Guantánamo, May 5 — An international peace seminar held in Guantánamo, Cuba, brought together delegates from 30 countries demanding a world free of U.S. imperialist intervention and military bases. 

During the VIII International Seminar for Peace and the Abolition of Military Bases, participants echoed the international condemnation of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, demanded the return of Cuban territory occupied by the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo, and repudiated the wars organized by NATO under U.S. leadership. Fernando González Llort, President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP), emphasized that the seminar is being held amidst a complex global situation.

The seminar expressed solidarity with countries and peoples under occupation and colonial rule, such as Palestine, Western Sahara, and Puerto Rico.

Regarding the genocide committed against the Palestinian people by Israel, with the collaboration of the U.S. and the European Union, participants agreed that a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution requires the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Speakers highlighted the imperative to end NATO’s expansionism and called for the dissolution of the aggressive military bloc. They also stressed the need to strengthen the anti-imperialist struggle and solidarity for a world of peace and social justice. Iraklis Tsavdaridis, executive secretary of the World Council for Peace (CMP), noted that the U.S. imperialist military presence and NATO are not only the source of the Russia-Ukraine war but also support Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

Delegates pointed out that the United States has over 900 military bases in 90 countries, with 1.3 million men and women in these military installations, making it the main promoter of wars worldwide. The U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo, Cuba, established in 1902, is the oldest and first U.S. military base in Latin America. Its presence significantly affects the economy of Guantánamo province and causes environmental damage.

Voices of resistance

Murid Abukhater, a Palestinian medical student in Cuba, expressed gratitude for the international solidarity with the Palestinian cause and Cuba’s unwavering support. He condemned the U.S. blockade against Cuba and demanded the closure of the Guantánamo Naval Base and the return of the territory to Cuban sovereignty.

During the last day of presentations, delegates discussed cyberwar and cyberterrorism as new weapons used by imperialism to undermine the sovereignty of nations. Speakers emphasized the need for Cuba to continue advancing in cybersecurity research and innovation, as the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo poses a real threat to the island. They also highlighted how cyber warfare is silently used to attack countries and manipulate international public opinion.

Key points from the final declaration included:

1. Condemn U.S. and NATO imperialism: Denounce the aggressive and interventionist policies of the U.S. and NATO that threaten world peace through expanding their network of military bases and increasing military spending.
2. Support Cuba: Support Cuba’s fight against the unjust U.S. blockade, remove Cuba from the illegal U.S. list of terrorism sponsors and express solidarity with Cuba’s pursuit of a just and sustainable socialist society.
3. Call for base closures: Demand closure of all foreign military bases worldwide, particularly the illegally occupied Guantánamo territory, and oppose NATO expansion and increased military spending.
4. Support sovereignty and self-determination: Support nations’ rights to self-determination and independence, particularly calling on Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina to abandon NATO partnerships.  Stand in solidarity with countries and peoples facing occupation and colonial domination, including Guyana and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean; Argentina’s Neuquén province and the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands in South America; Palestine, Syria, and Cyprus in the Middle East; Western Sahara in Africa.
5. Solidarity with Haitian people: Stand in solidarity with the Haitian people’s right to determine their own path towards a peaceful, sustainable, and prosperous future. Reject any foreign military intervention and call for solutions that respect Haiti’s sovereignty and independence.
6. Advocate nuclear disarmament: Warn against nuclear conflict and campaign for a world free of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, opposing the militarization of space and cyber warfare.
7. Promote peace zones: Amplify the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace and advocate against the presence of the U.S. Southern Command in the region. Condemn U.S. interference and militarization in the region (e.g., Peru, Guyana Essequibo, Venezuela) and support regional peace processes (e.g., Colombia).
8. Defend Indigenous and African communities: Demand reparations for the damages of colonialism and slavery while expressing solidarity with Indigenous and African communities of Latin America.
9. Oppose imperialist actions: Oppose imperialist actions globally, including in Nicaragua, Haiti (supporting its right to self-determination and development), and Ukraine (calling for an end to the conflict and denouncing U.S./NATO involvement).
10. Establish World Day of Action: Observe February 23 as “World Day of Action against Foreign Military Bases”  for actions and initiatives to be carried out in all countries against these installations.

