Byline: This article was written by two Bay Area organizers who have been involved in the Palestine Solidarity movement since October 7th.
In the face of the ever-worsening genocide on Palestinians, there is an urgent need for those of us in the solidarity movement to review our conditions and strengthen our tactics. For the past two years, we have mainly targeted the financial and ideological ties of institutions — important, but slow work. With a genocide that shows no end in sight and little give from targeted institutions, it’s time for tactics that are riskier and more disruptive, tactics that can seize power.
We are now almost two years into Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide on Palestine. As we write this, Israel has begun its ground invasion of Gaza City, that will displace one million Palestinians. In the coming months, more than 2 million Palestinians will face famine due to Israel’s strategic aid and food blockade placed on Gaza. On September 9 the IDF carried out an airstrike in Qatar in an attempt to assassinate senior Hamas negotiators.
Israel has made it clear that it has no plans to stop the genocide. At this juncture, appeals to the morals and ethics of institutions, or demonstrations without a clear goal besides visibility and optics, are not enough. We must expand our tactics and goals to build veritable power against the state, which entails building a mass movement capable of coordinated, targeted action.
Of course, we must acknowledge the enormous risk of repression that disruption invites, especially under the current administration. In the past nine months, key organizers, overwhelmingly Palestinian and Arab, have been targeted and abducted by ICE and threatened with deportation. Many individuals have been driven out of the movement entirely, while others have succumbed to fear and hysteria, opting to “quell” the movement under the guise of safety and security. These include tactics like surveilling members, enforcing hierarchy and deference politics, and closing organizations off to outsiders, which effectively shrinks the movement’s base and reinforces a defensive posture. History, however, shows us that repression can be politically clarifying: each crackdown expands the pool of people ready to resist. Our task as organizers is to channel that energy into collective power.
So far, the movement has been led primarily by extremely insular vanguardist organizations that push limited pressure campaigns or organize marches for visibility. There is a dearth of radically open organizations that welcome and are willing to further politicize anyone willing to act, organizations that do not exclude based on identity, knowledge, or expertise. This demands that we push against the ever‑present fear of infiltration and make accurate assessments of where people are at, while also engaging in real coalitional work.
In the Bay Area various openings exist. Notably, the recent PYM (Palestinian Youth Movement) investigation uncovered arms shipments bound for Israel from the Oakland airport, a revelation that presents a ripe opportunity for disruption. From here we must organize strikes, block weapons shipments, and shut down government offices. We must turn the momentum of repression into a catalyst for an aggressive mass movement. Repression does not have to kill this movement; it can be a catalyst that forces a mass, coordinated movement.