Over the previous month, as Kamala Harris’s marketing campaign for the US presidency has gained momentum, hopes she would take a robust stance on the genocide in Gaza have dwindled.
Her candidacy has introduced disillusionment amongst supporters of the Palestinian trigger, and with it, rising tensions between anti-genocide activists and Harris supporters.
The stress was mirrored in a bitter exchange earlier this month between TikTok creators Maya Abdullah and Tori Grier, which fuelled a debate on social media about racism and disparate neighborhood pursuits. Grier’s supporters argue the Black neighborhood ought to vote for Harris to keep away from elevated violence and discrimination underneath one other Trump administration. However, Abdullah’s supporters contend Palestinian People shouldn’t be pressured to vote for somebody who has enabled the genocide of their family in Palestine and that allies from different ethnic and non secular teams ought to stand in solidarity with them.
It’s unclear to what extent this debate is altering voting attitudes, but when it deepens, it may have an effect on Black-Palestinian anticolonial solidarity at a important second in historical past. This may be a loss for each communities.
Historical past of Black-Palestinian solidarity
The engagement between the Black and Palestinian communities in the US and past has an extended historical past. Its roots lie within the recognition that for Black and brown folks, oppression manifests itself in related methods: as white supremacy, structural racism, Islamophobia and imperialism which subjugate, dispossess and kill.
It’s no coincidence that within the US, the Black liberation motion options influential leaders like Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, Huey P Newton, Angela Davis and others who’ve spoken up concerning the colonisation and occupation of Palestine. Within the Sixties, amid the civil rights battle, the Pupil Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Occasion repeatedly emphasised the necessity for anticolonial alliances to confront white supremacy, Zionism, capitalism and imperialism.
The African anticolonial struggles additionally repeatedly made parallels with the Palestinian battle. To this present day, the Palestinian trigger stays near the center of the South African and Algerian nations, who led their very own struggles towards colonial rule.
In 1969, seven years after it liberated itself from French colonial rule, Algeria hosted the inaugural Pan-African Cultural Competition, positioning itself as a frontrunner of revolutionary battle. Tons of of delegates attended the occasion from 31 impartial African nations, together with representatives from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). The competition was essential in uniting the struggles of Africa and Palestine right into a broader international motion towards imperialism.
Extra lately, over the previous decade, the pro-Palestinian motion has supported and straight engaged with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) motion, because it has risen against anti-Black violence, notably following the homicide of George Floyd. For a rising variety of Black People, the parallels between their very own oppression and that of Palestinians dwelling underneath Israeli apartheid and occupation have turn out to be obvious.
After Israel launched its genocidal conflict on Gaza, key organisations of the Black neighborhood referred to as for a ceasefire. Amongst them are the Nationwide Affiliation for the Development of Coloured Folks (NAACP), the main civil rights organisation within the US, the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and The Martin Luther King Jr Heart. In June, the NAACP issued a daring assertion, urging the Biden administration to halt weapons shipments to Israel.
Black college students and organisations, alongside Palestinian and Jewish anti-Zionist teams, amongst others, got here collectively within the scholar anti-genocide motion, demonstrating their shared dedication within the struggle towards all types of racism. They rejected Zionism as a white supremacist European venture, like different manifest future ideologies underpinning Western settler-colonial ventures, together with within the US.
The same alliance drove the Uncommitted Motion, which referred to as for Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in presidential primaries to stress President Joe Biden into assembly their calls for for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo on Israel.
Divide and rule
Over time, the power of Black-Palestinian solidarity has been more and more recognised as a menace by Israel and American Zionists. They view intersectional and anti-colonial solidarity as a menace as a result of it challenges and dismantles divisive Zionist propaganda.
Up to now, liberal Zionist media and main Zionist lobbies have launched smear campaigns towards BLM, accusing the motion of anti-Semitism. After October 7, there has additionally been a concerted media effort to persuade the Black neighborhood that Palestinian liberation is “not their battle”.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has persistently focused Black politicians who’ve challenged Zionist pursuits, usually via coordinated smear campaigns. A notable instance is US Consultant Ilhan Omar, who has confronted relentless assaults in search of to unseat her and harm her popularity.
This 12 months, AIPAC efficiently unseated Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who’ve been vocal advocates for Gaza and Palestine, by pouring huge quantities of cash into their opponents’ campaigns throughout the Democratic primaries.
On this context, a rift between the Black and Palestinian communities would play into the palms of Israel and its Zionist supporters.
When debating whether or not to help Harris or not, it will be important right here to notice who she represents. Although she is a lady of color, her politics replicate these of the liberal bourgeois class – referred to by Martin Luther King Jr. as “white moderates” – which undermine progressive and anticolonial agendas underneath the guise of practicality.
As soon as in workplace, she might pay lip service to the antiracism battle, however would do little to problem racist buildings and establishments. She would seemingly proceed to strengthen the military-industrial complicated, selling financial insurance policies that enrich the rich and impoverish the poor, and upholding “powerful on crime” practices which disproportionately hurt folks of color and poor communities.
Some argue that Harris is the “lesser evil” throughout the American duopoly, given her emphasis on various illustration and guarantees of social reform, but she might emerge as a extra “effective evil” – a time period coined by the late journalist Glen Ford to explain President Barack Obama’s capacity to push via right-wing insurance policies, whereas assuaging progressive pushback.
The reluctance to characteristic a Palestinian voice on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, together with Harris’s both-sideism narrative in her acceptance speech, replicate Ford’s framework.
Solidarity towards genocide
It is very important do not forget that the forces driving genocidal violence in Gaza are the identical ones fueling international oppression. The settler-colonial tasks within the US and Israel share core white supremacist ideologies and capitalist-imperial pursuits, oppressive ways, aggressive methods and propaganda strategies.
These highly effective networks of colonial and imperial pursuits, bolstered by the military-industrial complicated and surveillance know-how, form US insurance policies together with these which allow and dominate Israel-Palestine, from police militarisation to the violent crackdown on immigration and marginalised communities.
For that reason, the genocide in Palestine has far-reaching implications for folks of color and different marginalised teams. Palestine acts as a testing floor for army applied sciences and the normalisation of utmost violence which will be deployed towards oppressed peoples within the International South and BIPOC within the International North, who’re disproportionately affected by white supremacist, company capitalist insurance policies.
A unified Black-Palestinian entrance is important to withstand these forces and their genocidal goals. With out this solidarity, each communities stay weaker and extra remoted of their struggles towards their frequent enemy.
Unity, solidarity and the popularity of a shared battle towards oppression strengthen and drive principled grassroots actions like BLM and Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Dismantling racist capitalist oppression requires an unwavering dedication to revolutionary rules and rejecting alliances with counterrevolutionary forces. True liberation within the US and Palestine can solely be achieved via a broad antiracist and anticolonial motion.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
