“Mustafa was sick with a fever. I was carrying him home. The call for evening prayer began. Everyone was indoors, breaking the fast. The next thing I know, Mustafa is next to me with his guts in the dirt. I realized my arm was cut open, and my hip was hanging by a piece of flesh. Mustafa was on the ground with his guts hanging out shouting, “Mama!” I was the only one in the street… The doctor said he couldn’t operate on Mustafa, and we should prepare to say goodbye. He said I was in better condition. A doctor came in and said that Mustafa and I had to be in separate rooms. I kept asking, “Have you sewn his guts in?” But it wasn’t just his guts. It was his leg, his testicle, his rear. Then we started getting bombed. We were running from one room to another. The doors and walls were collapsing on top of us.”

- Fallujah resident Nidhal Abed recalling her son’s injury during the U.S. military’s 2004 assault on the city.

On March 31, 2004, four private military contractors working for Blackwater were killed in an ambush in Fallujah, Iraq. Their deaths quickly became a force for headlines across the world as Iraqis joyously dragged what remained of their corpses to a nearby bridge to hang as a display of the resistance of the Iraqi people amid the larger U.S. invasion. The photos and videos stunned many, especially those who had falsely assumed that the American military was acting in the interest of the Iraqi people.

It wouldn’t take long for the U.S. military to begin planning its response. They began dropping leaflets across the city, telling Iraqis to flee before their imminent invasion. At the same time, troops began amassing and waiting for the order to commence what was being called Operation Vigilant Resolve, which they received in early April. U.S. forces began widespread bombardment of sites across Fallujah, then initiated a ground invasion led by the 1st Marine Division’s Regimental Combat Team-1, beginning what would become one of the fiercest sites of fighting in the invasion. Soldiers and reporters in the years since have recalled the incredibly relaxed rules of engagement that U.S. forces were operating under as they began combat. Former New York Times journalist Dexter Filkins, during the documentary Once Upon a Time in Iraq: Fallujah, noted:

“The rules were like… dialed really far back, like really loose, yanno? Guy picked up a cell phone? You can kill him. If you fire one warning shot at a car and it doesn’t stop coming at you? You can kill him.”

For invading U.S. forces, their time spent warning the general population of the impending invasion was sufficient to ensure civilians were able to flee. Those who remained, therefore, were viewed as combatants or possible combatants.

Sending young U.S. Marines into a foreign city that had been deemed infested with enemies they had been trained to view as subhuman resulted in exactly what one might expect. Countless atrocities were committed amid both the first invasion of Fallujah, which was completed by the beginning of May, and the second invasion, which began later that year. According to the Geneva International Center for Justice:

The United States offensive in Fallujah created siege conditions that brought more than destruction. Food vanished from shelves. Clean water ran out. Medical services collapsed. Gunfire and bombardment trapped civilians, who could neither flee nor receive aid. These were foreseeable outcomes of a strategy that ignored the civilian population. Between 12 and 18 April 2004, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reported severe shortages of food, water, and medical supplies. Water and sewage systems failed for at least a week. Humanitarian convoys struggled to enter the city, despite efforts by UN agencies [5]. The occupying forces had a legal duty to facilitate humanitarian aid. Blocking relief in a besieged city broke that obligation.

Hundreds would be killed, and countless others terrorized and wounded, in this time as U.S. and allied Iraqi forces went door to door in an intense urban combat environment to quell resistance in the city.

White phosphorus, a substance that burns so hot it burns through skin and bone, was deployed throughout the city in what was described by journalist Darrin Mortenson as being a part of the U.S. military’s “shake and bake” tactics, which entailed firing high explosives and white phosphorus to terrorize the population and clear out what they had deemed pockets of resistance. Bodies and homes were burned by this substance, which the United States government would later claim was being used purely for illumination purposes.

As white phosphorus fell over the heads of Iraqi men, women, and children, so too did depleted uranium rounds that were fired by U.S. forces alongside their standard munitions. The health effects of such weapons should be obvious. The Geneva International Center for Justice notes:

Researchers, including Dr Chris Busby, documented a sharp rise in birth defects and elevated cancer rates, particularly childhood leukaemia, linked to the deployment of DU and other military pollutants during the battle. Dr Busby worked with the GICJ to collect samples from the hair of children, fathers, and mothers, as well as from the soil and the environment. These samples underwent laboratory testing, which confirmed severe contamination. Fallujah’s already weakened healthcare system, battered by conflict and the collapse of infrastructure, could not address the scale of the health emergency. Children bore the heaviest burden, both in life and in death.

Depleted uranium in particular has had generational consequences for the people of Iraq. Fallujah has found itself a hot spot for research in the years since Operation Valiant Resolve, and the results are truly devastating. A 2010 study by British scientist Chris Busby, who was studying the health effects of radiation, identified a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in the city since the invasion of the city. Other studies have found equally horrific outcomes. It would seem that even decades after the first U.S. boots hit the ground in Fallujah, its residents still bear the horrific consequences.

These were just some of the horrors, which for many U.S. service members have become a part of a sort of badge of honor. For many of them, those who fought in the streets of Fallujah saw uniquely difficult combat that merits a note of distinction. Soldiers I have spoken with often describe those they knew who experienced it as being “among the hardest” of their colleagues, the men who survived combat, many are quietly happy they did not have to experience it. Some others are jealous that they weren’t able to be a part of it.

Spoken of less are the victims of the operation turned military epic, the men, women, and children who had their lives torn apart and sometimes permanently changed or ended by the actions of U.S. occupational forces. In the United States, the victims we oftentimes hear about are actually the soldiers themselves, many of whom have reported struggling with PTSD and other issues related to their service. Their struggles have oftentimes taken center stage as those thousands of miles away continue to try to pick up the pieces.

Among them is Graham Platner.

Maine has become the site of one of the highest-profile political races in the United States in recent months, as U.S. veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner has gained tremendous momentum against Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Hearing him speak, it’s easy to understand why. He is pushing for a slew of progressive policies, including Medicare for All, passing the PRO Act, banning billionaires from buying U.S. elections, ending the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and more.

He has a good pitch, bolstered by what many on the ground have called a sort of natural charisma that is engaging vast swaths of Maine voters in more ways than one. One Democratic political operative I spoke to about his race noted that he had heard countless older women in the crowds at his events fawning over him, citing his voice and generally gruff aesthetic. For many in Maine, they’re exactly what they’ve been looking for: a man who can speak to voters on the ground and possibly even topple the longest-serving Republican woman in Senate history.

What has made this race a national discussion, however, is not Platner’s positions or charisma so much as the seemingly endless controversies his campaign has faced over the last few months. It all started with Reddit. In October of 2025, Reddit comments from an account tied to Platner surfaced. The comments, which ranged from negative statements about Maine residents to the seeming dismissal of conversations around rape in the U.S. military, drew a significant negative response that resulted in a public apology.

Then came the tattoo. In an interview with Pod Save America last October, he showed off a shirtless picture of himself with a tattoo that was quickly identified as the notorious skull and crossbones Totenkopf design associated with the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS). For most campaigns, this would have been a game-ender. For Platner, this was a roadbump. After apologizing, alongside claiming that he did not know the design had such a horrific meaning, he had it covered up.

The controversies did not end there. In the months since, several high-level scandals have plagued the campaign, centering around Graham Platner’s alleged conduct with women and rumors of infidelity in his marriage. For many around the country, the question has become not if another scandal will emerge, but when. What has been largely left out of all of these conversations, however, has been what might very well be the most controversial element of Platner’s past: his military record.

Graham Platner’s military service has been a longstanding central component of his campaign. His time spent abroad and the mental anguish he has claimed to have struggled with upon returning home have been consistently discussed as parts of his life that give him legitimacy as an outspoken opponent to continued military support for the Israeli colony and rhetorical opposition to the blunder that is the war with Iran. Among the highlights touted by Platner are his time spent in Fallujah and Ramadi during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

It is critical to note that despite the common misconception that Platner was on the ground during the first or second U.S. operations to control Fallujah, he actually has openly clarified that he arrived on site after the main fight, spending time in the city once many of the horrors noted above were undergone. This does not absolve him of his role in maintaining a notably brutal occupation, especially as a door-kicker (a soldier with a front-line active combat role).

What is of particular interest, however, is his time spent in the U.S. operations to seize Ramadi. ACLU efforts to draw attention to U.S. abuses against detainees summarize some of the horrors of these efforts, with reference to a DVD made by U.S. soldiers titled “Ramadi Madness” in a 2005 press release:

A description of a DVD called “Ramadi Madness” that included scenes of soldiers kicking a flexicuffed prisoner who reportedly later died; using a dead prisoner’s body to “wave hello”; and joyriding in a prisoner’s van while yelling profanities at Iraqi civilians. Copies of the DVD were destroyed in January 2004 by a sergeant after he learned the incident was under investigation. No soldier was charged in relation to the making of the DVD or the incidents depicted in it.

Ramadi, it would seem, fit a pattern of U.S. military conduct that was witnessed in operation after operation as U.S. soldiers were given broad leeway to act with near impunity, as mechanisms for accountability were seemingly nonexistent. Platner was among these servicemembers, at the very least aiding in the operations that led to these abuses. This is before he went to the private sector.

After completing several tours in the U.S. armed forces, Graham Platner went back, this time to Afghanistan as a mercenary working for Constellis, which was formed through larger acquisition efforts that included the purchasing of Blackwater assets after the company collapsed following the 2014 Nisour Square massacre.

Though Platner has clarified in interviews that his work was mostly related to the protection of diplomatic staff and lower-risk embassy support work, he nonetheless signed up to profit from U.S. occupation efforts in yet another nation that had upended the lives of millions. This activity in particular has drawn more criticism than the rest of his record, especially given the unsavory connections between Constellis and Blackwater, a company that is widely understood by many in the public to have been complicit in horrific atrocities.

All of this has been largely brushed over in the public discourse surrounding Platner. The lives of Iraqis and Afghans who lived under U.S. occupation are seemingly absent, with the focus instead only on Platner’s statements and actions upon returning home. The most in-depth discussions of his service oftentimes do not even center on the service itself, either, oftentimes being squarely focused on the PTSD and other issues Platner faced upon attempting to reintegrate into civilian life. Little to no discussion is given to those who had to piece their lives back together in Ramadi, Fallujah, or the other areas that Platner and those like him destroyed in pursuit of U.S. imperial interests.

This is not a unique case. Americans have had a longstanding blind spot for U.S. servicemembers and the actions they have been complicit in amid U.S. operations over the decades. Victims of these horrific adventures are oftentimes treated as little more than footnotes, with some exceptions, with discussions of these soldiers centered upon the difficulties they have coming home. When critiques are levied, they oftentimes become bogged down in discussions of poverty drafts, the socioeconomic incentives for service, and other reasons that frequently seem more like excuses than adequate analysis of the harm done through participation in the largest, most violent, most heavily polluting, imperial institution in the world.

It becomes difficult to see these discussions and not arrive at the conclusion that to many Americans, the victims of U.S. imperialism ultimately hold less value than those facilitating such violence, even if many have some degree of sympathy for those being harmed. Platner represents a prime example of such a reality. When asked what should disqualify him from becoming one of the world’s most powerful elected officials, the reasons given are Reddit posts, tattoos, and improper statements. Is kicking in the door of a family in Ramadi not itself also disqualifying?

This is a question that is especially important to ask, given that Platner’s positions indicate that he is anti-war (in some limited, unquantifiable circumstances), but far from anti-imperialist. His platform claims that he is against “pointless wars”, without specifying what criteria would define a war as such. This seems like a minor gripe, but it is incredibly important given that other elements of the platform indicate that his issues with the U.S. military are less about its actions and more about where the money is going. He is also fighting for “fair wages” for U.S. servicemembers, arguing that some are making “far less than they would as a civilian”. In his section discussing combating Pentagon waste, he states that we “need to take the funds currently paying for mansions in Virginia and Maryland for defense contractors” and reinvest them in shipbuilding investments to close what he describes as a gap in our naval capacity. That same section ends rather ominously with this final point:

I’ve seen under the hood. I know exactly how much money is wasted, and where. Send me to Washington and I will work tirelessly to rebuild the American military.

And yet, discussions around Platner paint him as an ardently anti-war progressive, with supporters oftentimes seemingly ignoring these positions while they highlight his stances on Medicare for All, supporting unions, and raising the minimum wage. Our domestic comforts are prioritized, all while the past harm he is complicit in and his support for continued U.S. military funding that will no doubt facilitate other horrors go chronically underdiscussed.

What does this say about us then, especially those on the Left so willing to support Platner and those like him, and elevate them to positions of major sociopolitical status? Is our best argument that he may very well be better than his opposition? That he has given some rhetorical nods to other critical issues? Though I can see the merit to these arguments on some level, it appears as if red lines we would almost certainly have for, say, Israeli occupational soldiers, are non-existent for American soldiers, despite their being a part of a volunteer force (and Platner having been an enthusiastic multi-tour veteran).

Are the lives of those in the nations the U.S. has destroyed to be relegated permanently as footnotes to be treated as unfair critiques when acknowledged as possible red lines? Are the men, women, and children slaughtered by those in our own occupational forces only inconvenient truths to be downplayed so long as we can advance our own material conditions? If this race is to be a case study, it seems the answer for many is “yes”.

To that end, we owe it to our brothers and sisters across the world to hold a better line. The Platners of the world may not be a monolithically irredeemable cohort, but that does not mean they need to be lionized and elevated to higher office as they stand on the corpses of millions. Maintaining this blind spot only ensures that we remain unable to truly begin dismantling the very institutions responsible for maintaining U.S. hegemony and stopping the violence that flows from them.

It is worth asking ourselves what it means if we fight for a society that uplifts ourselves at the expense of the lives of millions we may never meet. Are our lives more valuable than theirs? I cannot accept that they are.

Using in-depth accounting from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and survivor testimony collected within their recent report “Another Genocide Behind Walls”, we can get a glimpse of the unspeakable horrors Palestinians are being put through in the name of advancing Zionist colonial interests. Their experiences paint an honest picture of the reality of the Zionist project and need to be known and discussed, especially as Zionist actors try to suppress conversation surrounding it all.

This video contains a discussion of graphic sexual violence covered in one section of the larger report. For more in-depth witness testimony and expanded discussion around the complicity of the Israeli healthcare system, I would strongly suggest reading the full Euro-Med Monitor report (as well as countless other testimonies from Palestinians who have experienced this and other violence at the hands of Zionist actors). Until every Palestinian held hostage within the confines of Israeli colonial dungeons is free, there remains work to be done.

If you would like to support those in the Palestinian prisoner solidarity movement, you can contact or donate to Samidoun, an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom. No one is free until we are all free.

During a livestream in August 2019, political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker stated in a now regularly dredged-up clip that the United States of America deserved the attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. The attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people and left countless others suffering from long-term illnesses, were a devastating moment for many across the country. It shook the consciousness of many as a moment where a foreign organization many might not have even known of up to that point made the world’s preeminent imperialist power bleed from within the confines of its own borders.

Unsurprisingly, in the years since his statement, the clip has regularly resurfaced amid attacks levied against him by actors across the political spectrum. To many, a man saying that the deaths of thousands were ultimately something they were deserving of may have seemed a step too far. I have thought about that clip more and more over the years, particularly since the Israeli response to the Al Aqsa Flood operation of October 7, 2023, began. We have seen years now of genocide live-streamed for the world to see, and the response within the managers of the imperial core, even as popular support wanes, has been to crack down on dissent and largely just shift their rhetoric while maintaining their underlying support for the colony committing the atrocities.

Mothers have held their dying infants, fathers carried the remains of their children in plastic bags, medics have been uncovered in mass graves, and millions have called out endlessly begging the world for support amid famine and continued bombardment. All the while, our political leaders have condemned those resisting their own annihilation on the ground, policed the language of those protesting for the liberation of Palestinians, and begged us at every step to defang our demands so that their lives might be easier as they sign off on mass death.

With the initiation of the war on Iran by the U.S. and Israeli governments, the thought of that clip has only rang around in my head more. Millions across the region are waking up every morning fearing that it may be their last on this earth. Thousands have been killed, millions displaced, as the U.S. and Israeli militaries continue to try to exert their military and economic dominance in the region. As this happens, the response from many Americans has been largely muted. The war is unpopular, though a sizable number of Americans support the slaughter, and yet it seems that the status quo has largely been maintained. That is life within the imperial core after all, relative safety, even as genocide and acts of regional devastation are committed by our government.

When we do hear real upheaval over the war, it generally comes in terms of the comparatively small costs we face as a result of it. Gas prices across the region have risen since the initiation of U.S. and Israeli aggression, for example. U.S. consumers are paying significantly more than they did a few months ago to fill their gas tanks, stretching already thin budgets thinner as many try to get by in an economy that seems to be increasingly clearly in an unspoken recession. We fear the possibility of higher food and energy costs, and, for some, changes to our travel plans during the summer.

Even I have fallen into this thought process as I sit in relative comfort compared to those I know in Lebanon, Palestine, Cuba, and Iran, all of whom have seen their lives severely disrupted by the ongoing horrors of U.S. imperialism. As my friends in Lebanon discuss seeing their villages demolished by Israeli occupational forces, I have been worried about whether or not I will be able to travel home for my sister’s wedding later this year. It’s a sort of dichotomy that is enough to make me feel crazy, and I assume I am not the only one.

As this all happens, and Americans begin to face the smallest pain of a war that has devastated the lives of millions, the response has remained relatively muted. No mass protest movement has erupted akin to the war in Iraq or in the months following the Al Aqsa Flood. It seems many who have been in the space are facing increased burnout and are being stretched thinner and thinner as we try to devise plans that get people to care. Worse yet, as organizers continue to raise awareness and devise campaigns, they are oftentimes met with apathy or outright hostility.

I heard one story of a candidate in Philadelphia going to a mosque and telling the congregation after Jummah prayer that they should vote for him because his opponent was “Only focused on foreign issues”, as opposed to his focus on their lives. Mind you, he was talking about his opponent speaking out about the genocide in Palestine. He was met by the shout of “Takbir!” from some in the congregation, a celebration of his willingness to sacrifice millions for our domestic comforts. It would seem apathy and nativism are the trends of the day.

As I hear all of this and see many simply go about their day or attempt to avoid the news of the day amid the mass devastation our nation reaps, I cannot help but arrive at a simple question: Do we, perhaps, deserve what is to come?

It would seem that for many, these issues only become priorities when the consequences reach our shores, whether in the form of a national tragedy or a slightly higher price at the pump. For our government, even this is tolerable, as they do not even care about the economic harm done to millions within the imperial core if it means maintaining U.S. hegemony in the global order. Apathy has become easier because we are insulated from the overwhelming amount of violence that is inflicted to maintain our relative material comfort.

