By Carl Davidson
LeftLinks Weekly, May 3, 2024
Elemental Risings that embody a just cause do not occur every day in any society. Six months ago, hardly anyone would have predicted what we are seeing unfold today. And it has yet to reach its peak.
We're reminded of the line from our generation's bard and his 'Ballad of a Thin Man, 'Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.'
If we didn't know, we're learning quickly. The brief Hamas incursion into Israel last Oct 7, with all the evils existing alongside justified claims, took some 1200 Israeli lives, military and civilian, then returned to Gaza with some 230 hostages. Some claim it was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. It's a bit of a stretch to compare 1200 souls to the 6 million, but set that aside for the moment. One thing is becoming clear: the Hamas strike was 'overdetermined,' to use a fancy word for punching a hole in a hornet's nest.
Everything is now turned upside down. So far, the IDF has killed some 35,000 Palestinians residing in Gaza and seriously wounded 200,000 more while destroying hospitals and access to medical supplies. Today, relief officials report some 750,000 children in Gaza are in various stages of starvation. And so far, no one is even giving accurate numbers for those physically harmed and expelled from their homes by the ‘settlers’ on the West Bank.
Even if we discount, say, 15,000 of the dead as Hamas militants, it still means sixteen Palestinians dead for every Israeli, IDF or not, and the disproportion is rising. And it's far worse when you consider that Israel, with its 'Iron Dome,' has not, in recent memory, seen anything like the wreckage and carnage of Gaza. The two UN-initiated world courts are well within reason to be considering charges of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes against Israel's Likud government.
Unfortunately, our government ignores or dismisses the world courts despite its often-expressed desire for a ‘rules-based order.’ So far, the only rules it wants to observe are its own.
But early on, two groups in our society had moral clarity. The Palestinian and Muslim youth in their campus organizations, and Jewish youth, organized as Jewish Voices for Peace, and their campus allies. Together they evolved far beyond their initial reach into what we now can call an insurgent critical force. This was a concept and analysis first developed by Mike Klonsky back in 1968.
The critical force rises as a prophetic but militant minority of young people holding up a mirror to the wider society. Next, they challenge them to look into it and ask, 'This is what you have become. Is this what you want to be?' In 1968, it meant seeing violence unleashed against Blacks seeking voting rights. It meant seeing over 1 million dead and poisoned in Vietnam. It meant seeing Chicano farmworkers deported and denied union rights. It meant seeing women and LGBTQ people denied justice against rape, undue arrests, and other abusive mistreatment.
Today, the mirror reflects the events in Gaza. And for good reason. Without ongoing U.S. military support, Israel would have to see and work on a different future for everyone living within its borders. It would have to release all the best Palestinian advocates for a just solution that it now holds in its prisons. And it would have to stop the KKK-like treatment of residents of the West Bank and Jerusalem at the hands of 'settlers,' largely far-right fascists from Brooklyn.
Today's critical force of the young has challenged us with two main demands: immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and self-determination for Palestinians throughout Israel, where Arabs are kept in second-class status or worse. There are others that follow from these, such as demanding their universities not profit from investments in Israel, that the U.S. cut off military funds to Israel, and amnesty for all in the face of police violence. They also focus their demands on the one person currently in a position to do something about them, President Biden. The pressure on Netanyahu will primarily have to come from the electorate in Israel.
All this makes today's politics exceedingly uncomfortable for the Democratic Party and much of its current leadership. So far, the Justice Democrats, aka 'The Squad,' and some of their House allies, Bernie Sanders in the Senate and the Young Democrats nationwide, have all rallied to the cause of the students. All these are especially opposing any violence used against the students and their ‘encampments. The media call this a 'split.' It may come to that, but it is undoubtedly a dynamic tension, meaning that it cannot be ignored or thwarted. It demands a just resolution.
This is where we must consider the other side of the critical force analysis, i.e., what is the main force? When all is said and done, the critical force is an insurgent minority but not yet the main force. What is the latter? The main force today is the anti-fascist majority of the population, especially a majority of all workers of various nationalities, and all oppressed peoples facing battles for wider democracy. We can say that this 'main force' is largely 'in itself', but not yet fully 'for itself' (to borrow a bit of dialectics from Hegel).
But we can see the beginning. Shean Fain of the UAW, along with the National Nurses Union and others, have declared this week that they are standing on the side of the students. If Biden clings to the Likud and ignores or otherwise dismisses these urgent messages from within his core base, he does so at his peril, and he will bear the brunt of any unintended assistance rendered to Trump. Unfortunately, this means it is not only his peril but a great danger to us all.
This is where we hope the critical force gains in knowledge and sharpens their wider strategic thinking. It has to survey all the forces and the entire terrain. It must do nothing to hinder new elements from the main force awakening and taking its side. This wisdom also means understanding and adapting to the wider aims of your allies, i.e, the defeat of the MAGA fascists in November. The young critical force will gain wisdom largely from its own experience. But this does not mean the 1968 'veteran force,' for want of a better term, has nothing to offer them. We do. First, stand with them. Second, listen to them deeply. Third, offer ideas to unite the many and defeat the few. Time is growing short.
Well said Carl, loved the graphic too.
“It must do nothing to hinder new elements from the main force awakening and taking its side.” Does this mean hiding anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism / socialism / communism so not to “hinder those in the main force” who are anti- communist?