A symbol of hope and resistance

The seminar took place against a backdrop of escalating global tensions fueled by the increasing aggressiveness of imperialism and the interventions of the United States, the European Union, and NATO. These powerful entities continue to impose their agendas through propaganda campaigns and military conflicts, threatening peace and sovereignty worldwide.

The event concluded with a powerful demonstration of solidarity from the people of Caimanera, a town located near the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, a stark symbol of this imperialism. Their joyful resistance in the face of such a powerful symbol of oppression underscored the importance of the seminar’s mission and the ongoing fight for a world free from war and oppression.

May 10, Washington, D.C. — Carlos Lazo, coordinator of the Puentes de Amor solidarity project, who also works in support of lifting the United States blockade against Cuba, told Prensa Latina “This decision surprises us, scandalizes us, and worries us.”

He also asked: “How is it that a person who committed a terrorist attack against an embassy in the United States, who opened fire with a high powered rifle and endangered the lives of families and embassy staff and who was accused of four charges was acquitted by the U.S. justice system?”.

Lazo said that it is a tremendous irony that the United States has Cuba on a list of terrorist countries with lying justifications. Meanwhile, someone who has committed violent acts against the Cuban embassy and the Cuban people is declared free of any charges.

“Any Cuban with dignity, with love for his country, must be scandalized by this fact; furthermore, it establishes a precedent of impunity that those who commit acts like these will not receive the weight of justice,” he stressed.

A similar sentiment was raised by Cheryl LaBash, co-chair of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), who added that she considers the perpetrator of the attack “a danger to himself and society.” The judge’s ruling “gives the green light to politically motivated violent crimes against Cuban embassies. The United States Government shown once again its willingness to violate international law and conventions,” concluded the NNOC leader. The NNOC is made up of over 70 organizations that work in solidarity with the island and for the end of the over 60-year blockade that is designed to economically strangle the Cuban people.

Alleging the perpetrator’s insanity, on May 1st, a judge from the District of Columbia acquitted Alexander Alazo, of Cuban origin and resident in the United States since 2010, of the four charges against him for the terrorist attack he perpetrated against the Cuban embassy in Washington four years ago.

A statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry expressed its deep concern about the decision, even though Alazo himself confessed that he had gone there with the intention of firing on whatever was in front of him, including human beings, in case they were in his line of fire. The Foreign Ministry warned that the ruling of the judge sends a dangerous message of impunity for those who propose to take violent actions against embassies in Washington.

Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement on the release:

Source: Prensa Latina

Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement on the release:

United States Continues to Protect Terrorists

May 9, 2024

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has learned with deep concern the decision of a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued on May 1, 2024, which acquitted Alexander Alazo Baró of the four charges against him as a result of the terrorist attack perpetrated by him against the Cuban Embassy in the United States in the early morning of April 30, 2020, for which he alleged conditions of insanity of the perpetrator.

Alazo, a person of Cuban origin who has lived in the United States since 2010, fired all 32 bullets from a magazine of an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle at the Cuban diplomatic headquarters in Washington, causing extensive material damage to the exterior and interior of the building and endangering the lives of several people inside the building.

Allazar himself confessed that he intended to shoot whatever was in front of him, including human beings, if they had been in his line of fire. This was a terrorist act in the capital city of the United States against a permanent diplomatic headquarters.

At the time of his arrest, Alazo’s regular association with the Doral Jesus Worship Center in Miami Dade, which brings together people with known behavior in favor of aggression, hostility, violence, and extremism against Cuba, was well known.

The terrorist was immediately arrested at the scene, and the United States government charged him with four crimes under the United States Federal Code. However, it has been unable to qualify the action for what it is: a terrorist act.

