by A statement by the Reform & Revolution Steering Committee: Socialists and Labor must lead the fight against escalation in the Middle East
This statement was written before the recent wave of student encampments for Palestine across the country. For more on this from Reform & Revolution, read our statement here.
The danger of the war in Gaza spilling over into a wider war between Israel and Iran is growing. This would be a catastrophe for the working class of the region and the world. To stop this threat, the Palestine solidarity movement and the wider anti-war left must dramatically increase the impact of our protests and organizing before it is too late.
The genocide in Gaza has provoked mass protests around the world, but the response from governments in imperialist countries like the US have been very limited. In recent weeks, the pressure has begun to show results. Conflict is also building up between the medium term strategic interests of US imperialism and the narrow outlook of Netanyhu’s far-right regime in Israel. All of that is reflected in increasing tensions emerging between the US government and Israel.
Motivated by an interest to escalate tensions to force US and other Western imperialist powers in line with Israel, the Israeli regime bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria provoking a response by Iran. While Netenyahu may want a wider war, the United States, Arab regimes, and Iran seem presently opposed to such an expansion. But conflicts can quickly spiral beyond the intentions of the various powers.
This escalation threatens to expand the war into a regional conflict that is drawing in the United States and its massive military. The job of all socialists must be to oppose this in the most effective and powerful way possible.
Capitalism is dragging the world into war
The roots of this conflict stretch back long before April 13 or even October 7. The United States has backed Israel for decades, supporting the occupation of Palestine, sending hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid in the process. The dispossession of the Palestinian people is one of the sharpest expressions of the searing exploitation and oppression that imperialist domination and capitalist rule has meant for the peoples of the Middle East.
The longer the Israeli war on the Palestinian people continues, the more likely it is to spill over into a wider regional war. Now is the time to redouble our efforts to build a massive movement in the US and around the world for an immediate end to the Israeli war on Gaza. But without fundamental change, any peace will be temporary. The broader problems facing the Middle East cannot be resolved under imperialism and capitalism.
It is the working people of the Middle East who have the power and self interest to break out of this rotting system. By taking power into their own hands they could bring the resources of the region into public ownership to provide for everyone high-quality housing, jobs, education, and healthcare, along with ending the numerous forms of oppression that afflict the Middle East.
All Out To Stop The War!
The growth and persistence of the Palestine solidarity movement has shown a critical number of people in the US know this war is wrong and against our interests. But opposition to Zionism in the United States remains a minority position.
The movement achieved much of its greatest impact when activists brought their organizing for Palestinian solidarity to the labor movement. The power of organized labor has the biggest potential to challenge Biden in one of his most important constituencies and offer support for those who speak out and oppose the Zionist policies of the Israeli regime. Bringing these discussions to labor also helps to educate workers about the Middle East, imperialism and capitalism.
While the vast majority of protesters for a ceasefire in Gaza do not have a developed analysis of how capitalism and war relate, they can recognize that this war is spiraling, that it is a part of a larger imperial system, and that this is bad for working people in the US and beyond. But this anti-war sentiment, oftentimes expressed in a humanistic and pacifistic viewpoint, is not enough on its own. The job for socialists is to connect to these people and help give them the class analysis and Marxist strategy necessary to turn their discontent into a successful anti-war movement.
A socialist strategy for DSA
In moments of mass protest, socialists must be very clear about our politics and our theory of change. That means three things: a bold, socialist strategy, a clear campaign by DSA, and a focus on winning over the working class. Our priority must be to build a mass movement, rooted in the working class, based on a firm analysis of a socialist strategy to end the war.
We need to draw in wide participation from the student movement, immigrant rights groups, anti-war organizations, and above all the labor movement. Many groups which agree with us in rhetoric but have different strategies and models will also vye for leadership of the movement. And many more people will join the protests and share the demand for a ceasefire and no war with Iran, but will not share our socialist politics. DSA’s strategy and message define how we negotiate these coalitions. Our goal should be to win socialist leadership while building the largest movement possible. The task for socialists is to direct the movement towards mass protest and the organized working class. In this way it can develop into a powerful force that can seriously challenge the agenda of US imperialism and encourage the masses in the Middle East to rise up, as they are the decisive force for a progressive solution (as opposed to top-down pressure from world and regional powers).
The role of socialists is also to help develop the anti-war movement into an anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movement. The best way to do this is a bold, coordinated message from DSA that foregrounds our socialist politics and is aimed at convincing the radicalizing layers of the public to join our movement.