Obviously, this comfort is not shared equally amongst all those within the imperial core, as many within the confines of the U.S. still suffer under genocidal policymaking and systemic violence. Still, it has by and large become easier to ignore injustice and simply say we stand against it than plug in and identify ways to stop it. Perhaps this is a failure of socialist organizations, as much as of any individual, as many seem to know of no alternative or way forward that could lead to change. This reality is something I find myself thinking about almost daily.

As Hasan Piker has explained ad nauseam at this point, his commentary around the September 11th attacks was not him stating that those victims deserved such suffering. Rather, he was stating that the attacks were the result of decades of U.S. imperial meddling, a sort of boomerang resulting from the blood on the hands of our government. Applying this thought to the current crises we are witnessing across the world, I cannot help but agree completely with this analysis. Perhaps we deserve to have higher gas prices, to pay more for our food, and to feel bad about the horrors we are otherwise so far removed from. This is even more true of those who choose to do nothing amid the horrors, or worse yet, who choose to toss it to the side entirely deliberately for the sake of their own interests.

When accounting for the historic and current horrors unleashed by our government, perhaps we deserve worse than just the fear of not being able to fill up our gas tanks. For those who have struggled under the boot of U.S. imperialism, I imagine such a reality would be welcome when compared to what they’ve experienced for years upon years. Millions do not have the luxury of remaining apathetic as they struggle for their very survival. Millions more will continue to die if we do not break from the apathy and hopelessness that have enveloped so many of us.

On Friday, April 9, 1948, Zionist paramilitary forces comprised of units from the Haganah, Irgun, and the Stern Gang initiated an ethnic cleansing operation targeting the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. For those in the village, this very well may have come as a surprise, as the community had been known in part for its peaceful relations with nearby Jewish communities, and had even been said to have driven away Arab fighters who had attempted to take refuge within it amid the ongoing Zionist terror campaigns that had begun to escalate rapidly across historic Palestine.1 Unbeknownst to the villagers, these units had been tasked with the liquidation of the Palestinian population, numbering around 700 people in total. In the ensuing hours, a massacre would take place that would forever be etched into the memory of those across the region.

The village was helpless as Zionist footsoldiers went from house to house terrorizing all those they found. A UN report submitted in the following days detailed the events, noting that women and children were stripped, lined up, photographed, and then slaughtered by automatic gunfire. Testimony from the descendants of survivors indicates that as these events transpired, those same soldiers took to haphazardly firing automatic weapons into homes across the village, even going so far as to drop grenades in through windows as they went about their tasks. Some residences, even those containing families within, saw satchel charges of dynamite placed outside the home doors, slaughtering those inside with unimaginable brutality. At least one woman, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was taken by the militiamen who cut open her womb and left her to die.2 Testimony from survivors also recalled one father being forced at gunpoint to throw his son into the burning furnace of a bakery in the village. When he refused, he was beaten before being forced to watch his son being thrown into the furnace, burned alive by the invading settlers.

By the end of the massacre, an estimated 250-300 men, women, and children were killed. Those who survived the initial massacre either fled or were used as celebratory trophies, paraded in a triumphal procession around the Jewish communities of Jerusalem by Zionist settlers before being executed.

British investigator Richard Catling, who attempted to interview women and girls who had survived the massacre shortly after it occurred, noted a difficulty in persuading them to give any testimony at all regarding what had happened to them, stating:

I interviewed many of the womenfolk in order to glean some information on any attrocities committed in Deir Yasseen but the majority of those women are very shy and reluctant to relate their experiences especially in matters concerning sexual assault and they need great coaxing before they will divulge any information. The recording of statements is hampered also by the hysterical state of the women who often break down … whilst the statement is being recorded. There is, however, no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed.3

The news of the massacre at Deir Yassin quickly spread through communities across Palestine, in no small part due to Zionist efforts to weaponize it as a means of coaxing Palestinians to leave their villages and towns under the threat of being caught in the next massacre. It was likely no difficult to imagine such a possibility, as Deir Yassin was far from an isolated incident. Haganah units carried out other massacres in Nasr al-Din, ‘Ain al-Zeitouneh, al-Bi’na, al-Bassa, Safsaf, and even Hula in neighboring Lebanon, to name just a few examples.4 Unsurprisingly, many would choose to flee rather than risk experiencing such horrors.

Deir Yassin was one notable event in a larger multi-year series of Zionist paramilitary operations, which would later be called the Nakba by Palestinians, or “the catastrophe”. A catastrophe it was, as 750,000-800,000 Palestinians would be ethnically cleansed from over 530 cities, towns, and villages across historic Palestine, with another 10,000-15,000 estimated murdered by Zionist forces. Around 75% of the Palestinian population was thus made landless in the span of just a couple of years, expelled and made to live in refugee camps within and outside of Palestine. They and their descendants have since that point been barred from returning by Zionists in the name of maintaining more favorable demographic outlays that ensured settler majorities in occupied land.

For Zionists, this history is celebrated as their Independence Day.

This week, Israelis across the colony came together to celebrate the founding of their colony. For these settlers and their Zionist supporters around the world, it marks the culmination of decades of preparations and struggle in Palestine that had been undergone by early settlers to establish a new homeland for the Jewish people. As they would tell it, their settler movement reclaimed the land of their ancestors, and in 1948 staved off annihilation in a victory against Arab militants from Palestine and across the region before declaring independence from British colonial rule. The narrative, comprised of the David and Goliath storytelling that the colony has regularly deployed to describe its actions in the years since, is one of liberation, joy, and triumph.

For millions across the region, however, the founding of the colony is intrinsically tied to the decades of colonial violence that led up to its establishment and the constant violence that has existed since. Since its founding, Zionists settlers have fought tooth and nail to expand their territory and continue the attempted annihilation of all those living upon the land they seek to occupy.

Maximal control of land with minimal people upon it has been the cornerstone of Israeli doctrine, one that communities in Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria know all too well as the colony has spent years attempting to extend its borders across the region at large. Whether it be the expansion of the Zionist project within historic Palestine in attempts to “finish the job” and occupy all land in the 1948 and 1967 territories, multiple invasions of Lebanon and attempted occupation of land in the south of the nation, the occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights and an ever increasing amount of territory within the so-called Syrian buffer zone, or the temporary occupation of Egypts Sanai Peninsula, the existence of the colony has meant the oppression of millions.

Beyond the occupation of land, the existence of the colony has also meant widespread devastation for the region as U.S. and Israeli forces advance their joint interests in an effort to maintain military, political, and economic hegemony across the Middle East. For these forces, ensuring that actors in the region are exhausted, destabilized, and weak has been a primary goal, with horrific results for those millions caught in the crossfire. It is hard to find a nation anywhere in the region that does not know of someone whose life was altered by the occupation, sometimes permanently, even within the borders of U.S. client states like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others.

All of this violence has enabled the project to survive and even, at points, thrive. Over the years, it has become a vital part of the larger imperial arms industry, a tech hub, a tourist destination, and, for many, a nation like any other, albeit one that has made its fair share of mistakes along the way. This view has been the result of a decades-long public relations campaign seeking to normalize the colony’s existence and garner sympathy for it among those around the world, particularly within the imperial core.

These efforts and celebrations, however, do not change the reality of the colony, nor do they make the reality of those living under its boot any less violent. From its very foundation, the colony has been sustained by the mass suffering of millions. It is an entity that is sustained through suffering and colonial violence that intrudes into every element of the lives it seeks to conquer. This naked violence is far from the liberatory fantasy of the Zionist narrative.

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Why then, do so many celebrate? The answer lies in who is truly included in celebrations of “independence”. No doubt, the removal of British colonial oversight made the efforts of Zionists easier, even if the British government had for years worked to facilitate their interests and foster the development of their colonial project. They rid themselves of a sometimes mildly inconvenient manager, one that still stood by them for years to come, alongside new imperial benefactors who would bolster their project and safeguard it when needed.

For Palestinians and those countless others across the region, however, this independence was never meant for them. The violence they continue to face in their daily lives is done in pursuit of the liberation of the settlers from opposition to their colonial goals, and nothing more. For Zionists, the liberation of the colony can only be truly safeguarded through the annihilation of the land’s original inhabitants. Anything approaching liberation and independence for Palestinians and others is seen as a threat for this very reason.

Israelis will tell you every year that what they celebrate is the liberation of their people from foreign colonial rule, an independence that has allowed them to chart their own futures. What they truly celebrate, however, is death. True celebration can only be held upon their colony’s last day, as it is only then that millions across the region will truly begin to be free.

What do you do when you support a colonial project but find yourself increasingly isolated as a result of the actions of the project itself? This has been the dilemma Zionists and their organizations have increasingly faced as the Israeli colony has continued to commit genocide in Gaza, expand settlements across the West Bank, invade Lebanon, and wage a war with Iran alongside their primary imperial benefactor.

As these actions have continued, many of them being livestreamed to the world, the colony has faced a waning of popular support amongst the populations of even its staunchest allies. Recent U.S. polling indicates that support has dropped to historic lows, with Pew Research Center noting that 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year. Even traditional strongholds of support are eroding, with unfavorable views amongst Republicans growing alongside their Democratic counterparts as Americans across the country call for a reevaluation of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Zionist lobby groups like AIPAC have increasingly become pariahs, particularly in Democratic Party races where they are seen as an antagonistic force attempting to subvert the will of voters to advance Israeli colonial and ultimately U.S. imperial interests. For Zionists and their allies, the future of their project is looking increasingly grim, and the negative trends are showing no sign of stopping.

In response to this U.S. shift, Zionists and their organizations have had to adjust their strategies to cope with a world in which their typical hasbara (propaganda) has become less effective to the general public. Some, like AIPAC, have only doubled down, investing more and more resources into competitive races nationwide while advancing maximalist positions that are out of lockstep with the majority of voters. For these groups, a calculation has been made that Zionist positions can overcome the lack of public support through targeted, multi-million-dollar investments in their political allies. These organizations are seemingly immovable, hellbent on pushing the same tired lines that have existed for years and lobbying political actors to refuse even small adjustments in the face of increasingly Zionism-sceptical electorates.

Then you have J-Street.

Not all organizations have taken the AIPAC route. At the same time some have remained unmovable, organizations like J-Street have taken a different route, opting to shift their rhetoric and offer small concessions while maintaining stalwart support for the Zionist entity and ultimately advancing its interests. Recent news of J-Street’s shift on U.S. arms subsidies to the colony has helped rehabilitate the image of an organization that had openly supported brutal Israeli military operations that followed the Al Aqsa Flood operation on October 7th, 2023, before threatening to rescind the endorsements of Democratic candidates who were calling for a ceasefire. It would seem, amid deteriorating support for Zionism, that the self-proclaimed “pro-peace” organization has decided to be less hawkish in its support of Zionist military operations to present itself as a more rational, possibly even more progressive force.

It is no surprise that, as this pivot is made, J-Street has also endorsed a slew of Democrats, including otherwise progressive U.S. politicians such as Delia Ramirez, Analilia Mejia, Bernie Sanders, Brad Lander, Ed Markey, Greg Casar, and countless others. It would seem that whereas organizations like AIPAC are hedging their bets on remaining hardliners, J-Street and other Liberal Zionists are trying to remain relevant by offering criticism of the colony without undermining its long-term interests. J-Street, for example, now opposes U.S. arms subsidies, but has remained clear in recent statements that it opposes an arms embargo, saying:

This moment demands a reset. J Street is calling for the U.S. to end unconditional financial military subsidies to Israel and to move towards a relationship where we treat Israel like any other ally.

J Street supports:

– Phasing out taxpayer-funded military aid by 2028, when the current agreement ends.

– Ensuring Israel can defend itself, by selling – not subsidizing – the weapons it needs, including Iron Dome.

– Enforcing U.S. law on how American arms are used, including withholding certain weapons when those laws are not met.

Why now? The current U.S. aid agreement expires in 2028. This is the moment to chart a smarter path forward. At the same time, after the devastation in Gaza and ongoing suffering in the West Bank, it is clear that the status quo is no longer sustainable.

Israel is strong, prosperous and capable of paying for its defense. Treating Israel as an exception and supplying it with a blank check worth billions has made support for the country more divisive and less sustainable.

Simply put, the U.S. should treat Israel like any other partner. The normalization of this relationship doesn’t weaken the alliance – it strengthens it, protects democracy and secures long-term bipartisan support.

It is evident that J-Street wants arms to continue being sent to the Israeli colony and is focusing on U.S. subsidies, hoping that we’re all dumb enough to think their half measure means total victory. They’re sacrificing the subsidies to keep the weapons because they are a Zionist organization.

One might conclude that the differences in the views of the J-Street and AIPAC wings of the Zionist movement would indicate that they are at odds with one another. After all, should J-Street get its way, the maximalist goals of AIPAC and its allies will be lost. This would be incorrect. Rather, Liberal Zionists and their organizations play a critical role in maintaining the legitimacy of the project within the U.S. and other nations, offering a more “pragmatic, palatable” alternative when the rhetoric of revisionist Zionists and other hardliners loses its sting. Sometimes, these organizations even allow Zionism to continue to fester within progressive spaces by changing the narrative under the guise of being pro-peace, all while defanging analysis and demands that are being made of anti-Zionists.

The AIPAC wing of Zionism and the J-Street wing are therefore ultimately on the same team. Each plays a role in advancing the ultimate interests of the colony within their respective bases, all while appearing to be oppositional to one another. One acts as a hammer, the other a chisel, with both ultimately working together to ensure that no matter the political developments within the imperial core, the colony will live on. People who otherwise would not be convinced by calls for outright genocide may find themselves persuaded by calls for adjustments in weapons acquisition and a mythical two-state solution. For Zionists, either outcome is a win, as both paths lead to the same endpoint of supporting Zionism in some form.

One must ask when engaging with Liberal Zionists if there is truly a progressive way to engage in genocide, if there is a moral way to enact apartheid, if there is a just way to ethnically cleanse a society for the sake of maintaining more “favorable” demographic outlays. Is being “pro-peace” compatible with supporting an entity that is violent in every way by the very nature of its existence?

Malcolm X once said of white Liberals that:

The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor; and by winning the friendship, allegiance, and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political “football game” that is constantly raging between the white liberals and white conservatives.

A similar conclusion can be reached about Liberal Zionists as they continue to help preserve the legitimacy of a project that has no right to exist, let alone receive support of any kind. They have, in many ways, perfected the rhetoric needed to convince those who may otherwise oppose Zionism to accept it, acting as sugar in an otherwise bitter cup of coffee. It does not make the coffee itself less bitter, however, and in the case of the colony, does not make it any less of a cancerous blight upon the land it occupies.

Their words may come across as better, an improvement perhaps, when contrasted with their more outwardly fanatical counterparts. This may come across as a comforting thought, but what is being argued by these actors is only that there may be a better, kinder fascism to be worked toward in the Zionist colony. Instead of trying to find a more palatable, kinder Zionism, we must reject Zionism in all forms and identify it as the fascist, racist ideology that it is.

There is no acceptable Zionism, even if some would try to convince us otherwise. Anything short of the abolition of the colony and the return of the land it occupies to its rightful inhabitants is a half-measure, and we cannot let Liberal Zionists trick us into thinking these half-measures are just solutions. J-Street and its allies will continue to serve as an alternative to AIPAC and other hardliners, but these actors remain the other side of a single coin. Should we allow Zionism to be rehabilitated through these ostensibly more progressive organizations, we will have only been tricked into supporting genocide and apartheid under a different banner.

Is there a length of time during which colonial theft becomes legitimized as valid territorial acquisition? Do those ethnically cleansed amid campaigns of colonial expansion at some point become unable to determine the land’s future? It would seem, for some intent on coming across a “nuanced” position on the Zionist project’s existence, that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding “Yes”.

For decades, Zionist propagandists (or Hasbarists) have deployed myriad arguments to preserve the legitimacy of the project, undermine opposition to it, and ultimately explain away the atrocities of Zionism to ensure the long-term survival of the project. There is little doubt that many have come across one of these talking points over the last few years: that the colony has an inherent “right to exist.”

Commonly used to undermine opposition to Israeli territorial claims and to defend so-called “security” operations, the position gives the project a notably exceptional quality by ascribing to it a moral right to exist, one that cannot be challenged or changed. According to the argument, one may be able to criticize in a limited fashion the actions of actors within the colony, but to challenge its claims over the territory it occupies and seeks to occupy, as well as the millions affected by these colonial efforts, is seen as a red line that marks one as a dangerous radical—perhaps even an anti-semite. After all, why would one call for the dissolution of the world’s only Jewish state, a haven for so many millions facing anti-semitism abroad who only wish to build new lives in their historic homeland (one can quickly identify how interwoven many Hasbarist talking points truly are, each propagandistic explanation only reinforcing the next).

This line has met intense criticism, particularly for those suffering under the boot of Zionist colonialism, since well before October 7, 2023. Ali Abunimah, in his 2014 work “The Battle for Justice in Palestine”, deconstructed the myth of an inherent right for a state or colony’s existence, going so far as to say:

"States either exist or do not exist and other states either recognize them or do not, but no other state has claimed an abstract “right to exist.” If Israel is indeed a normal state among the nations, as its Zionist founders wished it to be, then it has no greater “right to exist” than East Germany, Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, or the Soviet Union. All of these states dissolved, and there is no one with any standing to bring a case in any forum demanding that they be resurrected based on any abstract “right to exist” separate from their legitimate residents’ right to self-determination. Israel, even if its legitimacy were universally accepted, would have no more “right to exist” than the United Kingdom, which would cease to exist in the form it has taken for more than three centuries if the people of Scotland were to vote for independence. Similarly, Belgium has no inherent “right to exist” its people decide to break it up into separate Flemish and Walloon states. Israel has no greater right to exist than its chief sponsor, the United States, whose own Declaration of Independence affirms that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of” the inalienable rights of those who live under it, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”.

In the period following October 7, 2023, however, the Israeli response to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance actors has only made the criticism louder. Israeli genocide in Gaza, which continues today and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands and the displacement of millions, alongside intensified ethnic cleansing operations in the West Bank and military actions that have now resulted in a regional crisis that is quickly becoming a global one, has only further deteriorated the legitimacy of the project in the eyes of many. A larger number of people than ever now are questioning the actions of the Zionist entity, even the merit of the arguments around its continued existence, and the traditional Hasbarist positions are failing to reverse an increasingly negative view of the colony.

This presents a sort of crisis for Zionists who are now seeing global opinion, even within the very imperial core that has nurtured them for so long, turn against them. It would seem that, despite continued military assistance from its imperial benefactors, the project's future is in jeopardy. Maximalist rhetoric and the typical hardline tactics are failing, perhaps even hardening the negative views many hold. How then do they adapt their messaging to preserve the colony itself while conceding to the increasingly widespread criticism?

This question was seemingly at the forefront of the mind of Shadi Hamid, a Washington Post columnist, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and author of “The Case for American Power,” as he wrote his most recent piece, “Does Israel Have a “Right” to Exist?”

