Why the April 20 protest can be called 'historic'
Palestine now on agenda for anti-war movement
By Brian Becker
The writer is a co-director of the International Action
Center and a member of the steering committee of the ANSWER
(Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition.
How will the April 20 mobilization in Washington, D.C., be
remembered in the history of the anti-war and anti-imperialist
movement in the United States? What are the most important
lessons to be learned from this mobilization that drew more
than 100,000 people in the biggest protest to date against the
Bush administration's foreign and domestic political
program?
Since there have been many Washington demonstrations over
the years organized by both progressive and reactionary
organizations, it requires something special to suggest that a
particular demonstration has achieved a lasting or historically
noteworthy status. Very few mass actions take on decisive
importance in the historical process, the exception being
revolutions or counter-revolutions--but a mass demonstration
assumes special "historical" importance if it signifies the
development of something new in society, or at least a sharp
turn or breakthrough for a mass movement.
By that definition, the April 20 mobilization will be
remembered as a historical moment.
Its historical value resides not only in the singularly
important fact that it was the biggest demonstration in
solidarity with the resistance movement of the Palestinian
people in U.S. history. It also constituted a breakthrough for
the U.S. anti-war movement and a repudiation of the shameful,
backward political legacy of ignoring the just cause of the
Palestinian people.
The fact that the demonstration represented something
entirely new was not lost on the dominant big-business media in
Washington. "Demonstrators Rally to Palestinian Cause" was the
banner headline on the front page of the Washington Post under
a three-column color photo of the huge throng. The article
cited organizers at the ANSWER coalition rally at the White
House who asserted that the event was the biggest
pro-Palestinian event in U.S. history.
The Post article also quoted the police estimate of 75,000
people at the various converging demonstrations. Everyone
familiar with police crowd estimates knows they are notoriously
low for progressive activities.
While many issues were raised at the April 20 events, it was
clear to all that the Palestinian resistance to U.S.-supported
Israeli occupation was central. Support for the Palestinian
struggle in the United States is out of the closet, so to
speak.
Its historic legitimacy--which important sectors of the
traditional peace and pacifist movement have denied for
decades--has been boldly affirmed by a new anti-war movement
that has arisen in the United States. This growing momentum for
solidarity with the Palestinian people is bound to resonate
throughout the entire progressive movement.
Bravely resisting the racist furor
The April 20 mass mobilization had far-reaching consequences
in one other way: It represented the courageous reassertion of
mass, public political life by the Arab-American, South Asian,
and Muslim communities in the United States after Sept. 11,
2001. That tens of thousands of people from these communities
came to the White House rally was remarkable given the racist
frenzy since Sept. 11.
These communities have been demonized as "terrorists."
Thousands have been illegally detained. Tens of thousands have
been "visited" by the FBI.
Even mainstream organizations and charities like the Holy
Land Foundation have had their offices and assets seized for
"aiding terrorists" because they made political statements in
support of the Palestinian cause.
Two coalitions: two political orientations
The April 20 mobilization was primarily the work of two
distinct anti-war coalitions: the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War
& End Racism) coalition, and the United We March Coalition.
There were many differences in the two coalitions' political
program and strategic orientation. The most notable had to do
with the struggle of the Palestinian people.
From the beginning, both coalitions had addressed many
issues related to the Bush administration's so-called war on
terrorism. But ANSWER had specifically embraced the cause of
the Palestinian people and their anti-colonial resistance to
Israeli occupation. The United We March coalition stated that
they could not come to a consensus within their coalition. So
for a long time they had no official position on the
conflict.
Why ANSWER was able to focus on Palestine
After Ariel Sharon launched the murderous reoccupation of
the West Bank on March 29, the ANSWER coalition announced that
it was elevating the Palestinian struggle as the central focus
of its still multi-issue demonstration.
ANSWER could quickly respond to the new political/military
developments because its national steering committee had spent
months before the March 29 invasion discussing how to elevate
political support for the Palestinian struggle in the United
States. It had organized mass indoor events on Palestine that
took place in New York on Feb. 23, and a week later in San
Francisco and Los Angeles, with the aim of raising
consciousness about the Palestinian struggle.
On April 20, the principal slogan of the ANSWER
demonstration at the White House was "Free Palestine, No New
War Against Iraq." The White House rally drew a very large
crowd. CNN put the figure at 60,000 in its coverage from the
site, and organizers estimated a higher number of people
present.
Organizers from the United We March rally estimated that
20,000 to 25,000 participated in their rally at the Washington
Monument. While most participants in their rally were
sympathetic to the suffering of the Palestinian people and a
number of speakers denounced the recent Israeli atrocities in
the West Bank and Gaza, the United We March coalition opted for
a more general peace or anti-war message, rather than amending
their six demands to include a specific call to support the
people of Palestine.