DSA must resolutely oppose US intervention in Israel and in any potential regional conflict. Socialists must explain that Israel and the United States are responsible for the war on Gaza and the danger of a larger war with Iran. US imperialism is not a force for peace or democracy – it is a central cause of the constant crises and wars in the Middle East. We stand for an end to all US military aid to Israel, withdrawing all US troops and closing all US military bases in the region, and ending the US sanctions on Iran.
If war breaks out with Iran, US socialists must oppose the US and Israeli governments and their war efforts, while supporting the people of Iran, Palestine, and the Middle East.
While combating the US ruling class and its propaganda against Iran, socialists must also be clear about the character of the capitalist, theocratic Iranian government which brutally suppresses the Iranian left and movements of workers, women, LGBT+ people and others. We reject the campist logic that the government of Iran is an ally of socialists. But defeating this government is the task of the Iranian people themselves. We support the Iranian working class, and in so doing, call on DSA to strengthen our ties with the Iranian left, workers and feminist movements. We completely oppose US intervention.
Socialists should not cede any ground on the question of support for a secular, socialist society in order to message in favor of right-wing governments. Our emphasis and focus must be on the US’s role in the war. US intervention will do nothing to make the Middle East safer.
Campaigning against a war
If we are going to make our voices heard in the fight to stop war, DSA needs to take on a leading presence in the Palestine solidarity movement. The recent Trans Rights Bodily Autonomy (TRBA) campaign shows some examples for how DSA can make a coordinated intervention around a set of demands that raises our profile. Chapters were able to unite around a set of demands all over the country, coordinating their actions on a national day of action with workshops, materials, and assistance from other DSA members. While imperfectly executed, TRBA demonstrated that these types of campaigns can energize DSA members and make our presence known distinctly on a given issue.
In January, Reform & Revolution (R&R) comrades brought a resolution for a robust DSA national campaign on Palestine to members of the NPC. Unfortunately, NPC comrades did not move forward with it at the time. While some of the initiative has been lost in the months since that point, the possibility of an upsurge in protests is a critical moment to empower our members to make the strongest possible interventions.
The NPC should take the following steps on Palestine organizing, or tasking a committee of members or staff under its direction to carry out:
- Drafting a series of demands and a plan of action which stretched beyond ceasefire and protests, calling for a targeted campaign from unions and civic society to end investment in the occupation, end military funding to Israel, and oppose US intervention.
- Coordinate DSA members in unions and the NLC to increase the struggle in our unions. We should produce public materials advertising how DSA members have passed ceasefire resolutions and Organized Labor for Palestine rallies.
- Coordinating a public on-line national rally with our NPC co-chairs, BDS subcommittee leaders, and prominent elected officials from DSA to provide a socialist message for Palestine organizing, and give initiative to our members and supporters. This rally should be the moment to announce our demands and strategy to stop the war. It should heavily focus on how workers have made the case for Palestine and against war and imperialism , what demands can be put forward, and how labor can be activated.
- Producing a DSA leaflet to offer to chapters to hand out at all anti-war rallies and DSA activities that briefly lays out the DSA position, demands, and appeals for people to join DSA.
- Drafting:
- A model large DSA banner with an anti-war slogan for chapters to print and march with at anti-war rallies/events
- A pamphlet and series of social media graphics highlighting our demands
- DSA antiwar buttons, shirts, etc for members and chapters to buy to visibly show their DSA & antiwar politics and be collectively more visible at events
- An updated toolkit for all chapters to use, including model ceasefire resolutions for unions and city councils, and updated graphics and statements warning of the threat of wider war
- A list of possible actions such as:
- Joining the mass protests at the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention
- Campaigning for an uncommitted vote
- Coordinating a DSA contingent at a public rally or event
- Introducing a resolution to expand a ceasefire resolution into a divestment or anti-war resolution.
- A model statement that chapters and elected officials can use
- Assign staff and volunteer members to contact every chapter and elected official and provide them these resources, and report back to the NPC on how the chapter will utilize the resources.
- The most efficient and democratic way to assist chapters to best intervene is for the NPC to invite every chapter and national working group to select representatives to attend a special meeting, along with inviting DSA electeds, to hear a report from the NPC and then discuss collectively. This underlines the need for a larger national leadership body, as Reform & Revolution and others argued at the last National Convention, with chapter representatives periodically meeting to discuss major questions, review the work of the NPC, and help chapters learn from each other. Although this was not adopted, there is no reason the NPC could not improvise with ad-hoc measures like this.