A sign of the times, the piece immediately concedes that the Zionist project has no inherent right to exist, going so far as to even note that “Israel was born in sin” in acknowledgment of the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in which 10,000-15,000 Palestinians were murdered and another 750,000 or more ethnically cleansed from upwards of 530 cities, towns, and villages. This same Nakba is what Israelis celebrate as the moment of their “independence”. One might expect, given this understanding, that Hamid would conclude that the project itself is illegitimate, with foundations rooted in colonial dispossession that could in no way be legitimized with a combination of force and the passage of time. What he does instead amounts to an academically insulting, deeply shallow analysis that only seeks to shift the rhetoric in such a fashion that legitimizes the continued existence of the project. In his words:

Israel was born in sin. The question is whether that sin justifies dissolving the state.

I don’t think it does. One injustice — Israel’s creation through ethnic cleansing — does not justify another: undoing Israel against the democratic wishes of its citizens.

The explanation that follows is fairly rudimentary. Though he concedes that the project has no right to exist, he argues that the Jewish settler population has a right to determine the future of the project through a democratic referendum, one in which they would likely oppose the dissolution of their project and any seeming elimination of the colonial order they benefit from. More specifically, he notes:

There is no justifiable way to undo Israel short of a majority of its residents freely voting, in a referendum, to fold the state into a broader binational arrangement incorporating both Jews and Palestinians. The genocide scholar Omer Bartov has articulated something like this vision: seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians sharing the land from the river to the sea. It’s an aspiration I both respect and long for. But Israeli Jews will never vote for it. They would have to be compelled into it, and that would be undemocratic. Therefore, I don’t see it as a live option or, importantly, a moral one.

On the face of it, this may seem to be a pragmatic, if disheartening, position that takes into account the reality of the Zionist project’s demographic outlay and attempts to preserve the human rights of all those on the ground within historic Palestine. Upon deeper scrutiny, however, the position begins to fall apart.

It must first be stated that the Zionist project is not simply guilty of a single decade-old sin, nor are the effects of that sin contained to the past. As someone who has openly called the Zionist actions in Gaza a genocide, Hamid knows well that the project never stopped its campaigns of dispossession against the Palestinian people, nor did they start in 1948. As I have written about in past critiques of Zionist propaganda attempting to whitewash the history of the project, the Zionist entity has only expanded and survived through the continual mass suffering of millions of Palestinians and countless others across the region it occupies land within.

This must not be overlooked in analyzing the “sins” of the colony. What brought about the existence of the project was not a single sin isolated within the 1940s, but the culmination of deliberate actions, myriad sins, in the decades prior that had set the stage for such mass expulsions during the start of the Nakba to occur. What followed its creation was constant violence that has affected every element of Palestinian lives as the colony wrestled with its inability to achieve its core goal, the annihilation of the natives.

This is the reality of colonialism. It is not simply a historical event or a series of them; it is a process without end until the abolition of the colonial entity that affects every element of the lives of the colonized and colonizers alike. The violence the colonized face in this context is done with the goal of their subjugation and the reinforcement of the colonial hierarchy, which privileges the settler population. One cannot separate such violence from the colony, as it requires it in the same way a human requires air to remain alive. Without the constant violence and threat of violence that accompanies it, the system ceases to remain solvent.

In the Israeli context, we see this clearly in the decades following the Nakba, which has led many Palestinians to argue, I think accurately, that the Nakba never truly ended. Zionists would later expel hundreds of thousands more Palestinians in 1967, as well as more than 100,000 Syrians, who found themselves occupied in the Golan Heights. The project would later go on to occupy Lebanon as well until their forced eviction by Lebanese resistance fighters – fighters who have continued their resistance to Zionism up to today. Zionist settler presence has continued to grow like a cancer in the West Bank. Those in Gaza found themselves under regular attack by Israeli forces for years in operations described as “mowing the grass,” as they were systematically starved by a siege launched from land, sea, and air as part of a Zionist containment strategy. It must be noted that many of those in Gaza are themselves refugees, internally displaced as a result of the ethnic cleansing campaigns of the 1940s. They, alongside millions around the region and in the diaspora, are barred from returning to their land despite international laws clearly stipulating such a right of return for refugees.

It becomes quickly apparent that this violence is not a bug, but rather a feature, of Zionism and its physical manifestation. The cessation of such violence, then, can only occur with the deconstruction of the entity itself. For Hamid, however, such conclusions prove to be inconvenient, as they do not align with the opinions of settlers. This raises key questions around whose preferences we prioritize, and who is allowed to weigh in on the future of Palestine at all.

Key to the argument posited by Hamid is an underlying idea that Israelis constitute a majority or near majority bloc, and in such elections would unifiably oppose any abolition of the colonial status quo. Such assumptions of the preferences of the settler population are not incorrect today, but looking at the South African context, it is clear that the positions of the colonizers can change rapidly as material conditions change. South Africa provides an interesting example of how such a change can occur. Ali Abunimah states as such in “The Battle for Justice in Palestine”, noting:

In a March 1986 survey, for example, 47 percent of whites said they would favor some form of “mixed-race” government, but 83 percent said they would opt for continued white domination of the government if they had the choice. A 1990 nationwide survey of Afrikaner whites (native speakers of Afrikaans, as opposed to English, who traditionally formed the backbone of the apartheid state) found that just 2.2 percent were willing to accept a “universal franchise with majority rule.”

Looking at these results, it may baffle one to imagine that only several years later, in 1994, tens of millions of South Africans would head to the polls in a nationwide election and vote into power the African National Congress (ANC) under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. This is especially confusing given that the 1980s saw a notable rightward shift in South Africa’s white electorate as their grip on power loosened. What changed, it seems, were the material conditions that brought about the complete loss of legitimacy of the apartheid regime. As Abunimah notes:

Despite ominous warnings, the ANC and its allies insisted firmly on a one-person, one-vote system with no white veto. And ultimately, the combination of internal resistance, military pressure on South Africa from the Cuban-supported liberation movement in Angola, and international isolation did force whites to abandon political apartheid and accept the one thing they overwhelmingly said they would never accept: majority rule.

This could very well be the future that the Zionist colony and all of its settlers are headed toward. As the economic outlook of the colony worsens amid a combination of international boycott efforts and the resistance it is facing both within the territory it occupies and from actors around the region, coupled with its legitimacy reaching an all-time low internationally, conditions could very well begin emerging that force the settler population to the table in a way they might not otherwise have ever contemplated. They might be able to sustain themselves now, largely due to the continued infusion of economic and military aid from their imperial benefactors, but the future of much of that aid is not guaranteed.

This problem only intensifies when looking at the demographic reality of the project itself, which has traditionally attempted to maintain a 60-40 split between settlers and colonized peoples. This need for demographic control has been a core reason for Israeli ethnic cleansing operations across historic Palestine, as many Israeli planners are likely terrified of becoming a demographic minority on the land they control out of fears of becoming the next South Africa. What they must realize, however, is that they already are.

This point is critical in understanding the absurdity of Hamid’s position, as he cites democracy as a justification for maintaining the colony. His core argument seems to stem from the idea that Israeli settlers make up at least a near majority of the voters in an election regarding the future of their project. This may very well be the case if one is to only consider those in the 1948 territories, where there exist only 1.8 million Palestinians, around 20.8% of the total population. It may even be the case if one considers the 1948 territories and the 1967 territories, home to 7.3 million or more Palestinians, as compared to the roughly 7.2 million settlers.

There is a critical group of Palestinians being left out of these discussions, however: those victims of the historic Israeli “sins”, particularly the mass expulsion of Palestinians in the 1940s. Hamid mentions the sin as a historical footnote, but the effects of such historic violence are represented today in the 6.6 million Palestinians residing in nearby countries in the region, primarily as refugees, and the roughly 1.2 million in other countries worldwide. When accounting for these groups, the outlay looks much different. With over 15 million Palestinians, the total settler population is a definitive minority in any democratic deliberations, only accounting for roughly 32% of the total observable population.

Those millions should, according to international law, be allowed to return to the land in which they were expelled, their rights only being blocked by the same colonial regime that ethnically cleansed them years ago. Do they not deserve to have a vote in the future of their land? Are only those who weathered the mass displacement campaigns of 1948 and their descendants able to place a vote on the future of land that those in refugee camps only miles away have generational ties to? Is their displacement to be normalized, their dispossession legitimized, through their exclusion from a democratic process that would affect their futures as well?

These questions are seemingly answered by Hamid, who is in effect arguing not for the respect of the democratic rights of all people, but the prioritization of a settler minority’s positions over the majority body. Though framed as a more “just” outcome, it only replicates the colonial condition and ensures that the violent status quo continues until the settlers themselves decide to throw their hands up and surrender their own status atop the hierarchy they have fought so hard to maintain. Coming back to South Africa, we can begin to see the problem of this rhetoric, as it would have functionally argued for the continued domination of the white minority of the apartheid regime if applied to such a historical context.

It seems Hamid, knowingly or not, is engaging in a sloppy attempt at justifying the continued existence of a colonial order, and by extension, the continued daily violence millions face under its boot, all under the guise of respecting the right of the individual (which means the individual settler in this context). Far from respecting the democratic rights of all people, he is arguing that the democratic rights of some matter more than others—that some people’s rights are to be elevated over others for the sake of “justice”.

What we must instead recognize is that the future of Palestine cannot be determined by a settler minority if it is to be a just future for all those who inhabit Palestine. Settlers will, as in the case of South Africa, be the last people to recognize that the end of their regime is necessitated, as they are the direct beneficiaries of the violence that maintains their positions atop the colonial hierarchy. They rule by raw force and raw force alone, not through any democratic process or determination, and it will ultimately be the resistance to such violence, coupled with their loss of international legitimacy, that brings about the end of their project.

God willing, that will be in our lifetimes.

The first time I laid my eyes on Cuba was from the air. The coastline of the island emerged from seemingly endless Gulf waters containing nothing but the white caps of waves vaguely visible from thousands of feet up. I had taken off from Miami in a small plane alongside activists, organizers, social media celebrities, and reporters on the Nuestra América Convoy. The person next to me, knowing I had never been to the island, offered to switch seats from the aisle to the window so that I could look out as we entered Cuban airspace. Within minutes of seeing the coastline, we were flying over the vast greenery of rural Cuba, a wilderness only broken up by the occasional field, a dilapidated barn, a tenement-style complex, or a small patch of solar panels.

As we got closer to the ground, I tried to hold in my excitement. I had planned for over a month to come to the island to join a humanitarian mission bringing thousands of pounds of desperately needed medical supplies and report on the state of the island. Only a few hours before, I had stood in the heart of empire, and now, as I heard the landing gear lower and felt the shake of our plane as we landed in Havana, I was in the capital city of a victim of decades of that empire’s imperialist violence.

As I pondered what this meant, a flight attendant came over the intercom, saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Havana, Cuba!” Her announcement was immediately met with cheers and clapping from the passengers around me. I kept staring out of the window, smiling, looking out at the tarmac and the small white wall that encased the airport itself. I picked up my backpack and slung it over my back before pulling my small suitcase from the storage compartment above me. I shuffled out of the plane and took my first steps into Cuba.

Far from feeling as if I was stepping into a new world, it seemed just like any other airport experience. Save for the bright, seemingly faded pastel colors of the airport and the warm Caribbean air, in contrast with the frigid Philadelphia wind I had grown accustomed to, it could’ve been any other flight. An advertisement for cigarettes, which I would smoke plenty of in the days to come amid conversations with Cubans outside of their homes and storefronts, hung in the hallway on the way to baggage claim, where I waited patiently for my small suitcase to appear.

Once I collected my belongings, I walked over to a customs officer for what must have been the fastest processing I have ever experienced traveling abroad. He checked my passport and visa, handed them back to me, and let me through in under two minutes. The hardest part was over, and I quickly left the airport to board a bus that was waiting for the countless Americans and international activists arriving alongside me. With us was a man from Havana who was to be our guide, who pointed out every sight and gave us the history of the island in the forty-minute ride into old Havana, where our hotel was (one of the few the U.S. government permits U.S. citizens to stay at, as it is privately owned and therefore not supporting the Cuban government with the money we spent on lodging, food, and transport).

By the time we reached the hotel, the exhaustion from my trip began to set in. I had overnighted in Miami after getting in late, only sleeping for roughly two hours in what may have been the dingiest Red Roof Inn I have ever stayed in. Knowing I only had a few days on the island, however, I did not rest upon entry to my room. Instead, I dropped my bags off, went to the hotel bar, and ordered a coffee before I hit the streets. As my bartender completed my order, we struck up a conversation about the myriad rums and other alcoholic beverages stocked in the bar itself. I recognized some from home, but others, like the Havana Club rum, I had only read about in the books I read in preparation for the trip.

The bartender explained to me that it wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t come across it before, as Havana Club and other Cuban brands were banned from entry into the United States as part of the blockade. The brands, a national source of pride for the Cuban people, have been the site of a trademark and broader brand war among outside companies like Bacardi, former Batista supporters-turned-exiles, the state-owned rum enterprise Cuba Ron, and the French liquor giant Pernod Ricard. This was to be my first lesson in Havana, followed by the suggestion by the bartender that I spoon more sugar into my coffee. It seemed the only people to surpass my own sweet tooth were those in Havana. I finished my coffee, thanked the bartender in Spanish, and took to the streets, where I would remain over the next few days, only breaking up the excursions with a couple of hours in the hotel to recharge before hitting the ground again.

It is difficult to put into words what it felt like being in a nation besieged by my own, seeing every block the myriad ways in which the U.S. government has altered the lives of millions for the sake of its own imperialist ambitions. As I walked block by block across the island, I talked to Cubans and asked them about their lives and feelings about the state of things. Even their most positive words and stories were juxtaposed in my mind against the dilapidated, hollowed out buildings dotting every neighborhood, near-empty stores, lines of people in front of banks and food distribution sites, those begging on the streets for a dollar from every foreigner who passed by, and other signs of the severe poverty they had been forced into.

I kept coming back to a quote I had once heard from Anthony Bourdain after his travels to Cambodia, where he said, “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.”

What started as sorrow turned to rage as I walked along Havana, with every street giving me another reason to despise a government that had, for over six decades, tried to choke the life out of the Cuban revolutionary project. The imposition of an extraterritorial sanctions regime that mirrors, in some ways, Israeli policy in occupied Palestine has left the people of Cuba without consumer goods, medicines, construction materials, oil, and much, much more. Those who have not lived through a siege may not truly ever understand what that life entails.

Essentially, every single good that we might use in our day-to-day is facing shortages on the island, from the medications we use to the toothpaste we brush our teeth with and beyond. Cuban medical students told me that they would be happy receiving something as seemingly insignificant as Advil, an over-the-counter medicine that I could find in almost any store in the U.S., and Cuban people on the street repeatedly came back to the cost of milk, opting for powdered milk given their difficulties storing it amid rolling blackouts.

Those blackouts are something I cannot begin to describe. Those of us in the U.S. likely know at this point that Cuba has been facing increased blackouts amid the tightening of the noose that is the blockade under the Trump administration. Oil has become harder to come by than ever, and the island’s struggling power grid has been regularly failing despite the best efforts of Cuban technicians. We experienced rolling blackouts every single day, with power being restored temporarily in parts of Havana, but for some Cubans, the power did not come back. One man, an electrical engineering student working on the Havana grid, whom I spoke to briefly, noted that in his neighborhood, power was a luxury they didn’t expect to see back for the foreseeable future. As I walked with him and a guide who had lived in Cuba for several years, I was shown businesses operating without power, selling what they could inside of buildings that seemed borderline abandoned. People sat on their stoops, escaping the heat of their non-air-conditioned homes to chat with others and pass the time.

He explained that the blackout and blockade had effects well beyond simply powering a building. Food storage, he noted, had become a serious concern as perishable goods had become harder to come by and maintain without refrigeration. Lack of clean water was also a feature of many areas of the city, despite the government’s best efforts, according to him, in no small part due to power shortages and the materials needed to maintain the water infrastructure. He was the first man of many I spoke to who said I needed to see the “real Havana,” where he called home, and pointed me down the street. The next day, I made sure to frequent these neighborhoods, escaping the tourist area in Havana to see what conditions were like for those like him.

What I saw reminded me much of my former trips to Sarajevo, a city that bears the scars of war and siege and the poverty associated with the transition from a socialist project to that of a capitalist periphery state. Buildings were seemingly collapsing in on themselves, with some homes having as little as one couch in a room and nothing else. The people sat outside, smoking cigars and smaller Cuban cigarettes, as children ran around as happy as can be. One building we stumbled upon, an abandoned stadium, had an entryway guarded by two medium-sized dogs, likely guarding the people who had taken up residence inside. On the field, Cubans played soccer as the stadium seating behind them lay empty.

Broken-down cars without tires sat propped on cinder blocks every few blocks, with piles of trash everywhere to be seen. I watched as one man, braving the swarms of flies that buzzed around a particularly large trash pile, took a screwdriver and tried to take apart an old television screen, which might have some scraps worth something, anything. I learned later that many in Cuba were deeply embarrassed by the trash, a result of local municipal services lacking the fuel to keep garbage trucks going. They knew, as I did, that the sight of it was a blemish on what has historically been considered one of the most beautiful cities in the Caribbean.

But back to blackouts. The true scale of the horrors of the blockade didn’t set in for me, however, until an island-wide blackout occurred on the island during my second day in Havana. A small group I was part of spent the day traveling several miles on foot to the area of the city housing many of the embassies on the island. After getting into trouble with the Cuban police outside of the American embassy for taking photos where my friends and I gave our regards to the staff inside in the form of middle fingers and other crude gestures and trying to negotiate our way into the embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we were on our way back to the area near the hotel for a quick break before a night outting. Cubans we stopped to talk to as the sun went down cautioned us that there was no longer power and that it would be harder to navigate the dark streets as foreigners, before helping point us in the right direction back. As we trekked along the scenic El Malecón, a coastal walkway many Cubans treat as a therapeutic escape from the stress of day-to-day life, we gazed upon one particular building that stood out from the others.

The building, which we had walked past earlier in the day, was a hospital, the largest in Havana. As the city lay in darkness, only broken up by an occasional solar-powered street lamp or private business (which the U.S. government allowed to import oil for their own power generation), we stared at a major medical facility. It only had a handful of lights on. This facility and others, thankfully, have their own backup generators and solar power courtesy of the Cuban government, which has been focusing as many resources as possible on maintaining the robust medical system across the island. That did not stop us from the gut-wrenching realization, however, that those generators did not come on instantaneously, and there would have been a time when power was out, even with all backup systems working perfectly.