The politicization by the United States of the attack perpetrated against the Cuban Embassy in Washington was evident from the very first moments. This is demonstrated by the lengthy process of analyzing proven facts.

Four years after the events and in a criminal process full of opacity, the judge accepted a joint report by the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of the terrorist Alexander Allazo Baró, which presents the perpetrator as someone who, at the time of the events, was not in possession of his mental faculties and, therefore, declares him innocent.

This decision sends a dangerous message of impunity to those who intend to take violent actions against diplomatic headquarters in Washington.

On September 24, 2023, in the evening hours, an individual threw two Molotov cocktails over the perimeter fence of the Cuban Embassy in Washington and against the front facade of that facility. It is an event that occurred three years and five months after the attack perpetrated by Alazo. Even U.S. law enforcement authorities claim not to know the perpetrator or have details of what happened.

These terrorist acts are a direct result of the aggressive policy and discourse of the U.S. government against Cuba, of the permanent instigation of violence and hatred by U.S. politicians and extremist anti-Cuban groups.

Source: Resumen

This year, the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly held its annual International Workers’ Day celebration at the newly established Palestine solidarity encampment at Johns Hopkins University. About a hundred already supporting the encampment were joined by hundreds more.  

Originally planned at the War Memorial Plaza in front of Baltimore City Hall, this May Day was held in honor of Palestinian workers and the immigrant workers who died in the Key Bridge collapse.

The student organizers of the solidarity encampment were enthused when PPA organizers asked if they would welcome the May Day event. Not only were the students looking for an opportunity to raise the working class and its connections to Palestine, they knew it would be uplifting for morale.

The May Day program taught about the working-class origins of May Day and its relevance to the anti-imperialist movement we are currently witnessing for a free Palestine. The relevance, of course, is that the working class is crucial to winning the fight against imperialism. The anti-imperialist struggle is itself a class struggle.  

Speakers represented the Peoples Power Assembly, Socialist Unity Party Baltimore branch, Palestinian Youth Movement, Starbucks Workers United, Unemployed Workers Union, Prisoner Solidarity Committee, Party for Socialism and Liberation Baltimore branch, CPUSA Baltimore Club, and West Wednesdays Coalition. All gave important educational talks about an aspect of May Day, the working class struggle, and the liberation of Palestine.

As the program ended, speakers representing the Peoples Power Assembly encouraged students to hold strong in their encampment and for everyone to mobilize as often as possible to be there in support.

El proceso neoliberal de privatizaciones ha utilizado a nuestro país, Puerto Rico, como conejillo de Indias. No solo se han privatizado los servicios de agencias gubernamentales cruciales para la sobrevivencia de la población, como la salud y la energía, sino que cada servicio dado a estas agencias, desde la limpieza y el mantenimiento, hasta su misma evaluación, ha sido a su vez sub-contratado a ejecutores privados. 

Aquí, la administración del gobierno se ha convertido en un mero intermediario para premiar a contratistas mayormente corruptos y mediocres, tanto locales como extranjeros, que aportan a los bolsillos y a las campañas electorales del partido de gobierno. Muchas de las compañías contratadas ni siquiera existían formalmente hasta que vieron la oportunidad de enriquecerse, y rápidamente se constituyeron. 

Con la excusa de que lo privado da mejor servicio y abarata los costos, cosa que ha resultado totalmente falso, el gobierno nos ha empujado privatización tras privatización. Sin siquiera, tener mecanismos para evaluar ni mucho menos, penalizar la incompetencia e irresponsabilidad de estos contratistas. 

Pero estas semanas, un contrato ha estado en la mira del pueblo, y es el de los servicios de salud en el Departamento de Corrección. Por años, familiares de personas encarceladas se han estado quejando de la falta de estos servicios, y solo el año pasado fallecieron 90 prisioneros en las cárceles de nuestro país en condiciones que aún no se han aclarado. Ahora, el escándalo mayor ha sido que un asesino confeso que tenía una condena de 125 años por asesinar mujeres, fue puesto en libertad y mató a otra mujer. 

