a ceasefire, despite its explicit use by the war’s backers to justify continuing the destruction of Gaza. The demand has always contained this political cover. A ceasefire is an agreement between two adversaries to put down their guns, and so this call always at least implies a demand placed on two sides.
Though many early on likely viewed the phrase “ceasefire” as simply the most immediate cessation of the offensive, the call for a ceasefire places demands on Palestinians as well as Israel. It implies that Palestinians are responsible for the genocide committed against them, and that there are conditions on opposing genocide: The call for ceasefire suggests that Israel may continue bombing, shooting, torturing, and starving Palestinians until all Palestinian factions agree to stop fighting back and acquiesce to terms that Israel and the U.S. agree with. This aspect of the demand is made explicit by Biden, Harris, and their backers. It follows a long tradition of blaming the expansion of Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing on Palestinians’ failure to sign the right sort of “two-state solution.”
In the movement itself, it is widely understood that Israel and the U.S. are the aggressors, and activists often see the ceasefire demand as applying to Israel and the U.S. alone. But the vast majority of those sympathetic to the movement (some 150-250 million people as suggested by polls) still rely on bourgeois political leaders and media outlets for a framework to understand the world. For many, Kamala Harris’ call for an immediate ceasefire and the return of hostages cannot be distinguished from ceasefire demands raised by mass marches defending Palestinians.
Why does the demand for ceasefire maintain its grip on the movement? At this date, a simple misunderstanding of the demand’s meaning is not a sufficient explanation. There are plenty of demands which place no conditions upon ending genocide and no demands on Palestinians resisting apartheid and ethnic cleansing: “End the Siege, End the Bombing, Stop the Genocide” are some examples. The call to end the siege is all the more pressing now that starvation threatens to kill hundreds of thousands in the coming weeks and months.
The ceasefire demand retains its hold in large part because much of the movement (or at least its leadership) does not see any power capable of intervening decisively other than the Democratic Party and the wing of big business that it represents. They still look to those who order the weapons, not to those who make them or transport them. They look to the owners and managers of society’s wealth, not to those who create it.
The present movement is highly influenced by models of organizing (popularized in the U.S. by figures like Saul Alinsky) who say we must organize around “winnable demands,” that is, demands that we expect those in power are ready to concede. In this model, it does not matter if winning such demands make a material change so much as whether they can be clearly identified and catalogued. Building a resume of such victories is supposed to build participants’ confidence in themselves, their movement, and their organizations. Movements and organizations are supposed to grow and “build power” by this road and be able to make ever more ambitious demands.
But while it is true that perceived victories do tend to build confidence and awareness of collective power, at least in the short term, movements organized around demands supported by layers of the ruling class inevitably run into a dead end. By organizing around such a program, this model also builds confidence in members of the ruling class who are ready to concede the chosen demands. The movement’s leaders and ranks find themselves promoting ruling class figures and their solutions. While confidence may grow, participants learn that they need to win support from ruling circles to be “effective.” This confuses the question of who the enemy is, where our power comes from, and what we can actually achieve.
A simple example of this approach can be found in the decision to organize support for the Affordable Care Act (or in restricting activity to demanding a “public option”) rather than creating an independent movement for the more popular and vastly more beneficial single-payer program.
Most gravely, the capitalist class does not have an infinite string of concessions it is willing or capable of giving. One cannot get from here to the end of imperialism and apartheid one “winnable” demand at a time. In fact, as it goes into crisis, the imperialists’ ability to grant concessions shrinks. And so at the very moment when a qualitative leap in struggle emerges (or at least is necessary), such pragmatic leaders are incapable of leading a fight. They are too dependent on their friends in high places.
This was the story of reformist socialism in Europe on the eve of World War I and in the prelude to fascism. The failure of massive socialist parties to break with capital broke the confidence of millions in socialism and even in the working class itself. This was also the story more recently of Syriza after it took office in Greece and immediately implemented the same austerity measures it campaigned to end – and repressed those socialists who still fought in the streets.
The model of building movements around demands acceptable to the powerful has been popularized by a class-collaborationist wing of the trade-union movement, and by a seemingly endless supply of non-profit organizations. For such grant-seekers, an identifiable resume of accomplishments is necessary for their organization and their career. It is the pinnacle of common sense.
Attachment to the ceasefire demand also stems from a belief that working people don’t understand the need to defend Palestinian self-determination and that they won’t any time soon. It reflects a fear of connecting seriously with broader masses, of engaging millions of people in earnest political discussion and education.
The owners of capital and the holders of office do not constitute the only force in society. Workers and soldiers have more power with their hands in their pockets. And at least twice in the 20th century, American soldiers have ended wars by their own action.
The first was when the U.S. attempted to intervene directly in the Chinese civil war and elsewhere in Asia after World War II. Soldiers and their communities saw no reason to tell the Chinese how to live, and organized the “Going Home” movement. It was so successful that direct intervention never got off the ground.
The second was during the Vietnam War. Then a movement of millions took a decade to form, which found its way so deeply into the soldiers’ ranks that the Pentagon leadership decided in 1971 that the ground forces had become a liability in the war effort and that troops needed to be withdrawn to prevent the collapse of the military. That war and the draft were both ended by the combined resistance of the Vietnamese and the movement in the United States, along with the wider global movement.
Today, the central question is how far the movement can reach into the ranks of the working class—several sectors of which could, on their own, shut down this genocide in a week.
