As Tensions Rise Between Biden and Netanyahu, Now Is The Time To Step Up Protests

For over six months, the Israeli government has callously massacred at least 33,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children. It has become clear that the Israeli ruling class is blatantly using starvation and collective punishment as weapons of war, intending not only to destroy Hamas but also inflict the maximum pain and suffering on the Gazan people as a whole.

As Israel’s genocide has unfolded on our screens each day, growing sections of the Democratic Party base, including an unprecedented number of labor unions, have been protesting US support for Israel’s war. After six months, on April 3 US President Biden seemed to finally concede to protesters’ demands when he called for a ceasefire (a temporary six- to eight-week ceasefire, not a permanent one) and ratcheted up criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

This was a partial victory for the Left. But how much does Biden’s shift in rhetoric represent a real shift in US policy away from supporting Israel? Is Biden really pressing Nethanyahu to end the war?

A Shift in Rhetoric

On April 13 when Iran launched over 300 missile and drone attacks against Israel, the US helped shoot down the missiles and affirmed the “ironclad” support of the US for Israel. Although US officials are urging Israel not to escalate the war with Iran, they have also stated that Israel “will determine for themselves if there’s going to be a response.”

On one hand, the Biden administration has been increasingly publicly airing disagreements with Netanyahu’s policy of indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians. But on the other hand, the US continues to supply billions of dollars of weapons to the Israeli government without any conditions.

Since December the Biden Administration has been expressing increasing concerns about the humanitarian crisis, but their statements and positions began to significantly shift in March. The US invited Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s primary political rival, to Washington on March 4 to talk with Biden Administration officials, publicly displaying the US establishment’s interest in Israel electing a different leader than Netanyahu. Similarly, on March 14 Democratic Majority Senate leader Chuck Schumer amplified Israeli protesters’ demand for elections to be scheduled in order to replace Netanyahu. The US also publicly demanded that Israel cancel its plan to invade Rafah.

And for the first time in years, the US abandoned Israel in a vote at the UN Security Council on March 25. The US abstained on a UN resolution which called for a ceasefire and a release of hostages which did not explicitly condition the ceasefire on the release of hostages, instead of vetoing the resolution like the US almost always did in the past.

On April 4, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly informed Netanyahu that if he did not scale back Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the US might stop supplying Israel with weapons. (Netanyahu responded by blatantly ignoring Blinken’s warning and announcing that a date for the invasion of Rafah had been set.)

All of these examples demonstrate a notable shift in the Biden Administration’s rhetoric, putting the increasingly critical statements from the Biden administration out of sync with US continued material support for Israel. But talk is cheap. All the Biden Administration’s complaints about Israel’s reckless military actions amount to very little if the US continues to provide the fighter jets and 2,000-pound bombs that are leveling Gaza. The US could dramatically intensify pressure on Israel to halt its war if the US would simply cut off the billions of dollars of military weapons.

Why Does the US Defend Israel?

Why is the US shamelessly committed to backing Israel, even while Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing? Don’t the people in power recognize that providing weapons to Israel is undermining the legitimacy of the United States as a force for humanitarianism and democracy, as they always portray themselves?  

The continued, if reluctant, support for Israel is largely explained by the fact that the US is an empire in terminal decline, and is desperately clinging to its alliance with its only reliable partner in the pivotal Middle East region – Israel. The US is determined to send a message to its arch enemy in the region – Iran – and other rising global powers such as Russia and China that the US remains the top dog in the world and will fiercely pursue its geopolitical interests, regardless of the cost in human lives. Arab countries and Iran have a history of revolutions, and Palestinians have a history of intifadas (uprisings), which have threatened US geopolitical interests in the oil-rich region, which make the US ruling class feel the need to prop up Israel as a bulwark against these revolutionary tendencies of the Palestinian and Arab masses. 

The US ruling class is also under pressure from Christian Zionists and especially the wealthy powerful Jewish Zionist lobby who promote a racist, colonialist ideology which influences Americans and most (though not all) Israelis. However, these appear to be secondary influences compared to the primary force driving the US foreign policy – the ruling class backing Israel in order to try to maintain control over the oil-rich region whose impoverished Arab and Iranian masses have a tendency to resist imperialism and capitalism.

