As Israel escalates its genocidal siege of Gaza, cutting off food, water, electricity, fuel, leveling whole neighborhoods, mass murdering thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children, making hundreds of thousands homeless, and preparing for an invasion to commit even worse crimes—fully backed by the U.S. and supposedly “justified” as retaliation for Hamas’ barbaric attacks on Israelis (including many civilians)—it is urgent that people stand up against this.

Protests opposing U.S.-backed slaughter of Palestinians by Israel need to grow and spread and shake the entire world. Seriously, how can you stand on the sidelines when millions of innocent people are being starved, terrorized, bombed, and driven from their homes? When you hear the bloodlust from the Zionists, the Nazi language they use to describe the Palestinians as “animals,” how can you not do everything in your power to stop the genocide that is unfolding in front of your eyes? How can the Zionist (and Hamas) logic that “our suffering justifies your suffering” not tear every moral fiber in your body apart and make you scream NO! And how you can you not want to look into a way out of this madness?

It was with this stand that the revcoms went to a big pro-Palestinian demonstration this past Saturday in Los Angeles.

We went to call out the towering crimes of the U.S. imperialists and Israel, and bring the urgent message that there is a way forward for humanity: REAL REVOLUTION to overthrow this capitalist-imperialist system, and a leader Bob Avakian (BA) who has charted that path. NO to U.S./Israeli high-tech slaughter in the name of “democracy.” NO to Hamas’ reactionary religious theocracy. We need a whole different world, where one people, one nation, one gender, one religion is no longer dominating and oppressing another. This is possible, and even more so in these intense and horrific times, but only if growing numbers of people engage and take up the strategy, vision, and leadership for an emancipating revolution that Bob Avakian has brought forward.

In this light, our main objective was to invite and challenge all the people at this demonstration whose hearts are being torn up by what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Gaza to come to the event THIS Tuesday, October 17 Screening of Selections from The BA Interviews on The RNL–Revolution, Nothing Less!–Show, and find out for themselves how the world could be totally different and what their role is in that. 

We had visual displays and flyers for the LA event, and flyers with the revcoms' statement on the current situation in Israel/Palestine. We brought a big eye-catching banner with our slogans, making clear where we stand and what we’re fighting for:

U.S. and Israel: Hands Off the Palestinian People!  

Israel: STOP the Genocidal State of Siege and War Against 2 Million Palestinians Trapped in Gaza! U.S. Imperialism STOP Your Bloody Arming Of Israel!

Hamas Is Not A Force For Liberation—The Palestinian People Need A Real Revolution!

The People of the World Need REAL Revolution And A Whole New Emancipating Way To Live!

As soon as we set up the banner, people started taking pictures of it and reaching out for our flyers. Unfortunately, we way underestimated the number of flyers we needed and how hungry people would be to find out what we were about, because we passed out all of our flyers (800 of each) before the march started! One Palestinian rapper stopped to shoot a music video in front of our banner.

Thousands of people poured into the streets, beginning at the Israeli consulate in West LA and marching to the Federal building. The crowd was mostly Palestinians, with lots of families coming out, lots of very energetic youth, and lots of Palestinian flags. There were also a lot of Muslims from other parts of the world. Some Iranians who support the Palestinian people and also oppose the Islamic Republic in Iran showed up. There were a lot of young people and students of different nationalities. Some Jewish people explicitly expressing their opposition to Zionism. Many people from the “left” movement showed up, including some decent and open-minded progressive people, as well a few counter-revolutionary haters. There was also a small number of pro-Israel Zionists who came to troll the protest, and scuffles broke out a few times.

Overall, the message from the organizers of the protest called for a “free Palestine” and for “intifada revolution” (intifada is an Arabic word meaning “shake off” and refers to the uprisings of the Palestinian people), although they didn’t make clear what they meant by that and what the goal of this intifada/revolution would be. Many of the speakers emphasized that “resistance is justified”—which it definitely is!—but very few, if any, denounced the brutal and unjustified attacks by Hamas against non-combatants (including kidnapping civilians and murdering hundreds of young people at a music festival) which has nothing to do with resistance and is actually extremely harmful to the struggle needed. Protest organizers did denounce Biden and the U.S. role in backing Israel’s crimes, but they did not call for real revolution here in the belly of the beast. In the crowd there were chants along these lines, as well as some Islamic religious chants.