Today’s movement will not advance by organizing people around what leaders think those in high places are willing to grant. It will succeed by organizing people around the maximum principled demands which can connect with the present consciousness of critical leading layers of working and oppressed people.
The movement is not running for office. It is not looking for 51% of a vote made in isolated voting booths on a predetermined day some number of months from now. It can only succeed if the principles on which it bases itself correspond to objective forces in the development of society. Its pressing concern is to organize now those who possess consciousness to organize now around these potent principles.
The objective forces to which this movement speaks include the deep-going struggles against racism, imperialism, and colonization—the subjugation of one people by another. In the last 250 years, and especially in the last 100, these strivings without question constitute a historic force of the first order. They have already remade the world more than once. It is foolish to sell them for a fleeting moment of attention from the powerful.
Already, some 50% to 70% of the United States sympathize with this movement to one degree or another. It is our task to firmly win ever-widening circles of these 150-250 million people to the perspectives they will need to succeed in ending U.S. support for Israel and supporting the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. For this, “End the siege of Gaza now!” “End U.S. funding of Israel!” “Free Palestine!” and principled variants are potent demands.
Those in the streets today under the banner of ceasefire already support these demands with both hands. Those who do not yet understand them can be won over to them by a movement that views them as thinking people who desire an end to oppression and violence. If they are to have any chance of evading manipulation by the ruling class, they must learn who are their allies, who are their enemies, and what are their objectives.
“Uncommitted” campaign
Another manifestation of political crisis in the U.S. is the “uncommitted” campaign. While it is a positive sign that the Democratic Party shows division over the Gaza war, this party’s leadership is unmistakably using the “uncommitted” campaign (where people show dissatisfaction with Biden’s Israel policy by voting “uncommitted” on primary ballots) not to split the party, but to bring opposition back into safe party channels.
The New York Times recently found that past protest votes in relatively uncontested primaries typically made up 7% of the vote. As of March 19th, the average protest vote against Biden (including “uncommitted” votes and votes for other candidates) was at 13%—modestly higher than the typical protest vote in such a primary.
In past primaries, candidates like Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, and Eugene McCarthy drew radicalizing elements of the party back into its ranks with promises of meaningful opposition.
When the opposition candidates lose, they faithfully bring their base back into the fold to support Biden, Clinton, Kerry, or Humphrey. When they win (as the seemingly insurgent Obama did) they govern like every other president, but domesticate opposition movements for years rather than months.
The “uncommitted” campaign is a pretty poor fig leaf for the DNC by comparison. There are no mega-rallies (the campaign instead pulls activists out of the rallies they were just organizing)—there is no candidate to idolize. There is no single program or slogan; it is whatever the most visible say it is. Media coverage is bare bones. There are no candidate appearances on SNL—not even a single televised debate.
But the “uncommitted” campaign is perfect for elements in the movement tied to the Democrats. They can say all kinds of things. They can say they are breaking with the Democratic Party altogether, or committing to not vote for Biden (in the hopes that the Democratic Party will pick another candidate at the convention, or to punish the party in November) or simply sending a message to Biden to change course on support for Israel and the siege of Gaza.
The most audible voices are most careful to limit their uncommitted vote to sending Biden a message, or even lending him support. Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, says that in choosing the uncommitted campaign he is “choosing hope … the hope that Mr. Biden will listen. The hope that he and those in the Democratic leadership will choose the salvation of our democracy over aiding and abetting Mr. Netanyahu’s war crimes.”
The Nation’s John Nichols argues that the uncommitted campaign could actually save the Biden presidency, by somehow prodding him into changing his policies enough to win the election in November. He quotes former Michigan U.S. Representative Andy Levin: “As a Michigander, I’m concerned about the impact that Biden’s funding of Israel’s war will have on our fight against Trump and for democracy.”
Our Revolution, the liberal group initiated by Bernie Sanders, says “uncommitted” is “a strategic effort to signal to President Biden that he must change his approach to the war between Israel and Hamas in order to realign with the values of his base, including young voters, voters of color, and Michigan’s significant Arab-American population.” The examples go on.
The truth is that there is no current electoral path to break with the Democratic Party, and not voting for Biden won’t change what’s happening in Gaza because the other main candidates will continue the policy. So “uncommitted” supporters find themselves under great pressure to ease up on commitments to swear off Biden or break with the Democrats, and instead find a way to get Biden to change his policy through this campaign. As the election approaches, this pressure increases. This turns Biden into the great hope of the“uncommitted” campaign. It turns workers’ eyes away from their own power and towards the power of the president who is promoting the genocide.
Furthermore, this is the weakest possible way to pressure Biden. He can stand to win only 90% of the primary vote. He can stand to even lose the general election, because American imperialism stands less to lose from a Trump presidency than it does from losing Israel. November’s election thus poses absolutely no threat to the genocide. And so the “uncommitted” campaign not only undermines the principles and politics of the Palestine solidarity movement, but presents the movement as weaker than it is.
Far more threatening is a movement that stays in the streets and organizes ever larger democratic decision-making bodies that make space for independent politics. Such organizing threatens the authority of the state, along with the parties that manage it. And it creates the space where a viable independent party could emerge that is not built to manage a crisis-ridden imperialism, but to overthrow it.
Photo: Rally in Miami in October 2023. (Marta Lavandier / AP)
From Workers Voice. https://workersvoiceus.org