The conflicts in both Gaza and Ukraine have exposed capitalism as a global system based on never-ending competition for power, resources, and spheres of influence. Under capitalism, “might makes right.” Ruling elites run roughshod over working-class people if that’s what it takes to remain competitive with rival national elites.

This war has also revealed the impotence of the United Nations. Although the UN has issued many valuable public statements condemning Israel’s war, it does not have the ability to save people suffering from ethnic cleansing. Under capitalism, the people who call the shots at the UN and who determine the fate of humanity are the ruling elites which have the strongest economies and militaries. The UN was established by the victors of World War II, and the five strongest countries insisted at the time on having veto power in the UN: the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China.

The US is an empire in terminal decline, and is desperately clinging to its alliance with its only reliable partner in the pivotal Middle East region – Israel.

The war has also exposed how committed the Democratic Party is to advancing US capitalist interests. Although Trump’s policies toward the Middle East would likely be more hawkish than Biden’s, most Democrats in Congress have consistently supported “Genocide Joe’s” policies. However, there is growing opposition from a minority of Democrats, with DSA members Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush leading the effort in Congress to adopt a ceasefire resolution.

Activists in the US can have a real impact on challenging US imperialism since we are located here inside the US, but to be effective, we need to be independent from the pro-capitalist, pro-war Democratic Party. The growing frustration with Biden’s support for Israel and other failures has created an openness among progressive workers to break away from the Democratic Party. DSA should take advantage of this opportunity and transform ourselves as soon as possible into a Democratic Socialist Party. A socialist party fighting the billionaire class in workplaces, communities, and legislative chambers would significantly raise workers’ class consciousness and unite various single-issue movements into a stronger national opposition.

The Power of Protest

The primary force which has succeeded in exposing the brutality of US and Israeli imperialism has been the Palestine solidarity movement. The outcry from sizeable protests around the world grew so vocal that the UN International Court of Justice was compelled to declare that Israeli’s war could plausibly be characterized as “genocide.”

The nightmare of the war unfolding on our screens has led to a 10-point drop in US public opinion of Israel since last year. There is a growing sympathy with the consistent protests and peaceful blockades of major highways and symbolic venues.

This was reflected in the campaign to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary which spread like wildfire, causing the Biden Administration to question whether they could afford to continue taking the base of the Democratic Party for granted. In only a few short weeks, Palestine solidarity organizations rapidly spread the idea, and as of April 5, more than half a million voters have voted “uncommitted in Democratic primaries, with the statewide percentages ranging from 3% (Wyoming) to 29% (Hawaii). The campaign has won two dozen delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and the number keeps growing.

Most significantly, an unprecedented number of US labor unions have issued statements demanding a ceasefire, much more than during the Iraq War. Educating and organizing working-class organizations to take a stand against the war is a powerful way to bring real pressure to bear on the US ruling class. Now we need to build on this, and get unions to not only issue statements against the war, but actively mobilize our co-workers to participate in anti-war rallies. Ideally unions and DSA should take the lead in organizing protests to provide working-class or socialist leadership to the movement.

We won’t be able to end this war (much less the capitalist system that breeds war) unless we step up this deep organizing in the labor movement. There is no short cut around this vital work that sometimes takes years and requires tremendous patience.

The Left has not grown influential enough to stop the war yet, but the protests and the union resolutions have made a real impact on the consciousness of a whole section of the working class and the young people who have been paying attention or protesting this war. The legitimacy of US imperialism and the Democratic Party have been undermined in the minds of hundreds of millions of workers in the US and around the world, who understand more clearly now the brutal lengths ruling elites will go, under global capitalism, to pursue their interests.

The wars in Palestine and Ukraine are leading to a growth of an incipient class consciousness and a growing recognition that the ruling elites are dragging the world into more wars and suffering. More ordinary people are becoming open to the socialist ideas that the working class needs to overthrow capitalism and create a new world order based on equality, respect for every nation’s right to self-determination, and democratic public ownership of the world’s major industries. But DSA needs to be more involved in the antiwar movement to both help the movement and convince these radicalizing layers about Marxist ideas.