Él se hacía pasar por parapléjico y se acogió a una ley existente que libera a prisioneros si están en etapa terminal de una enfermedad. Por todo un año luego de salir de prisión, trabajó en la libre comunidad, caminando normalmente. Sin embargo, los médicos y funcionarios de la agencia de salud privada lo habían certificado como un paciente parapléjico con pocas semanas de vida.

Tanto la directora del Departamento de Corrección como el mismísimo gobernador Pedro Pierluisi, rehuyen la responsabilidad del Estado en la muerte de una mujer boricua a consecuencia de la negligencia e irresponsabilidad de esa privatizadora.

Pero el pueblo no olvida, ni perdona.

Desde Puerto Rico para Radio Clarín de Colombia, les habló, Berta Joubert-Ceci.

Washington, D.C. – On May 4, the Embassy of Nicaragua, along with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, held an event in honor of Nicaragua’s Day of National Dignity. The day celebrates General Augusto Sandino’s refusal to adhere to the Espino Negro Pact, which essentially turned over control of Nicaragua to the United States military. 

The pact stripped Nicaragua almost entirely of its sovereignty regarding diplomacy, trade, legislation, economic development—you name it. As such, Sandino refused to order his forces to surrender their weapons to the U.S., stating that Nicaragua would never surrender its sovereignty to an imperial invader. 

Ever since, Nicaragua has celebrated May 4 as a Day of National Dignity and sovereignty, recognizing that Nicaragua will never concede its governance to U.S. imperialism. 

To celebrate this day here in the U.S., Nicaragua’s embassy invited friendly organizations and activists in the Mid-Atlantic region to hear International Court of Justice Ambassador Carlos Arguello speak about the day of dignity and the current struggle against imperialism. The Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly sent a delegation. 

Arguello gave a captivating history of Sandino’s stand against imperialism and outlined Nicaragua’s current case against Germany in the International Court of Justice for its continued arming of the illegal Zionist entity known as “Israel” while it is committing genocide in Gaza. The full pleading can be read here. 

Long live Nicaragua! Sandino presente! Down with Zionism!

Los Angeles – The widespread campus revolts over the genocidal attack on Gaza by the Zionist state continue to spread. High-tech communications are such that millions are watching the horrific military assault on Palestinian babies, their parents, and all Palestinians in sight with the machinery handed over by U.S. military contractors, paid for by our tax dollars. 

The spread of determined protests, inspired and often led by young Palestinians, is historic in how fast it has grown and how widespread it has become. Students have been suspended, expelled, arrested, unjustly accused of antisemitism, and physically attacked. Support has emerged from faculty, unions, and thousands of individuals. Campus authorities are clueless as to how to stop it.

UCLA students are a great example of how durable this new protest movement is. In spite of their actions being declared illegal by the school’s chancellor, a four-hour fascist attack during the early morning hours of May Day, police brutally breaking up their encampment on May 2, and nearly 300 arrests and constant harassment by violent Zionists, LA cops and a private security agency, the struggle continues.

Immediately after the students set up the encampment at Royce Hall, Zionists began showing up with an expensive sound system and huge video screen. The funding that paid for their equipment and perhaps more than that was from a GoFundMe account that raised nearly $100,000. Among the contributors was Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of reactionary comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman. That was the first indication that there would be an ongoing presence of a pro-genocide crowd. 

Campus police and California Highway Patrol (CHP) were stopping people going to the anti-genocide rally, while people wrapped in the Zionist flag or carrying pro-genocide signs were freely wandering into the pro-Zionist crowd.

Cops, fascists, media collude

Beginning late Tuesday night, April 30, the Zionists began showing up in greater numbers at the edge of the ongoing encampment. These were a more ominous crowd than the Zionists that had been showing up for several days. Some sported the Zionist flag, but others were masked and wrapped themselves in the U.S. flag. It looked like past gatherings of Proud Boys or other right-wing goons. 

