This letter is an act of love from comrades within different New York City organizing spaces who have come together on the Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard campaign. Our intention is to make the Palestine solidarity movement stronger and to orient it away from symbolism and towards material change. Our movement should not only lead to the end of the zionist genocide, but also to the end of the occupation and the entire U.S. imperial system.
Over the past two years, the Palestine solidarity movement in NYC has mobilized non-stop with protests, marches, pickets, emergency actions, weeks of action, and days of action. While these efforts have raised awareness, shifted public opinion, and helped spur fundraising efforts, they have not produced material change for those in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, or Iran. This failure is a product of internal contradictions within the NYC Palestine solidarity movement that are impacting both how we understand and carry out our struggle, as well as how we relate to one another.
We recently experienced an instance of this issue: behavior harming the movement under the guise of supporting it. For context, over the past year, Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) has been organizing locally to kick two zionist-imperialist weapons manufacturers out of Brooklyn. These weapons manufacturers produce drones and military equipment for the IOF, the U.S. Military, ICE, and the NYPD.
Certain individuals began attending DBNY teach-ins and weekly actions to pass out fliers and recruit people for their own mass-mobilizations. We did not say anything, as they stated their support for our work and we assumed we were all working toward the same goal. However, over the past few weeks, these individuals put out a call for an all day, every day mobilization that directly overlaps with our scheduled actions and organizing work. They entered our community spaces to recruit people for their own mobilization at the expense of our own, they framed this as an invitation and claimed that our campaigns were aligned. The reality of the matter is: we are not aligned when there's a call for our organizing base to abandon us.
In discussing how we wanted to respond to this behavior, we realized that it is just a product of an overall failure to reckon with the internal contradictions within the NYC Palestine solidarity movement. Normally, internal contradictions are resolved through a dialectical process of criticism, analysis, reflection, and correction. Today, however, organizations become internally divided; organizers simply split off to do their own thing without any practical changes or accountability. Rather than fostering a broad array of strategies and tactics, these contradictions remain unacknowledged and unresolved.
We did not feel comfortable bypassing all accountability and allowing these individuals to further fragment our cause by going to do their own thing while we do ours; instead, we hope to actually address these internal contradictions.
Error 1: The targets of mass mobilizations reflect unaddressed liberal attitudes within the movement.
The overwhelming majority of Palestine solidarity work in NYC over the past two years has taken the form of mass mobilization, pleading with those in power to stop the genocide. There have been protests at politicians' offices and homes, at the United Nations headquarters, at embassies, at media outlets like the New York Times, and more. Many of these mass-mobilization efforts have coopted revolutionary language, for example, claiming to delegitimize institutions like the UN. Mobilizing to ask these institutions to change course frames their enabling of the zionist genocide as an error that they are committing rather than as their explicit intention. In other words, focusing our mobilization efforts not with the masses but on asking the fascist, imperialist institutions to do better ultimately upholds their legitimacy.
These genocidal institutions will not bend to pressure from mobilizations. Should the ruling class decide at some point that it is in their interest to “stop the genocide,” either by calling for a ceasefire or some other political/legal mechanism, people will falsely believe that the UN is actually listening to them, when the UN is simply acting in the interest of the ruling class as it is designed to do. Have we forgotten that the U.N. itself, a tool of the ruling class, established the zionist entity? These institutions are beholden to imperialism, capitalism, and zionism, not the people.
Our goal as organizers should be to build a revolutionary movement from the ground up– to build a peoples' opposition that is capable of smashing the imperialist war machine– rather than to convince those upholding the imperialist war machine to listen to us. Therefore, our targets for organizing work should reflect our focus: we are interested in deep organizing to build community strength and capacity, we are focused on materially disrupting the resource networks and supply chains that enable and abet the zionist genocide, and we are interested in long-term sustainability.
Error 2: There is a complete lack of revolutionary political strategy.
Whether it's due to lack of political education, incompetence, or bad intent, constant calls for haphazard mobilizations are harming the movement. These mobilizations require an untenable amount of energy and time, and they have no actual chance of achieving the result they claim to want to achieve.
Influencing the UN is completely out of our control. The call for an all-day-every-day mobilization at the UN ignores the current capacity of the movement. When actions are called for without serious consideration as to whether those actions can be sustained, it leads to actions that fizzle out without achieving anything. This creates a corrosive and demobilizing effect on the movement.
Another case study from the NYC Palestine solidarity movement: there was a weapons shipment out of JFK airport and a mobilization called to stop it. However, the meeting spot was at the Air Train, which is where people go to board their flights, not where the weapons were being shipped out of. In other words, the call to action was put out despite having no possibility of stopping the weapons shipment.
In addition to being an act of outright disrespect and abandonment of our responsibility to those in Palestine, this kind of false call is harmful to the movement because it produces another demobilizing effect. People show up to these kinds of mobilizations, see that they are not actually accomplishing anything, and become frustrated, nihilistic, and less likely to respond to future calls.
Adding to this effect, the NYC Palestine solidarity movement has taken to calling every mobilization and action an emergency action. Compare this to how the Palestinian resistance, which has been operating under the most dire circumstances imaginable, still takes the time to carefully assess the situation and plan their actions based on a revolutionary political strategy. Emergency in NYC has come to be a reactive call; instead of formulating our own political struggle and working tirelessly to bring it to life, organizers wait for the zionist entity to conduct another atrocity and then call for an emergency response action that looks no different from any of the other actions.
In October of 2023, when calls for an emergency action for Gaza were put out, thousands would show up. Today, it is difficult to get even a few hundred people. The constant mobilizations, the lack of strategy, the targeting of liberal institutions, are all shrinking our movement, rather than growing and strengthening it. This is despite more people than ever knowing that there is a genocide going on and wanting it to stop. This movement has failed to harness that revolutionary potential and has, in fact, led it down dead-end actions that do not result in any tangible material change.