It’s Time to End the War

Although this war is deeply saddening, a number of positive developments have emerged as a direct result of the Palestine solidarity movement: the increasingly visible gulf between the US’s hypocritical rhetoric and its continued supplying of weapons to Israel, the shift in US public opinion against the war, and the public disagreements between Biden and Netanyahu. Recently, over 50 Democratic Congressmembers, including even Nancy Pelosi, signed a letter to Biden urging him to withhold military funding to Israel. The Left can and should take pride in these accomplishments. Although these partial victories have not stopped the war, they demonstrate the potential power activists have in this situation.

As Jewish Voice for Peace wrote on April 10:

By consistently framing a ceasefire as the bare minimum demand, we have begun to mainstream the call to cut military funding to the Israeli government. Our movement has made possible a position regarded as untouchable only a short while ago… The demands for accountability over U.S. money and weapons are undeniable, and they are starting to reshape U.S. politics. Now is the time for us to push even harder for an end to U.S. military funding to the Israeli government.

Now that there are increasing divisions between Biden and Netanyahu, and the war is beginning to lose popularity, it’s time for the Left to go on the offensive. Progressive leaders and organizations – Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, DSA, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian and Arab American groups, and unions – should schedule a coordinated “National Day of Action to Stop the War.” A day when we flood the streets with tens of thousands of protestors all across the country at the same time would demonstrate the movement’s growing power. Ideally the first national day of action could become the beginning of a sustained movement of nationally coordinated protests and acts of mass civil disobedience until the war ends. We should avoid small isolated ultra-left protests born of despair and frustration.

With the possibility of an escalated war in the region potentially drawing the US toward a direct armed conflict with Iran and its proxies, there is even more potential to raise the alarm bells in US working-class communities. We will find a lot of agreement when we urge working-class folks to resist footing the bill for more weapons, and to protest working-class youth and people of color being sent overseas to fight yet another war.

Reform & Revolution thinks our protests would be most effective if we prioritize demands that unite the working class internationally and appeal directly to US workers’ interests, specifically:

• Don’t escalate the war in the Middle East! Stop the war on Palestine!
• Cut off US military aid to Israel!
• Slash the Pentagon budget! Money for food and healthcare, not war and occupation!
• Close all US military bases and bring all US troops home from the Middle East!
• Free all Palestinian political prisoners and Israeli hostages
• Say no to Islamophobia and antisemitism

DSA Must Lead

In moments like this where millions of workers and young people are being radicalized, it’s very important that activist organizations give a lead to those looking for a way forward. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are eager to bring this war to an end and can now be convinced of class-struggle and socialist ideas.

It’s great how individual chapters of DSA have sprung into action to build the Palestine solidarity movement, but the national leadership of DSA needs to urgently mobilize and rally the full power of our 50,000 members to seize these opportunities. When social movements erupt like the Palestine solidarity movement (or the Black Lives Matter movement, the Sanders campaigns, the Occupy movement), it is absolutely essential that DSA leaders be prepared to lead from the front to help the movement achieve its aims. If DSA’s leadership reoriented the bulk of its work toward Palestine solidarity, organizing national Zoom town hall meetings on Palestine with DSA Congress Members Tlaib and/or Bush, we could recruit thousands of new members, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and solve our budget deficit.

Now that there are increasing divisions between Biden and Netanyahu, and the war is beginning to lose popularity, it’s time for the Left to go on the offensive.

The national leadership of DSA needs to urgently provide banner and picket sign designs to chapters with demands like the ones above to make DSA visible at Palestine rallies. National DSA should also provide flyers to chapters to hand out that explain how capitalism’s competition is the root cause of war and that urge people to join DSA and the struggle for socialism. Local chapters need to build links with Palestinian, Jewish, and labor organizations to organize “uncommitted” campaigns, protests, and mass non-violent civil disobedience.

During this presidential election year in particular, DSA flyers should urge folks to join DSA to help us build a Democratic Socialist Party. It’s time for DSA and the working class to stand up on our own two feet, develop a powerful base of organized activists, and prepare to run a strong presidential candidate in 2028 against the Republicans and Democrats’ agenda of war, inequality, and oppression.

Please join DSA today, and/or make the solidarity dues pledge! Please support DSA’s Reform & Revolution caucus by subscribing to our magazine and applying to join our caucus.

(Note: The author added the paragraph beginning with “The US ruling class is also under pressure” on 4/20/24, one day after the original publication of this article.)

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash