Subordinate your position to the line of the organisations in leadership. Support for Palestinian resistance IS supporting the line that they themselves have, and in the current moment they were calling for a ceasefire. Organisations are better placed to make correct decisions on strategy.
If calling for a ceasefire does not require you to express your position on support for or against the resistance then you should utilise whatever position works best in whatever context you have in order to call most strongly for that ceasefire. Compromising your calls for ceasefire by taking up a position on the resistance that doesn’t suit the context doesn’t really help them.
Yeah, resistance to apartheid would be cool, awesome, and good, but if you and yours aren’t the ones to fight, then it’d be weird if the would-be combatants don’t want to fight. Violence fucking sucks. It’s not fun, it’s not glorious, and even when your enemy is wretched, it doesn’t feel good to snuff out their life. Even the Japanese in WW2 were convinced to stop in the face of overwhelming violence when, before, they had elements in power saying they’d rather be exterminated than give up.
I’ll keep yelling into the void about how unpleasant it would be if you were in a grappling match with a hobbyist BJJ player who was being rough with you as a benchmark for a violent altercation. Then go on about how much worse it would get when the person’s intentions get meaner, their training increases, and their weapons get larger. Not to mention the collateral damage of having family members die pinned by the debris of a fallen hospital. I wouldn’t want to risk the violence befalling my loved ones which is Israel’s modus operandi. Calling for more of it is like being Eren Yeager. It’d be a perfectly sane position for a Palestinian to not want more bloodshed. In the pure world, the land of the free would pursue justice for Palestine having seen the insanity of Israel and seek the unraveling of the apartheid regime.
Even the Japanese in WW2 were convinced to stop in the face of overwhelming violence when, before, they had elements in power saying they’d rather be exterminated than give up.
I heard they actually were just insisting the soviets be at the treaty negotiations so they didn’t have to negotiate two peaces
I’m ready to believe that. A source would still be nice.
I would also put forward that overwhelming force, even without an atomic bomb, was enough to convince people who beforehand would have preferred that the island be exterminated.
Agreed, had a fellow protester try to start a chant about supporting resistance fighters and hang gliders or something at the last action I was at. I’ll be the first to say individually that I do support them, but it was obvious the chant was rubbing people the wrong way and would detract from the wider ceasefire message at the gathering.
Almost seems like leftist virtue signaling, it is only for you and not helping any other part of the movement
That’s kinda funny because all the protests I’ve attended the speakers have started intifada and revolution chants which shocked me also because of the contradiction with demands. The crowd is totally into it though which is cool
The Intifada one didn’t show up for a few weeks at mine, the only one solution made me feel a bit off at first, but overall I don’t mind it as much.
After reading the other poster’s reply here, I do see the point about contradiction with what the PFLP have asked for. Perhaps I see it as a way to tie together struggle and revolution in Palestine with how protests and organizing in your location can also be the solution.
I think it’s important to say that what matters is not what “the message” is that was intended and some sort of distractions/people disagreeing. That all must be subordinated to the actions/line of the party familiar with the conditions. It would be correct to ‘rub the wrong way’ if that were the line of PFLP. We dont subordinate to what is popular unless that is what is advantageous. Palestinians wanted a ceasefire and asked for westerners to support it, and that’s why it’s the correct line
I mean let’s be honest a ceasefire is just a good demand tactically. The 2014 BLM movement shot itself in the foot by demanding police abolition since that’s just not a policy that can be enacted. Unrealistic demands just stifle movements and lead to burn out.
BLM is more complex. That movement fundamentally couldn’t have kicked off the way it did without being radical, the very moment you switch to “make the police better a little bit” you’d have sucked all wind out of the movement because black people who have suffered at the hands of the police would not have participated, they hate them and do not see it as fundamentally repairable. And they’re probably correct because the country isn’t reformable and was built upon a fundamental foundation of their repression.
You’re right about burn out eventually setting in on movements that can’t achieve their goals. But this is where zooming out and looking at things hollistically is necessary, the act of performing struggle caused a great deal of cultural change in attitudes to the police. It should be viewed as one of many battles in a string of battles that leads to something eventually rather than a failure in isolation.
No.
