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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Flood the Gates: Escalate</h1><div class="gmail-meta-data">
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<span class="gmail-post-author"><span class="gmail-by">By</span> <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/palestine-action-us/" title="Posts by Palestine Action US" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Palestine Action US</a></span>
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<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/flood-the-gates-escalate/" class="gmail-date-link">May 1, 2024</a>
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<blockquote>
<img src="cid:ii_lvpao5m20" alt="GMauABGWQAEcPf8.jpeg" width="464" height="309"><br><br><p>“The beginning of every revolution is an exit, an exit from the
social order that power has enshrined in the name of law, stability,
public interest, and the greater good.”</p>
<cite><a href="https://www.thebadside.net/tbs-2-exiting-law">martyr Bassel Al-Araj</a></cite></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“And it follows that if a thing is not building, it is certainly
decaying — that life is revolution — and that the world will die if we
don’t read and act out its imperatives.” </p>
<cite><a href="https://files.libcom.org/files/2022-08/BloodInMyEye_text_0.pdf">martyr George Jackson</a></cite></blockquote>
<p>It has been 208 days since this most recent and most horrific chapter
of the 75-year U.S.-zionist genocide in Gaza began. Over 40,000
Palestinians have been martyred, but the actual death toll is likely
upward of 100,000. Despite the mobilizations of millions around the
world, we must acknowledge that we have not been able to stop the
genocide — we have not come even close. <strong>This is a failure, but not a defeat. It demands we reckon with our errors and recalculate our strategy to win.</strong></p>
<p>After October 7, we recognized immediately the need for escalatory
resistance to imperialism’s escalating violence. Inspired by the success
of Palestine Action UK’s campaign, we launched Palestine Action US, a
direct action network targeting Elbit Systems, the largest zionist
weapons company on earth. As new Palestine Action groups have formed
globally, our actions have contributed to divestments from Elbit, drops
in Elbit’s profits, the sale of a U.S. Elbit subsidiary, and the
permanent closing of another Elbit factory in the UK. <strong>Through
our many trials and errors, we also learned that tactics used in the UK,
which has a very different legal system and economic makeup, could not
simply be copy-pasted into the U.S. context. Instead of solely targeting
Elbit, we have expanded our scope to meet the urgent task of building
capacity for direct action and militancy in the U.S. anti-imperialist
movement.</strong></p>
<p>We make this intervention at a moment when escalation is more
realizable than ever. On April 15, we saw a coordinated yet
decentralized action that drove people across the world to take direct
action against points of production and logistics networks, including
ports, bridges, weapons manufacturers, and financial institutions,
targeting the very economic arteries of imperialism. Then, on April
17, students and other young people launched dozens of Gaza solidarity
encampments across the U.S., from Columbia to Cal Poly, occupying and
barricading buildings, establishing liberated zones, and defeating
police invasions. In mere weeks, the anti-imperialist movement in the
Belly of the Beast has advanced to a level of militancy not seen in
generations. But the genocide is ongoing and the zionist invasion of
Rafah is imminent. We still have a long way to go to break the war
machine. </p>
<p><strong>Here are 5 of our reflections</strong>: </p>
<ol><li><strong>Above all else, ESCALATE</strong>. We join in the calls to
#Escalate4Gaza beyond symbolic action because we know power won’t move
unless we strike fear in the heart of the ruling class and pose a threat
to their reproduction of capital. As our comrades from Within Our
Lifetime wrote, <strong>“</strong><em>Enough with de-escalation trainings; Where are the escalation trainings</em>!”
