The Israeli state’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, raging now for well over a thousand days, is the Holocaust of the twenty first century. Given the horrific ongoing murders by the Israeli military, and the number of people buried under the destruction, estimates of the casualties are difficult. But the studies available with data from 2025 would point to easily over one hundred thousand Palestinians killed so far, whether from bullets, bombs, or indirect causes. Gaza has been reduced to rubble and is now home to the world’s largest number of child amputees.

Israel has also dramatically escalated attacks by settlers and the military against Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli state is threatening to take things over the cliff, with Defense Minister Israel Katz discussing an “all-out war” in the West Bank. There is growing speculation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli ruling class are trying to provoke a third intifada, to use it as a pretext to carry out full-scale annihilation in the West Bank.

Israel has only been able to carry out its ethnic cleansing and genocidal agenda because of the unquestioned weapons and political support by U.S. imperialism. The occupation, and the current genocide and escalation of violence, has also produced massive profits for a big section of the billionaire class.

Why I’m Visiting the West Bank

In a historic shift, for the first time in the nearly 80-year history of the Israeli state, the majority of the American working class has turned against Israel and its ethnic cleansing project. Yet, despite the widespread outrage at the genocide, there is a near complete absence of left and labor leaders willing to organize working-class forces to fight against it, and against both the Democratic and Republican parties that represent imperialism.

Prominent leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) have rhetorically spoken out against genocide but then completely contradicted their own statements. Both Mamdani and AOC have embraced blatant Zionist scumbags like Hakeem Jeffries.

The vast majority of labor leaders have also utterly failed in this historic moment, refusing to take a stand against the two parties of genocide or  leading any mass mobilization. They have repeatedly endorsed Zionist politicians.

At root, what’s happening is not Palestinian solidarity but the whitewashing of Zionism and genocide by both DSA and labor leaders in order to give cover to the Democratic Party and the billionaires and multimillionaires who have blood all over their hands.

It is in this context that I ran as an independent antiwar socialist against genocidal Democratic Congressmember Adam Smith in this year’s primary election. I won the highest ever vote for an openly Marxist candidate for the U.S. Congress. Our campaign called for an end to all military aid to Israel and a permanent arms embargo on Israel.

The urgent need to build an unambiguously anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist movement is also why I am about to visit the Israeli-occupied West Bank. I will be there with courageous Palestinians who are facing an increasingly dire situation. I have been invited by activists and organizers on the ground in the West Bank and by the Brussels-based International Federation for Rights and Development (IFRD). The organizers are hoping that this visit can put a spotlight on the violence in the region. They also want to encourage others on the left from the United States to visit the West Bank in the next several weeks. Please contact me at [email protected] if you would like to be part of this project.

The attacks by settlers are particularly ramped up at the moment in the period heading into the Israeli elections, in which Netanyahu is trailing in the polls. As in past years, violent settlers are using the olive harvest season as an opportunity to gravely damage the lives and livelihoods of Palestinians, and they are taking their attacks further than ever this year.

Zarah Sultana, a left-wing Member of the British Parliament and a co-founder of Your Party, has just been banned from entering Israel. The Israeli state does not want further exposure of its escalating brutality. Sultana has correctly taken this ban as a “badge of honor.”

Whether or not the Israeli state allows me and other activists to enter the West Bank, our goals are to build solidarity for the cause of Palestinian liberation and to help organize a powerful global antiwar movement against the billionaires and multimillionaires and all the political parties that represent them.

State-Sanctioned Terrorism In the West Bank

The logic of occupation, settler colonialism, apartheid, and imperialism often points towards continual escalation of violence against the colonized. This logic is playing out viciously with the Israeli ruling elite’s openly stated goal of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

The attacks in the West Bank are decisively geared towards either intimidating the Palestinian people to leave their homes, farms, and land, and move out permanently, or to kill them if they refuse to go.

A large proportion of the attacks in the West Bank are being perpetrated by Israeli right-wing settlers. However, as has been extensively documented by organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), these are not individual or random attacks by settlers, rather they are fueled, armed, and coordinated by the systematic policy of the Israeli state. As HRW’s Sarah Sanbar has said: “Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it.”

Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank are under curfew. The UN reports that the Israeli state has set up more than 900 obstacles that restrict the daily movements of the Palestinian people going to their jobs and trying to access essential services. Also according to the UN, more than 3,700 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank this year alone due to demolitions, settler violence, and movement restriction.

Settlers are cutting off electricity and water supply from Palestinian villages, towns, and homes. They are forcing Palestinians out of their homes, beating them up when they refuse to leave, and throwing out their furniture and belongings.

The police and military either do nothing in response to Palestinian complaints, or worse, watch the settlers attack and give tacit or explicit support. At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year, of which at least 23 were killed in settler-related attacks. Just this month, the Israeli military ushered in settlers and destroyed an entire Palestinian village outside of Hebron in the West Bank. Palestinians courageously fought back, and Israeli military snipers responded by murdering two teenage boys.