Just after midnight, these thugs routed the handful of UCLA campus police, who fled when they were on the receiving end of barricades being picked up and thrown. The Zionist side blasted the sound of babies crying and music from their huge sound system to keep people from sleeping. They threw debris, sprayed water, and began tearing down the plywood walls that protesters had erected. They used bear spray.  

One protester was dragged out of the encampment, thrown to the ground and kicked by four fascists. Fireworks were tossed into the middle of the tent city. One protestor suffered a head injury when he fell after being hit with bear spray. Other protestors carried him to a safe space, where he lay prone and barely conscious as they tried to get an ambulance.

The call for an ambulance brought three accompanying squad cars. EMS workers rinsed some peoples’ eyes, treated a few minor injuries, and left. The cops (who turned out to be campus police) milled around for a few minutes and then left without taking any action or ordering the fascists to leave. 

When this writer called the Los Angeles Police Department and demanded to know why they did nothing to stop the attack, the cops claimed that they were there. It was a blatant lie, and the next morning, CBS News falsely reported that LAPD had shown up in full riot gear to stop the attack. Nothing of the sort happened. 

Fatineh Judeh, a member of the organization Unmute Humanity, confirmed with Struggle-La Lucha that no LA cops had ever shown up to stop the attack and that one protester had been stabbed by a knife-wielding attacker.

In reality the LAPD held back while the fascists attacked. In hindsight, it looked like a case of collusion between cops and hired fascist thugs, as well as a media coverup.

Calls for chancellor’s resignation

The power of this protest movement is such that UCLA’s chancellor, Gene Block, is now facing consequences. He’s hired the former Sacramento police chief to form a new “Office of Campus Safety.” The first task is to “investigate,” along with LA police agencies, the question of “if” there had been a security lapse. This is clearly a case of the fox being appointed to guard the henhouse.

UCLA’s Daily Bruin newspaper reports that Block is facing calls for his resignation even after the clumsy attempt to save himself.  

If there were still questions about the role of the cops after they did nothing to stop the fascist attack the night before, they were answered when California Highway Patrol moved in overnight on May 1-2 and broke up the encampment, arresting 200 people in the process. 

Their assault was no walk in the park though. Their first attempt to rout the students failed. Students and their supporters from UCLA faculty and other UCLA workers had linked arms and would not budge. The shoving match went on long enough so that the cops retreated. 

It was only when they returned in larger numbers, using flash bangs, rubber bullets and pepper spray, that the cops succeeded in kettling the protestors and arresting 200 people.

With all of this, the protest is continuing. On Monday, May 6, students held two consecutive sit-ins at Moore Hall and Dodd Hall. As the sit-ins were getting organized, cops arrested another 43 people – this time in the parking lot before they even reached any activity. Absurdly, they charged them all with “conspiracy to commit burglary” and “breaking curfew.” 

Hours later though, hundreds of students, faculty and staff marched through campus again.

The students united will never be defeated! Down with Zionism, down with U.S. imperialism!

May 7 — Thousands of people marched tonight on New York City streets demanding an end to the latest U.S.-Israeli assault on Rafah in Gaza, Palestine. While Zionist soldiers kill Palestinian children, it’s Genocide Joe Biden who is supplying the bombs and shells.  

People gathered at 6 p.m. in lower Manhattan’s Union Square for a short rally. Ysabella Titi of the Palestinian Youth Movement, Areej Khan of PAL Al Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and Layan Fuleihan of The People’s Forum demanded an end to the U.S.-sponsored genocide. So did TPF Executive Director Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De la Cruz, the presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Thousands marched out of Union Square carrying signs and banners. They headed west on 14th Street. People chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” while playing drums.

Cops forced marchers onto the sidewalk and singled out Manolo De Los Santos for arrest. Other marchers were arrested as well.

The demonstration went north on Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), then turned east on 42nd Street. Onlookers were friendly and interested.

A rally was held in front of the great reference library on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds then went to One Police Plaza for jail support. 

