What the Palestine solidarity movement has achieved

For two years, millions of workers, students, the poor and oppressed around the world have counterposed their decency to their governments’ complicity in relation to the unspeakable horror inflicted on Gaza.

Mass protests, along with smaller pickets and vigils, have demanded that governments sanction Israel and unions ban the export of arms to Israel. Students have struck in defiance of politicians and principals, football teams and their supporters have raised the Palestinian flag, filling stadiums with chants of “Free, Free Palestine!”

Students in the US, Israel’s key supporter, began an international movement of encampments on university campuses, demanding an end to academic links with Israel. They withstood a barrage of both slander and police violence. Administrations accused pro-Palestine campers of threatening Jewish students, with no evidence, at the same time as they turned a blind eye to the violence of Israel’s supporters.

Repressive censorship, victimisation of individuals and groups and increasingly authoritarian restrictions on the right to protest could not silence masses of people. Indeed, they provoked debates that, in turn, generated a wider knowledge of Palestinian oppression and the nature of the state of Israel.

In response to the declaration of the ceasefire, the Economist’s deputy editor wrote, “It is a triumph for President Donald Trump’s transactional, bullying style of diplomacy”. Everything that happens is down to the genius, or at least agency, of the powerful from the point of view of the ruling classes’ hangers-on.

But why did Trump choose to exercise his power, after previously backing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter what his crimes? We cannot know his mind. But as the Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd wrote in the epilogue to his book Perfect Victims, published earlier this year:

“Through close inspection—watching state media, listening to the shifting global narrative, witnessing the renaissance of radical movements, even reading the inscriptions in random airport bathrooms—one discovers that this is a new dawn [and this] reminds us that liberation is attainable, the future is within reach.”

A small group of activists in Sydney also sensed that new dawn. They seized the moment, standing strong against the state’s determination to suppress a planned march across the iconic Harbour Bridge on 3 August. And 300,000 answered their call to “march for humanity”.

Then we witnessed a rising tide of protest actions in Europe. On 1 September, 50,000 marched in the Italian port of Genoa to support the Global Sumud Flotilla, the largest attempt yet to break Israel’s siege on Gaza.

When Israel seized their boats and captured the activists, millions joined the call to blocchiamo tutto or block everything, with a campaign of mass strikes and huge street protests. Then Spanish unions called a 24-hour strike for Palestine. Everywhere, students are joining striking workers, blockading their schools and universities.

At the end of September, the largest ever demonstrations in support of Palestine in both Berlin and Amsterdam filled the streets.

Something Trump said on Fox News hints at some of the reason for Trump’s turnaround: “Israel can’t fight the world, Bibi”. That is true only up to a point. They have the might of powerful armed forces. This fight is not over yet. But for now, they have pulled back in the face of the passionate opposition to Israel’s atrocities finding its voice in mass actions.

Governments, media, universities and supporters of Israel have smeared opponents of genocide as antisemitic supporters of terrorism. Draconian laws to shut down free speech and protests have proliferated. Journalists, writers, academics, actors, musicians and anyone else who tries to speak the truth has been cancelled.

But opinion polls in the west have shown a clear shift away from support for Israel over the course of the war. Almost everywhere now, there is majority support for the Palestinians and strong support for governments to sanction Israel. Millions are sacrificing pay and risking victimisation for the Palestinians.

The future for Gaza remains painfully uncertain. Ferocious ethnic cleansing by Israel in the West Bank means the struggle for Palestine is not over yet.

Nevertheless, this is a moment to celebrate the solidarity movement and to note the lessons of these two years—lessons which can guide us in the next phase of the fight against Israel.

This new dawn has been awakened by reaching out beyond the existing circles of activists, building mass protests and defying the powerful. In the face of such a movement, the ruling classes couldn’t cancel international solidarity with Gaza.

Masses of people, in the face of frightening attacks on their rights, have stood firm against barbarism and created a vision of an alternative to the rule of capital.