Once the rally ended, we began agitating to the crowd on a sound system, speaking viscerally to the horrors of what’s unfolding in Gaza, the role of the U.S. (the biggest oppressor in the world), the need for an actual revolution to overthrow this capitalist-imperialist system (in Palestine, and yes right here in the USA), and the importance of getting into BA and coming to the event on Tuesday, because BA has a way to bring this monster down, break this cycle of revenge, and bring into being a world where one part of humanity no longer oppresses another part. We made clear our opposition to both the U.S./Israel and to Hamas, at the same time making clear that the U.S. (with Israel as its attack dog in the Middle East) is the main enemy of humanity. We cited Bob Avakian on the two meanings of “never again,” and that the lesson of the Holocaust needs to be never again for anyone, not “we’ve suffered so anything we do to others, even genocide, is justified.” 

Overwhelmingly, people responded very powerfully to the agitation, often applauding and reaching out for flyers. People came up to us curious to know more about what we meant by actual revolution. Lots of people said they agreed that we need another way, in opposition to the U.S./Israel and Hamas. The point about “never again for anyone” especially struck a chord with people. As did the vision of a total revolution, including for the emancipation of women. In fact, a lot of the people who seemed most attracted to our message were women.

At the same time, there were also a lot of people, especially Palestinian youth, who supported Hamas. Sometimes this was because they were die-hard believers in Islamic fundamentalism. But often it was because they said Hamas are the only ones standing up to Israel. I would struggle with these people about what kind of society Hamas is fighting for, and do they really want to live in a fascist religious theocracy, like Iran, where women are arrested and even killed for not wearing the hijab properly? Haven’t we had enough Jewish supremacy in the state of Israel, why go for Muslim supremacy? I would talk to them about the history of Hamas and how it was actually initially supported by Israel to serve its interests. Most of all I would tell them that yes, the Palestinian people absolutely have a right (and duty) to resist and fight their oppressors, but if you use the kind of brutal means that Hamas does, intentionally targeting civilians, you are just mimicking your oppressors, and you are giving them “justification” to attack you with 1,000 times more force. In stark contrast, I told them that Bob Avakian, BA, has fought against the idea that “the ends justify the means,” and insisted that the means we use must be consistent with the ends of abolishing all forms of oppression, and I invited them to come learn more about BA and this revolution on Tuesday at the special screening of the interviews with him. Needless to say, this was challenging and different from anything they’d heard before, but there was a lot of desire to discuss and debate these questions.

A couple tiny groups of “leftists” playing the role of “identity politics police” kept coming up to us saying we had no right to critique Hamas because we weren’t Palestinian, and insisting that we ask “permission” from Palestinians before putting that slogan on our banner. I would tell them, and anyone listening nearby, that first of all not all Palestinians think the same, and not all of them want to live under an oppressive theocracy. And more importantly, we didn’t ask for “permission” from Israelis to call out their crimes, and we don’t ask for permission from anyone to tell the truth. Do they think Hamas is a force for liberation? They had nothing of substance to say about this, and fell back on even more gutter-level slander, revealing that their entire purpose is not to change the world but to spend their time dictating what parts of reality can be talked about by whom, and attack us for not “staying in our lane.” In opposition to these opportunists, the vast majority of people were at this protest because they wanted to do something, and figure out what can be done, about these atrocities.

We sold six tickets on the spot to the Bob Avakian interviews event—four to Palestinians and others from the Middle East, mainly based on agreement with the agitation and the slogans on the banner and a visceral feeling that this deadly dynamic of imperialism vs jihad is not the answer, and wanting to find out about the revolution BA is talking about. One woman I talked to from El Salvador said she knew about the U.S. crimes in her country and all over the world. She also considered herself a feminist and agreed with the critique of Hamas. She was agonizing about the cycle of hatred and violence and raised the question of whether non-violent revolution was possible. I explained to her that the people who run this system would never give up their power without a fight. At the same time, Bob Avakian has emphasized that how this fight is waged is decisive, and that this revolution can’t be about revenge—which will just keep us trapped in the same situation and worse—but has to truly be about emancipation of all humanity. And this is at the core of the new communism he’s developed. She bought a ticket and said she’d talk to her friends about it.

Once again, as I said at the beginning: it is crucial that protests in support of the Palestinian people grow and spread and shake the entire world. Seriously, how can you stand on the sidelines when millions of innocent people are being starved, terrorized, bombed, and driven from their homes? When you hear the bloodlust from the Zionists, the Nazi language they use to describe the Palestinians as “animals,” how can you not do everything in your power to stop the genocide that is unfolding in front of your eyes? How can the Zionist (and Hamas) logic that “our suffering justifies your suffering” not tear every moral fiber in your body apart and make you scream NO! And how you can you not want to look into a way out of this madness? Seriously. Get into Bob Avakian. 

If you are anywhere near LA, clear your schedule and come to the event on Tuesday. Get involved with the revcoms. What could be more important?