What BLM teaches us about Palestine Solidarity

Six Lessons for Today

As the student movement for Palestinian liberation spreads rapidly across the nation, the left faces the opportunity and danger of an escalating protest movement. Amidst the BLM movement in 2020 we faced many of those same dangers. In Portland, my comrades and I spent one hundred nights straight in the streets protesting. The movement had mass support, the protests swelled to include 10,000 people even with our militant tactics. BLM was the most impressive protest movement I have ever been a part of. Yet the opportunity was squandered and our city government lurched rightwards as we elected a conservative mayor and majority in our city council. In Portland, we had the numbers to win huge concessions, and we missed our chance. 

Those setbacks were not inevitable. If we can learn the lessons of BLM, we can build a far more durable, powerful movement which can seriously challenge Joe Biden and the genocide in Gaza. 

Lesson One: Protests Need Democracy

In Portland, many of our protests were led by the first person to pull out a megaphone. There was no process for deliberating on demands, tactics or leadership. There was no method to litigate disputes. The entire movement was organized informally. Protests were organized in small group chats by autonomous, horizontalist cells, with most of the participating crowd relegated to passivity when it came to decision making. We would show up to a rally, advertised anonymously on Twitter, and wait for someone to show up and take control of the march–usually the march leaders were not even known to the crowd. 

The result was a tactical inflexibility, a lack of clarity, and a movement which punched well below its weight. The most devastating example of this was the weeks after Donald Trump sent in federal troops, with thousands of newly radicalizing liberals joining the protests and we reached unprecedented numbers. Instead of employing new strategies, like sit-ins of politician’s offices, strikes, targeting multiple police buildings at once, or adopting more confrontational approaches to the police designed to force them back into the building and off the streets, we continued the same strategy every night: gathering outside the Justice Center and waiting to be tear gassed. 

What DSA members can do: DSA should be at the forefront of fighting for real deliberative structures at these protests—regular mass meetings with votes, elected steering committees accountable to recall, and public forums to discuss our tactics and approach. Starting with these tactics is not easy–it will usually take a strong DSA role in coalitions from the start. One model to draw on is our comrades in Tacoma fighting for a bill of tenant rights. When the City Council tried to split the movement with a compromise, they publicly communicated all the details to members and made their final decision at a public meeting open to all supporters. 

This century, dozens of semi-spontaneous movements have risen and fallen. Composed of cells of leaders and a mass of people who show up to protests but never join an organization, without proper coordination of democratic structures, these movements like Occupy, BLM and the anti-war movement against the invasion of Iraq have failed to build enduring political structures.  This will only continue unless groups like DSA begin actively fighting for the principle of democratic organization of protests. Nationally, DSA can best equip members by putting out a guide on protest democracy and how to implement and argue for it. In addition, chapters and their leadership should try to convene a coalition of groups to discuss demands, literature, and strategy. This seems daunting, but the fundamental task requires simply talking to people from different organizations. If the movement can win over labor unions or other broad organizations of the working class in this position, it will strengthen our arguments for protest democracy even more.

Lesson Two: Protests Need Accountable Leaders and Representatives 

The Portland protests were sustained by an extraordinary momentum. But so much of our energy was spent in vicious cycles of internal battles and informal debates over movement micro-celebrities that played out over social media. 

A split opened between the more moderate and more militant strategies. The protest movement tried to avoid media narratives by avoiding journalists entirely, but the result was a vacuum that allowed anyone who wanted to speak on our behalf. 

In April of 2024, we’re in a better place. Encampment and protest leaders across the country are selecting media representatives to give prepared statements. This is all the more important when we are facing brutal repression and a massive media campaign to smear our positions as antisemitic. The press will always misrepresent us, but their job becomes much easier when we don’t have a formal, democratically accountable leadership. The small minority of protesters who hold genuinely antisemitic views or make crass ultra-leftist formulations will be amplified by the media regardless, but their impact can be limited by an open, democratic debate, and empowering elected representatives.  

