“Palestine is really the center of the world,” says Angela Davis. This may imply two simultaneous and equally pertinent propositions. First, by committing the world’s first livestreamed genocide in Gaza, enabled by the colonial West, Israel’s “total impunity” has ushered in a might-makes-right era unseen in decades, and that poses a threat to humanity at large, not just Palestinians.
The current phase of US imperialism – unprecedented in its shedding of all pretenses of human rights, democracy, peace, or international law—builds on, and is emboldened by, doctrines and mechanisms tested by Israel on Palestinians. Resisting the empire’s new, unmasked, destructive phase must therefore begin with ending Israel’s ongoing genocide and impunity. As Palestinian civil society warned from the beginning of the genocide, and as Colombian President Gustavo Petro has put it, “Gaza is only the first experiment to consider all of us disposable.”
The second implication of Davis’s dictum is that resisting this might-makes-right order begins from Palestine, from realizing the intersectionality of struggles for liberation, for justice, and against all forms of oppression, racism and supremacy worldwide. The illegal and devastating Israeli-US attack on Iran, triggering a disastrous regional war, proves that stopping Israel and holding it and its accomplices to account are the most urgent tasks to avoid World War III.
When most states, including insufferably colonial European states, are appeasing the self-appointed world emperor, and with Israel’s dream team at the helm of the White House and US Congress, standing in solidarity with Palestinian freedom and justice, as the Hague Group has committed to do, can be quite costly—but it is absolutely necessary. As Antonio Gramsci said, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Upholding international law starts with ending complicity in the commission of atrocity crimes anywhere, including in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and even the criminal siege on Cuba. This is essential for saving humanity from its descent into the Israeli-US dystopian abyss.
Our theory of change in the BDS movement is building a critical mass of people power to affect policy change – from the grassroots to the grasstops. To resist and dismantle a system of oppression, the oppressed invariably need power: effective solidarity power, grassroots power, intersectional coalition power, media power, cultural power, legal activism power, among others. Supported by tens of millions globally, we are building it.
A few months ago, Israeli PM Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, shockingly called for Israel to become a “super Sparta,” effectively admitting for the first time Israel’s unprecedented global isolation. Even the Adelson-Epstein-tainted US President Trump, in his recent speech before the Israeli parliament, warned Israel of its worldwide isolation, saying with his infinite eloquence, “It was getting to be a little nasty out there in the world. And ultimately, the world wins. You can’t beat the world …”
This world is us, all of us who have persistently and strategically campaigned to end Israel’s genocide and dismantle its settler-colonial apartheid. The BDS movement has been the main engine behind apartheid Israel’s isolation, as the Israeli establishment has repeatedly admitted. There is no doubt that every academic, cultural or sports boycott, every divestment, every ethical procurement policy, every apartheid-free zone (AFZ), every pressure for military and energy embargoes or for maritime isolation of apartheid, contributes to our liberation.
It is often said that hope is not a strategy. Indeed, but colonizing the minds of the oppressed with hopelessness is among the most fatal weapons wielded by the oppressors. The BDS movement, led by the largest Palestinian coalition in historic Palestine and in exile, nourishes radical hope by channeling our unspeakable grief and rage into principled, strategic energy to build people power, to end complicity.
Palestinians disagree on so many things. But the Palestinian near consensus is asking people of conscience and the solidarity movement worldwide for two things:
In the face of a threat, humans and animals alike have to often choose “fight or flight.” Similarly, when nations face a common threat, each may choose to fight or to save its own skin through appeasement and bowing to pressure, which undermines community and increases vulnerability. If it chooses to fight, it can do it alone or in coalition with other nations facing the same threat. In the “time of monsters,” as Gramsci calls it, forming the broadest coalition to fight collectively for humanity is not a choice but an existential need.
To close, some in the solidarity movement have expressed genocide fatigue and hopelessness. Well, Palestinians do not have the luxury of genocide fatigue or of giving up hope. Also, as British-Pakistani writer Nadeem Aslam says: “Despair has to be earned. I personally have not done all I can to change things. I haven’t yet earned the right to despair.” The persistence of complicity necessitates meaningful solidarity to end it—to do no harm.
Palestine may or may not be the center of the world, but today it is the litmus test of the ability of humanity, of the global majority, South and North, to start dismantling five centuries of white supremacy, colonialism and enslavement. Palestine, while in unspeakable pain, should inspire the world to resist the monsters to achieve emancipation, justice, dignity, and equality.
We can prevail. We shall prevail.
Omar Barghouti is the co-founder of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights and recipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award.