One of the people with me, a friend of mine I had met only a day earlier, questioned how this blackout might affect those getting dialysis. Another person quickly added that there were likely infants in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). As we stood outside the hauntingly dark building, the list of possible patients affected by this continued to grow. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to be a patient in a hospital room when the facility went dark, how I would, in that moment, have to wrestle with my own mortality if the conditions were severe enough. There would be Cubans in that hospital who would have to make peace with the possibility of their own deaths every time the lights flickered. Even upon coming home, that thought has not faded from my mind. I felt numb as we stood in silence for a time before continuing into the city.

We only returned to the hotel long enough to drink more coffee and gather more Americans to go on a night walk, which led us back to the Malecón. Cubans had gathered there with tables and chairs to talk and party in the dark, which some of us quickly joined in on, dancing and chatting in broken Spanish for an hour. I took the time to sit on the rock wall dividing us all from the powerful waves crashing into the rocks below, staring at the waves as they came in and occasionally looking up at the stars. My friends had noted the stars on the way home, as many of us had lived in cities for years and couldn’t remember a time we saw them so clearly. One friend, a horse wrangler from Wyoming, had somberly noted as we talked about how bright they seemed that this was likely only due to the blackout. I could not stop thinking about that. The stars we gazed upon were only visible because there was no light pollution to obscure them. Even the most beautiful sight was marred by the reality of the horrors of imperial violence.

Cubans I spoke to had a lot to say about these conditions. As one may imagine, they are human beings with opinions across the political spectrum, from hardline defenders of the revolutionary government to those few who said they wished Rubio and Trump could bring “freedom” to the island. In much of the political discourse around Cuba, I think we oftentimes forget that they are human beings like anyone else who are far from a monolithic body. Their frustration was understandable, especially as one Cuban medical worker told me, the Cuban people ultimately expect perfection from the government, which represents them (something that I had trouble grasping as an American who expects my government to enact harm on a global scale and work against the interests of the common man, no matter who may be in charge).

No matter who I talked to, however, with maybe only one or two exceptions, two throughlines existed. First, all Cubans spoke of their wish for an end to the U.S. blockade. Second, they spoke highly of the legacy of their socialist project, even if many had nuanced criticism of some of its officials from time to time. The popularity of socialism and the legacy of the revolution were no doubt a significant part of why these people had managed to keep their project alive amid decades of U.S. violence. Cubans repeated slogans such as “Venceremos”, or “we shall overcome” in English, and “Patria o Muerte”, homeland or death (a phrase which was put above buildings in the city and notably, outside of the U.S. embassy). As I heard these phrases repeated over and over again, I could not stop thinking about the parallels between them and the Palestinian concept of Sumud (steadfastness) or the Irish phrase “Tiocfaidh ár lá” (Our day will come). Other colonized people separated by an ocean, struggling under U.S. and British imperialism - all determined to outlast it, no matter the hardship.

What struck me most was that even in these conditions, those I spoke to gave the American people a level of grace many of us frankly do not deserve. Every Cuban who criticized the United States couched their critiques in clarifications that their disagreements did not extend to our people. Many of them explicitly talked about as kin—brothers and sisters—who they knew did not share the views of our government. On multiple occasions, I jokingly replied, “No, some American people as well”, which caused several of them to laugh and accept, knowing that even Trump had loyal supporters who also supported the collective punishment of the Cuban people.

Though we laughed, it was a difficult thought to shake. Many of us were at best ambivalent about the reality of the violence we were perpetrating on an island only 90 miles off our own coast, with many more outright supporting it. As they suffer, we shop. As they starve, we feast. As they endure shortages, many of us experience a material bounty that some on the island could only dream of. Coming home, even small things began driving me crazy, like someone leaving a light on or throwing away food after going out to dinner and being unable to finish what was upon our plates. To think that we live such vastly different lives from those in Cuba, for no other reason than where we happened to be born. Thoughts I had wrestled with amid the genocide in Gaza began to flow back into my mind, now combined with the memories of those in Havana. It’s enough to make one feel sick.

That being said, even amid the pain I witnessed in every corner of Havana, I also witnessed so much joy, with countless moments where I found myself smiling alongside those we met and laughing with them as we talked about whatever came to mind. People like a tour guide who slyly slid me an unfiltered cigarette, saying, “You’re going to die eventually, you might as well smoke something”, or the salsa instructor who took my friends and me to a small hole-in-the-wall bar deep in the city before buying us drinks and cigarettes so we could avoid the “yankee upcharge”, the Cuban police officer who rolled her eyes and snickered when I tried to explain that I was filming a Tiktok flipping off the U.S. embassy, the guard outside of the DPRK embassy who busted out laughing as we tried every excuse we could think of to justify going inside before giving us restaurant suggestions, the Cuban medical students who took us to one of the three Halal spots in Havana, the kids I briefly (and poorly) played soccer with, the man I lit a cigar for before teaching him the term “flexing” to describe his outfit, the waitress who spoke to us and suggested I try what turned out to be the best lemonade I have had in my entire life, the dozens of people who busted out laughing when we called Trump a pinga (local Cuban slang that I will not elaborate on), the Cuban educator and Fidelista who spoke at length to me about his thoughts on Palestine solidarity and broader Latin American politics, the engineering student who broke down the reality of the Cuban electricity grid to me, the fishermen who laughed as I asked them if they had caught anything, the kids who I learned knew about the 6-7 meme, the random man who came out of his home during the blackout to say “I may not have power, or food, or water, but I can dance!”, and more.

We owe it to these people to end the blockade. Above all else, the Cuban people deserve to be able to live to their fullest potential, free from the tyranny of a U.S. blockade, and chart their own futures free of the machinations of imperialists who would sooner see them enslaved than have even a day of freedom.

Cubans have been punished for generations for no other reason than breaking their chains and liberating themselves from a U.S.-backed dictatorship that cared more about the profits of Mafiosos than the well-being of the Cuban people. While our government exports death to every corner of the world, Cubans have spent their time exporting doctors and standing in solidarity with struggles in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, Palestine, and elsewhere.

This blockade is an attempt to ensure that the alternative society and future they have spilled blood over never becomes viable in the eyes of the billions of oppressed people who inhabit this earth. We are told of a “failed system”, and yet it has survived decades of efforts by the world’s preeminent imperial power to bring it to its knees. We are told of a need for regime change in a nation many of us could not point out on a map. We are told that to bring freedom to a people, we must bring them to the verge of death. We cannot give in to such lies and obfuscations. These lines are fed to us by those who have accepted that to combat life, we must maintain a blockade of death. If we do not fight to bring an end to this barbaric siege, we are complicit in the horrors it brings.

The cause of Cuban liberation is a cause of life, of peace, of a fight for a better world.

Viva Cuba. Venceremos.

I interviewed dozens of Cubans with diverse perspectives on the state of the island and their revolutionary project. As you may imagine, an island of more than 11 million people contains viewpoints across the political spectrum. Cubans are people like us, after all, and are by no means a monolith. To that end, one unifying opinion amongst them was their wish for an end to the blockade of their island.

One man I spoke to, a Cuban educator in Havana, saw my Palestine hat and came up to express his support before realizing I was American. I asked him about what message he would like to send to the American people, and this was his response.

Viva Cuba.

February 28th saw the initiation of a new phase of escalation by U.S. and Israeli forces amid their ongoing campaign against Iran. The plan, deemed “Operation Roaring Lion” by the Israeli military and “Operation Epic Fury” by their U.S. counterparts, has entailed the widespread bombardment of military and civilian infrastructure across Iran to cause maximal human suffering, all while attempting to degrade Iranian retaliatory capabilities.

What began as an attempt to replicate the outcome seen in Venezuela only two months ago followed a similar pattern of rapid strikes against the nation’s leadership. Rather than sending in U.S. special forces detachments into the nation to abduct Iranian leaders, however, the first wave of the strikes attempted to kill as many of the leaders as possible. The goal seemed simple: decapitate the Iranian leadership in hopes that it would cause internal collapse within the political and military establishments, thus hampering the ability of the Iranians to respond and possibly even causing state collapse.

The first wave of strikes was ultimately successful regarding the initial part of this equation. U.S. and Israeli strikes successfully targeted Iranian leadership, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was reportedly assassinated alongside other top-ranking members of the Iranian security establishment. In one wave of strikes, men who had been integral parts of the Iranian state and military for sometimes upwards of decades had been killed. Now, the U.S. and Israelis only needed to wait for the effect, as surely now the state would buckle, and the military response would collapse as its command structure was thrown into disarray.

In the week since those strikes, it seems clear that the expected outcome failed to materialize. Iranians responded nearly immediately with widespread strikes against U.S. and Israeli assets across the region. The retaliation went further than what was seen during the 12-Day War, with Iranian drone and missile strikes launched against U.S. material and personnel in Gulf state nations, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, as well as the region at large in nations such as Iraq. In the first 36 hours of the war alone, Iran fired an estimated 1,130 munitions, putting the U.S. and its allies in a state of chaos and straining already low-stock defensive munitions to the breaking point. Critical military infrastructure, including interceptor platforms, radar stations, and other components of the U.S. and Israeli layered missile defense systems, was damaged and destroyed across the region, compromising the ability of these actors to provide reliable advanced detection and interception of Iranian strikes.

Alongside these strikes, the Iranian military finally took to a long-feared measure by moving to close the Strait of Hormuz. The move is throwing global energy markets into dissaray, and has also threatened global fertilizer and aluminum exports. The food security of Gulf states has also begun eroding, as they are overwhelmingly reliant on imports to sustain themselves - imports aboard ships now at risk of being fired upon should they attempt to circumvent the Iranian blockade. Shipping out of the Strait has now collapsed, with reporting confirming (despite U.S. claims to the contrary) that traffic has crawled to a near standstill.

Days after the Iranian strike, the Lebanese front also reignited. After over a year of Israeli violations of a supposed ceasefire between the Israeli military and Lebanese resistance groups, Hezbollah resumed launching drone and missile strikes against Israeli military infrastructure and settlements across Occupied Palestine. These strikes, seemingly coordinated with Iranian efforts, have only further hampered Israeli defensive capacity as its multi-layered missile defense system has become seemingly more and more overwhelmed as time goes on.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon, largely against civilian infrastructure, and the attempted ethnic cleansing of Lebanese communities have resulted in upwards of 700,000 displaced people, nearly a sixth of the population of the nation itself. Their violence has not stopped Hezbollah, however, as even amid a humanitarian crisis, the organization has continued daily strikes and defensive operations against encroaching Israeli ground forces that have resulted in casualties and further demoralization for the occupational military.

It seems that the war has grown out of control for the U.S. and Israeli entities. The Iranian political and military establishments have proven to be resilient even in the face of horrific, sustained violence. A war that was surely assumed to take only days is now appearing as if it may continue into the foreseeable future, engulfing the region and putting international markets at risk of serious pain if not outright collapse.

For the U.S. and Israeli political and military establishments, this may have come as a shock. After all, the propaganda they had been producing for so long painted Iran as a fragile, yet dangerous state, led by a small group of out-of-touch strongmen who held the government together without any semblance of popular support. Their assassinations, then, would surely lead to the collapse of the government itself, possibly even total state collapse (an ideal outcome for the Israelis in particular). With their military leadership gone, decades of experience would be eliminated as well, causing a severe degradation of Iranian military capacity. When combined with sustained strikes against Iranian military infrastructure across the country in a similar fashion as Syria, it might even cease to be able to retaliate at all.

In the minds of those pushing for this war, committing to decapitation strikes would quickly and painlessly bring an end to a threat that had plagued them for decades. In doing so, they could rest knowing that U.S. and Israeli regional hegemony would be essentially assured for decades to come. The problem, it seems, is that they drank their own Kool-Aid.

The notion that one can cut the head off a snake and the body will die has permeated U.S. military circles for some time now. Known as a “decapitation strike” in the context of military operations or “kingpin strategy” in the context of U.S. counter-narcotics operations, the logic is simple: If you can kill or otherwise remove the leadership of an organization you seek to dismantle, it will cause internal strife that could lead the group to implode, or at least hamper operations as its members attempt to reorganize, reshuffle their ranks, and overcome the loss.

Though the tactic is commonly associated with the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the first U.S. authorization of a decapitation operation against a nonstate actor is noted in Patrick B. Johnson’s “Does Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in Counterinsurgency Campaigns” as dating back to the 1916 Punitive Expedition during the Mexican Revolution. U.S. forces led by John Pershing attempted to infiltrate the bands of legendary Mexican revolutionary figure Pancho Villa and assassinate him in an effort that was ostensibly to preserve the security of American border communities. Their operations, which culminated in an attempted poisoning, failed, but the idea of decapitating the leadership of an opposing force survived in various iterations for decades to come.1

The tactic is also not reserved for the U.S. Over the decades, countless nations and colonial entities have engaged in similar efforts, whether it be Israeli decapitation operations against Palestinian and Lebanese resistance formations, Sri Lankan operations against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Peruvian operations against the Shining Path, Turkish operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), or any other number of examples.2 Following the initiation of the GWOT post-2001, however, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have certainly taken the center stage, deploying this tactic against countless state and non-state actors in an effort to “combat terrorist threats”, or more accurately, maintain their political and military hegemony.

In recent years, these operations have been primarily centered in the Middle East, with U.S. and Israeli forces working jointly to combat anyone who might oppose the colonial and imperial ambitions that tie the two entities together at the hip. Following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7th, 2023, during which Palestinians broke out of Gaza and briefly liberated Palestinian land that had been under Israeli occupation since the initiation by Zionist militias of mass ethnic cleansing operations in the 1940s, the Israeli military began intensification of genocidal operations that included widespread assassination campaigns against resistance formations. As the southern Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah and the Yemeni government, led by the resistance group Ansarallah, joined Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and others in Gaza in resisting the Israeli colony militarily, these assassination campaigns soon became regional efforts.

These assassination efforts, primarily executed in the form of decapitation strikes, were backed and oftentimes bolstered by the U.S. and others in the Western imperial sphere. It was not long after these operations began that the leadership bodies in the targeted formations found themselves hunted, and in many instances either damaged or severely degraded. Hamas saw the losses of countless major figures, such as the then-head of their Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in a building where he was staying in the Iranian capital city of Tehran. Hezbollah saw the loss of countless leading figures as well, most notably then Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon. In Yemen, Ansarallah also faced targeting, which led to the murder of the then Saada general commander Abu Abdullah al-Hamran. It is unsurprising, then, that with the initiation of escalation against Iran, decapitation strikes were the tactic of choice.

It would seem that the U.S. and Israeli militaries see immense value in these operations, given the frequency with which decapitation strikes are authorized. In each successful strike, both parties have wasted no time basking in their own glory, touting the deaths of those leaders opposing them as evidence that the organizations and states they headed are on the quick path to collapse. Yet all actors caught in the post-Al-Aqsa Flood decapitation campaigns have survived. The Israeli military, even after years of genocidal operations that are currently ongoing, has been unable to bring about the collapse of Hamas (or even its disarmament) or the collapse of any other Palestinian resistance formation in Gaza. Hezbollah, after a period of reorganization following the assassination of much of its senior leadership and years of brutal military violence, is now launching drone and rocket strikes against Israeli military infrastructure and fighting Israeli occupational forces on the ground as they continue their decades-long effort to seize and occupy vast swaths of southern Lebanon. Ansarallah is still in power in Yemen, controlling areas that constitute the overwhelming majority of the Yemeni population, even as Saudi Arabia continues to consolidate its holdings in other parts of the country. Iran is still fighting and has even appointed a new Supreme Leader amid what is quickly becoming a prolonged war of attrition that they may very well win.

All of this must surely come as a surprise to U.S. and Israeli leaders. For those who have even taken a cursory glance at the academic literature surrounding decapitation strikes, however, it must seem nearly predestined. The field of research concerning these strikes is fairly comprehensive, with countless studies having been done employing various methods to determine whether or not decapitation strikes have the intended effect of sufficiently degrading or even eliminating so-called “terrorist organizations”, the unfortunate framing of many liberatory organizations which are being studied by a generally less than totally sympathetic academic audience. One may ask why organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the PFLP, the LTTE, and others are framed as terrorists and what political implications come about from such a label, but that deserves an entire piece of its own.

The consensus of the research available paints a less-than-optimal picture for those who support decapitation strikes as the silver bullet solution of counterinsurgency tactics, whether it be against so-called “terrorist organizations” or organized criminal organizations, which have also historically been targeted by such efforts.3 In the case of resistance organizations, this is due in no small part to the fact that the premises guiding at least the rhetoric of U.S. and Israeli politicians are fundamentally incorrect.

Groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and governments such as Iran and Yemen are far from poorly structured bands of individuals held together by aging strongmen who are holding their organizations together through sheer charisma and force of will. Rather, these are complex organizations with sophisticated bureaucracies and chains of succession created with the knowledge that assassination of leadership is likely, if not inevitable. Jenna Jordan, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, argued in her 2014 piece “Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes" that this is in no small part a result of what she coins as “organizational resilience.” Simply put, organizational resilience refers to:

…whether a group that has experienced degradation can still engage in terrorist activity. Terrorist group resilience is a function of two variables: bureaucracy and popular support. Leadership decapitation is unlikely to result in the dissolution of groups that are highly bureaucratized or that have high levels of popular support because leaders matter less in these circumstances. Groups that are bureaucratic and have popular support are the hardest to destabilize through leadership targeting, and it is in these cases that counterproductive outcomes are likely.

Understanding the concept itself helps us understand why these decapitation strikes have seen such limited success beyond the assassinations themselves. Thankfully, the logic is fairly simple to follow.

On the bureaucratic front, at their core, organizations that are older, larger, and more developed generally tend toward having higher levels of bureaucratization that minimize the impact of leadership decapitation while enhancing organizational stability and efficacy. Even the charisma supposedly required in leadership to maintain the organization’s solvency can, according to Jordan, be routinized, institutionalizing the leader’s message and eliminating succession problems that the U.S. and Israelis no doubt hope would lead to catastrophe.

That stability is bolstered if organizations have a wide base of support from the communities they’re tied to. Palestinians oftentimes refer to this reality as the “popular cradle” by which the Palestinian people financially, socially, and politically sustain the struggle and, by extension, act as the cradle nurturing and sustaining resistance organizations themselves. As Jordan notes:

Popular support contributes to a terrorist group's resolve and stability in many ways. It allows the group to recruit, raise money, provide critical resources, ensure its ability to operate as a covert organization, encourage more violent behavior, and maintain political and ideological relevance.

Simply put, when an organization is highly bureaucratized and maintains high levels of popular support, they are more able to weather and overcome decapitation strikes. Jordan’s data bears this out, with her findings ultimately indicating that decapitation does not increase the likelihood of organizational collapse. Surprisingly, the data actually demonstrated the opposite:

Whereas 53 percent of decapitated terrorist groups fell apart, 70 percent of groups that did not experience decapitation are no longer active. The rate of decline is almost 20 percent lower for decapitated organizations.