What DSA members can do: As it stands, arguing for accountable leaders and representatives is one of the hardest things one can undertake in a protest movement. There is a strong instinct to see efforts at coordination as power grabs. DSA members will need to explain very delicately, but consistently, the necessity of organized democratic structures. For example, a coalition of organizations could send a representative to meetings to discuss and vote on questions that arise. The more involved we are with the protests, the more impactful our arguments will be. The strongest arguments will be ones which point to positive examples from past protest movements and ones around the country. Ultimately, we will need to come out clearly on the side of coordination and clear representation. Even if we lose debates initially or frustrate some activists, as the same problems continue to emerge we will be able to convince comrades of our ideas. 

Lesson Three: Protests Need Demands 

In Portland, the movement never arrived at a clear demand outside of immediate abolition. Any attempt to coordinate demands was seen as too radical by some and too moderate by others. This meant it was extremely easy for the city to wait us out while offering piecemeal reforms to look as though they had made concessions. The central demand of abolition was simply not effective. We need a series of transitional demands which can connect to the consciousness of working people while also pointing towards the abolition of capitalism. In 2020, that may have been defunding the police, or firing all cops who had committed an abuse of power or have ties with far-right groups.

Demands are not just about giving clarity to our movement or extracting immediate concessions. Demands are one of the strongest means by which we win people over to the movement and our ideas about society. They draw clear distinctions between the left, the ruling class, and moderates trying to co-opt the movement. 

As socialists, it’s not enough for us to just fight for demands as a concept. Demands should have a specific goal. We need to point people towards conflict with the capitalist system at the heart of our oppression. Our goal with demands is to connect to existing consciousness and build a bridge forward towards revolutionary conclusions. We in R&R call this a transitional program. 

Socialists need to fight for socialist demands which challenge the fundamental logic of capitalism and advocate a program aiming to build a protest movement into as wide a socialist movement as possible. In doing so, we can connect to broad layers and convince them to join DSA. As people join DSA, as Marxists we should begin talking about the need for a broader discussion on how we take power, how the working class can end this system. Towards that end, we need a revolutionary program that outlines how the working class will radically transform society. In R&R, we are working for these demands in our chapters and suggesting the NPC to do the same. 

1. End Complicity in Genocide
   • Divest our universities, pension funds, and cities from Israeli genocide 
2. US out of the Middle East!
   • End all US military aid with Israel and reactionary regimes like those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
   • Bring US Troops Home Now! Shut down all military bases abroad!
   • 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.
3. 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.

What DSA members can do: Take the initiative! DSA nationally and locally can draft pamphlets, literature, signs and graphics to share on social media. We can work with other student groups and coalition members to create petitions, hold public forums and discussions to talk about demands, and we can amplify existing movement demands with our own messaging with thoughtful, comradely critique while going all out in support of the movement. 

The NPC can and must lead on this. During the TRBA campaign we were able to get dozens of chapters across the country to share one set of demands with minimal staff or NPC support. We could do the same here, on an issue everyone is focusing on, and make a much bigger splash thanks to the experience we’ve gained. Drafting basic materials every chapter can use and mobilizing staff and volunteers to get every chapter on board should be the number one priority for our political leadership right now. 

Just like elected leaders, the demands of a movement should be democratically decided. That’s why support for democratic deliberation and accountable representatives is so vital – they build towards a unified message and series of demands.

Lesson Four: Protests Need To Take the Offensive 

In Portland, we allowed the initiative to slowly slip away. Every night we protested, but they were offensive actions for a defensive purpose. We were repeating the same tactics endlessly, trying to sustain our movement and outlast the government. We can’t simply outlast the capitalist class, we need to overwhelm them. 

That means all of our organizing has to be with the clear aim of expanding and growing the movement on the terms of our demands. We have to constantly be thinking about how we grow, how we win the smaller victories that sustain a movement, and how we build enduring organizations.If protests are only on and around college campuses, they will eventually dwindle. But if we can use this momentum to expand our movement, we can keep the initiative. 

This need to grow is precisely why it is so important to publicly and aggressively fight for a strong message. We will never convince the people who run mainstream media, but we have to convince the people who consume it. A disciplined movement with good demands can make attacks look hysterical. We’ve already succeeded in this to some extent, but we can go much further provided we remember our goal is to appeal not just to other protesters, but to as many people as we can to our ideas. 