The Israeli military is bringing in bulldozers to permanently uproot decades-old olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers for whom the olive harvest is the primary source of income. Settlers are seizing land and stealing or destroying Palestinian harvests of grapes and other fruits and vegetables. Settlers are also stealing or killing the animals of Palestinian farmers. There was a gruesome incident of settlers seizing a donkey from a Palestinian farmer, tying the donkey to the back of their vehicle, and dragging the poor animal until it collapsed and died from its horrific injuries.

The violent, systematic expansion of illegal settlements by military-protected roving bands of settlers is nothing short of Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

Israeli Ruling Class Threatens “All-Out War” on the West Bank

The calculated narrative of the Israeli state is to inflict relentless violence and seizing of property, make life unlivable for the Palestinians in the West Bank, then cry foul at any form of resistance from the Palestinians. This playbook is already being unrolled, with Katz outlining the plan for “all-out war.”

As Father Jack-Noble Abed, a Catholic priest in the village of Taybeh in the West Bank, said:

If the situation will remain [like this, it means the Israelis] are [provoking] us to [carry out] the third intifada. It depends also on the war between Israel and Iran, if it will happen. We were born here. We grew up here and we are going to stay here and [we are going] to be buried here. This is our land. We can [only] divide it with other people if they accept to divide it with us. That’s it.

As Israel heads into the parliamentary elections in October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the various Zionist politicians are competing amongst themselves to make the most monstrous threats of escalated ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.

Ultra right-wing politician Bezalel Smotrich, a leader in the Religious Zionism Party and the Finance Minister in Netanyahu’s genocidal cabinet, is himself a lifelong settler in the West Bank and has explicitly advocated for the violent settlement of the region. Similarly, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli Minister of National Security who comes from the Jewish supremacist, virulently racist, and anti-Arab Kahanist movement, is also a West Bank settler.

Under major international pressure, President Donald Trump’s Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee was recently forced to visit the village of Turmus Ayya in the West Bank and speak somewhat critically about settler violence. But even in the context of a rising crisis, Huckabee insisted that it was just a few individuals, rather than acknowledging the state backing for the settlers. Netanyahu has also been forced to call for settlements to be removed from key areas designated under the 1992 Oslo II Accord, though it is widely recognized as empty rhetoric.

Smotrich has railed against even these minimal statements by Huckabee and Netanyahu. Referring to the occupied West Bank in the Palestine-erasing biblical terminology used by the right wing, Smotrich has declared that there “will be no avoiding a war in Judea and Samaria in the near future, in which we will disarm all the Arabs in Judea and Samaria.”

Ben-Gvir was a prominent cheerleader of a bill passed in March of this year by the Israeli parliament that establishes the death penalty for Palestinians. He has openly called for ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians from the entire region on pain of death.

In the face of such horrors, Democratic Party politicians in the U.S. have continued funding the Israeli state, and DSA-backed and other “progressive” Democrats have given them cover to do so.

Capitalist States Are Under Pressure But Still Support Israel

One of the most heartening features of today’s global politics is the complete breakdown in the support for Israel among the working class, with younger people even more overwhelmingly opposed to the genocide and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands. This turnabout in public opinion poses a serious challenge to the global capitalist class and the political elite who represent them.

But while they face calls to denounce Israel, the political establishments in most nations are limiting themselves to empty gestures, while refusing to budge an inch from either financial backing or political support for the Israeli state.

The U.K. is one of 12 nations that have just announced a ban on trade against “specific companies and individuals who provide services and financing for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.” This shows that capitalist states are no longer able to turn a deaf ear and is a small step forward under pressure from the antiwar movement. However, it  poses little consequence for the apartheid state. Sultana has correctly called this very minimal trade ban what it really is: a ploy to distract attention from the U.K.’s “ongoing complicity in genocide.” The British political establishment, with Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Milliband in the lead, has continued sending surveillance drones, military intelligence, and weaponry to Israel. These include essential components for the F35 aircraft that Israel has used for aerial bombardment of civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. British courts have also just handed draconian sentences to the “Filton Four” — Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani — who bravely carried out direct action at the Filton (near Bristol) branch of Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons corporation.

There has been growing pressure on the Democratic Party politicians in the United States to stop supporting Israel, including from the recent victories of DSA candidates vocally opposing the genocide. Several candidates supported by Zionist lobby groups have been defeated in this year’s Democratic Party primaries. Yet, the Democratic Party’s genocidal position has not only persisted, they have doubled down on Israel.

In April, the Democratic National Committee refused to support even a symbolic resolution condemning the influence of Zionist lobby money in the primary elections. Under lead House Democrat and AIPAC-backed Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Party has just appointed arch Zionists Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which alongside the House Armed Services Committee, is a key decision-making body for Israel funding.

DSA Leaders Are Helping to Whitewash Zionism

The single most important reason why the Democratic Party leadership feels little compulsion to make any concessions to the anti-Israel mood in American consciousness is the cover they are getting from DSA leaders and other “progressive” Democrats.

