By Sara Flounders
August 29, 2024

This article is based on a talk on a webinar of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain, titled: “Gaza Genocide: Escalating Tragedy and the Role of Normalization in Fueling the Suffering,” held on Aug.26. Flounders spoke on behalf of the International Action Center.

The “Normalization of Genocide” is not an oversight. It is not just ignoring this horrendous and daily “Crime Against Humanity” in Gaza today. It is a systematic U.S., British and European Union policy of conscious erasure of practically all discussion and information of this crime.

It starts with the assassination, execution and martyrdom of courageous journalists operating on the ground in Gaza and in the West Bank.

Censorship of all media

The censorship of all forms of media is without parallel in the U.S. and among all the imperialist powers.  It is censorship by the closing of tens of thousands of Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts and the interruption of Zoom calls. All social media sites are privately owned by billionaires. They operate to promote and advance U.S. imperialist interests.

Normalization is consciously prohibiting information about the complete destruction of hospitals, medical clinics, schools and universities. The blocking of all food, water, immunizations and basic medicine is the U.S./Zionist strategy.

In the U.S., we saw this erasure, in glaring detail, in both the Republican and Democratic Party conventions. Both imperialist parties blocked any mention of Palestine, or any opposition to U.S.-funded and equipped total war. The conventions were totally scripted and censored.  No Palestinian or even a Muslim speaker was allowed on the Democratic National Convention’s podium.

Vice President Kamala Harris gave the most hawkish acceptance speech ever presented, according to the New York Times, which totally supports her.

The choices

To those here today who say there is no choice but to swallow abuse and vote for the Democrats, I ask, why run after someone who insults you and lies to you?

Instead look to defend and support those many thousands of young activists who are risking everything to defend Gaza.

It does not help to say one group of conciliators is better than the other. That means that conscious betrayal of the party’s own voters and supporters is acceptable.

Millions of people in the streets, in demonstrations, in college encampments have faced mass arrests, suspensions and cuts in financial aid. They are the force we should rely on. We should not be part of shutting down their voices and telling them that their vote for either corrupt party will make the changes needed.

The people of the world and even here in the U.S. are continuing to support Palestine in overwhelming millions.

The break in the criminal imperialist policy will not come from either U.S. political party. The entire strategy of the U.S. is to continue the genocide and to provide Israel with every possible means of support to continue its destruction.

The rulings of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, so well summarized in this webinar, are ignored with a shrug. They are barely reported in the U.S. corporate media. There is no accountability.

Lessons of the Vietnam War 

U.S. aircraft carriers ring all of Western Asia, every body of water. But they are afraid to fire because they fear the firestorm of response.

It is crucial now to remember past struggles against U.S. imperialist wars. During the height of the Vietnam War, despite millions of people marching in the streets, there was never even a resolution passed in the U.S. Congress or serious effort by the Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, nor by Republican President Richard Nixon, to oppose continued bombing. They all talked about wanting peace, while bombing Vietnam.

It was only after the war ended in complete U.S. defeat and U.S. troops and their backers were out of Vietnam — after the war was over — that Congress held inquiries.

The U.S. withdrew only because the Vietnamese resistance at every level could not be defeated, and the mass movement here was overwhelmingly opposed to the war, not because there were courageous politicians. U.S. soldiers and U.S.-recruited Vietnamese soldiers refused to fight. The AWOL soldiers, the resisters heading to Canada and the deserters and no-shows exceeded the number of potential U.S. soldiers willing to be drafted.

This is happening in Israel today. The Zionist state is collapsing. It is literally pulling itself apart with in-fighting. Companies without supplies are going bankrupt. Unemployment is huge. People are leaving by the thousands. This is the Zionist future.

The Israeli economy is totally shattered. But more U.S. money is being pumped in — more weapons and more promises of unending support.

We need to remain confident that real change comes from below, from grassroots movements. Every political movement for change in the U.S. and also in the Arab world has come from the grass roots. This is the strength of the Palestinian resistance.

The world movement has to keep defending the Palestinian resistance and defending all those fighting right here.