Others went to the Fashion Institute of Technology, where cops arrested 50 people while breaking up the student encampment there. The people will stop the genocide in Gaza!

New Orleans, May 1 – Immigrant-worker organization Unión Migrante led a march to celebrate the international workers’ holiday, which has been revived across the country in recent years by immigrant activists. 

The march began on Conti Street beneath a statue of Mexico’s Indigenous president, Benito Juárez. (Juárez was a Zapotec leader from a peasant family who was exiled by a conservative government during the 1850s, first in Havana, Cuba, and then in New Orleans.) The May Day march ended with a rally in front of City Hall. 

Representatives from many endorsing organizations spoke, including unions like the National Association of Letter Carriers, United Teachers of New Orleans, and Starbucks Workers United. Speakers from revolutionary organizations also took to the mic, such as Workers Voice Socialist Movement, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Reflecting the great movement that is sweeping the country, many participants wore keffiyehs and speakers emphasized the importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. An organizer with Students for a Democratic Society spoke on behalf of Tulane University’s Palestine encampment, which had been brutally suppressed by police the day before. 

The prominence of Palestine solidarity on May Day is a very good thing. The workers’ movement cannot confine itself to narrow economics. All attacks on oppressed people are attacks on workers. These are all workers’ issues. Indeed, this was one of the main arguments in Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s pamphlet, “What is to Be Done?” 

He said that the workers’ struggle absolutely cannot confine itself to just wages or economics in the narrow sense. Instead, our movement must expose the oppressors and exploiters in whatever sphere they’re operating, and we must fight all their attacks. We might take this advice to heart, given that Lenin led the revolution that established the first lasting workers’ state.

‘Resist Landry!’ 

Queer and trans contingents were prominent throughout the march, from trans youth organization BreakOUT!, to La Familia LGBTQ del Sur, to the Queer and Trans Community Action Project (QTCAP), newly formed by members of the old Real Name Campaign. 

QTCAP activists held aloft a banner saying, “Resist Landry.” Jeff Landry is Louisiana’s far-right, bigoted governor, who recently tried to prevent hungry kids from accessing school lunch over the summer (doesn’t seem like much of a “family man”). Others in the crowd held up the blue, pink and white trans pride flag. 

One stage and film set worker with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees or IATSE gave a talk. He said:
“The union movement right now in this country is huge. The workers’ voice is being heard and they are very frightened. Stay together, fight the fight, continue to spread the message of what is right.”

This message of unity was echoed in all the speeches. We are living in dangerous times. Capitalism is in crisis and attacks are coming down everywhere. Things are bad in Louisiana. Landry and his fascist movement are ramming through anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-queer, and anti-trans legislation. They’re imposing anti-women legislation. (Landry made a career undermining abortion rights long before he was elected governor.)

But that speaker was right. Our ruling class enemies are afraid. If they weren’t afraid, they wouldn’t be attacking us so fiercely. Six southern governors wouldn’t have signed a letter denouncing the United Auto Workers union drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Despite the governors’ efforts, the workers won! They organized a union. 

As in cities and towns across the country, and around the world for that matter, the crowd that gathered in New Orleans on May Day was a microcosm of the working class. Our class is diverse. It is immigrant and non-immigrant, Black and white, Asian, Indigenous. It is trans, cis, straight, and queer. Despite these differences, we are all workers. The capitalists are afraid of that. 

May Day was a warmup. They know that we can come out in the thousands and the millions, just like we did for Black lives in 2020.

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! The people united will never be defeated!

May 7 — As Israel embarked on the first steps of its long-promised invasion of Rafah, Biden delivered a chilling speech scapegoating Hamas militants and pro-Palestine protesters for antisemitism in the U.S. on Tuesday, vowing a crackdown on demonstrators seeking to end Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

During remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, Biden interweaved discussion of the Holocaust with condemnation of Hamas militants’ attack on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Invoking racist tropes, Biden claimed that Hamas militants harbor the same “ancient hatred” of Jewish people that spurred the Holocaust — an equivalence that has been drawn by Israeli officials time and time again to justify Israel’s brutality against Palestinians.

