A couple of revcoms printed up several hundred copies of the article “War Crimes and the Selective ‘Outrage’ of America... and Americans” and took them out to a local college campus along with the new slogans posted at revcom.us written on signboards along with an older placard documenting U.S. war crimes. The school we went out to has a large population of youths from among the basic masses and foreign-born as well as older students, including veterans of the U.S. military. We had previously distributed hundreds of the broadsheets of WE ARE THE REVCOMS... and WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE... on the campus and have repeatedly posted the different "Provocations" and "Allegiance" posters throughout the school.  

Our presence this time broke through the thin veneer of “normalcy” on the campus that we had previously experienced, where students would often rush by, seeming to ignore us, and it drew out an intense two-sided polarization that might have otherwise not been revealed. While there were some “haters” who jumped out, many students, both American and foreign-born, welcomed our initiative: "I'm so glad you're out here telling the Palestinian side." "I'm getting ready to start basic training in the U.S. military and I really need to know what these wars are about." "It seems like there's no solution. What are you guys proposing?"

At times, a small number of rabid Zionists attempted to silence the revcoms, shouting about how Israel had a moral right to bomb Gaza ("we knock on doors to warn families before we bomb") while attempting to physically intimidate the revcoms, but were forced to back off as other students challenged and questioned them. At other times the plaza was teeming with dozens of students, with different conversations breaking and with students jumping from one debate to another. Meanwhile, campus police hovered around, trying to figure out how to get rid of us without causing an even greater scene.

Most students were struggling to make sense of the conflict and the U.S. Arab students from the region (we met Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians among others) were divided about Hamas and what was the road to liberation. Some vehemently claimed the stories of Israeli civilian deaths were "fake news" and refused to acknowledge the reactionary character of Hamas, while others attempted to draw a distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people as a whole.  

But the main thing we ran into was a deep anguishing over both the immediate prospects but also the long-term hope for the people. One student originally from Israel was agonizing over the situation and looking for a clear solution that all could agree on, short of revolution. She got into an extended conversation with a Muslim student from the region and a revcom. She deeply appreciated the chance to converse with the Muslim student, who was attempting to defend Islam as a religion of peace, as they went back and forth on the role of Hamas. At the same time, even as she acknowledged that she could not see any solution within the current dynamics, the Israeli woman simply couldn’t agree on the role of the U.S. and that revolution was something that needed to be included as a possible solution. 

The Muslim woman was more questioning. She took the broadsheet “WE NEED AND WE DEMAND…” while saying that even if the Israelis kill every Palestinian in Gaza, it will only create new generations of fighters and there had to be another way. She spoke about how the U.S. has devastated Afghanistan and Iraq and had backed Israel through decades of a genocidal war against the Palestinians. She, along with several other students from the region, said she did not support Hamas and that many Palestinians also do not align with the religious fundamentalists but will fight against the Israeli aggression no matter what. 

Throughout the day, we struggled to divert students from the narrow framework they have been forced into, where the only two alternatives are the U.S.-backed Zionist regime or the reactionary Islamic fundamentalists. This was an ongoing struggle, where we would sometimes catch ourselves falling into tailing the spontaneous inclination of a student to find a solution within the existing framework of capitalism/imperialism. We were continually directing everyone to tune in to The RNL Show this week for more analysis but also more on the need and possibility for an actual revolution in the belly of the beast. We passed out palm cards of the BA Interviews. All of this was a struggle, and we were not always successful. We ran into a fair amount of resistance among many whose emotions were so raw and whose passion ran so deep that they didn’t want to dig more deeply into how and why we have reached this point and especially the role of the U.S. We found a deep reservoir of support but also a reluctance on the part of the more progressive students to step forward in the moment, although some took small stacks of flyers to distribute elsewhere or left ways to follow up.

Although there were times we weren’t sure if we would get physically assaulted going out there or if we could pull together students to stand with us, this was an exciting, intense and rich experience that revealed both the potential to break students out of the lowered sights this system attempts to enforce on them and the importance of waging fierce ideological struggle necessary to accomplish that. We are going back—but with a plan to pull as many students together as possible for a viewing of a selection from the BA Interviews.