Issues in the united front
The issue of Palestine and its potential prominence--or
potential lack of prominence--in the demonstration was one
focus of several disputes between the two coalitions as they
negotiated over whether to form a united front on April 20.
After seven weeks of negotiations, the two coalitions
eventually agreed to hold a co-sponsored concluding rally near
the Capitol. One of the most contentious issues in the talks
had concerned Palestine and Palestinian participation at the
concluding rally.
Some of the forces inside the United We March Coalition were
enthusiastic in their support for a united-front action that
ANSWER had proposed. This was especially true of the New York
City Labor Against War coalition, as well as others. But some
members of that coalition, especially representatives of a
group called the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition,
cited political objections to ANSWER's united-front
proposals.
For instance, both sides agreed that Amy Goodman, the noted
broadcast journalist with "Democracy Now!," should be an emcee
at the concluding rally. ANSWER proposed that there be a
co-emcee--namely, Randa Jamal, a Palestinian student and
activist leader. The ANSWER proposal was motivated by the
premise that a Palestinian co-chair would signify the
centrality of the Palestinian struggle at this moment. The
National Youth and Student Peace Coalition representative
immediately rejected the idea of having a Palestinian co-chair.
"That idea will never get through" the youth and student
coalition, because the Palestinian issue is just "one issue,"
asserted the NYSPC representative.
The United We March coalition officially agreed to ANSWER's
united-front proposal by including a Palestinian co-chair for
the concluding rally.
Both coalitions ended up drafting a unity agreement one week
before April 20. The agreement stipulated that both coalitions
would converge in a massive street march after their opening
rallies.
Why the backwardness on Palestine?
Why is it that "Palestine" and deep criticism of Israel was
almost a taboo in the mainstream peace movement in the United
States since 1967?
This same movement supported the struggle against apartheid
in South Africa and opposed the war in Vietnam. Yet when Israel
launched the 1967 war against the Arab countries and seized the
West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, only the most
radical voices in the U.S. movement demanded that the Vietnam
anti-war movement embrace the Palestinian and Arab cause as
part and parcel of the anti-colonial movement sweeping the
world. The larger peace movement turned a cold shoulder.
And history repeated itself in 1982. Then, this self-imposed
taboo allowed the moderate peace organizations and some sectors
of the pacifist movement to turn a march for peace and in
opposition to nuclear arms-an activity on June 12, 1982,that
drew more than a million people in New York--into a near
irrelevancy when they refused to address, much less condemn,
the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that had begun the week before.
Twenty thousand Lebanese and Palestinian people eventually died
during that invasion, as the Israeli Defense Forces led by Gen.
Ariel Sharon drove Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation
Organization from Beirut.
The reason for the historical political backwardness toward
the Palestinian cause is frequently misunderstood or
misrepresented as the result of the Jewish supporters of Israel
who are active in other anti-war struggles but politically tied
to Israel and thus unable to support the just cause of the
Palestinian people. While this may be a factor it is not the
decisive one.
What is the decisive factor?
The problem lies in the strategic orientation of some
sectors in the progressive movement who are looking to forge a
left-center coalition, sometimes called a coalition of "broad
forces" and the like. The goal is to reform the Democratic
Party, to rebuild its so-called liberal wing in the national
leadership.
This orientation flows from the conception that the main
goal of the progressive movement is to prevent the triumph of
the extreme right wing in the capitalist political
establishment, and to defeat their foreign and domestic
policies by promoting more "liberal policies." In order to
secure the support of the liberal capitalist establishment, or
at least to bloc with some of its leading lights, according to
this approach, the progressive movement must limit its
political program in a way that is acceptable or
non-threatening to the liberal wing of the capitalist
establishment.
The U.S. political establishment was deeply divided over
continued involvement in the Vietnam War and later about U.S.
support for apartheid South Africa. Consequently, there were
significant expressions of support for the anti-war and
anti-apartheid movements from politicians and even in the
big-business media.
In the case of the Middle East, this left-center-type
orientation has required this sector of the movement to abstain
from showing solidarity with the Palestinian people because in
the U.S. capitalist class there has been virtually no split
over support for Israel. U.S. imperialism supports Israel
because it serves as a heavily armed and relatively stable
client state in the region where two-thirds of the world's oil
is found. Groups looking to limit their political program in
the hopes of winning substantial support from the liberal
establishment have thus been required to neglect support for
the Palestinian people.
The ANSWER coalition shares the tactical objective of
uniting with all possible forces against war, racism and
repression, but not by liquidating its principled and
strategically vital anti-imperialist political orientation.
The April 20 mobilization was historic because it broke
through the legacy of inaction and put the issue of solidarity
with the Palestinian people on the front burner.
Reprinted from the May 2, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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