the centrality¶

You'd think Palestine would clarify for people the centrality of national oppression in the stability of the regime as a whole. You'd think it might clarify who our enemies and who our allies are. You'd think it would at least let people see what actually constitutes genocide. You'd also think people might eventually grasp that "Small Settler Colony = Bad" might mean that "Big Settler Colony = Bad" 🤔

Uncle Sam is exactly the same as his nephew. His genocidal occupation is just older. Unfortunately, observation is not the same as understanding. Even the most stalwart opponents of the genocide are still subject to the error of seeing it in isolation, without understanding the imperial context. People are learning to shake off the hegemonic narrative around Palestine and instinctively distrust the omnipresent propaganda telling them "Israel" is a bastion of democracy, is doing its best in a tough situation, or even that it "has a right to exist" at all. They understand the way motifs of "barbarous rape" and "poor innocent hostages" and "civilian casualties" and "existential threat to the Jewish people" are leveraged to subvert their tendency toward empathy and channel it toward the blatant oppression of a century-long occupation And yet they somehow fail to recognize that same pattern and apply that same scrutiny to the omnipresent "anti-authoritarian" propaganda against China, the DPRK, Russia, etc. They recognize "Israel" as a servant of US imperialism, but still detest all opponents to that hegemony. Even when Ukraine and the World Uyghur Congress reflexively issue statements of support for "Israel," they still see them as the underdog. They reject "Israel needs US support because it's under attack," but accept "Xinjiang needs US support because China is committing genocide." They correctly understand that the billions of dollars provided by the US is both the main source of fuel for the genocide and an economic investment the empire makes as the cost of doing business. And yet they fail to apply that analysis to the tens of billions sent to Ukraine. They think the US got it wrong on Palestine, but happens to be on the right side of history when it comes to Ukraine. They think the narrative is completely ludicrous when it comes to Palestine, but believe them that the DPRK forces its citizens to live as prisoners. They watch in real time what true oppression looks like, and gaze in admiration of the heroic resistance to it, but believe 1.4 billion people live their lives too afraid to rebel against a totalitarian communist regime in China, or even voice mild critique of their government. They extrapolate this credulity into the past, gulping down myths of a "dual genocide" perpetrated by the USSR, believing once again that a people that fought tooth and nail to end a brutally repressive empire would then immediately roll over to a repressive "Stalinist" regime. I'd like to believe that the omnipresent web of lies, crafting a version of history so divorced from the truth is starting to buckle under the pressure of reality, observable in real time. I'd like to believe that people are learning that they have been lied to about everything. All that's happening is that people are becoming open to that possibility. Only a small fraction ever investigate further, unprompted.

But every single supporter of Palestine can learn to deconstruct the all-encompassing lies. They just need something real to tether them. This isn't to disparage the goodwill or intelligence or revolutionary potential of these people. Hegemony holds unbelievable sway over its subjects. It hides itself so expertly that questioning the story it presents requires first recognizing its existence and purpose. We all swim in the ocean of hegemony. People need to first learn about the existence of water before they can study the motion of the currents.

This is why study is central to communist organizing. We can never hope to succeed in our actions if we can't even identify our enemy.