Antisemitic “hatred was brought to life on October 7 of 2023,” Biden said, by Hamas militants “driven by an ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the earth.” At one point, he equated the attack on October 7 to the Holocaust. “Too many people denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust on October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”

This statement is incorrect and dangerous for many reasons, as human rights advocates have pointed out. As a group, Hamas is far from “ancient” — Hamas was established 37 years ago by revolutionaries seeking to liberate Palestine from decades of violent Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, with an opposition to Zionism, not the Jewish people, as the group established in their 2017 charter.

Saying that there is an “ancient desire” to kill Jewish people within the Palestinian resistance, then, implies that Biden believes that Palestinians have an innate desire to oppose Jewish people — an implication that many advocates for Palestinian rights have pointed out is deeply racist, and an accusation that has long been levied against Palestinians in order to justify their slaughter.

“Hamas was founded in 1987. So when the president says ‘ancient desires’ to eliminate the Jews, he’s making a point about Arabs/Muslims as inherently and viscerally genocidal,” said AJ+’s Sana Saeed on social media.

The president spent roughly half of his speech, supposedly aimed at addressing antisemitism, denouncing Hamas and student protesters against genocide, without a word about the antisemitism growing within the Republican Party and embraced by his opponent in the presidential election. This is only the latest example of Biden and Zionists within his administration cynically using antisemitism as a bludgeon to silence critics of Israel’s genocide — a practice that many Jewish anti-Zionists have said only makes it harder to fight actual antisemitism.

Biden is one of the only people in the world with the singular power to end Israel’s genocide, which has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians so far, including over 14,500 children, with full U.S. backing.

But rather than stop Israel as it began its raid of Rafah on Monday and Tuesday — something Biden said was a “red line” that Israel cannot cross just two months ago and that advocates have warned is the “final phase” of the genocide — Biden focused on vilifying the wave of pro-Palestine student protesters opposing Israel’s genocide. For the second time in days, he smeared the protesters as antisemitic without evidence, and vowed to crack down on them.

“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” Biden said before going on to reference the protests. After implying that campus protests and pro-Palestine advocates were a danger to Jewish people in the U.S., he said that his administration is “mobilizing the full force of the federal government to protect Jewish communities.”

Jewish advocates for Palestinian rights reacted with horror to Biden’s speech.

“It is a horrific lie that Jewish safety is protected by the Israeli government’s slaughter of Palestinian families or that riot police arresting peaceful protestors is for the sake of Jewish students,” said Stefanie Fox, Jewish Voice for Peace’s executive director, in a statement. “Biden’s speech used accusations of antisemitism to distract the American public from our complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. It was a grotesque betrayal of the memories of our families murdered in the Holocaust.”

These remarks play into the tradition of Zionists weaponizing antisemitism in order to fuel repression of pro-Palestine advocates, levying accusations of antisemitism against advocates when many Jewish advocates and Jewish organizations have said that they have seen no evidence of widespread antisemitism among protesters. Rather, Zionists are seeking to obfuscate the history of Palestinian resistance and Israeli occupation by saying that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic; ironically, Zionist Republicans have invoked detestable antisemitic tropes themselves in order to smear protesters as the real antisemites.

Members of Congress recently sought to codify this into law with a bill that would explicitly adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel. But this conflation actually risks worsening antisemitism and weakening the movement against it, as San Diego State University political science professor Jonathan Graubart recently wrote for Truthout.

“Shamelessly … the [Anti-Defamation League] and other mainstream Jewish organizations add fuel to antisemitism by subordinating the struggle against antisemitism to advocacy on behalf of the state of Israel,” Graubart wrote. “Rather than educate the public about the dangers of conflating Israel’s actions with Jews at large, these organizations do the opposite by framing virtually all criticisms of Israel as antisemitic.”

Source: Truthout