No, you will not scare me into silence about an ongoing genocide
Silence and complicity are the prices we have to pay to enjoy all the comforts of the imperialist world, and I am willing to pay neither.
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It’s not uncommon for me to experience unprincipled opposition and harassment for my political work. I’ve often dealt with this kind of behavior in the past, especially when sharing my story of surviving sexual violence and prostitution. In order to prevent people from hearing my argument, many in the past have attempted to assassinate my character, fabricate lies about me, and even go so far as to contact my job to get me fired. But, for some reason, this is different. Nothing stings quite like this.
Perhaps it is the images of Palestinian children, some dead and others mourning their dead, that are seared into my memory. Watching their tears roll down their grey faces as they wipe away the dust…dust which collected on their young faces after the Zionist entity blew up their home. Watching children caught under rubble, struggling to get out. Watching a father hold parts of his child in different bags trying to collect all the parts. Watching, time and time again, the Zionist entity blow up hospitals, schools, and residential buildings, wiping out entire families from the civil registry. There is no way that I will ever get these images out of my head. But more importantly, there is no way that I will ever leave those martyred children behind. Silence and complicity are the prices we have to pay to enjoy all the comforts of the imperialist world, and I am willing to pay neither.
For those of us who have been paying attention, the brutal slaughter and persecution of Palestinian people at the hands of the Zionist entity is nothing new. From 2008, to September 2023, the Zionist entity killed 6,407 Palestinians, more than half of them via missile attacks. The Zionist entity has choked Gaza in a 16-year long siege, barely providing basic necessities. In the occupied West Bank, “israel” forces Palestinians to go through random checkpoints with armed occupation soldiers, forbids the use of roads by Palestinians, and even uses facial recognition technology to track them and automate “harsh restrictions” against their freedom of movement all while keep them under intense 24/7 surveillance by Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV). What kind of person can know these facts and simply look away?
For some people, the looming threat of loosing their jobs in the midst of our increasingly precarious world wins out. But not for me. I have been homeless. I have had nothing. I know what it’s like to have nothing and therefore to have nothing left to lose. And those of us who have been in situations where we have had nothing left to lose are not as easily scared by the threat of retaliation for doing the right thing.
Combatting propaganda from the US war machine
If you pay attention to the words that come out of US President Biden, or of “israeli” PM Netanyahu, you might notice some things. They often state things that their respective governments later walk back. They use “trigger words,” exploiting the post-9/11 environment, to invoke deep-seated fears that westerners have about Muslim people. Jihad, for example, is a word that simply means struggle. But not for the average American or westerner. For them, “jihad” conjures up images of “barbaric” Muslim men. It conjures up the image and the trope of a “terrorist.”
The US is lying about the resistance factions, particularly Hamas. And the primary mechanism is by painting them as “terrorists.” It’s no secret that many of the people now celebrated by US society openly were once considered terrorists at the receiving end of vicious propaganda campaigns aimed at assassinating their character and, therefore, their entire cause. Famously, Nelson Mandela was on the US Terrorist watch list until 2008. The African National Congress (ANC) tried nonviolent approaches to end South African apartheid, using mostly labor strikes and boycotts. But that all changed in 1960. When South African police killed 69 peaceful Black protesters, in an event known as the Sharpeville Massacre, the military wing of the ANC turned to armed struggle. Mandela himself stated the reason for this shift in strategy, saying in prison that “the armed struggle was forced on us by the government.”
“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.” Lenin, State and Revolution
In a similar manner, any reasonable assessment of Palestine would lead one to the same conclusion. The Palestinian people have exhausted all nonviolent and diplomatic means of struggle. The 1936 revolt started with a general strike. In Bilin, located in the West Bank, such nonviolent tactics have been employed on a weekly basis. The first intifada in the 1980’s included mass demonstrations and strikes. And, of course, no one can deny the diplomatic strategy employed by the Palestinian Authority and other parties, despite such entities being comprador regimes themselves. Yet, year after year, week after week, day after day, the Zionist entity massacres them, expands their illegal settlements, puts them under a blockage and siege, and maintains an overall system of apartheid as part of its ethnic cleansing, settler-colonial project.
For all these reasons and more, I cannot look at the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and come to any other conclusion other than it being a just response to a genocidal military occupation which has been engaged in a protracted displacement and extermination project against the Indigenous Palestinian people. Even the name, Al-Aqsa Flood, refers to occupation forces violently raiding the Al-Aqsa mosque earlier this year, brutalizing and arresting hundreds of Palestinians. In no way is this military action unprovoked, and in no way is Palestinian armed struggle uncalled for.
Despite these facts, the US imperialist and zionist media is determined to frame Hamas and the other resistance factions, if they even mention them at all, as barbaric and savage terrorists. They have repeated unsubstantiated claims, such as those about beheaded babies and rapes of women, both of which were later walked back by both governments. The media reported lies that Hamas called for a “day of Jihad” against all Jews, when in reality they called for a day of solidarity actions against the occupation. They even stated that Hamas itself wants to eliminate all Jews, despite their 2017 charter stating that their fight is not against the Jews because they are Jews but against the Zionist occupation.
It’s also worth noting that Hamas and the other resistance factions have continuously stated that they are not targeting civilians or children, and have released video proof of their treatment of civilians. However, the western media, in their biased coverage, have failed to highlight such moments.
So to sum up, after a close reading of the situation, we can determine that:
- Hamas and the other resistance factions have been led to armed struggle only after all such diplomatic and nonviolent means of struggle have already been exhausted;
- The image westerners have of Hamas and the other resistance groups is deformed by imperialist lies and propaganda, the majority of which have already been debunked or determined to be unsubstantiated, and that;
- The campaign to slander Hamas is not simply against Hamas as a political party but against the Palestinian resistance altogether, and thus against the entire Palestinian people.
Attempting to take my livelihood away for speaking in support of Palestinian resistance to genocide
So given that we have already established Hamas and the other resistance factions are engaging in a just war against a brutal and criminal occupation, and that many of the charges against them are either unsubstantiated or entirely fabricated, I released a short image stating that their armed struggle is a just war.
In response, one settler woman decided to not only post stories on her Instagram decrying my statement, but also find any possible employers of mine and tell them that I am “blaming innocent women for their brutal rapes.” She went even further and emailed a former employer, assuming I still work there, to urge them to fire me.
Although I am used to the unhinged acts of bourgeois and western women in reaction to perceived threats to their own privileged afforded to them by imperialism, what surprised me most was the response by a World Without Exploitation staff member.
World Without Exploitation, but maybe with a little genocide
World Without Exploitation (WWE) is a coalition of several member organizations who aim to “to create a world that is consistent with our name, where no person is bought, sold, or exploited.” As a leading name in the feminist movement and specifically in the movement of sex trade and trafficking survivors, I am horrified at the irresponsible and shameful statement that completely ignores and downplays the brutal occupation of Palestine.
On Thursday, October 12, the World Without Exploitation Instagram account posted the following one-sided and biased statement condemning the “war crimes” committed by Palestinian freedom fighters, standing in “solidarity” with only with the people living on stolen land, failing to mention the thousands of Palestinians killed and persecuted by the occupation, and repeating unsubstantiated claims of “rape” which have already been debunked.
It should be noted that by October 12th, the day the statement was released, the Zionist entity had already slaughtered 1,537 Palestinians in a span of 5 days. Among the 1,537 martyrs, 500 were children, and an additional 6,612 Palestinians were wounded.
Despite these horrific numbers, World Without Exploitation (WWE) expressed not even an iota of sympathy for the innocent men, women, and children who fell victim to the “collective punishment” strategy of the fascist Zionist regime. It should be noted, of course, that ignorance is not an excuse in this situation. By October 12, a whole 3 days before the WWE statement was released, the United Nations Humans Rights Council determined that “israeli” aggression against civilians “amounts to collective punishment,” is “absolutely prohibited under international law,” and therefore “amounts to a war crime.”
There is no excuse: “israeli” war crimes have a long and documented history
Furthermore, these war crimes perpetrated by the US-backed Zionist occupation are not new. In the beginning of 2023, human rights groups were already calling on the Zionist entity to cease their war crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank. In July of 2020, a UN human rights expert called on the Zionist entity to “immediately stop all actions amounting to collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” citing the millions of innocent people harmed by the entity on a daily basis. In 2018, human rights advocates accused “israel” of collective punishment, citing the 235 Palestinians killed by the Zionist entity in a span of 8 months and the shooting of around 6,000 Palestinians that March during demonstrations by the apartheid wall. “
That same year, Amnesty International accused the Zionist entity of a war crime for demolishing civilian homes and the “forcible transfer” of at least 180 Palestinian residents to “make way for illegal Jewish settlements.” Even earlier, in November 2010, Human Rights groups determined that the Israeli Occupation Forces committed a war crime when 2 of its soldiers were “found guilty of using a Palestinian boy as a human shield” in the 2008–09 offensive, with the only sentence given to the soldiers being a demotion from staff sergeants to sergeants with a three month suspension, what they said amounts to a “slap on the wrist” for the war criminals and a “slap in the face” to the Palestinian victims.
Despite the long and documented list of abuses and war crimes by the Zionist entity, including the war crimes committed by the occupation since Oct. 7, 2023 alone, the organization that alleges to work for a “world without exploitation” apparently excludes the crimes of settler-colonialism from its definition of “exploitation.”
After several comments by now former WWE supporters demanding a recognition of the occupation’s crimes against Palestinians, WWE deleted the statement and posted an edited statement on their Instagram story. This statement still repeated the unsubstantiated claims of rape which have, at the time of both statements, already been retracted by major news agencies, including the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 9, for the lack of any supporting evidence. It also failed to mention the war crimes committed by the occupation and the civilians it slaughtered.