This is part of why it’s important that socialists keep the movement rigorously focused on our actual goal: ending the intervention of the imperialist American state. Messaging and chants that try to signal alignment with the Iranian government and Ansar Allah detracts from our strongest positions. By being clearer about this part of our message, we can more effectively push back on media propaganda and win over critical sections of the public. 

What DSA members can do: DSA has a critical role to play in helping protesters seize the initiative. In addition to strong demands and messaging, we can organize solidarity rallies, mobilize our members to protests, raise funds, provide jail support, and coordinate off campus events to draw in public support. 

We can message about the need to back students and support them. At the same time, we can also work within the movement to push for broad, forward facing demands that link ceasefire to other popular issues, like the billions of dollars we waste on war when we could be providing healthcare to people. Basically: DSA needs to show up and push the movement forward.

Lesson Five: Protests Need To Fight A Class War

Another major problem in Portland’s summer of protests was the lack of labor support. Labor unions are important for a number of reasons—they are mass, democratic organizations filled with people who have shared interests with us but might not be automatically sympathetic to our ideas. They have a great deal of leverage they can use against Joe Biden by withholding their labor. 

How much more powerful could the 2020 Portland protests have been – and how much more enduring their impact could have been – if they had brought along even a radical minority in local unions to support clear demands?

Simply put, to win, we need to win over the working class. At the start of our movement, we had a powerful labor solidarity campaign which passed ceasefire resolutions across the country. Now more than ever is the moment to rejuvenate that push. Labor needs to push beyond resolutions, especially on campuses where strike action is needed to resist violent repression. There are already exciting signs from the UAW, who have openly supported protesters and condemned the war. UAW 4811 has moved to hold a strike vote after UCLA protesters were brutalized by right wing mobs.  

On campuses, we can have the strongest possible movement by building coalitions with teachers, graduate students, and other campus unions. Comrades at FIU did this, and were able to turn out hundreds of people to a rally and build a lasting coalition.

This engagement isn’t just a one way street. Protests have something major to offer socialists in the labor movement—they open up the space for us to connect our reform struggles to mass movements. The mass energy of a protest movement can lend legitimacy and inspiration to a union reform movement. In this way, social struggles and labor reform build power together, with each advancing the other. 

What DSA members can do: DSA’s NLC should write model resolutions for unions to pass to support the student protests. The NLC should also organize a forum of teachers and faculty to talk about why students and teachers need to stand together. In the protests, we should try to build the strongest solidarity with teachers, and establish regular communication with unions if possible.

DSA sits at a in an essential intersection of protest and labor solidarity, where we can introduce cross-union labor organizing to social movements. In working class democratic organizations, we can crystallize our gains, building enduring political engagement outside the workplace. In Seattle, comrades mobilized the workers, drawing on past successes expelling the police union, and won an endorsement from major unions and their leaders for a Labor for Ceasefire rally. DSA chapters can replicate this approach across the country, bringing together labor organizing and Palestine Solidarity. 

Lesson Six: Protests Need DSA 

Unfortunately, DSA missed our responsibility to lead in 2020, and in doing so, we didn’t help the movement as much as we could. 

We are already playing a much stronger role this time around. Still, we should keep a clear focus on the tasks at hand: we need well organized, democratically run protests, with a mass focus and strong ties to labor. We need clear, socialist demands that connect to the class struggle and respond directly to attacks on us. We need an aggressive messaging strategy that puts forward forcefully what we support and what we oppose. 

By fighting clearly for these things, highlighting the need for international solidarity and pushing beyond a ceasefire, we can make the strongest possible contribution to the movement. 

In order to succeed, these protests need DSA to be active and engaged in the movement. To build power against the ruling class, DSA needs to be loud and proud. Our country’s leaders have laid out their vision for the future: bombs, barbed wire, genocide, and brutal repression from the campus to the border. Now it’s time to put our alternative forward: End the war! Free Palestine! Fight for a socialist world!