New York, NY, October 13—Thousands of workers and students gathered near Times Square and thousands more protested elsewhere in New York City to demand the end of Israeli bosses’ fascist occupation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The righteous rage of the working class was potent as hundreds tore away from the sidewalk and took to the streets near Grand Central in an illegal march. Many workers took leadership by passionately leading chants with energy.

Multiracial and multigenerational protesters chanted “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! (The people united will never be defeated), and Arabic chants. Several members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) were in the crowd and we passed out at least a hundred copies of CHALLENGE. We also passed out flyers titled “War in Israel/Gaza means: Fight for the international working class, Join PLP.” One friend of the Party started up a sharper chant, “Biden you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”

PLP Fights to end all nationalism, Workers of the World Unite!
Nationalism is a deadly ideology that has unfortunately afflicted students, soldiers, our coworkers, and our friends’ understanding of the war. The most deadly side of the nationalist coin at the moment is Zionism. One Jewish education worker responded to an article about Palestinian civilian deaths by commenting that “Hamas started this, they’re a terrible group, terrorists.”

This misconstruction echoes the line of the U.S. ruling class and of Israeli bosses. It is imperialist rivalry and the United States’ funding of Israel’s fascist regime that is driving this war. While Hamas’ hands are certainly drenched in blood, their murders of workers do not add up to the genocidal nature of the U.S. imperialists or the Israeli bosses who kill far more with their bombings.

As fiercely as we must smash the Israeli bosses for their murderous 75-year reign of terror, genocidal occupation, and bombing of Gaza, we cannot replace the calls with another form of nationalism; we cannot support the Palestinian bosses by cheering on Hamas. Many Hamas leaders live in fancy apartments and hotel suites, funded by bosses in Iran and Syria, among other sources (algemeiner, 7/28/14).

Meanwhile, the average worker in Gaza lives in squalor, with little to no access to food, water or sanitation.  This form of all-class unity, that is, believing that Hamas will make a Palestine for the best interests of Palestinian workers, is a dead-end. The nationalism put on full display in these protests will not free workers in Palestine or around the world.

Protest organizers asked attendees to bring Palestinian flags, which coated the march, as protesters chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Free, Free, Free Palestine.”

In perhaps the most obvious display of this irony, one worker led those chants while waving an American flag.
“I don’t see how anyone could take the Israeli side or support Hamas for that matter,” commented the spouse of a teacher we spoke with. Indeed, many workers have a difficulty understanding how the nationalism they don’t subscribe to could lead anyone to think killing working-class children from another “nation” is okay. PLP responds that internationalism and communism are the only answers to the scourge of nationalism in our class.

College students and workers speak out
This week, as the death toll climbed in Palestine/Israel, a group called Students for Justice in Palestine at New York University (NYU) organized a teach-in. On October 12th, they had student speakers and a professor discuss media manipulation of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the state of Israel.  A student filmmaker played a short film she made depicting her family’s story in Palestine, starting with her grandpa, whose land was taken from him during Nakba, until recently, when her family has been displaced and their homes taken away. The stories and experiences of the Palestinian students were incredibly moving and heartbreaking. There was also a clear message at the end of the teach-in, displaying the shared struggles that the international working class faces today and why it is even more important to unite.

That same day, Columbia University Students for Justice in Palestine hosted a rally on campus. In fear of workers’ anger, security locked the school gates to shut out support from the community and pro-Israeli counter protestors. Students have been demanding an end to Columbia’s investment of endowments in “Israeli companies that…profit off of the construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”

Across the city pro-Israeli forces have been small and marginal in the streets. Of course, with the U.S. and Israeli states on their side, only the most brazen of these fascists show their faces at protests. Still, that didn’t stop one racist from yelling at Palestine supporters, “You are sick people, animals, you don’t deserve to be here.” Meanwhile, Jewish Voices for Peace NYC held a large protest on Friday reminding the working class that many Jewish workers and students are committed to ending genocide in Palestine even as they grieve the loss of their loved ones.

As countless more die in Palestine/Israel and racists pop up in the streets of New York, PLP students, workers, and friends will be out in force. We will wave the red flag of internationalism and communism, and share our ideas, as we struggle with our class siblings to fight back and fight together.