Subordinate your position to the line of the organisations in leadership. Support for Palestinian resistance IS supporting the line that they themselves have, and in the current moment they were calling for a ceasefire. Organisations are better placed to make correct decisions on strategy.
If calling for a ceasefire does not require you to express your position on support for or against the resistance then you should utilise whatever position works best in whatever context you have in order to call most strongly for that ceasefire. Compromising your calls for ceasefire by taking up a position on the resistance that doesn’t suit the context doesn’t really help them.
But also yes, end apartheid.
Yeah, resistance to apartheid would be cool, awesome, and good, but if you and yours aren’t the ones to fight, then it’d be weird if the would-be combatants don’t want to fight. Violence fucking sucks. It’s not fun, it’s not glorious, and even when your enemy is wretched, it doesn’t feel good to snuff out their life. Even the Japanese in WW2 were convinced to stop in the face of overwhelming violence when, before, they had elements in power saying they’d rather be exterminated than give up.
I’ll keep yelling into the void about how unpleasant it would be if you were in a grappling match with a hobbyist BJJ player who was being rough with you as a benchmark for a violent altercation. Then go on about how much worse it would get when the person’s intentions get meaner, their training increases, and their weapons get larger. Not to mention the collateral damage of having family members die pinned by the debris of a fallen hospital. I wouldn’t want to risk the violence befalling my loved ones which is Israel’s modus operandi. Calling for more of it is like being Eren Yeager. It’d be a perfectly sane position for a Palestinian to not want more bloodshed. In the pure world, the land of the free would pursue justice for Palestine having seen the insanity of Israel and seek the unraveling of the apartheid regime.
I heard they actually were just insisting the soviets be at the treaty negotiations so they didn’t have to negotiate two peaces
I’m ready to believe that. A source would still be nice.
I would also put forward that overwhelming force, even without an atomic bomb, was enough to convince people who beforehand would have preferred that the island be exterminated.
Agreed, had a fellow protester try to start a chant about supporting resistance fighters and hang gliders or something at the last action I was at. I’ll be the first to say individually that I do support them, but it was obvious the chant was rubbing people the wrong way and would detract from the wider ceasefire message at the gathering.
Almost seems like leftist virtue signaling, it is only for you and not helping any other part of the movement
That’s kinda funny because all the protests I’ve attended the speakers have started intifada and revolution chants which shocked me also because of the contradiction with demands. The crowd is totally into it though which is cool
I’ve heard “there is only one solution / intifada revolution” but not “they have tanks we have hang gliders” (which is funny) irl.
I was amused with the tanks and hang gliders, that’s for sure
The Intifada one didn’t show up for a few weeks at mine, the only one solution made me feel a bit off at first, but overall I don’t mind it as much.
After reading the other poster’s reply here, I do see the point about contradiction with what the PFLP have asked for. Perhaps I see it as a way to tie together struggle and revolution in Palestine with how protests and organizing in your location can also be the solution.
I think it’s important to say that what matters is not what “the message” is that was intended and some sort of distractions/people disagreeing. That all must be subordinated to the actions/line of the party familiar with the conditions. It would be correct to ‘rub the wrong way’ if that were the line of PFLP. We dont subordinate to what is popular unless that is what is advantageous. Palestinians wanted a ceasefire and asked for westerners to support it, and that’s why it’s the correct line
Thanks, that is well articulated
I mean let’s be honest a ceasefire is just a good demand tactically. The 2014 BLM movement shot itself in the foot by demanding police abolition since that’s just not a policy that can be enacted. Unrealistic demands just stifle movements and lead to burn out.
BLM is more complex. That movement fundamentally couldn’t have kicked off the way it did without being radical, the very moment you switch to “make the police better a little bit” you’d have sucked all wind out of the movement because black people who have suffered at the hands of the police would not have participated, they hate them and do not see it as fundamentally repairable. And they’re probably correct because the country isn’t reformable and was built upon a fundamental foundation of their repression.
You’re right about burn out eventually setting in on movements that can’t achieve their goals. But this is where zooming out and looking at things hollistically is necessary, the act of performing struggle caused a great deal of cultural change in attitudes to the police. It should be viewed as one of many battles in a string of battles that leads to something eventually rather than a failure in isolation.
I mean, it’s not because of the demands that blm failed, with all the moderation in 2020, they got equally dicked in concessions