In these crazy days, the mainstream narrative in many Western countries, especially the U.S., is that to attack the apartheid state of “Israel” is to attack the Jewish community. This narrative is pushed by corporate media, politicians, academic institutions, and even Evangelical Christian churches.
This multi-institutional blitz has been effective. In the wake of Oct. 7’s “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” many individuals and institutions in the United States rushed to the defense of the Zionist entity. A Gallup poll conducted between Nov. 1 and Nov. 21 found that 50% of people in the U.S. support the Israeli Occupation Forces’ military actions in Gaza.
Now, 45% answered they did not support the IOF’s action in Gaza. It is important to note that this poll does not ask whether the individual sympathizes with Israel or condemns Hamas. 50% of these individuals responded that they supported the IOF’s specific actions in Gaza. As the IOF’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, to support the IOF is to support genocide.
A Marist poll conducted from Nov. 6 to Nov. 9 found that 60% of people in the U.S. say their sympathies mostly lie with Israel. However, the same poll found that 38% of people in the U.S. believe that Israel’s military has gone too far with its attacks on Gaza. This marked a 12% jump from a similar poll held in October.
To be clear, bourgeois political polls are not the end-all and be-all. These polls are flawed and are often constructed with political agendas. However, there are still insights that can be gleaned from them. These polls would appear to support the idea that while there is still widespread support among the U.S. population for fascist Israel, it is eroding as the genocide against Palestine escalates.
And one doesn’t even have to read a mainstream poll to sense this. One only has to look as far as the massive demonstrations across the United States and their consequences to see that solidarity with Palestine is growing beyond just the Arab community and the organized left.
Many different communities within the working class have joined the movement for Palestine. This includes students. This includes many in the Black community. This even includes several prominent Jewish protests and sit-ins that targeted corporate politicians who support the Zionist entity and its genocide of Palestine. The development of an anti-Zionist protest wing of the Jewish community is certainly a new one.
Young people are another section of the working class that has joined this movement in thought and action. A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that 51% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 support Palestine and view Israel as the oppressor. The phenomena have manifested materially in the struggle as one of the leading organizations of the current movement is literally named the Palestinian Youth Movement.
All of this would seem to indicate that Zionism still has a support base in the U.S., but it is eroding due to the large cross-sectional movement for the liberation of Palestine. Western media and politicians have enforced Zionism ideologically by drawing an equivalence between the Jewish community and Israel. Israel=Judaism. So if the Zionist apartheid state is one and the same as the Jewish community, to attack that state is to attack the Jewish community. This rationale is the one the U.S. military complex has used for 75 years to justify vast military aid to Israel. This rationale is how Zionism has enjoyed such popular support.
Many of the institutions and people who support Zionism could give a damn about the Jewish community. They are simply supporters of imperialism who benefit financially from the pillaging of Gaza.
However, there is a section of people, many of them Jewish, who genuinely believe that they are standing in solidarity with the Jewish community in their support of the Zionist entity. In that same thread, there is a widely propagandized and instilled belief that it is impossible to be in solidarity with both the Jewish community and the Arab world.
When in reality, one cannot be in solidarity with either community without being in solidarity with both. To support the struggle of Palestine is to support the struggle against anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. The only real way to support Jewish liberation is to stand in opposition to Zionism and the perversion of Jewish values and people to justify a genocidal land grab.
On a personal note, during my recent visit to Cairo, I was amazed at the level of explicit and overt solidarity with the Jewish community expressed by the Egyptian and other Arab people I met through the Global Conscience Convoy. Everyone I met wanted to make it so clear that they had nothing but love and adoration for the Jewish community, particularly those who have taken mass stands against Zionism in recent weeks and months. Nonetheless, these were all people attempting to organize an explicitly anti-Zionist aid convoy to the Rafah border Crossing.
This is not to say that there is no anti-Semitism in the Arab community. There surely is, but the U.S. media also surely exaggerates it. This is also not to say that we should all take time to individually convert every person who is misplaced in their support of Israel.
This is all to say that we, as a movement against the genocide of Palestine and all imperialism, have to continue to challenge the false narrative circulated in the political and media mainstream that to support the Zionist entity is to support Judaism.
Whether through protest, sit-ins, education, writing, whatever. We must all have the courage to risk facing false allegations of anti-Semitism in an attempt to squash dissent against Zionism. Because ultimately, the only way to defend the Jewish community is to stand against the false ideology of Zionism and the atrocities committed in our name.
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