While you celebrate the holiday and cherish your loved ones... while you take a minute or a day from the grind, if you possibly can... take time to think about what some common holiday phrases would mean to the two million-plus human beings living under U.S.-Israeli bombs and bullets in Gaza:

“It’s all about the joy of giving.” Your government gives over $3 billion in military aid to Israel every year. In fact, over the past 50 years your government has given more military aid to Israel than to any other country. And this year your government gave them extra—another $14 billion on top. So when over 1,700 people were killed this past week—nearly 250 people killed, on average, every single day—they were victims of “gifts” by your government. Giving? The only thing America is giving is the ability to carry out a genocide.

“It’s all about the children.” Since October 7, more than 10,000 Palestinian children have been killed or are lost under rubble and presumed dead. At least 24,000 children have lost one or both parents in Israeli attacks. About 18,000 have been injured, with some in critical condition. Two children were recently executed at point-blank range during a raid in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Even before this latest war, 80 percent of children in Gaza experienced emotional distress and half had contemplated suicide. 

The blood and suffering of these children? Holiday gifts made in the USA and delivered by its attack dog Israel.

“It's all about family.” Israel has rounded up hundreds of men, from 12 to 70 years old. They were separated from their families and taken to undisclosed detention camps, where these men were forced to strip to their underwear, and wait in the cold, with no food, as Israeli troops took pictures and spread them online. “We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands,” one Palestinian said.

“It’s all about ‘peace on earth.’” The U.S. and Israel stand virtually alone at this point in opposing even a cease-fire. This is not because of some lie about “the power of the Jews.” It is because, as the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said:

Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.

You can try to ignore all this, and turn your face back to “me and mine, and screw everyone else…”

Or you can fight it. To learn more about why this is happening and how to fight it… and to learn how we can make an actual revolution to get to a world where this kind of madness is no more, go to revcom.us. 

And as the new year dawns, think about this: Things are heading for a social explosion in this country around the 2024 elections, between Genocide Joe Biden and Donald MAGA-Fascist Trump. That’s no choice at all. Because of how badly split this country is, because of how fed up decent people like you are, there is an actual chance for a revolution. But only if people like you get with this now. 

There is no time to lose. So, sure, celebrate the holidays… but above all, take time to get into the Interviews with the leader and architect of this revolution, Bob Avakian. Make this new year count… for revolution and the emancipation of humanity!