A movement of the working class
The danger of a wider war is urgent. Socialists cannot afford moral victories here. We have to actually fight and win.
That means grounding ourselves in the strongest leverage we have: the organized working class. Organized labor has incredible power if they are willing to use it. But most unions will only do so under pressure from rank-and-file members. Unfortunately, while there is increasing discontent among a militant minority of rank and file workers, most union leaders adopt a class collaborationist approach that follows the policies of the Democratic party and the US imperialist consensus. Now is the moment for socialists to directly challenge these pro-capitalist politics.
DSA members can push for their unions to endorse the uncommitted campaign, call for an end to the war and occupation, and even push for anti-war strikes. An escalating campaign may even find routes to win union workers to march in contingents in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, with banners demanding an end to US military aid to Israel, or push union locals to un-endorse Joe Biden.
But for DSA to play an effective role in this, we need to be focused on helping the movement to win over the wider working class. Part of this is simply a matter of diligent organizing and messaging. But it also makes our analysis and arguments critical.
To that end, it is critical that our message underline that the rights of Jewish people and Palestinians do not have to be counterposed. Especially as war increases, genuine fears for the Jewish population of Israel will be expressed by people who can, and must, be won to our perspective. We should stress two points: that a just and lasting peace requires democratic rights and protections for all people, including opposition to anti-semitism and Jewish supremacism, and that the expansion of the war is driven by Zionism itself.
As we stressed in our December statement, the Palestinian masses will only win liberation through a revolution that links up with the working class of the entire region. That means a Palestinian resistance movement emerging from the masses, not merely armed cells, and working to splinter the solidity of Israeli society, allying with anti-apartheid left forces within Israel where they emerge, and ending attacks on civilians. It means the population of neighboring Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt will need to be mobilized against the occupation. The emergence of a movement is something DSA can only control to a limited extent, but this makes it all the more vital we fight ferociously for it wherever we can.
As we wrote in December “The starting point of any just solution is to end the siege of Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, end discrimination against Palestinians in Israel, and secure the right of return for the Palestinian diaspora. This requires a democratic socialist framework that can utilize the resources of the region to provide everyone with high-quality housing, good jobs, education, and healthcare, and can begin to end the myriad forms of exploitation and oppression that torment the Middle East.” Now, more than ever, we must either have a capitalist war or a socialist peace.
How R&R will respond
Since well before the war began, our caucus has argued that Palestine solidarity presents a critical test and an enormous opportunity for DSA. We have tried to play our part and show through example what our campaigning approach means. In Seattle, comrades helped pass a ceasefire resolution through the Seattle Education Association, and helped Seattle DSA develop its own leaflet, banner, and actions. In Portland, we organized and spoke at labor for Palestine rallies and ceasefire protests, in Miami, our comrades drafted and introduced a ceasefire resolution to their student government, in Washington, Wisconsin and New Jersey we organized, canvassed and campaigned for an uncommitted vote, and in Tacoma, we mobilized to help block a boat carrying arms shipments to Israel.
We are proud as a caucus, to have played our part in DSA’s anti-war stance, and we want to make it as clear, strong, and effective as possible. We believe the DSA NPC should adopt the following demands. R&R aims to introduce materials campaigning on these demands to our DSA chapters, and we urge comrades to do the same.
- For a Free Palestine!
- A total and immediate withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from Gaza and the West Bank.
- An end of the siege, an end of the occupation, an end of discrimination and apartheid in Israel, and for the right for all refugees to return.
- An independent, democratic, secular, socialist Palestine.
- US out of the Middle East!
- Bring US Troops Home Now! Shut down all military bases abroad!
- End all US military aid with Israel and reactionary regimes like those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
- Money for healthcare and education, not war and occupation!
- End the US sanctions on Iran.
- Build an independent, working-class political party in opposition to far-right Republicans and pro-imperialist Democrats.
To make these demands count, DSA needs to frame them as an anti-capitalist statement. Our goal is to win workers to DSA and socialism. To do that, we should argue directly that capitalism drives imperialism, that we need to build solidarity with the Iranian workers, left and feminist movements struggling against their own ruling class, and that DSA is the best vehicle to fight for the socialist cause.
We are fighting for a world free of the brutalities and miseries of imperialism and capitalism. We are fighting for a democratic socialist US, Middle East, and world! We will continue to organize a fighting socialist and labor campaign to Free Palestine.
If you agree with these demands, we urge comrades to introduce similar proposals in their chapters, and to join DSA and R&R!