Escalate from mass rallies to mass blockades of weapons companies, from
encampments to building occupations, from getting kettled by the police
to kettling them back. Let repression breed more resistance. We will
not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including
militant direct actions. Our notion of “safety” in the imperial core is
built on centuries of corpses, and this liberal framing of “<a href="https://itsgoingdown.org/we-dont-need-safety-we-need-to-escalate/">safetyism</a>” prevents us from escalating and winning, which is our duty to Palestine and to us all. <strong>We keep ourselves safe by escalating. Don’t hesitate to take more risk.</strong></li><li><strong>Resist repression and abandon symbolic arrests</strong>. We
regret using this self-sacrificial tactic ourselves at times. While
actions sometimes result in arrests, and those engaged in serious action
ought to prepare for that outcome, it should never be the *goal* to
lose our organizers to the carceral system. The goal should always be to
achieve whatever we set out to achieve, and then get home safe. Our
most successful actions were covert and decentralized. Form an affinity
group or cell with people you trust, and take action; when confronted by
police, learn tactics to protect yourself and your comrades –
barricades, de-arrest, strategic formations, and community defense (we
have compiled many <a href="https://pad.riseup.net/p/r.9dd54a8110dea91811c5412dcd7c2180">resources</a> on these tactics). As our comrades at <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2024/04/23/report-from-within-the-cal-poly-humboldt-occupation-the-occupation-of-siemens-hall">Cal Poly</a> wrote, “<em>The pro-Palestinian movement must be a movement against the police</em>.” We
must no longer be a sea of helpless subjects, begging for crumbs and
crying foul at the bullying of the pigs. We must stop appealing to the
respectability of monsters, to whom we owe nothing.
</li><li><strong>Break open the university gates</strong>. To those holding
down campus occupations, your first task is to open the campus to the
community and reject the distinction between students and “outside
agitators.” The popular movement for Palestine is currently based out of
the universities, but students are not the sole leaders, and
non-students possess a reservoir of knowledge and experience to expand
the struggle beyond the campus. We must create our own “popular cradle”
of resistance. The most effective occupations have been where students
have strong alliances with non-students, and where they connect the
struggle to Free Palestine with the struggle against U.S. fascism and
Cop Cities everywhere. </li><li><strong>Diversity of tactics only works if we are building more militancy</strong>.
We have always called for a wide ecosystem of tactics, from boycotts to
mass rallies to the sabotage and dismantling of genocidal
infrastructure. There is a dialectical relationship between the
underground and aboveground; clandestine actions need to express the
general will of the movement and garner support from its above-ground
organizers. As long as other groups do not interfere, peace police, or
co-opt our militancy, we must build as broad possible unity, inspired by
the Palestinian resistance’s concept of “<a href="https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/04/30/on-campus-action-and-the-unity-of-the-fields/">Unity of the Fields</a>,”
whereby, despite our differing ideologies, short-term objectives, and
locations, we all can work towards one common goal. We need people doing
jail support, media, fundraising, and community care — but it is time
for more of us to step up to the front line.</li><li><strong>We in the U.S. are not exempt from resistance</strong>. It
is insincere to glorify the Palestinian resistance if, at the same time,
we do not raise our own resistance here. The siege on Gaza is a
rehearsal of the future the ruling class has planned for all oppressed
people if we do not resist. When we step into the international struggle
in a substantive way, we reclaim our power and our humanity; we stop
bickering over which futile means will, or (almost certainly) won’t
shame the oppressor into a state of reasonable concession, and we
recognize that building an infrastructure of militancy for the larger
struggle against imperialism and the establishment of a new world is the
only effective route we can take, and is, in fact, the easier, softer
way. Our resistance to the genocide in Gaza is a piece of that effort,
or it is theater. We are not naïve enough to think the revolution will
come through “peaceful” means or spontaneous uprisings without organized
militancy. Nor do we think that the self-proclaimed vanguard of the
“organized” left, the student bureaucrats and smooth-talkers without an
ounce of front-line experience, are capable of fomenting the kinds of
organization actually required in this moment. The new forms of
leadership and initiative will emerge from those barricaded inside
classroom buildings, those who carry shields, and who are kicking back
tear gas canisters. Rebellious movements must prepare to defend
themselves from repression during <a>states of siege</a>, and “to
outmaneuver, exhaust, demoralize, confuse, and overpower the repressive
might of the state. Those who do not believe this is possible do not
believe that the revolution is possible.” <strong>We know revolution will come within our lifetimes. We will make sure of it.</strong></li></ol>
<p>Download this article as a <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Escalate-Zine-1.pdf">zine</a> or as a <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Escalate-PDF-1.pdf">PDF</a>.</p>
<p>Palestine Action US is a direct action network disrupting and
dismantling zionism and U.S. imperialism. Join us by taking autonomous
action. You can submit your actions to <strong><u><a href="mailto:palestineactionus@proton.me">palestineactionus@proton.me</a></u></strong>.</p>
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