Like many of her colleagues, Jordan ultimately concluded that decapitation strikes do not work and may even be counterproductive.4 Her conclusion, however, is not representative of all findings. Analysis by Bryan C. Price indicates that decapitation strikes may not be a silver bullet, but may still produce the desired outcome in some instances. By studying the mortality rates of resistance organizations that had faced decapitation strikes, he was able to determine that such groups were 3.6 to 6.7 times more likely to end than their non-decapitated counterparts.5

There were details of his analysis worth noting, however, before we give in to the prevailing sentiments of U.S. and Israeli military planners. For example, when resistance groups have allies, Price noted that they were 52% less likely to end following a decapitation strike. The magnitude of the effect of the strikes themselves also decreases year-to-year, meaning that the long-term impact on a group’s overall health may be ultimately negligible if it can survive the years immediately following the assassination of its leaders. Finally, Price found that the longer it took a state to successfully execute a decapitation strike against a leader, the lower the impact of the strike itself. More specifically:

…the effect of decapitation on a terrorist group’s survival rate is cut approximately in half after ten years. At approximately twenty years, decapitation may have no effect at all.

These caviats are worth considering in the context of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PFLP, the DFLP, PIJ, and others, and even more critically in the context of states such as Yemen and Iran, which are much more deeply bureaucratized with leadership figures who have existed sometimes for multiple decades. These are not actors who are likely, even by the conclusions of those who disagree with the consensus of researchers and find decapitation strikes viable, to collapse upon seeing their leadership killed.

Why then do Israeli and U.S. political and military establishments remain so reliant on the tactic? The answer lies less in military success than in the ability to draw cheap political victories from the assassination of notable opposition figures in the face of campaigns that are otherwise not meeting core military objectives. As these actors draw themselves into prolonged multi-front regional battles, there exists a need to maintain morale and justify the mass death resulting from the battles themselves.

The Israeli military was able to highlight the murder of Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Hassan Nasrallah, and others as proof that their genocidal military operations are meeting goals, even though resistance formations continue to exist, all while providing a thin veneer of legitimacy to operations that are very obviously being undertaken with the singular goal of mass, systematic annihilation. The U.S. political establishment can tout the murder of Iranian leaders as proof of success even as their bases are set ablaze across the region and an international economic crisis brews. In all of these instances, the slaughter is less about force degradation and more about public relations management.

That distinction is critical, as these same actors are trying to convince the world that their wars are moral and their causes just. They are slaughtering thousands, displacing millions, and attempting to destabilize entire regions for the sake of advancing their interests, all with nothing to show beyond the carnage itself. This, of course, is ultimately acceptable for the U.S. and Israeli military and political establishments, as death and destruction without military success is ultimately still advancing their interests. But it hasn’t forced those resisting them to surrender, and as a result, it is not leading to the total dominance of these actors in the regions they seek to control.

Decapitation strikes, though valuable to the imperialists for short-term propaganda victories, will not be a silver bullet by which the U.S. and Israelis overcome those waging armed struggle against them. These actors are locked in a cycle of short-term decision-making with no real achievement of key military goals. They can drop bomb after bomb on the leaders of their opposition, but it will not stop movements that are ultimately rising from the masses to stave off Zionist colonial and U.S. imperial domination. Something worth thinking about the next time you see the next Israeli press release or Trump Truth Social post boasting the near-assured destruction of those standing bravely against them.

New analysis from the FP is now showing that the Iranian response has forced the U.S., Israelis, and other affected allied nations to use sizable amounts of defensive munitions while using significant offensive munitions to maintain their campaign. The rate of depletion seems so high that one struggles to see how it might be sustainable beyond the short term. This all leads to a very uncomfortable series of questions for U.S. and Israeli military planners as they look ahead:

1. Can their stockpiles outlast Iran’s attacks?

2. What happens if (and likely when) the shortages intensify?

For further reading on this issue, the FP’s recent analysis can be accessed here.

The Cuban revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista regime kicked off with a failure. On the early morning of July 26, 1953, 136 revolutionaries under the orders of Fidel Castro attempted to raid the Moncada Barracks in Eastern Cuba. The goal was simple: take over the installation and capture the weapons that were stored within it to fuel the efforts of the broader movement, all while using its communications facilities to temporarily disrupt wider military activity.

What began as a well-prepared operation quickly spiralled into chaos by the time the attack started. Soldiers were left behind as there were not enough weapons to go around. A convoy of trucks transporting the men who were meant to impersonate the Cuban military was broken up in transit to the barracks, which resulted in scattered forces reaching the target at different times and the loss of heavy weapons intended to be used against the enemy garrison. Fidel had not set foot into the installation by the time the alarms began ringing out.

The resulting firefight would end in the deaths of several revolutionaries and the retreat of the remaining forces. Countless more were rounded up in the retreat or in the days after and executed by Batista’s forces. Fidel and a small group of fighters were able to escape into a nearby area successfully, but were soon after also rounded up by the Cuban military. Over 100 people were indicted as a result of the raid, including Fidel, who received a 15-year prison sentence. He would use the time to write his now well-renowned “History Will Absolve Me” speech, which was smuggled out of his prison and later published. He would also rename his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7), in remembrance of the failed raid.

Fidel would be released from prison well before serving the full length of his sentence, thanks to the organizing done by family members of imprisoned revolutionaries. Upon release, he quickly went back to engaging in the struggle that had put him behind bars in the first place. Those activities would force him and Raúl, his brother, to flee the country in 1955. They travelled to Mexico, where they continued their efforts to liberate Cuba as the movement against Batista grew across the island.

Only a year later, 82 revolutionary fighters crashed upon a sandbar aboard the Granma, an old yacht that had been repurposed as a shoddy military transport. Fidel and his comrades disembarked, setting foot once again in Cuba. The landing quickly became what appeared to be a repeat of the Moncada Barracks affair. The revolutionaries were quickly spotted by the Cuban Coast Guard. They came under fire shortly after, forcing them to abandon their equipment as they tried to reach safety somewhere on the island. As they made their way inland, they were then led into an ambush by a local guide who had given up their location to the Cuban military and were nearly entirely wiped out.

Of the 82 men who landed initially, only 12 survived to continue their struggle. Their supplies had been nearly exhausted, their bodies ached from the travel and fighting, and it may have seemed to the men at the time that their plans had been a mistake. Yet, only a little over two years later, on January 1, 1959, it was Batista who would flee the island. Days later, Fidel and his comrades entered Havana to establish a new provisional government. The revolution had succeeded.

An Island Under Siege

Today, Cuba is in the headlines largely as one target of many seemingly in the crosshairs of a Trump administration that is seeking to rapidly destabilize state and non-state actors it deems in opposition to U.S. interests. The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro acted as a destabilizing event that cut off a vital source of oil to the island. When asked about the abduction operation, which resulted in the deaths of 32 Cuban military personnel, Trump stated that Cuba would “not be able to survive”, a clear indication that his shift in focus to Venezuela was done with regional goals in mind.

Following the raid, Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any nation that ships oil to the island nation, causing some to cease their shipments out of fear of the consequences. The resulting shortages have forced the Cuban government to roll out rationing plans and prepare for what will likely be the worst conditions the island has faced in decades. Even with sizable investments in renewable energy production, which have resulted in Cuba producing about 38% of its daytime generation from solar panels, life on the island is worsening by the day. Cubans are now facing a humanitarian crisis.

A crisis of this variety on the island has been the goal of the United States government since nearly immediately after the success of the Cuban revolution. Likely worried over the loss of influence and the destruction of an anti-communist military dictatorship with strong ties to U.S. capital and the mafia, U.S. officials quickly determined that they needed to enact punitive economic measures against the revolutionary government and its people. Sanctions were discussed within the Eisenhower administration as early as June 24, 1959, as officials discussed ending the sugar quota they maintained with Cuba. The State Department at the time was unabashedly clear about the goal of such a policy change, stating:

The sugar industry will suffer a rapid and abrupt decline that will entail general unemployment. Many persons will be without work and will go hungry.

What this indicates is that in the same year that Cubans achieved independence from U.S. domination, the U.S. government was already setting the stage to enact a campaign of collective punishment against those on the island. The Eisenhower administration would go through with the sugar quota plan, passing Public Law 86-592 to abolish the year’s sugar quota with Cuba and imposing what Salim Lamrani describes in his book “The Economic War Against Cuba” as the first coercive measures against the Cuban state. As Lamrani argues, this was to have a significant impact on the Cuban economy:

It should be noted that sugar accounted for 80 percent of all exports to the United States, Cuba’s natural and historical market, and employed almost 25 percent of Cuba’s population.

This attack on the Cuban sugar quota would be the start of a decades-long effort to bring about the collapse of the Cuban economy through the imposition of sanctions against Cuban products and officials. As the U.S. funded regime change efforts on the island and waged subversive assassination campaigns against Fidel Castro, the government began targeting a slew of Cuban products and preventing aid and trade between not just Cuba and the United States, but between Cuba and the world at large.

It did this by enacting extraterritorial sanctions that affected actors who continued to trade with Cuba. The Kennedy administration, for example, punished any nation that traded with Cuba by excluding them from USAID programs and banned ships engaged in commercial relations with Cuba from docking at U.S. ports. That embargo, more accurately a blockade given its extraterritorial nature, created horrific externalities. American historian Louis A. Perez Jr. described the impact:

In early 1960, conditions had become critical in many industries due to the lack of spare parts. Almost all industries were dependent on supplies and parts now banned in Cuba. Many factories were paralyzed. Everything was devastated. Transportation was particularly affected: the Ministry reported over seven thousand breakdowns a month. Almost a quarter of the country’s buses were out of commission by the end of 1961. Half of the 1,400 passenger trains were inoperable in 1962. Nearly three-quarters of all Caterpillar tractors were no longer in service due to the lack of spare parts.

The blockade outlived Kennedy and has been carried on, and at times intensified, by each successive administration. Some have been better than others, with the Obama and Carter administrations easing the pressure, only to see their efforts reversed by Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations later on. This ratcheting up and down of intensity, however, never saw an end to the blockade itself, nor the occupation of Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military. Thus, it has been a clear goal of every administration to continue attempting to pressure the Cuban government to make concessions through collective punishment of the millions it governs.

If you have not lived under a blockade, you may not have much of an idea of just how all-encompassing and life-altering it can be. We oftentimes conjure up the image of antique cars driving around the streets of Havana, maintained by those on the island, as many new vehicles cannot be imported. That being said, it goes deeper than simply the automobiles. Similar to Palestinians in Gaza, the blockade of Cuba by the U.S. has disrupted every element of Cuban life. Medical outcomes in particular have been greatly influenced by the restrictions imposed on Cuba regarding what those on the island can import. As Lamrami notes:

Indeed, nearly 80 percent of patents granted in the medical sector are issued to U.S. pharmaceutical multinationals and their subsidiaries, which gives them a virtual monopoly. Cuba cannot get access to these medications due to restrictions imposed by the government of the United States.

Imagine for a second that your child has retinal cancer and requires a radioactive isotope plaque for treatment. If you live in Cuba, you cannot get access to this treatment. The only alternative then is to remove the eye of your child, possibly both. Imagine having to be told that there aren’t adequate funds for malaria treatment in your community because the United States seized the $4.1 million in funds that the organization Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria had earmarked for Cuba (this actually happened in 2011). The blockade is a life-or-death issue for the Cuban people.

With the Trump administration’s actions, however, it is clear that his goal is to lay siege to Cuba, cutting off vital resource shipments and working with allies to raid vessels that may provide lifelines for the island. He is bringing about the culmination of decades of imperial policy-making in an effort to finally force the collapse of a revolutionary government that dared stand in the face of U.S. domination and colonialism. Nearly 11 million people are now facing rolling blackouts, medical crises, transportation breakdowns, and the halting of life on the island.

It is impossible to see this suffering after witnessing headlines of the last few years and not draw a direct parallel to the Palestinian context in Gaza, where Israeli occupational forces have been waging a campaign of genocide as a part of a more than decade and a half siege of the coastal enclave. Both people face the restriction of goods, medical supplies included, and mass suffering resulting from policies enacted with the goal of their mass suffering and annihilation. Truthfully, the U.S. would sooner turn Cuba into the next Gaza than allow its people to be free, to allow them to chart their own futures under the governance of a socialist project that has been lending support to oppressed people around the world since its inception. That is because a free Cuba is a threat to the status quo.

The United States sees Cuba as a threat not just due to its exclusion from the sphere of U.S. capital and political domination, but because the Cuban model, should the siege be lifted and the project thrive, presents a better path forward than the mass suffering brought about by the capitalist order. The survival of Cuba is an existential threat to a global project justified in part by the false premise of a lack of better alternatives. When the U.S. punishes the Cuban people, it is doing so to send a message that there will not and cannot be a people free of the chains of capitalism and U.S. imperialism. The blockade is a sign of weakness, of conscious inferiority about the future of the capitalist order. That is why, in the eyes of U.S. policymakers, it must be brought down by any means necessary, even if doing so will destroy millions of lives.

The Cuban people have steadfastly resisted U.S. efforts to bring about their collapse and bring them back under imperial domination for decades, but they cannot win alone. It is incumbent on those of us across the world, particularly in the United States, to do everything we can to support them, whether by setting up medical supply pipelines with local organizations in your area, traveling as a part of a flotilla to the island to deliver vital aid, pressuring your local government to call for an end to the blockade, and more. Millions are suffering for daring to be free. We must not let their struggle be waged in vain.

Viva Cuba.

For those wanting to read more about the history of the U.S. blockade in Cuba, especially those who may not have a lot of knowledge on the history of Cuba and the U.S. campaign against it, I would suggest “The Economic War Against Cuba” by Salim Lamrani. Genuinely amazing book (and what I read directly before writing this piece).

“Wait, is that… are they hanging an Israeli soldier AND an ICE agent?”

The snow did not stop local Palestine organizers in Philadelphia from hitting the streets on the first day of February as a part of a protest aimed at bringing attention to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. The demonstration, organized by the city’s Palestine coalition, included a march comprised of roughly 100 protestors walking from Rittenhouse Square to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

As the crowd began gathering, they were met with a mixed response. Almost immediately, one man approached them shouting that they were “Jew haters” before walking away, with others in the park seeming visibly confused, not having realized a demonstration was planned at that time. Within a few minutes, the crowd that had gathered in the center of the square moved to the streets and stepped off the sidewalks entirely.

The assembly hosted a diverse display of signs, keffiyeh-laden protesters, and banners. Most notably, however, in the center of the crowd was a flag flown in support of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, as well as multiple human-shaped stuffed dummies dressed in Israeli military attire and uniforms bearing the insignia of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) being hung in effigy. As they marched, their chants included lines such as “Death, death to the IOF”, “Hey ICE help us out, grab your gun and kill yourself”, “Globalize the intifada”, “We don’t want no two-state, we want 48’”, and more.

These slogans and associated materials were in line with a coalition that has, from its beginning, supported Palestinian liberation across the entirety of occupied Palestine, as well as the campaign of armed resistance that Palestinian resistance groups are carrying out against their colonial occupiers. It was therefore unsurprising to see the protesters seemingly be comfortable with the hypothetical death of armed, fascist occupational forces, whether they be the IOF or ICE. Upon reaching the end of the march, Israeli and U.S. flags were brought out by the protesters and set on fire. The message was abundantly clear: this was a protest against U.S. imperialism and the continued existence of the Zionist entity.

It did not take long for the condemnations to start rolling in. A joint statement made by the Philadelphia branch of the Anti-Defamation League, the Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey branch of the American Jewish Council, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia condemned the protestors as being anti-semites who were glorifying terrorism, saying:

No matter what one thinks of the war in Gaza, nothing justifies celebrating terrorism, threatening violence or terrorizing communities here at home. When extremist rhetoric and symbols are normalized in public spaces, they embolden hatred and undermine the safety and values of Philadelphia.

We call on all elected officials in Philadelphia, at every level of government, to speak out clearly and unequivocally against what occurred, against the glorification of terrorism, incitement to violence and antisemitic conduct displayed in one of the city’s most prominent public spaces.

Silence in moments like this is not neutrality. It is acquiescence.

Nowhere in the statement did any of these organizations think to condemn the actions of Israeli occupational forces or ICE agents, both of which were the actual focuses of the critiques of the protestors. As usual, the term “terrorist” is exclusively reserved for colonized people attempting to stave off their own annihilation, not the occupational forces waging a sustained campaign of genocide.

Political officials, quick to follow the lead of local Zionist organizations, also began to make their own statements. Sharif Street, a Democratic state senator currently running for Congress, was quick to take advantage of the situation to court Zionist voters in a statement that saw him weaponize his faith as a Muslim and quote socialist civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in an effort to condemn nd delegitimize the protestors. This and other related efforts are no doubt working, as Pro-Israel Network fundraisers have been organized to raise money for his current campaign.

Sharif Street, however, was not the only one. Tarik Khan, a Democratic state representative, was quick to follow suit in a statement of his own, where he said that “any protest or organization that glorifies Hamas and terrorism has no place in Philadelphia.” These attacks crossed party lines as well, with a slew of Republican officials also coming together to offer a joint condemnation all their own. Regardless of the author, the message was clear: Palestinian resistance is “off limits” and only something to be seen as evil and unacceptable to support. This is not a dynamic isolated to Philadelphia.

These condemnations were, in effect, a stated commitment to the continued existence of colonial violence in Palestine. One might ask what is inherently problematic about a soldier of a genocidal colonial military being hung in effigy as the Zionist military continues to starve and slaughter the millions within Gaza and wage a campaign of calculated expansion in the rest of occupied Palestine. For those who value a true end to the violence we are witnessing, there is hardly anything to be criticized, beyond the fact that these effigies were not set ablaze alongside the flags the protestors ignited.

For those who wish to uphold the current colonial status quo, however, these protests do represent a real threat, no matter how large or small, because of what they represent. These community members are coming together with a clear-eyed understanding that those Palestinians so long demonized by every institution and official in the West are justified in their struggle. Far from condemning them as terrorists, these protesters are upholding them as the model for the liberation of oppressed people, and refusing to forget the memories of those lost amid that struggle.

For those benefiting from and supporting the imperial and, by extension, colonial order, it represents a failure. The legitimacy of the colony rests in no small part on the continued acceptance that its victims are worthless, perhaps even deserving of their suffering. As the genocide in Gaza has continued, millions across the world have rejected this framing, instead recognizing that the clear problem is the colony’s actions, and ultimately the colony itself. This is a crisis of legitimacy, and we are watching now as Zionist political actors and organizations continue lashing out desperately to overcome it.

For Zionists, nothing but the ultimate acceptance and full-throated support of the colony can be tolerated. They frame those opposing them in even the slightest fashion as supporting “terrorism” and violence, all while committing some of the most horrific acts we have witnessed in the 21st century. They condemn those who cherish life because the project they defend is sustained by mass death. This is why organizations like Canary Mission have sprung up to demonize and terrorize those who stand alongside Palestinians. It is why we are seeing the arrests of pro-Palestine protestors such as Mahmoud Khalil. It is why nations such as the U.S. continue to crack down on the actions and words of pro-Palestine protesters.