In the US, a man broke into a family’s home, stabbed a 6-year old child 26 times, killing him, and leaving his mother critically injured. He did this, according to the local Sheriff’s Office, because they were Muslim. Some news agencies are now reporting that 1,000 children have been murdered by the Zionist entity, including 320 babies. On October 23, “at least 4,651 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, while more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since October 7.”
Where is your sympathy for them? Do they not deserve solidarity because they are Muslim or Arab? Or is it because showing solidarity with them might alienate the Zionist leaders in this movement?
Let’s be clear: The rhetoric that World Without Exploitation is pushing adds to the chorus of imperialist war propaganda that directly fuels both the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank as well as the terrorist attacks against Muslim women and children here in the US.
The movement against sexual exploitation cannot stay silent in the face of a 75-year long brutal occupation and a 16-year long blockade and siege. We must collectively condemn the Zionist entity, and the US support for it, as it cuts off the water supply, barring food supply and aid vehicles, and shutting off electricity to civilians in the Gaza strip.
Does genocide and ethnic cleansing have a place in your vision of a “world without exploitation?”
In a moment like this, a dividing line is drawn in the sand and both individuals and organizations are forced to choose which side of that line they stand on. Shamefully, some feminist organizations have chosen to stand on the side of ethnic cleansing, displacement, genocide, and Islamophobia. In doing so, these organizations and the ideologies which they represent are both becoming irrelevant and also alienating themselves from the exploited masses, including women survivors, who empathize more with an occupied people under siege than they do with an occupying army that has already slaughtered thousands of men, women, and children with impunity.
US imperialism fuels the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls around the globe. In a moment where US imperialism is supporting an unprecedented assault on an oppressed nation, it is unacceptable for a movement that claims to speak for survivors of the sex trade to support the most brutal manifestations of imperialism rather than opposing it. And it is equally shameful to condemn survivors the organization once promoted for speaking against the occupation.
World Without Exploitation promoted my story as a survivor of sexual exploitation when it was convenient for them, despite me clearly stating support of the Palestinian people in 2020.
You might argue that you are for the abolition of the sex trade but only with the abolition of all “wage labor.” Yet such a “negation through negation” argument leads to a dead end. The same argument is applied to Israel: “Yes the Israeli state is committing genocide against Palestinians, but all states are repressive, so we shouldn’t single out Israel.” Such logic leads only to inaction by downplaying work we can do to save lives right now on the road to a broader social revolution.
Now, they publicly condemn me for taking the same stance against occupation that I did 3 years ago. If they so vehemently disagreed with pro-Palestinian politics then they should never have promoted me in the first place. But because they are political opportunists, they thought they could overlook that in light of focusing on a trans woman who speaks against the sex trade. Well, fortunately for all of us, perhaps, that opportunism has been shattered today and we have all been forced to clearly show where we stand.
When the Palestinian people are under an unprecedented bombardment by the Zionist occupier, which dropped well over 6,000 bombs on a densely packed region where nearly half of the population is children — dropping the same amount of bombs in only 6 days that the US dropped on Afghanistan in an entire year — we cannot abandon the same politics that we once promoted. Such opportunism during a moment where all Americans should be demanding their government stop sending weapons that are being used to slaughter children and civilians is unacceptable. I refuse to allow my name to be attached to such a colonial and genocidal endeavor.
And while I appreciate the national director assuring me that my name and biography would be removed from their website, such actions are not enough. They must come out in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance to genocide, or else their position on this matter will forever be recorded in history in the same way as those who sympathized more with the Nazis than those in the concentration camps, more with the white settlers than the Black South African masses, more with the oppressor than with the oppressed. And to our movement sisters and brothers reading this, I want you to know that it’s not too late to stand on the right side of history.
Zionist fear tactics rely on their target being afraid
Of course, such fear tactics only work on those who are too afraid to speak the truth. But, I am not. Imperialism is a paper tiger and it always folds under the pressure of the people. Regardless, losing my job is nothing compared to the oppressed Palestinian people losing their lives and their precious futures because of a brutal occupation funded and sponsored by the US government. I refuse to remain silent in the face of such an obvious and clear-cut “conflict.”
After a call with the WWE director, I was assured that the only “official” statement made by the organization was that I am no longer employed with them. But when staff members appear to speak on behalf of the organization, in order to condemn the resistance and its sympathizers while essentially cosigning the occupation and its genocidal endeavors, such sentiments carry little weight.
Now is a time for all of us to be brave, a quality most embodied by the Palestinian people who have stated that they will live standing tall or die martyrs rather than succumb to the genocidal occupation. Whether or not the zionists will continue their repression campaign is up to them. They can take my job but they can never take my dignity or my principles. Only I can give that up.
I am not encouraging any harassment or violence against any individuals or organizations involved here. This is intended to simply be a reflection on the McCarthy-era repression campaigns launched against anyone expressing sympathy for the Palestinian struggle.
