RED ANT’s Max Lane recently interviewed Walter Smolarek, Director of the U.S. Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Communications Department on the burgeoning solidarity movement for Palestine in the USA and the its potential to radical reconfigure the state of politics today.

RA: How would you describe to those not in touch with the U.S. movement – the evolution of Palestinian solidarity activity in the U.S. over the last 6 months?

WS: The sea change in public opinion around Palestine has been truly remarkable, both for its intensity and speed. In the first few days following the 7 October counter-offensive by the [Palestinian] resistance, the situation was very difficult. Many forces sympathetic to Palestinians felt the need to retreat or equivocate. But there was a core of organizations that refused to condemn the resistance and who began to organize solidarity actions in the streets. These actions, with the backbone of turnout coming from the Arab-American and Muslim communities, were much larger than expected.

The growing street struggles, coupled with increasing consciousness about the atrocities being committed by Israel, prevented pro-Palestine sentiment from becoming an isolated and marginal position. Public opinion shifted at a breakneck pace and it was actually the Zionist position that has ended up isolated, as a clear majority of the population embraced the demand for a ceasefire. This then found massive expression in the streets, including the largest pro-Palestine ever organized in U.S. history on November 4 of 500,000 protestors.

The November 4 demonstrations led to the launch of the Shut It Down for Palestine coalition, involving many of the core groups that put together the earlier historic action. Shut It Down for Palestine has organized over a dozen nationwide days of action since then, with actions ranging from mass marches to sit-ins to campus walkouts, disruptions of politicians’ events, and more. The strategic thinking uniting all of this is that we must prevent business as usual from going on during a genocide – we want to disrupt the “normal” functioning of the system until Palestine is free. The wave of campus occupations sweeping the country right now is another crucially important milestone in the evolution of the Palestine solidarity movement.

RA: Are there specific demographic profiles for the bases of the movement? Or regional spread? What explains this?

WS: The movement is especially strong among young people, Arab Americans and Muslims. For the Arab-American and Muslim community, there is a historical memory of the Palestinian struggle that remains intact across generations. The surge in solidarity among youth is reflective of a longer-term process where Palestine has been reframed in the eyes of many as an anti-racist issue. The Palestinian cause was widely embraced by the movement for Black lives beginning with the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, and there is growing consciousness that Israel is an apartheid regime based on a doctrine of racial supremacy. The geographic spread has been truly nationwide, with significant actions taking place not only in the major urban centres but medium-sized and small cities as well.

RA: How do you see consciousness on this issue in society in general, beyond those mobilising and organising? What is impacting most?

WS: Israel will never recover from the blow they have suffered in terms of public opinion. The scale of the massacre in Gaza is so horrific that it will forever define Israel in the minds of tens of millions of people. Even if the demonstrations subside, there will still be an awareness that Israel is a genocidal state built on the racist dehumanization of Palestinians. Support for Israel was considered a matter of course for decades, essentially a default position, but that is no longer the case and there is no going back.

RA: How are the factions of the ruling class reacting?

WS: The Democratic Party is in a state of internal crisis over this issue. Top Democratic strategists are fully aware that Biden’s participation in the genocide could cost him the election. This is clear not only in opinion polls, but also because of the “uncommitted” movement, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people cast essentially a blank ballot in the Democratic primary election, as a form of protest. In many states, the number of uncommitted votes were far higher than Biden’s margin of victory over Trump in the 2020 election.

At the same time, the Democratic Party is 100% committed to the project of U.S. empire, and its leadership has embraced an increasingly hard-line brand of militarism in recent years as the new Cold War escalates. So Biden is making statements in public that are critical of the way Israel has chosen to conduct the war, with regards to civilian casualties and aid, but has continued to send weapons and provide diplomatic cover for the massacre.

This contradiction is a key pressure point, and the demand to end all U.S. aid to Israel is picking up significant momentum. A growing number of Democratic politicians have felt compelled to take the position that shipments of “offensive” weapons should stop. This is of course insufficient, but reflects how intense the pressure has become.

Other factions are undisguised in their hostility to the movement and have been calling for stepped up repression. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, for instance, recently called for the National Guard to be deployed to crush student protests at Columbia University.

RA: At the level of the movement, who/what are the main agencies of organising and mobilising?

WS: The mass mobilizations and acts of civil disobedience have primarily been organized by organizations rooted in the Palestinian diaspora and by left parties and organizations. The Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum and Al-Awda are among some of the most prominent. The Party for Socialism and Liberation is playing a leading role in many cities and towns across the county.

On campuses nationwide, Students for Justice in Palestine plays a crucial role, and has been targeted by politicians and university administrators for censorship based on totally false allegations of antisemitism. Many important unions have called for a ceasefire in a historic breakthrough for internationalism in the labour movement – including the United Autoworkers, which just waged a historic strike against the “Big 3” U.S. automakers that inspired the whole U.S. working class.

RA: Are there debates over strategies for building the movement? Are there demands emerging beyond that of “ceasefire now”?

WS: A central question before the movement is how to take the present surge in solidarity with Palestine and turn it into a lasting movement in support of Palestinian liberation. Of course the immediate task is to stop the genocide in Gaza – winning a ceasefire. But the ultimate objective, of course, is a free Palestine. Securing that will take a long-term struggle. One key way this can be done is boycott divestment and sanctions work.

BDS puts pressure on powerful institutions and contributes to making support for the apartheid regime a costly and discrediting burden that simply isn’t worth it for the ruling elite. The movement will take up this question and other during and pivotal conference in Detroit on May 24-26 – the People’s Conference for Palestine.

RA: What do you see as the main high points in the movement in the USA to date?

WS: The determination and willingness to withstand the pressure to self-censor in the opening days of the genocide was a key milestone. So was the giant November 4th demonstration, and a similarly massive protest in Washington on January 13. The wave of student occupations currently going on at campuses across the country is another high point that is injecting new energy into the movement on all fronts.

RA: How does the PSL see the next steps forward? How do you analyse future directions?

WS: The current struggle needs to continue – both mass mobilizations and smaller-scale disruptions – with the goal of pressuring the Biden administration to end the Gaza genocide.

BDS work is a crucial way to give a longer-term outlet for pro-Palestine energy, and targets the powerful institutions most to blame for US backing of the Israeli regime. It is highly impactful that it is nearly impossible for Biden and many other top politicians to have public events that are not the subject of protests, and oftentimes interruption, by pro-Palestine activists, and this tactic will be important in the long run.

In terms of consciousness, it is vital that we connect US support for Israel to the broader issue of US imperialism. Like Biden often says, if Israel didn’t exist the United States would need to invent one, because Israel is a crucial tool for the Pentagon and Wall Street to dominate the Middle East. So to secure freedom for Palestine and so many other oppressed peoples around the world, we need to struggle against the US empire in its entirety.