That reality must be understood by organizers across the country who are seeing and experiencing these condemnations. These condemnations tell us the real intentions of these actors. They are not standing up in support of peace, no matter how many times their statements might claim otherwise, so much as the continued existence of a genocidal colonial project. The possible backlash from these organizations and officials should not cause us to be afraid of the consequences of our rhetoric in support of Palestinians, as they are nothing more than thinly-veiled attempts to shut down opposition to Zionism.

History will absolve those standing in solidarity with Palestinians. Those condemning them will have only made a written record of their complicity in genocide and mass suffering.

Since October 7th, 2023, in particular, settler violence, often intertwined with violence perpetrated by the Israeli military, in the West Bank has been on the rise. Palestinians are increasingly facing attacks, imprisonment, more movement restrictions, and the demolition of their homes, businesses, water infrastructure, and more.

I sat down with Ameed Faleh, a member of the , to discuss ongoing issues in the West Bank, the nature of escalation, and the Israeli efforts to disrupt and ultimately destroy the lives of millions.

I was a child when I was first handed a firearm. Like many Americans, particularly those of us from the Midwest, the presence of weapons was seemingly ever-present. My father, a staunch Conservative and member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), was quick to teach me the fundamentals of firearm safety and storage, no doubt in part due to their presence in our home. My sister and I were made to sit in front of our family’s television to watch the comedic NRA youth mascot, Eddie Eagle, fly across the screen and speak about the dos and don’ts of firearm handling.

I’ll never forget how excited my father was when he gifted me with a .22 bolt-action rifle with a light brown wooden stock that had been handed down from his father to him. It was a weapon I came to love as I grew older and got more comfortable with it. What at first seemed like a heavy, oversized rifle became easier to handle with every year that passed. I became accustomed to the loud crack that resonated from the barrel when I pulled the trigger, overcoming the urge to flinch and close my eyes. My shot grouping got tighter, and the range I could accurately strike a target increased as I became more proficient.

It was not long before my father allowed me to shift from rifles to shotguns, gifting me with a 20-gauge Remington 870 Express. It felt different and certainly had a much more significant recoil than the small rifle I was accustomed to, but I quickly became at least comfortable enough to hit a target. My proficiency quickly increased as I shifted from the range to the outdoors, spending years hunting alongside my father and his friends for a variety of animals, including rabbits, squirrels, doves, turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks, and deer.

Truthfully, I loved every moment of it, even if I complained about wading through chest-high, bone-chilling water on my way to a duck blind, the summer sun bearing down on my face as I tried to hit fast-moving doves flying overhead, the early mornings that saw me waking up and preparing before the sun rose, and other realities of hunting, it was something I grew to appreciate, especially given that I was able to eat what I brought home at day’s end.

Needless to say, being a firearm owner and hunter shaped the way I engaged with the question of firearm regulations and laws. I was taught from a young age that the right to bear arms was an inalienable right that helped the people protect themselves from a tyrannical government. Firearms were an integral part of what I understood to be the “American” way of life. As such, the idea of infringing on that right, even in the name of common-sense reform, was uncomfortable to me.

As I grew older and consciously shifted from a Conservative to a Democrat, my positions on gun control shifted as well. I came to embrace the concepts of background checks, magazine and bump stock bans, waiting periods, and other legislation that tried to mitigate a gun violence epidemic in the nation. What my father saw as an infringement of a right, I saw as a modification. I stopped hunting, stopped asking to go to the range, and went years without touching any of the firearms I had grown up with.

As it so happened, however, my political development did not stop when I became. Democrat. Experiences during my time in university shifted my perspective once again, and I became a communist (the only one in my family). I read about the experiences of the Palestinian people, whose campaign of armed struggle had helped stave off annihilation at the hands of their colonial occupiers. I learned about the Black Panther Party and their police patrols, whereby they followed police officers in their community while armed to keep them from enacting violence against the Black community.

Critically, I also learned about the reaction of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, who pushed for gun control efforts as a response to armed Black political organizations exercising their constitutional rights. As I came to find, the Second Amendment was hardly an inalienable right in the span of U.S. history. What was framed as a God-given right bestowed upon all citizens was, in practice, a right that was only “inalienable” for a very narrow group.

What was framed as a “right to bear arms” through history, oftentimes was a right to engage in armed violence against those the state deemed “undesirable". Indigenous communities were decimated in campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing waged by settlers who desired their land, settlers who cited self-defense when Indigenous people inevitably rose up and resisted their efforts to encroach upon territory they had no right to. Black communities were terrorized at the barrel of a gun, enduring generations of slavery, only to be demonized whenever they took up arms in attempts at liberation. Even upon supposed “liberation,” Black communities faced the realities of both state violence and the horrors of non-state actors, including those of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

It seemed that, ultimately, the Second Amendment, as it was intended, was an attempt at maintaining a deeply racist, white supremacist sociopolitical hierarchy. As the state advanced the interests of capital, this also meant the maintenance of a very specific class hierarchy. Workers who armed themselves to fight for better lives, like those who participated in the Battle of Blair Mountain, were met with harsh violence by a state that had no interests beyond those of their bosses.

To that end, it did not mean that the ownership of firearms itself was inherently the same as what was intended in the Second Amendment. I looked at the examples of John Brown, who led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to wage a slave revolt, and Communist Party members in Alabama who found themselves engaged in firefights with the KKK alongside Black sharecroppers, and other examples of people using arms to fight for a better world. It was around that time that I came across an 1850 speech titled “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League,” in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote a phrase many on the Left have come to know well:

“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”

That ideological development brought me back to the range, but with a new view on what the rights we held really were. If one were to challenge capital, to challenge white supremacy, to challenge the status quo, they had no rights at all. That reality was made apparent yet again when Department of Homeland Security officials executed Minneapolis nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti in broad daylight. DHS was quick to release a statement that looked remarkably similar to their statement regarding the execution of Renee Nicole Good, claiming that he intended to harm DHS officers, requiring them to fire in “self-defense.” Alex’s “crime”, it seemed, was legally carrying a concealed weapon.

At 9:05 AM CT, as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here.

The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming.

Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots. Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene.

The suspect also had 2 magazines and no ID—this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.

About 200 rioters arrived at the scene and began to obstruct and assault law enforcement on the scene, crowd control measures were deployed for the safety of the public and law enforcement.

This situation is evolving, and more information is forthcoming.

It must be stated that Alex had every right to conceal carry, and his paperwork was in order at the time of his murder. He had followed the law to the letter. Videos of the incident showed clearly that he had not drawn the firearm either, even as around half a dozen DHS agents threw him to the ground and assaulted him for standing between them and a woman they were pepper-spraying at point-blank range. One officer removed his firearm from the holster, and within a second, another began firing what became a volley of upwards of twelve shots.

To DHS, however, all that mattered was that he was in the proximity of their officers with a legally obtained, legally carried weapon. That made him a threat worthy of being executed in the street. Upon seeing the video, I was, like many, shocked. His murder mirrored in some ways the murder of Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer at a traffic stop in 2016 after the officer escalated, knowing he had a firearm (also legally obtained and carried). Castile’s murder was entirely unjustifiable, as was Pretti’s. In both cases, their exercising a supposedly inalienable right evaporated in the blink of an eye as soon as it was convenient for the state.

Both of these murders were heavily politicized, with many on the right, so-called “Second Amendment” supporters championing the executioners. To some, that may seem like a contradiction, but for those who understand who the Second Amendment was truly intended for, it makes perfect sense. Nonetheless, it forces those of us who do not wish to maintain capitalism and white supremacy, who own or wish to own firearms, to reckon with the reality of a system that wishes us killed and our rights stripped away. For us, there is no Second Amendment.

For those gunowners who are looking at the current out groups thinking “I do not care, this is not my problem”, one must consider that it one day could be. It is folly of those in the gun owning community who are not white supremacists to look at these murders, these executions, and not realize that their rights and by extension lives could very well be on the chopping block in the not so distant future. A threat to one is a threat to all, after all.

The rights of those who challenge the status quo are far from inalienable. The ease with which they can be revoked is meant to be a threat against those who may begin questioning the system itself. It requires us to move beyond an analysis that champions these supposed rights and points to them in an attempt to give them legitimacy. The system, and all of its laws and supposed freedoms, will not protect or save us from the violence of a state and its acolytes. Only we can keep ourselves safe.

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are continuing in cities across the country following their continued deportation operations and the high-profile execution of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week. As communities have continued responding negatively to the presence of masked federal agents that many are calling an American Gestapo, the U.S. political establishment has begun rolling out the expected platitudes and rhetoric.

It’s no surprise that ICE, founded in 2003 and expanded under the presidential administrations on both sides of the aisle, is unpopular. The mass demonstrations, the targeted harassment of ICE officers, and calls for the agency’s abolition have been ongoing for years as its officers have terrorized communities nationwide. Their goal has been clear: harming those the U.S. government deems “undesirables.” Though oftentimes framed by government leaders as an agency tasked with the enforcement of immigration laws and processes, those affected by its activities have oftentimes had a much different interpretation, seeing them more akin to a fascist paramilitary force. For those facing the violence of ICE, it is easy to view them as an occupational force tearing families and communities apart. After all, that’s what they are.

With the election of the Trump administration, it has been harder for those otherwise content with the status quo to ignore the daily violence being committed by ICE and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers. Demonstrations have erupted in major cities, community organizations have increased their tracking of ICE operations, and are teaching “Know Your Rights” trainings at larger scale, and more. In some instances, people are even putting their bodies on the line to help those being targeted. The Trump administration and other Republicans have responded with more ICE funding and public declarations of full-throated support for its officers.

All of this has created a death spiral of legitimacy for ICE, which is coming under more scrutiny than ever. Recent polling is now indicating that nearly half of Americans support the agency’s abolition, a major increase in support for such a measure that has typically been seen as something only pitched by Progressive politicians and the “Radical Left.” According to these same polls, more Americans now support ICE’s abolition than its survival.

You wouldn’t know that if you saw the reaction of the U.S. political establishment, however. In what is in some ways a parallel to the establishment response to police brutality in 2020, both major parties have gone about devising ways to continue ICE’s existence even as popular support erodes.

Republicans have gone about the same victim-blaming strategy they’ve deployed for countless instances of law enforcement abuse. In the case of Renee Nicole Good, DHS was quick to frame an obvious murder caught on camera as an instance of domestic terrorism, which required the officer who killed her to fire his weapon in self-defense. This “self-defense” narrative is strikingly similar to the rhetoric cited by those in the Israeli occupational forces (IOF), who frequently cite “Palestinian aggression” as a key justification for their widespread, oftentimes indiscriminate violence against entire Palestinian communities.

Support for ICE, or at the very least its continued existence as an agency, is not constrained to the Trump administration and other Republican officials. Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fray, only days after telling ICE to “Get the f**k out of Minneapolis” in response to the murder of Renee Nicole Good, noted his opposition to the abolition of the agency during an appearance on “Fox & Friends”, saying:

I do not support abolishing ICE. However, I absolutely oppose the way this administration is conducting themselves with ICE. Look, there are a number of entities presently, agencies —”

This has been coupled with rhetoric from him and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz calling on the protestors to cease any activity that might be deemed escalatory, even as their communities are finding themselves subject to raids and occupation. In an official statement from the Governor’s office, Walz said:

Donald Trump wants chaos. He wants confusion. And, yes, he wants more violence on our streets. We cannot give him what he wants. We can – we must – protest: loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. Indeed, as hard as we will fight in the courts and at the ballot box, we cannot, and will not, let violence prevail. You’re angry. I’m angry. Angry might not be strong enough of a word. But we must remain peaceful.

As these statements call for the protestors to “tone down” their responses, seemingly caring more about the possibility of civil unrest than the reality of state-sanctioned violence happening across Minneapolis. As these statements flood the air, local law enforcement and now even the National Guard have seemingly mobilized to support ongoing ICE operations by “keeping the peace”, a euphemism in this instance for cracking down on protestors and ensuring that ICE violence can continue occurring without the fear of escalation by community members.

At the same time, Democratic political figures such as Cory Booker are proposing the typical half-measures to attempt to placate those rightfully calling for an end to the existence of ICE. His proposals include more stringent hiring practices and body cameras, both reforms being offered under the assumption that the core issue is not ICE, but rather how ICE operates (primarily under the Trump administration) and who it hires. Bear no mind that the ICE agent who murdered Renee Nicole Good was hired in 2015, well before these supposed standards began allegedly slipping under the current administration. These efforts likely sound familiar to those who remember the Democratic Party's response to the murder of George Floyd and the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings.

Even with recent polls finding that support for abolishing ICE has risen drastically from 25% at the beginning of 2025 to 42% today, the Democratic Party is seemingly refusing to budge. Even the most drastic measures in the Senate, such as the PUBLIC SAFETY Act, proposed by Senators Martin Heinrich and Catherine Cortez Masto, would only redirect around $75 billion from ICE toward local law enforcement agencies, allowing the agency to maintain much of its budget and continue operations throughout the country. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has only gone so far as to demand an investigation, citing a slew of excuses that avoid the reality: ICE has always been this way.

In this way, we’re seeing Democrats and Republicans alike support ICE even as its agents execute people in broad daylight. Their tactics differ, but both parties are offering little more than the continuation of the status quo for the sake of some vague allusion to “border security.” ICE, it seems, is an untouchable agency; the state’s own fascist paramilitary formation that doles out violence to those deemed “undesirable” or “oppositional” to state interests. Since its inception, ICE has been little more than an arm of state violence with an increasingly large budget and the loosest possible standards so that they may terrorize countless communities however they deem fit. In many ways, the violence we’re seeing from ICE officers today was inevitable, because that violence was always the point of the agency.

Republicans want you to believe that ICE agents are infallible moral soldiers waging war against societal malcontents and foreign parasites. Democrats want you to believe that ICE is an agency that simply needs to be reeled in with more funding and meaningless reforms. They’re two sides of the same coin. This is the establishment coordinating to quell dissent and maintain a violent status quo in fear that they may lose their grip on leading narratives and ultimately their power.

For those facing ICE in our communities and the threat of ICE violence, however, the answer can only be and has always been the abolition of the agency.

At the end of the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Standartenführer Hans Landa, the primary antagonist of the story and a Nazi SS military official tasked with hunting down Jewish community members in France, is held down in a forest as two of the films protagonists, American soldiers 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine and Private First Class Utivich, as they discuss Landa’s life after the war. Landa had made a deal with the American military: allow the murder of other high-ranking military officials, including German leader Adolf Hitler, and escape the war without punishment.

The two Americans found themselves at an impasse, acknowledging that the German officer was likely going to be able to reintegrate into his newfound society the moment he took off his uniform, saying:

When you go to your little place on Nantuckett Island, I image you gonna take off that handsome looking SS uniform of yours, ain’t ya?… I mean if I had my way, you’d wear that goddamn uniform for the rest of your pecker suckin life. But I’m aware that’s ain’t practical. I mean at some point ya gotta hafta take it off.

In that moment, Raine and Utivich make a choice, choosing to carve a swastika into the forehead of Landa, a mark he cannot simply take off.

This scene played in my head shortly after seeing the news of the execution of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Video footage of the murder showed armed ICE officers stopping their vehicle in front of Renee’s as she seemingly waved them through, demanding she exit her car. As she attempted to drive around the officers now swarming her, one aimed his sidearm at her and fired through her window. Worse yet, further videos and witness testimony indicate that shortly after the shooting, ICE officers refused medical personnel access as they tried to provide support to Renee.

The officer who fired the fatal shots was unfortunately masked and fled the scene shortly after the murder. Identification of the man has thus far been unsuccessful, no doubt made more difficult by his agency, which seems to have no interest in disclosing his name or any other information as it prioritizes protecting its own.

That ICE officer, now a murderer as well as the footsoldier of a fascist paramilitary agency, will go home, take off his mask, shed his uniform, and go on with his life. Sadly, he is far from the only one. When we think of ICE officers, we oftentimes think of them as being the faceless, violent federal agents we see on the streets, but they take their uniforms off at some point. When they do, they continue to exist to those around them as parents, spouses, neighbors, patrons at local bars, members of local clubs and organizations, and more. Without their badge and uniform, they exist as any other member of our communities, functionally anonymous despite the harm they’re taking part in.

This insulation from the repercussions of their actions enables them to continue putting on the uniform when they need to get to work the next day. They face scorn and disapproval when the ICE logo is printed across their plate carriers, but that’s where it oftentimes ends. They go home, and they can unwind, decompress, and ultimately compartmentalize the stress of their work when they kick their feet up at the end of the day. This is a status quo that has to change.

I wrote recently about the need to exclude Zionists from our social and political spaces, citing the harm they are complicit in and the need to hold these actors accountable for what are ultimately genocidal views that support the continued existence of a settler colonial project as it oppresses millions. ICE officers should be treated no differently.

Like with Zionists, communities have a moral obligation to ensure that ICE agents feel no comfort in any space, social, political, or otherwise. They should be run out of every place they attempt to find community in, made pariahs by merit of their fascist views and participation in a fascist paramilitary agency. These officers may be our neighbors, but they are not part of our communities. They forfeit such a claim when they signed up for an agency tasked with destroying communities across the nation and doling out violence against those the state deems “undesirable”.

These officers should be identified, their names and faces known by those in the places they call home. They should be accosted at every place they show their faces, be it their local grocery store, a community event, a book club, a gym, their church, or any other space they might seek refuge and community. If we are to stand against fascism and the violence of ICE, we must make participation in such an agency an act that makes it impossible to separate their work life from their personal life.

These are people signing up to make a living terrorizing and even murdering their fellow man, individuals who saw a sign-on bonus and weighed that against the lives of the people they might permanently change for the worse, only to find the money more valuable. Their decision was made easier with the knowledge that they would be able to take off the uniform and retain their social circles. It is our responsibility to ensure that those social circles and any broader sense of belonging are stripped from anyone who chooses to wear an ICE badge around their neck.

Our system is not going to hold them accountable as they’re advancing its interests, so our communities must. That starts with identifying ICE agents taking residence in them and making it clear that their work defines their lives, whether or not they don their uniform. An ICE agent is an ICE agent, whether they’re kicking in the door of an immigrant’s home or shopping for groceries at their local market. If our response to them is inconsistent, only responding negatively when they are on the job, they’ll continue doing their jobs for as long as they possibly can.

After all, you’d want to know if a Nazi was your neighbor, wouldn’t you?

The start of the new year is the best time to start thinking of new topics to learn about and grab some books in the process. Knowing where to start, however, can be a really daunting task. To save you some time, I’ve constructed a top-10 list of some books that cover topics you either need to know about or have important (maybe niche) information on things you might not have considered learning.