Mamdani and AOC remain steadfast in their unconditional support for Jeffries. Mamdani has also endorsed arch Zionist and anti-worker New York State Governor Kathy Hochul for re-election. On the campaign trail last year, Mamdani initially vowed that he would have Netanyahu arrested for war crimes if he visited NYC, but later backtracked on it. AOC was recently asked about arresting Netanyahu and gave a contradictory, circular response.

AOC has betrayed the pro-Palestine movement more than once. AOC voted against an amendment last year that would have cut $500 million from Israeli weapons funding. She justified the vote by claiming that the weapons involved, like Iron Dome, are “defensive.” In reality, no part of the Israeli genocidal apparatus can be considered defensive because weapons like Iron Dome help Israel kill and maim ordinary people in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East with impunity.

During the 2024 Presidential election, AOC also lied that Democratic Presidential nominee and then Vice President Kamala Harris was working “tirelessly” to secure a ceasefire. Harris had continued to back the genocide in Gaza despite enormous pressure on her during the election to distance herself from Israel.

Prominent labor leaders openly endorsed my opponent, genocidal Zionist-lobby-bankrolled Democratic Congressmember Adam Smith against my antiwar, working-class campaign this year. Faye Guenther, the president of the largest union in Washington state, UFCW 3000, shamefully went so far as to donate to Smith’s campaign. Not a single labor leader has called for mass protests, civil disobedience, or strike action to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

American working people outraged by the genocide in Gaza and growing violence in the occupied West Bank and in Southern Lebanon are being told that calling out these betrayals is letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good” or that we are demanding “purity tests.” This is a fatal deception. If we are going to stop the horrors, it is imperative to remove every shred of support from the genocidal apartheid state of Israel and, in turn, from anyone who supports the Israeli state. At a bare minimum, this means that elected officials claiming to be pro-Palestinian must not endorse Zionist politicians funding Israel’s genocide and occupation.

We cannot accept the whitewashing of Zionism by self-described progressives or democratic socialists who claim to be pro-Palestinian and still support openly Zionist Democratic Party leaders who are funding the Israeli state.

Palestinian Liberation Requires Defeating Both Parties of U.S. Imperialism

Despite widespread condemnation, Israel’s ethnic cleansing shows no signs of slowing down — instead, it is accelerating.

It is impossible to satisfactorily explain the decades-long grotesque nature of the Israeli state’s occupation without understanding the objectives of the global capitalist class, especially in the United States, Western Europe, and in the Middle East itself.

The occupation of Palestinian lands has long been backed by U.S. imperialism because Western billionaires and multimillionaires see Israel as a strategic outpost in an oil-rich and geopolitically pivotal region of the world. The Israeli state was created as a bulwark for those interests. As Democratic Party politician Joe Biden once said, when he was a U.S. Senator: “If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one.”

The Israeli state serves as a terrorizing check against any rebellions by working and oppressed people in the entire Middle East. While the policy of forever war is primarily driven by Western imperialism, it is aided by, and serves, not only the capitalist class in the West but also the wealthy ruling elite in nations like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

That’s why it is crucial for Palestinian liberation that we in the American working class fight for an end to all military aid to Israel and for a permanent arms embargo on Israel. I support the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement. For the antiwar movement to succeed in dealing historic defeats to the Israeli state, we will need to build militant mass movements in the United States. But these movements will keep getting stymied if we accept leaders who refuse to fight against both the Democratic and Republican parties that serve U.S. imperialism and represent the war profiteers.

Our movements will need independent campaigns that pose a concrete challenge to the Democratic Party, like our Congressional primary election campaign this year against Smith. We will need candidates who will  boldly use their elected offices to build fighting movements, like I did in my ten years as a revolutionary socialist in office on the Seattle City Council. Working people and I used my elected office to defeat the Democratic Party and the billionaire class repeatedly to win historic victories like the nation’s highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax, unprecedented renters’ rights, and the nation’s strongest resolution against the Gaza genocide. Working people will need to fight within the labor movement to bring to bear the most powerful tool of the working class into the fight for Palestinian liberation: strike action, including general strikes, to shut down the profit machine of the capitalist class.

I extend my full solidarity to everyone in the region trying to build united movements of working people to stop the genocide and occupation, and to overthrow the Israeli ruling class. Our movement must unambiguously support the right of Palestinians to self-determination and their right to resist, including with armed force. We must support the right of Palestinians to return and live with equal rights. The existing Israeli state, its apartheid system, and Israeli capitalism must be smashed. We need to fight for a different kind of society, a socialist society, with full and equal rights for all working and oppressed people.

The goals of ending the occupation and bringing about the liberation of the Palestinian people are tied to the liberation of the working class in the Middle East and internationally. It will require mass revolutionary movements of working people and rebuilding militant labor movements across national and ethnic lines. We must defeat all military support for Israel, which will require an all out fight with U.S. capitalism and with capitalism everywhere.