What To Do? Diverse Strategies And Tactics

 

Jamila Levasseur of Jewish Voice for Peace being arrested July 27, 2024 at General Dynamics warship factory in Bath, Maine  Photo by Derek Davis - Source: Portland Press Herald - Best Photos of 2024

The U.S. empire, bloated beyond sustainability for many years, now ramps up its plans to annex other sovereign lands. Of course it does! Doubling down on imperial hubris as it hurtles toward a fall.

Providing a narrative fest for legacy media, 47 announces he wants to take over the Panama Canal, Canada, Greenland, and more.  Land grabs already well underway in Palestine and now in Syria provide the empire with access to oil and other energy reserves. Ditto in Iraq. How are the post 9/11 wars on terror going two decades later? Iran is vulnerable in the imperial crosshairs. Will Russia and China stand by if Iran is carpet bombed? How much can Russia do while tied up in Ukraine?

Also on the narrative front. the elongated muskrat announces that heads must roll as he tries to whip up color revolutions using ham-handed tweeting by robots on his behalf. They proclaim that the people should throw out their effete elite "leaders" and replace them with different elite "leaders." Ones more conducive to Starlink owning a whole layer of the sky, presumably.

What to do?

I was invited to contribute this essay for the Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights newsletter that came out today (click here to subscribe). I'm resharing it here so that I can illustrate with selected photos from the past year, mine unless otherwise indicated.

 

Video - Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine Maine https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwmgSixqW2

Solidarity with Palestine - Diverse Strategies and Tactics

Resisting Zionist occupation, land theft, and genocide is a long struggle.  As  it entered a heightened phase on October 7, 2023, so did our commitment to support the cause of Palestinian liberation.

In Maine we follow our hearts and our consciences in deciding how and where to apply pressure.

Photo by Kristen Salvatore  - source: Maine Morning Star 

Some of us doggedly call and write our alleged representatives in Congress, most of whom are owned by the Israel lobby.  As we object to their complicity in using our tax dollars to fund Israel's genocidal practices, do they listen?  When they don't, we sometimes occupy their offices, and our arrests generate coverage in the corporate, pro-Zionist media.

Rally participants convening with signs in front of Fogler Library at UMaine. Photo by Sofia Langlois.  source: Maine Campus

Others focus on places we feel more connected to -- our universities, or our town and city councils.  Last year, historic divestment resolutions passed in Portland and Belfast, and at the Maine Education Association Representative Assembly.  Divesting from the Israeli war machine generates public attention and people who rely on corporate media for information about Palestine hear some truth leaking through as activists testify about why they are standing up for humanity.

 

Some of us take up educating our fellow Mainers as our mission.  Standouts, media interviews, and letters to the editor generate curiosity.  We flyer to specific audiences, such as parents of school age children in a town where a General Dynamics factory helps make bombs that have reduced Gaza's schools to rubble.  When we have the time and troops for peace, we attend school board meetings, canvass in neighborhoods, or put flyers on windshields.

 

We visit recruitment fairs to ask job seekers if they really want to make a living off war.  Many do not.  We block the entrances to weapons factories, and wake up General Dynamics executives at dawn and let their community know that their neighbors are making million dollar salaries from killing children in Palestine.  It is legal to dump red water-based paint on the pavement in front of their homes, and we stay within noise ordinances of whatever town we are visiting.

Others of us feel that such non-violent direct actions create greater pushback than they win allies.  This is where activists with similar goals may agree to disagree on specific actions.

Sometimes we gather for rallies, marches, and teach-ins.  Those who can, travel to Palestine, to witness, and support, and learn.  At other times, we organize cultural events that help people -- safe and warm in our country -- relate to the humanity of those who suffer under the US-Israeli war machine.  Films, poetry readings, and theater performances may include traditional Palestinian food.  Debke line dancing joins activists together through a common cultural experience.

Art builds that create giant banners and colorful signs introduce a creative spark to our organizing.  The Artists Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) of the Maine Union of Visual Artists hosts a monthly gathering where ideas are batted and paint is splashed about.  Blood-stained shrouds signed with the names and ages of Palestinian martyrs are made with reverence before being used to block a bomb factory entrance.  Heavy lock-down devices such as cars, boats, and cement blocks are moved into place by activists whose personal bonds strengthen through creative political work.

 

 

The writers among us write: blogs, emails, articles.  Social media posts.  Speeches, which our hands struggle to scroll through as we read them off our smart phones.  The media savvy generate video coverage of our marches, rallies, and direct actions.  These are shared and re-shared throughout communities of resistance around the globe, including among the besieged people of Gaza.

 

Video - Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine Maine https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwmgSixqW2

Needless to say, we educate ourselves.  Finding reliable information is a job in itself and we all have our go-to sources: Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Gray Zone, Resistance News Network.  We study reporting on solidarity actions around the world, particularly on those that disrupt the Israeli weapons maker Elbit Systems, and we don't overlook putting pressure on the insurers and supply chains of the US arms industry.

Diversity of strategies and tactics is a strength of our resistance movement.  We're at our best when we don't tell others what to do or not to do, but when we recognize that people of good conscience are likely to take action when they reach the point of shame and despair over US complicity in Israel's crimes.

As activists, we're evolving every day and learning from each other, and resistance until Palestine is free is our beacon no matter which steps we choose to get there.