The list includes info on the political theory and practice of Hamas, a CIA operation at a Ford plant in Mexico, narcotics smuggling in the U.S. special forces, first-hand accounts of slavery and piracy in international fisheries, and a slew of other random yet extremely important topics. Education is key to liberation, after all.

10 Must-Reads for 2026

Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide

The brutal U.S. and Israeli genocide is not over. As the suffering of those on the ground continues, it has never been more important to remember that Palestinians in Gaza are not numbers but real people who are surviving a living hell day in and day out. Wasim Said is one of the over a million Palestinians to see their lives in Gaza uprooted and destroyed by Israeli genocide.

During that time, he wrote down the horrific stories of those trying to survive amid Israeli bombs and bullets. His words contain more than the horrors of genocide, but also a charge for all who read them. What will you do now that you have the responsibility of knowing? What will you do now that you are a witness just like him?

You can find it here.

Outsourced Empire: How Militias, Mercenaries and Contractors Support US Statecraft

The United States is oftentimes described as an aspiring “global police force”, but what if a more accurate framing is that of a global manager? The U.S. has spent decades building a complex international network of state and non-state actors working to maintain the capitalist order and keep markets as “open” (exploitable) as possible. The creation of force multipliers enables the U.S. to do what it could never do alone: exert economic and military power in every corner of the globe and threaten every person who might stand in the way of its interests at all times.

Andrew Thomson draws on declassified documents, including U.S. training manuals, CIA communiqués, and the National Security Archive, to explain how militias, mercenaries, and private companies (PMCs) have played increasingly central roles in maintaining the U.S. empire, and by extension, the global capitalist order. This is a book that helps open your eyes to the real depth of U.S. military power internationally and why we need to confront it.

You can find it here.

Immigration Detention Inc.: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants

At the beginning of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was detaining around 39,000 people in the United States. Not only has the number of prisoners, migrants included, and capacity for them increased in the U.S. over the years, but so has the budget for detention itself, ballooning from $8 million in 1994 to $3.4 billion in 2024. That increase in spending has been immensely profitable for the companies involved in every element of prison management and operations.

Nancy Heimstra and Deirdre Conlon dig in depth into the horrific reality of U.S. migrant detention, showing how the suffering of prisoners is intentional, acceptable to those in charge, and ultimately extremely lucrative. With ICE and detention in the headlines, you need to know about the corporate actors driving the efforts, some of which you’ll be surprised to recognize.

You can find it here.

Fort Bragg Cartel

When you think of the U.S. special forces, you might think of an elite group of battle-hardened professionals taking on the most dangerous missions in conflict zones known and unknown around the world. As Seth Harp investigated a double homicide in Fort Bragg, a U.S. military base in North Carolina, home to the 82nd Airborne and U.S. Special Operations Command, he quickly came to find that the reality of the special forces is far from the idealized (propagandized) image we’re shown.

Harp drew on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and conducted hundreds of interviews as he dug into a story that quickly morphed into an overview of narcotics trafficking, murder, coverups, cartels, and the dark reality of the most revered elite operators in the U.S. military. If you want to know about what really goes on in the world of the U.S. special forces, particularly the army’s Delta Force, this is a book for you

You can find it here.

Fishers and Plunderers: Theft, Slavery and Violence at Sea

You’ve probably eaten seafood before, but have you ever thought about the ships, crews, and fishing communities pulling them from the sea and getting them to you? Fishing on the high seas isn’t easy. The industry is full of exploitation, piracy, slavery, and death, and fishers from Somalia to Palestine and beyond oftentimes find themselves riding the waves of international political and economic developments (as well as facing all of the violence that comes with them).

Drawing on firsthand testimony of those aboard the vessels, Alastair Couper, Hance D. Smith, and Bruno Ciceri provide a comprehensive overview of the reality faced by fishers and their communities, as well as a spectacular introduction to fisheries and fishery politics. It’s a book that provides a wealth of information about a topic most people are generally unfamiliar with.

You can find it here.

Hamas: Political Thought and Practice

You’ve likely heard a lot about the Palestinian resistance group Hamas over the past years. For decades, especially after the Al Aqsa Flood operation of October 7th, 2023, they’ve been a sort of Palestinian boogeyman. Israeli officials paint them as an unthinking, radical terrorist group seeking to erase Jews from the planet. The United States government treats them as the sole obstacle to peace, one that must be disarmed for the sake of a better future. The truth is far from the sort.

Khaled Hroub goes into painstaking detail to describe the roots of Hamas as a legitimate resistance organization, walking readers through the formations that predated it, the reasons it came to be, the actions it took in its early years to carve out space in the Palestine resistance ecosystem, and its interactions with myriad groups and nations on the ground. The picture he paints is that of a constantly adapting rational organization comprised of actors who are dedicated to the liberation of the Palestinian people by any means necessary. If you want to understand what Hamas is and cut back against the propaganda surrounding it, this is the book for you.

You can find it here.

The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea

Ever try to escape from your problems? Did that escape attempt include the theft of Indigenous land and the displacement of those who call it home? I hope not, but it wouldn’t be an act without historical parallels. Settler colonialism, or the attempt of a population to take over a land for the sake of establishing a distinctly new society atop it, is a form of colonialism with a lengthy list of examples throughout history and the present day.

Lorenzo Veracini compiles an extensive analysis of these projects, from the colonial projects we all know, like Israel, the U.S., and French Algeria, to the small movements, utopian projects, and cult communities that many have probably never heard of. Using these examples, he traces the core ideological drivers of settler colonialism as a logic of displacement and an effort to maintain social control.

You can find it here.

Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire

As the genocide in Gaza continues, a common Israeli defense of their indiscriminate bombings and mass murder has been the supposed use of human shields by Palestinian resistance actors. As they put it, Hamas operating within the densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip makes all those around them legitimate military targets, be they men, women, or children. They’re far from the first perpetrators of atrocities to use this exact defense.

Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini detail the history of human shields, voluntary and involuntary, from Ethiopia to Tamil Eelam to Palestine and beyond. In doing so, they piece together the origins of the term and how it’s cited by bad actors to commit indiscriminate violence against entire populations. As the term human shield continues to be weaponized for violence across the world, it's never been more important to understand in detail.

You can find it here.

El Golpe: US Labor, the CIA, and the Coup at Ford in Mexico

On January 8, 1990, nine employees of a Mexican Ford Assembly plant were shot in an act of anti-union, anti-communist political repression. You’ve probably never heard of this event, but when news reached then-UAW member Rob McKenzie and his coworkers in the Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant in Minnesota, he began digging.

What he uncovered indicates a conspiracy between U.S. labor unions, the CIA, and actors on the ground to brutalize and crack down on Mexican workers amid their labor dispute. He pieces the puzzle together to show how our foreign intelligence services work hand in hand with outside actors to stifle labor movements in Latin America and preserve corporate interests, sometimes with U.S. unions happily following along.

You can find it here.

Wretched of the Earth

Wretched of the Earth has a special place in my heart as one of the most influential texts I have come across. It is a piece of Marxist theory that I firmly believe every socialist has a responsibility to pick up. Frantz Fanon stretches Marxist analysis to the colonial reality, discussing the reality of violence in the colonial world as a tool of oppression and liberation and detailing the pitfalls and struggles of post-independence national projects.

This is a book with immense value, with timeless analysis that can be applied to myriad struggles. As the genocide in Palestine continues, it is even more valuable to understand and use as a tool to deepen one’s understanding of the colonial reality, as well as what it takes to break out of it.

You can find it here.

Honorable Mentions

The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy

The story of how the Israeli project came to develop its nuclear weapons program, how it collaborated with Apartheid South Africa to develop its program, and that one time the Israelis almost dropped a nuclear bomb during wartime as a part of what is now a state policy in times of extreme crisis. A Seymour M. Hersh classic.

You can find it here.

Bosnia, Kosova, and the West

The single best analysis of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the role that the U.S. and the European community played in it that I have ever come across. Mike Karadjis provides a phenomenal Marxist overview of Yugoslavia and its unfortunate dissolution to help us understand what happened and why. Worthwhile if you want to break through the propaganda and some unfortunate talking points that have become prominent even on the Left.

You can find it here.

From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii

If you live in the United States, you have a responsibility to know the histories of those whose land we occupy. Hawai’i has always been a focal point for me, as it is a sovereign state under U.S. occupation that mirrors Palestine in many ways. Huanani-Kay Trask writes an amazing breakdown of the history of the U.S. occupation and its effects. Free Hawai’i.

You can find it here.

The Foundations of Leninism

Giving away my ideological bias a bit here, but a succinct and easy-to-understand introductory breakdown of Marxist-Leninist thought. You might balk, like I once did, at the author being Joseph Stalin, but trust me, it’s worth reading. It might even give you a new framework with which to analyze ongoing events.

You can find it here.

Videos of helicopters flying low over the Venezuelan capital of Caracas began spreading shortly after reports of explosions in the early morning hours of January 3, 2025. The footage, which included videos of explosions throughout different sites in the countries, shook the world as the reality sank in: U.S. forces had commenced ground operations in the nation.

The new escalation, which followed weeks of U.S. operations that entailed strikes against fishing vessels in the region, attacks on oil vessels with ties to Venezuela, and increased pressure on the Venezuelan government by the Trump administration, took many by surprise. The possibility of direct U.S. strikes against targets in Venezuela was something many had been preparing for since the U.S. military began amassing a military presence in the Caribbean under the guise of “anti-narcotics trafficking” operations. Trump’s Operation Southern Spear became the mechanism by which the U.S. greenlit the increased military activity and surveillance operations that were very clearly meant to prepare for a possible military confrontation with Venezuela.

Very few, however, expected the United States to put boots on the ground. As videos spread on social media that appeared to contain footage of Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters, that reality took root. The question on the minds of those following the available updates shifted to asking what the operation’s goals were. Was the United States invading the nation? Were special forces operators engaged in preparatory ground operations for the battlefield to come? Were teams targeting Venezuelan leaders?

Shortly after the U.S. confirmed the existence of the operations, Donald Trump gave the world the answer, stating on Truth Social that the United States had successfully abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Statements by U.S. officials confirmed his claims shortly after, specifying that U.S. Delta Force special forces operators had entered the country, landed in Venezuela, and seized the President in a plan that the Trump administration had approved before Christmas.

Trump’s ostensible reasoning for these operations has been an effort to combat “narco-terrorism”, with the abduction of Maduro being framed as an effort to bring the head of a supposed narco-trafficking ring to justice. The real reasoning behind these escalatory measures, however, has been made clear by the Trump administration and Venezuelan opposition members tied to the United States. María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader and stalwart advocate for U.S. regime change, was quoted in a recent speech, noting what was really guiding U.S. Venezuela policy. Unsurprisingly, it’s corporate profits:

“This is going to be huge. We will bring rule of law. We will open markets. We will have security for foreign investment and a transparent massive privatization program that is waiting for you.”

Donald Trump also has been more than happy to give the game away regarding the real reasoning behind the escalation by demanding the “return” of oil operations to the United States:

Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.

When asked what the U.S. was going to do with the contents in The Skipper, a Venezuela-linked oil vessel now anchored off the coast of Texas, Donald Trump responded by saying, “We keep it, I guess.” Though the administration has been peddling a “narco-terrorism” line remarkably similar to the WMD lie used by the Bush administration to push for the invasion of Iraq, the reality is that this is yet another example of the United States acting in the interests of U.S. oil companies and the transnational capitalist class, whose interests the U.S. represents and defends.

With Maduro’s abduction, the charade has been dropped completely. In an interview following the news of the U.S. attack, Donald Trump specifically cited the nation’s oil as being a primary focus moving forward:

"In terms of other countries that want oil, we're in the oil business," the president told reporters. "We're going to sell it to them. We're not going to say we're not going to give it to them. In other words, we'll be selling oil, probably in much larger doses, because they couldn't produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad. So, we'll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries — many of whom are using it now — but I would say many more will come."

This is U.S. imperialism out in the open for the world to see, with violence being dished out without even the thinnest pretext. Millions of Venezuelans are seeing their nation’s sovereignty trampled for the sake of the profit margins of companies like ConocoPhillips, whose executives are no doubt celebrating as the government that nationalized their operations in Venezuela faces U.S. military aggression. Unsurprisingly, the stock market has responded to this with increases in the share prices of oil companies, including ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, as well as companies embedded in the U.S. military industrial complex, including Boeing, GE Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin.

This is a war of terror being waged to ensure Venezuelan resources are more easily exploitable, all the while sending a message to other actors around the world that the U.S. is willing to engage in whatever military measures it deems necessary to safeguard and expand corporate profits. It is not an accident that these actions are happening at the same time as Israeli officials are saber-rattling over new strikes in Iran and Lebanon, and as the United States bombs nations like Nigeria. The Trump administration is intent on sending a message that the United States is willing to strike anywhere, possibly even everywhere, with the application of force against any entity that it deems oppositional.

It has never been more important for those within the United States and the world at large to stand against these efforts by whatever means necessary. We are witnessing in many ways an empire in decline, utilizing violence as a means of maintaining a global order that it has historically enjoyed hegemonic status in. The United States is a manager and beneficiary of the global capitalist order, one that requires maximal access to the resources and labor of those outside of the imperial core. Though the Trump administration will cite “counter-terrorism”, “anti-narcotics operations”, “bringing freedom to oppressed people”, and other tired lines countless administrations have used before, the reality remains the same as it always has, albeit with the fangs of the U.S. being borne more openly and willingly.

The violence will not end here. Venezuela will not be the last site of U.S. intervention and the destabilization and mass death that so frequently accompany it. Those of us within the imperial core must ask ourselves what we are willing to do to stand in solidarity with the millions facing the boot of U.S. imperialism, and if what we are doing already is enough. To refuse to act is to be complicit in the horrors. We will be given any number of reasons to ignore it all, to be complacent if not apathetic. We will be told that the operations are just, that the collateral is acceptable if not inevitable, that what happens over there does not matter as much as what we’re dealing with here. We cannot give in to such efforts.

No war with Venezuela.

I got off my plane in Nashville with a mixture of emotions that comes with every trip home, a part of my annual holiday season pilgrimage to see my family. Ordinarily, I would have flown into Louisville, Kentucky, where around half of my family calls home, but this year I decided to save money and fly to Tennessee, where my ever-generous mother had offered to pick me up.

I dressed the part, donning my indescript green beanie, Levi jeans, and Realtree camouflage jacket complete with a hunter’s orange internal liner. Growing up, I hated these sorts of clothes, but as I moved away from the Southern Indiana town I called home for so many years, outfits like this had become a part of my wardrobe, my own little piece of nostalgia for a place I detested for so much of my life. I jokingly told myself I was blending in, as if I had to play a character as I stepped foot in my own backyard.

Within ten minutes of getting off the plane, I was greeted by the sight of a child who could not have been older than ten sporting a head shaved on the sides with a lengthy mullet covering the top, a hot chicken restaurant, and an airport ad for a shooting range in the city’s downtown. It felt almost comical, but I chuckled as I thought to myself, “Ah, I’m home.”

I spent the next week being ferried by family members throughout Indiana and Kentucky. I was lucky enough to call both states a sort of home over the years, and to be able to see all of my family in a single trip. My family is one of blue dog union Democrats who call the Republican Party “enemies of the working man,” arguing in the same conversation that the recent escalations with Venezuela are nothing more than “another war for someone else’s oil,” Tea Party Conservatives who refused to vote for Trump in the 2016 primaries because they didn’t think he was hardline enough, self-described “Independents” who have broken with the idea of party loyalty, and everything in between. I think many of us from the Midwest or the South live with a similar family reality.

For the last years, I have been an outlier in that family, an avowed Marxist Leninist in a family of anti-communists, and more recently a Muslim revert in a family of Catholics, Christians, and even one Jew. My grandparents often joke about the diversity of faith in the family, that diversity being the Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, something not uncommon in Southern Indiana, but something that their grandparents surely did not envisage in their time.

I tell everyone who asks that I grew up in Evansville, Indiana, an old factory town on the banks of the Ohio River that rose to prominence during World War 2 as a production hub for the U.S. Navy’s Landing Ship, Tanks (LSTs), one of which still sits on the banks of the city’s shoreline as a floating museum. Many of the traditional industries have since left, a story shared by many Midwest cities and towns, but some remain, as do the farms that surround the city itself. The city has sustained itself now as a site of several small universities and service sector growth, along with other projects.

Truthfully, though, I am not actually from Evansville at all. I grew up outside of the city itself in the small town of Newburgh, interestingly, the first northern city captured by Confederate forces during the Civil War. Like many who went to high school in the city and now live in states with those who would likely never know where that small town is, however, I say Evansville.

When I was young, I detested both the town and the city. The open roads and sprawling fields felt oddly constricting, a feeling furthered by a not-always-easy upbringing due to my family's off-and-on struggle to keep up with bills and stay afloat. I found myself for years resenting the place I called home, aching to leave and be something more in a city somewhere far away. This was a common feeling amongst those I knew. Unsurprisingly, Indiana has suffered from this reality as its younger generations continue to stream outward to cities like Chicago in pursuit of something new, something different, something bigger. I chose Philadelphia, another hotspot for people from the nation’s interior trying to live in a more urban, albeit affordable city.

Coming back, I am reminded of why I held those feelings. The ever-present community gossip resultant from everyone knowing everyone else’s business, the comparative lack of social outlets beyond an annual street festival, the bars that scatter the city, a movie theater here and there, occasional concerts, and the way much of the city seems stuck in place can be maddening in their own ways. There is a monotony to life here that can be truly draining, but also comforting to those who embrace it.

As a socialist, there is an added layer, as the community is by no means a place one would consider accepting of the idea of the deconstruction of the United States and the global capitalist order. Indiana has been a longstanding red state, Trump country through and through, even if it does have its Democrat-majority pockets. There is a legacy of socialism within the state, however, including being the home of Eugene V Debs, a socialist elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. Many old timers I have spoken to still speak highly of him, even if they disagree with his worldview. In the Southern part of the state, the city of New Harmony bears its own unique history as an attempted “utopian socialist” project. I had been through the now small town on several occasions, not knowing until years later that its existence was that of a failed socialist experiment.

That socialist history is not without a dark history opposing it, however. It is no secret that Indiana is Klan country, and the site of movements like the Proud Boys. Like many predominantly rural Rust Belt states, white supremacist movements have taken hold in many ways and remain a presence today, even if not as outwardly visible. Indiana is, in some ways, a very interesting microcosm of the idea of “socialism, or barbarism”, I suppose.

Taking all of that into account, one may begin to understand my mixed feelings of coming home, knowing much of the history and issues, while enjoying seeing the old stomping grounds and new developments that have crept up in the year since I last visited. My mother excitedly speaks of the newest restaurants, social spaces, and businesses that have set up shop in buildings, oftentimes vacated by businesses that had tried to establish themselves in the same places years prior. I drive by the donut shop, Donut Bank, which has been in the same spot for as long as I can remember, as a community staple. I walk by my old high school, something of note in a town where many identify by which they attended in their youth (I was admittedly a student at Memorial High School for those in the city reading this). Critically, I meet with those doing the real work in the city.