Error 3: Organizers in NYC seek to ensure ownership over their piece of organizing rather than focusing on what will most tangibly support the liberation of Palestine
While many in the NYC Palestine solidarity movement advocate for revolutionary causes, their methods contradict these values, mirroring individualistic, liberal, colonial, and capitalist structures. The abundance of organizations that exist despite no meaningful difference in ethos, theory of change, strategy, or tactics, is a testament to this fact. Instead of us working together to actually address these contradictions and struggle through them, people simply split off and start their own org or mobilization. In these situations, they claim ownership and control, avoid engaging with criticism, and grow their own social capital, boosting their resume as an organizer.
People defend each new mobilization by invoking the necessity of a diversity of tactics. But what we have seen in New York City is not actually a diversity of tactics, it is the same tactic (liberal mobilization that focuses on different institutions and what they represent) being repeated at different places with different banners. Others defend each new mobilization by stating that the more actions we take, the more stretched thin the state will be. But these mobilizations are not stretching the state thin. The state has infinite money to pay police to stand around while people shout shame at buildings.
The movement in NYC is failing to apply revolutionary strategy when assessing targets. Instead of focusing on what will materially support the liberation of Palestine, mobilizers focus on spectacle and media visibility. Mobilizers focus on the institutions they believe will get the most coverage and awareness, meanwhile arms manufacturers in Brooklyn are supplying weapons to the zionist entity. Since protests at these weapons manufacturers don't receive nearly the same media coverage, mobilizers stick to liberal institutions like the U.N. and New York Times. But Palestine urgently needs us to stop the weapons shipments.
As the DBNY campaign has grown, we've focused on deep organizing work: connecting with neighbors, tenants, workers, and students near the navy yard and city wide. We've repeatedly reached out to various organizations within the city and, while we have received pockets of support, have been largely sidelined and ignored. This is despite our focus on tangibly disrupting the zionists weapons industry in NYC.
Error 4: Chauvinistic behavior towards women, fem, and gender non-conforming comrades in the movement
The Palestine solidarity movement in New York City is, and for years has predominantly been, led by women, fem, and gender non-conforming comrades. Unfortunately, there have been certain chauvinistic attitudes on display that have been impacting how some engage (or rather, refuse to engage) with those women and fem folks. Misogyny rarely gets acknowledged or properly responded to, but it deeply harms women and the movement in general. Examples of this misogyny include speaking over women in meetings, disregarding women's opinions, and putting women in highly-exposed positions without support, especially when they're doxxed or face zionist backlash.
We know that the patriarchal state especially targets Black, brown, and Muslim women organizers. The movement's lack of proper organizing and security has left far too many women, fem, and gender non-conforming comrades exposed to that violence from the state. Among other instances, the police have torn women's hijab off, harassed them while loading them onto buses to take them to jail, and referred to women by misogynist slurs during protests and during arrests. Misogyny is often an indication of other forms of reactionary politics and functions as counterinsurgency, and if we simply hold misogynists accountable, even removing them from the movement, it will solve many problems.
Error 5: Some comrades in the New York City Palestine Solidarity movement take paternalistic attitudes towards Palestinian leadership
We have seen instances where criticisms of specific strategies or tactics are deflected simply by invoking the idea that a certain protest or action was called for by Palestinian resistance. This is a paternalistic approach as the Palestinian resistance is only invoked in this way when what they are saying supports the approach that people already wanted to take. This is not a serious engagement with the advice or wisdom of the Palestinian resistance but is simply an attempt to use their statements to support one's opinions.
Additionally, while we trust the Palestinian resistance to understand the terrain in Palestine better than anyone else in the world, and while we should listen to their wisdom, it is our responsibility to understand our terrain. We cannot refuse to take ownership over understanding and formulating the struggle against zionism and imperialism here. We must take the time to evaluate whether our actions are actually making a tangible difference and we must develop strategies and goals. It is paternalistic for us to abandon that work.
Error 6: Failure to acknowledge class position and outlook
Right now, the Palestine solidarity movement in NYC is not led by the masses. It is predominately led by folks with rich families, extensive education, and professional aspirations who became connected to Palestine solidarity work through universities, non-profits, and cultural institutions like museums.
Most of the organizing in this city is focused on maintaining proximity to and exerting influence on liberal institutions, rather than building power from the bottom up. While a person's class position does not completely determine their outlook, it is clear that many in the NYC Palestine solidarity movement ignore the role their class plays. Despite taking on an antagonistic attitude towards liberal institutions, organizers still benefit from them. This class position also reflects in how resources, attention, and energy are distributed within the NYC Palestine solidarity movement and also which communities are ignored.
Similarly, there is a failure to acknowledge how social capital is impacting decisions made within the movement. While the movement appears decentralized, it is actually controlled by those with influence, who tend to align with each other to preserve that social capital. The pursuit of social capital, often subconsciously, dictates which campaigns people boost, which mobilizations they support, and which organizations they choose to work with.
Last Word
If we only care about boosting our activist resumes and spending time together at different actions, we will keep acting as we have been. But if we sincerely care about moving away from symbolism and solidarity and towards materially contributing to the liberation of Palestine, then we will take the time to struggle through these internal contradictions. We hope that this letter, which seeks to identify and call attention to things that have gone unacknowledged for far too long, can help start that process.
With love and rage,
Comrades from the Campaign to Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard
"Liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations."
- Mao Zedong
"We must come to know the difference between mobilization and organization because the enemy will use mobilization to demobilize us."
- Kwame Ture
