Above: a man in Rafah writes a thank you message to the student protesters (AFP/Getty)
A united front is an idea that’s been gaining momentum in antiwar circles for a long time now, with an important catalyzing event within this push being the Ukraine proxy war. When NATO started a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and then brought a great escalation of this conflict in February 2022, this led many to conclude that a broad coalition against the imperial hegemon is what we must build. The global anti-imperialist struggle had advanced to its next stage, and in the empire’s core, a lot of new counter-hegemonic consciousness was emerging among the masses.
Then, partly because of the strength which Russia showed in fighting back against the empire, the Palestinian resistance launched the Al Aqsa Flood operation on October 7. This vastly accelerated the collapse of the Zionist colonial project, and brought much of the younger generation in the United States towards clarity on Palestine. Since the entity massively sped up its extermination campaign, almost half of Gen Z have come to outright support the armed resistance coalition in Gaza. Which means if we build upon the united front that we’d previously begun to construct, and expand its organizing presence into this pro-resistance base, we’ll weaken the empire at a critical moment.
Some of the most prominent international anti-Zionist organizations have lately been calling for such a project of popular unity. Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, recently published a series of statements advocating for such an effort. Quoting two Masar Badil members who recently went on an interview, the org reported that:
Jaldia Abubakra, a Palestinian activist residing in Spain and a member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, directed sharp criticism at those who continue to perform Hajj as if nothing is happening, at a time when Muslims are being slaughtered en masse and the genocide against the people of Gaza is being broadcast live around the world…From Argentina, Lisandro Brusco, a human rights defender and activist in the Masar Badil, affirmed that salvation will not come from governments or international institutions, but from organized peoples. “Neither the United Nations nor any official system will end these massacres. They are tools in the service of imperialism. Only organized and revolutionary peoples are capable of ending the occupation,” he said.
He cited the words of Cuban leader Fidel Castro: “When Christians in Latin America take their faith seriously, revolution becomes inevitable. And likewise for Muslims: if they commit to their true religion, then a global revolution is inevitable…Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque are not just symbols — they are trenches of steadfastness that must be defended through awareness, action, and organization, not only through prayer and supplication alone,” he said…These statements come in the context of a call made by the Supreme Leader of Iran during the 2025 Hajj season, in which he called on Islamic governments to halt all forms of financial and logistical support to the Zionist entity.
Another part of the context is that this last week, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority made statements which vitriolically demonized the Gaza resistance, targeting the fighters—and implicitly the people as well—with disgusting insults and slander. This was only the latest betrayal from the PA after decades of it fully cooperating with the occupier, but it showed just how low these collaborators will stoop; it also showed how dire the need for a global solidarity project is. For the collaborators to engage in this demonization at the present moment, when the occupier’s aggression against Gaza has reached its greatest point ever, exposes how vile their ideological position is.
The idea that we need to condemn the forces fighting the occupation, or that both sides are bad, is something more and more people cannot accept. This means that if we build the organizations and coalitions which this pro-Palestine front will require, we’ll be working inside a political landscape that’s been greatly changed in our favor. There’s a growing amount of support for the idea of international solidarity, giving the anti-imperialist cause a strength that it didn’t have only a couple years ago.
Ukraine brought us closer to the state of polarization that our movement needs; to a point where the distinction between imperialism’s supporters and resistors has become unambiguous. But the ruling class was still able to manage the antiwar movement fairly easily, because the principled anti-NATO forces didn’t have enough of a plan. The war machine had exposed itself in major ways, like when the U.S. bombing of Nord Stream got revealed; but we weren’t managing to construct a sustained mass organizing presence. Too much of our movement was reliant on alt media, and on online politics; which would be a crucial reason behind why the pro-Palestine movement failed to stop this holocaust.
These problems are still there, and they’ll only be solved through putting in the work to build popular power. But with the rise of the global pro-Palestine struggle, the masses which we seek to organize are now much more conscious of the global anti-imperialist fotces than they used to be. That makes our task all the more easy.
The bulk of today’s politically conscious young people are not too far from heeding the calls for popular pro-Palestinian unity, and joining in a serious, determined effort to change the balance of power. For a lot of them, what may become a key motivator is to get exposed to what the international anti-Zionist activists are doing. This is why I wanted to make a point to share those words from Masar Badil: these messages need to reach the people, the knowledge of these global activities need to reach the people. Seeing that there are world-spanning networks of fighters for this cause, and that they’re looking to draw in many more supporters of the cause, could spur a lot of people into action.
By spreading these messages, we can give many who want to aid Palestine the awareness that they have a lot of strength behind them, and that whatever obstacles they come across in their work, it will be in the context of a vast shared effort. In many ways, we have built on the gains we’d made when Ukraine was the main antiwar issue, with the pro-resistance mass shift being one part of this progress. Our movement’s next stage is one where we turn this support into a force that existentially threatens the imperial state. Where we take the Palestinian struggle into organized labor, while building up the independent worker orgs that can let the movement stand on its own. We in the heart of the empire will fulfill the call that Masar Badil has put out.
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