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href="http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/changing-narrative-antifa/">http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/changing-narrative-antifa/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Changing the narrative, from BDS to antifa<br>
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<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Nada Elia - September
1, 2017<br>
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<p class="sizeable">The confluence of <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/birds-feather-1463289527"
class="sizeable">fascism and Zionism</a> is becoming
more obvious by the day, with alt-right leader Richard
Spencer describing himself as a “white Zionist,” while
the Zionist Organization of American invites Steve
Bannon as a speaker at its <a
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/bannon-to-speak-at-zoa-gala/538197/"
class="sizeable">annual gala</a>. And as the two
forms of racial supremacy merge seamlessly together, the
Palestinian struggle for human rights and dignity can
set the model for discursive changes, the rejection of
racism as status-quo, no matter how powerfully endorsed
by the state and its militarized apparatus, and an
understanding that together, we are greater than the sum
of our parts.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Indeed, Palestinians immediately
noticed the eerie similarity between the current
administration’s discourse, which insists that there is
“blame on both sides,” and posits a fake symmetry
between fascism and protests against hatred, and our own
experience being described as terrorists, anti-Semites,
a depraved people who do not value life, and deserve,
indeed provoke the violence being inflicted upon us.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Yet over the decades, with our
painstaking determination to educate about the
historical context, and thus expose Israeli abuses, and
with the principled commitment of the BDS movement to
envision and lay the groundwork for a genuinely
egalitarian society unfettered by ethnic or gender
privileges, we have finally chipped away at the
long-held belief that “the conflict is thousands of
years old,” and “the Palestinians want to throw the Jews
into the sea.” Today, most people know the “conflict”
is an anti-colonial struggle, and that Palestinians once
included Jews, Muslims, and Christians, until Israel
created the “Jewish nationality,” and stripped
Palestinians of any rights in their ancestral homeland,
now become “the Jewish state.”</p>
<p class="sizeable">BDS in particular has bought together
a broad base of activists globally, who have
successfully broken through the once unquestioned
Zionist narrative of Jewish victimhood at the hands of
anti-Semitic Arabs, and the need for a Jewish
supremacist state. We have educated millions about the
reality of Israeli racism and apartheid, and we have
shown the world that there is an alternative to the
corrupt “peace process” that still pretends to seek to
achieve two states, even as it poisons that possibility
by creating toxic “facts on the ground.” And as our
base has grown to include millions of BDS supporters and
activists globally, we have also shown that BDS is an
inclusive strategy that embraces and empowers each and
every one who is opposed to settler-colonialism, racial
supremacy, and the violation of any people’s human
rights.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Today, as anti-fascist protesters are
described by the mainstream as “violent thugs,” and as
Americans are being told that racism is part of the
fabric of this country and can therefore never be
completely eliminated, the struggle for Palestinian
rights offers an alternative vision: we don’t have to
accept injustice, even when the system is set up, has
always been set up, to perpetuate it. We may be called
terrorists, “thugs,” our tactics and strategies may be
unpopular, but we can prevail, and rather than settle
for “pacification” through extreme oppression, we can
aspire to genuine peace—an outcome of justice and
equality. After all, Israel, just like the US, is a
country founded on genocide and settler-colonialism,
with the aim of establishing and maintaining the
superiority of one perceived ethnicity. And if we can
question and challenge that fundamental injustice in one
country, we can question and challenge it in another.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Indeed, the protests against alt-right
rallies last month in <a
href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/19/protestors-counterprotestors-gather-around-boston/IUaev6rwHP0qhbbcZhKa3I/story.html"
class="sizeable">Boston, MA</a> and Berkeley, CA have
proven one thing beyond refute: when we come together,
we win. We have not (yet) ended fascism, nor are we
even changing the fascists’ views. But we are winning
because we are reclaiming our cities, our campuses, our