If you were to ask many on the East Coast about socialism in the U.S., you’re sure to run into the pervasive idea that it’s a movement isolated to major cities on the coasts, with states like Indiana being flyover locations devoid of anyone but MAGA acolytes and possibly pockets of establishment Democrats.

They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but the idea that the movement does not exist here has always been deeply frustrating for those of us born and raised here. I see the potential here in brief moments, a passing comment from someone saying they like my hat, which is adorned with a Palestinian flag, or my shirt that says “Destroy ICE”. There is admittedly a cautious camaraderie here amongst those with more “Progressive” views, and I know there’s always an appreciation amongst those of us who are able to “find” another walking along our streets or sitting in our coffee shops.

As I came into town this year, I reached out to a comrade I had stayed in touch with off and on for years. Two years ago, he had left several pro-Palestine stickers in a coffee shop I had turned into my workspace while in town, a present to someone else on the Left with roots here. Since then, we have communicated back and forth, and this year even met up in person for a workout at a local gym.

Many on the coasts would consider him a sort of oddity in Indiana, a “diamond in the rough” of sorts. A Marxist, he has been deeply involved in many of the community organizing efforts ongoing in the Evansville organizing scene. Speaking with him, I couldn’t help but be immensely happy with what I heard. My “too red for socialism” city, as it turned out, had a growing movement of its own, spanning food distributions led by local anarchists, Palestine coalitions trying to agitate at city council meetings for the cause, and even local fights over the distribution of opioid-related settlement money provided to the city, which had seen genuine successes as funds were secured by organizations doing meaningful work by these efforts.

I left the conversation with a sort of pride I had not had in my hometown in a long time, but also a sense of optimism in the growth of a movement I had not seen in my youth. There were socialists in the city doing meaningful work, whether it be helping those dealing with substance dependencies and homelessness, those in local unions fighting for better contracts for their coworkers (many of whom are by no means socialists themselves), those hitting the streets to protest injustice in Palestine thousands of miles away, and more. There is a movement here, if even a small one, that has grown and survived against all odds in an area that has very real, at times violent opposition.

When many think of socialist movements, they no doubt think of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other coastal cities, but there is a movement in the nation’s interior, in so-called “impossible spaces”, that is growing and comprised of brilliant, principled individuals who know that they are planting the seeds for a generational struggle they may not be around to see the fruits of. Even in my Trump-loving hometown, they’re doing the work to ensure the lesser-known legacy of socialism in Indiana continues for years to come, and they’re doing it with thinly stretched resources and even thinner stretched capacity.

It is a reminder that no community can be considered “unorganizable”. There are people from these places who see the same things anyone in a major city on the coast can see regarding the failures of capitalism, who are willing to put their bodies and reputations in their communities on the line for a just struggle. I am going home tomorrow, and I can’t stop thinking as I sit in my local cafe, how proud of each and every one of them I am. Ours is a global struggle, waged in every town and city we have roots in. Even in the places one might disregard, that struggle continues. I am excited to return home next year to see where it goes, and happy to know that there are those who did not leave to wage the struggle elsewhere. Lord knows it would drive me crazy.

The United States has continued to escalate with Venezuela over the past weeks, shifting from an ominous military buildup and the targeted murder of fishermen in the region to outright raiding vessels laden with Venezuelan oil.

The first instance of this new threat to Venezuelan commerce occurred on December 10th. U.S. forces launched from the nearby USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and descended on The Skipper, an oil tanker that was reportedly on its way to Cuba at the time of interception. Their justification for this interdiction was ostensibly that the ship had been on a list of sanctioned vessels resultant from allegations of having a role in an oil smuggling network that facilitated the funding of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.

Shortly after this raid, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “total and complete” blockade on Venezuelan oil vessels that the United States government had classified as sanctioned. He also went a step further, giving the game away regarding the real reasoning behind the escalation by demanding the “return” of oil operations to the United States, stating:

Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.

It did not take long for the flimsy pretext to fall apart as the U.S. military raided and captured a second vessel, Centuries, off the Venezuelan coast. Unlike The Skipper, Centuries was not on a U.S. sanctions list, nullifying the supposed logic of the blockade. At the time of capture, Centuries was carrying around 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey crude bound for China.

Only a day after, the United States was also reportedly in active pursuit of a third vessel, the Bella 1, which fled after being approached by the U.S. Coast Guard late Saturday. Bella 1, similar to The Skipper, is also considered sanctioned by the U.S. government for similar cause, having been accused of having ties to Iran and of supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These operations extend beyond the theft of the vessels themselves, with statements from Trump and other officials indicating that the U.S. plans on keeping the stolen oil from the vessels as well. When asked what the U.S. was going to do with the oil in The Skipper, which is now anchored off the coast of Texas, Donald Trump responded by saying, “We keep it, I guess.”

It seems like, far from an effort to combat “narco-terrorism”, that the United States is engaged in state-sanctioned piracy at sea.

Piracy: A Label Turned Political Weapon

For many of us, the idea of piracy has been one that we’ve grown up with at least a vague understanding of. After all, pirates have played a longstanding role in pop culture with films, books, and video games treating them as both protagonists and antagonists. Whether it be Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Reavers of the short-lived sci-fi show “Firefly”, Edward Kenway of the Ubisoft game “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag”, or other creations, pirates have long captivated the minds of countless generations.

It’s hardly surprising then that when you ask people to describe what piracy looks like, many think of a grizzled crew of swashbuckling, unkempt sailors in loose-fitting clothes, brandishing swords and bottles of rum aboard the decks of vessels flying the skull and crossbones design of the Jolly Roger. In the realm of international law, however, it is much less fanciful. As laid out in Article 101 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), piracy consists of any of the following acts:

(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;

(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;

(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).

The focus on the crew or passengers of private ships or aircraft is of note here, as it presents a possible limiting factor regarding the functional use of the term. Outside of simple legal convention, one can look to books like “Fishers and Plunders” by Alastair Couper, Hance D. Smith, and Bruno Ciceri to get a more whollistic understanding of piracy as violence done by crews of vessels to other vessels resultant oftentimes from the pressures of poverty, overfishing and depletion of domestic fisheries, and other issues that drive fishers and others in their communities toward crime.

As history has shown, however, piracy is not limited to the individual or crew levels, nor even amongst small fleets of coordinating vessels. National governments have for centuries engaged in state-sanctioned maritime piracy under less unscrupulous terms. “Privateering” has oftentimes been a term used as a substitute for piracy that has the official backing of a state entity, and today, we see terms like “counter narcotics” or “counter terrorism operations” being cited alongside the unilateral imposition of sanctions regimes against sovereign actors being used to justify theft and violence on the high seas. Curiously, in many modern instances of “piracy”, the application of the term has more of a political than a functional purpose.

Similar to the term “terrorist”, piracy is oftentimes employed as a means for delegitimizing the actions of individuals or state actors who act in contradiction to U.S. imperial interests, and those of the West more broadly, at sea. In the case of politically motivated terrorism designations, there are countless examples of this reality that encompass a vast spectrum of actors. The examples many are probably most familiar with include resistance organizations engaged in armed campaigns such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarallah and others, but also other organizations like the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front, and others have faced crackdowns and attacks of their own in years past after being labeled “eco-terrorists” as the U.S. government moved to protect the corporate interests those groups challenged. Their actions are not what sets them apart from other state and non-state actors acting in a similar fashion who are not designated as “terrorist” groups. Rather, what distinguishes them is the interests they challenge by virtue of their continued existence and operations.

Piracy as a designation is no different than terrorism in this sense, as the term is oftentimes used as a pretext to justify state violence, the erosion of sovereignty of nations, and to delegitimize the actors it is labeling. One is not a pirate necessarily due to their actions alone, but because their actions challenge the interests of the hegemonic imperial actors of the day, which currently is the United States.

Somalia: Pirates or a Coast Guard?

Those familiar with the movie Captain Phillips have witnessed this dynamic first-hand. The film, based on real events that took place in 2009, centered on the story of Richard Phillips (played by Tom Hanks), captain of the U.S. containership Maersk Alabama, as he becomes a victim of piracy off the coast of Somalia. The film came amidst years of intense media interest in the development of Somali piracy. As the story went, pirates operating out of Somalia who seemingly came out of nowhere were attacking containerships and other vessels off the Somali coast, taking hostages, stealing cargo, and more.

What these headlines often neglected to mention was that these “pirates” hardly existed in a vacuum. Their existence was resultant from a history of exploitation and harm. As outlined extensively in “Fishers and Plunders”, international fishing trawlers had long entered Somali waters and taken advantage of lax oversight and, later, a civil war to pillage the nation’s fisheries. These foreign vessels, according to Couper et al, were estimated to be taking more fish out of Somali waters than Somalis themselves in the 1908s:

During the 1980s the coastal people were supported by 3,000-5,000 fishers operating a fleet of 700 or so small vessels. They worked in government-assisted fishing cooperatives, 100 or so private boats, and a state fleet of 11 larger trawlers. The catch of the local vessels was around 10,000 tonnes per annum. Fishing was also carried out by foreign vessels under government licences, possibly catching another 18,000 tons. Supervision was always lax and there was corruption in access payments.

This was an issue in itself, made worse by population pressures on the coast as droughts between 1974 and 1986 forced many in Somalia to move out of the nation’s interior, a reality that put more pressure on domestic fishing communities to increase the amount of fish caught. The 1991 civil war brought about a collapse of what little oversight existed in Somali waters, which foreign trawlers quickly took advantage of. As Couper et al note:

With open access the foreign vessels in Somalia waters increased to 800 or so, including major factory ships. These boats carne from Spain, Italy, France and the Uniteci Kingdom as well as China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Russia, Kenya and Yemen. They fished dose up to the shore for rock lobsters and pursued stocks of tuna widely. Many foreign fishers showed aggressive behaviour towards the small-scale Somali boats that got in their way.

Adding to this exploitation was further harm resulting from the dumping of chemical waste by foreign vessels off Somalia’s coast. The nation’s waters became a dumping ground, with companies involved in the operations making millions in the process. Not only were foreign entities stealing from the rich fisheries that Somalis needed to survive, but they were also directly harming the waters where these fisheries existed.

Given these conditions, coupled with the collapse of a government capable of holding these actors accountable and international institutions that proved unable or unwilling to penalize them, it is hardly surprising that Somalis took it upon themselves to fight back. The ‘National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia’, a motley assortment of fishermen who had lost their jobs, possibly the remnants of the state’s disbanded coastguard service, and others who took to Somali waters to force international vessels under the threat of violence to pay taxes for their operations. As noted again by Couper et al, the perception of this new “Somali Coast Guard” varied depending on who was asked about them:

These actions were designated as piracy by the foreign fishing ships, but were seen by local fishers as justified attempts at protection to deter the stealing of their fish.

As these operations began shifting toward commercial vessels in nearby maritime trade routes, headlines began circulating of the new threat of “Somali piracy.” The result was the militarization of the region as naval assets of multiple nations, including but not limited to France, the United States, and Great Britain, swarmed to “protect shipping” and “maintain freedom of navigation”. Unsurprisingly, private military contractors (PMCs) became a part of this new securitization effort, making out like bandits as they were hired to provide security for vessels traveling in the region. Throughout all of this, it was ultimately regular Somalis who suffered. It is worth concluding this section by once again referencing “Fishers and Plunderers”:

In the war against piracy many innocent villagers and fishers suffered. When in 2012 the international forces attacked suspected pirate supply bases with missiles fired from helicopters, the fishers complained that their boats were being destroyed. There were also landings by French commandos from helicopters. The case of a fisher who claimed to have been abducted in 2008 during such a helicopter raid, and later abandoned in France, was eventually heard by a French court on appeal in October 2012. He was proven innocent and awarded compensation. This war also saw the deaths of captors on vessels which were under rescue, and captives used as human shields by the pirates. The most publicised incident was the killing of a fishing skipper on the mother ship Jih Chung Tsai 68 in a rescue encounter with the USS Stephen W Groves.

Yemen: Piracy or a Humanitarian Intervention?

Only a short distance from Somalia, Yemen too has found itself facing allegations of piracy in recent years as it engaged in an effort to stop a genocide. The aftermath of the prison break that was the Al Aqsa Flood operation saw Israeli occupational forces slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza en masse. As Gaza was bombarded and systematically starved in what was by all reasonable standards a genocidal operation, the Yemeni government jumped into action.

Taking advantage of their proximity to vital international maritime shipping lanes, the Yemeni military began the imposition of a blockade against vessels linked to the Zionist entity. The rationale was simple: if they could disrupt shipping to the colony, they could exert real economic pressure that might aid Palestinians and help bring an end to the genocide they faced. In November 2023, they showed just how serious they were when Yemeni forces captured the Israeli-linked vessel Galaxy Leader in a daring seaborne raid. Since then, they have repeatedly fired upon vessels not heeding their warnings and have even sunk several vessels, all while regularly firing upon the Zionist colony with drones and missiles.

Interestingly, as pointed out by reporter , these operations seemingly lacked any interest in the resources aboard these cargo vessels. He specifically noted:

I see a lot of people doing the “Oh, but it was bad when the Houthis did it?” with the US seizing the Venezuelan oil tanker but there is a difference here: when the Yemenis seized oil tankers, they didn’t keep them. They blew them up. Taking oil was not the intent.

That did not stop their actions from being framed as both terrorism and piracy by the U.S. government. Donald Trump took to social media, stating that “piracy, violence, and terrorism” had cost “billions” and caused harm to countless people. This framing provided the U.S. with the pretext it needed to respond forcefully with Operation Prosperity Guardian, which was labeled as a “freedom of navigation” operation aimed at defending ships that came under fire, and Operation Poseidon Archer, which entailed joint U.S.-UK airstrikes in Yemen to put further pressure on the government to cease its operations.

These strikes, as well as repeated Israeli intervention, failed to reach their goals. That does not change the fact that the violent acts they committed were done under the guise of “counter terrorism” and “anti-piracy” operations, despite the blockade being a clear, targeted effort by the Yemenis to stop an ongoing genocide. What the Yemeni government did to have those labels weaponized against it was not to engage in piracy, but rather to stand in the way of the interests of a key U.S. ally. They were labeled as pirates and terrorists in an effort to delegitimize their cause and justify violence against them that came in the form of bombings and sanctions.

U.S. and Israel: Pirates Who Are Never Pirates

The double standard becomes apparent when comparing the Somali and Yemeni cases to the cases of the United States and the Zionist entity. Both of these entities have historically engaged in what could likely be considered state piracy. Despite those actions, the label never seems to materialize, save for in the rhetoric of those they are harming. Recent correspondence between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the UN Security Council has gone so far as to cite Article 101 of UNCLOS, with Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello saying, “They are thieves, pirates, murderers; what they want is to steal our oil.”

When we use the standard outlined in the Yemeni case by the U.S. government, the characterization of U.S. actions by the Venezuelan government seems to be accurate. Venezuela is facing a blockade resulting from the unilateral imposition of sanctions spearheaded by the U.S. government, which is giving U.S. military assets in the region an excuse to harass, pursue, and seize vessels to advance U.S. imperial objectives. Rather than calling this piracy, as they did when Yemenis enacted a targeted blockade against vessels with ties to the Zionist entity that entailed similar boarding efforts and violence, these operations are framed as security-related endeavors related to “narco-terrorism,” thus legitimizing the violence.

Israeli naval actions in the context of Gaza are also littered with actions that could amount to state piracy. Particularly since the imposition of the air, land, and sea blockade in Gaza more than a decade and a half ago, Palestinian fishermen have been restricted from accessing the fisheries they rely on to keep their families and communities fed and economically stable.

Israeli naval vessels have regularly restricted access to the waters themselves, penning in Palestinians and forcing them into less plentiful fishing areas. Though the Oslo Accords stipulated that Palestinian fishermen could be permitted to access up to 20 nautical miles of their coastal waters, Israeli restrictions have led to Palestinians only being able to fish between 3 and 12 nautical miles.

Even within these restricted waters, Palestinian fishermen face violence from Israeli naval patrols, which have repeatedly fired upon Palestinian fishing vessels, abducted Palestinian fishermen, and seized Palestinian vessels in acts that very well meet the standard for piracy as we would contemporarily understand it. Unsurprisingly, the Palestinian Fishermen Syndicate has noted that at least 230 Palestinian fishermen have been murdered just since October 7th, 2023.

These operations are seldom framed as acts of piracy. In fact, Israeli occupational forces use similar securitization language as their U.S. counterparts in describing their operations. What one might reasonably define as piracy, they call “counter-terrorism” operations aiming at “fighting Hamas” and other Palestinian resistance formations. Their actions are, once again, legitimized by the language they use.

Who Are The Real Pirates?

The double standard of what is framed as piracy and what isn’t is clear. When actors engage in acts that may be framed as piracy in ways that advance U.S. imperial interests or the interests of transnational capitalists that the U.S. is advancing, the actions aren’t piracy, but something else entirely. When forces opposing U.S. interests commit to similar acts, however, they’re immediately delegitimized, criminalized, and opposed with the maximum application of violence.

Fishermen and their communities face the brunt of this violence, whether it is Palestinian fishermen in Gaza being fired upon by Israeli naval patrols, Somali fishermen being attacked by foreign trawlers trying to pillage the bounties their waters hold, or Venezuelan fishermen facing airstrikes and death amid a geopolitical struggle being waged by the U.S. against the Venezuelan state.

This maritime violence has a clear political dimension, as does the framing of it by those committing the violent acts. Some pirates are never pirates at all, while others are pirates simply because their existence threatens the profits of a global order managed by the United States to the benefit of a parasitic transnational capitalist class. Yemenis are terrorists and pirates for standing against the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza, Somalis are pirates for demanding international actors respect their territorial waters, Palestinians are terrorists for casting their nets in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile, Israeli piracy is simply a “counter-terrorism” effort. U.S. piracy is a “counter-narcotics” operation. The double standard could not be clearer.

It is our responsibility to understand this double standard for what it is and investigate claims of piracy as they emerge, not taking the words of imperialists who wish to extend U.S. naval and political hegemony to every coast of every nation in the world. Piracy, like terrorism, is a political designation more than a functional description of behavior. What makes a pirate is the interests one challenges. U.S. and Israeli vessels may not fly the Jolly Roger, but their actions tell us exactly what they are.

Special thanks to Alastair Couper, Hance D. Smith, and Bruno Ciceri for their brilliant work cataloguing the plight of fishermen across the world in their work “Fishers and Plunderers”, a book that I heavily leaned on for parts of this piece and one that any reader interested in piracy and the international fishery industry should pick up. Special thanks as well to the team, whose recent podcast episode on Yemen caused me to pick that book up again.