parks, as we show the fascists that they are unwelcome,
<a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/26/a-pro-trump-group-canceled-its-rally-but-san-francisco-prepared-for-violence-anyway/?utm_term=.641b399aee58"
class="sizeable">forcing them to cancel many of their
planned events</a>, and retreat back to the margins
and the “dark web,” where they belong. And we have
secured our victories with our numbers. The 40.000
protesters in Boston did not see eye-to-eye on
everything, my bet is that they actually disagreed on
many issues, even as they came together to reject
fascism in their city. And so did the hundreds who
protested in the Bay Area, and who included anti-police
activists, Black Bloc activists, anarchists, atheists,
faith leaders, disability rights activists, and
thousands of activists and organizers who, until the
night before, would certainly have not described
themselves as “antifa,” and are likely still puzzling
about the label. Indeed, multiple articles have been
written in the past month attempting to define what
“antifa” is, and the term still feels alien to many who
are protesting fascism. The confusion is likely due to
the fact that there was an “antifa” group active long
before the recent overt displays of fascism all around
the country, whereas many anti-hate protesters are only
now taking to the streets, as they realize the
uniqueness and urgency of the moment. Donald Trump’s
election, and his many outrageous statements and actions
since January, have so emboldened the alt-right that
they no longer feel the need to cover up in sheets and
hoods, but walk around instead in “casual Friday”
outfits, knowing most will be back at their desks by
Monday.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Yet “antifa,” short for
“anti-fascism,” is the broad umbrella that will protect
us today. Because at this juncture in US politics, the
protestors are rallying and forming alliances based on
their common opposition to fascism, rather than the
causes closest to individual hearts, whatever these are:
BLM, indigenous sovereignty, immigrant rights,
combating Islamophobia, etc. We are not abandoning
these causes, indeed, every one of them represents an
aspect of anti-fascism. And we must refuse to be
defined as “violent,” “thugs,” and we certainly must
watch out for attempts to be labelled “terrorists,” as
one currently circulating <a
href="https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-declare-antifa-a-terrorist-organization"
class="sizeable">petition</a> would have it. We must
refuse the false equivalency of “many sides,” and “fine
people on both sides.” At this moment in the US, there
can only be two sides: fascists, and anti-fascists.
There is nothing “fine” about fascism. And the
anti-fascists, the “antifa,” are the ones protecting the
communities that are targeted, threatened by the
fascists: blacks, immigrants, Muslims, Jewish, LGBTQ+,
and progressive whites.</p>
<p class="sizeable">The “antifa” are the ones who put
their bodies on the line in Charlottesville, Boston, and
Berkeley, to defend the actual and potential victims of
fascist violence. “We would have been crushed like
cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the
anti-fascists,” <a
href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy"
class="sizeable">Cornel West</a> said of the
confrontations that erupted in Charlottesville. Sara
Kurshner, of the National Lawyers Guild, expressed <a
href="http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/08/28/berkeley-counter-demonstration-organizers-defend-antifa/"
class="sizeable">a similar experience</a> at the
protest in Berkeley:</p>
<p class="sizeable">“Our experience on the streets was
that we were defended by people who came — as
anti-fascists — to do that,” Kurshner told Democracy
Now. Tur-Ha Ak, of the Anti-Police Terror Project, also
told Democracy Now: “We don’t apologize for any of it.
Do not come here with any of it. Do not!” adding about
fascism that “It is unwelcome. We have a right and an
obligation to self-defense, period. Point blank.”</p>
<p class="sizeable">At this critical moment in US
politics, the anti-fascist umbrella must be broad,
encompassing, as we say no to state-sanctioned racial
supremacy. This too can be a lesson learned from the
Palestinian struggle, and from BDS being the call with
the broadest base amongst Palestinians in Israel, the
West Bank, Gaza, and the global diaspora. As it
intersects with struggles for decolonization,
anti-racism, indigenous sovereignty, anti-incarceration,
and anti-Zionism/fascism, the struggle for Palestinian
human rights is the central defining struggle of the
mid-twentieth century to the present, and reflects many
of the struggles within the US. Thus from Gaza to
Ferguson, and from BDS to antifa, the Palestinian
struggle can show the beauty of resistance as we model
and enact the change by coming together, to challenge
and confront the greater common foe.</p>
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