January 20, 2025

Resistance in Palestine and West Asia has mobilized an important movement in the U.S. and other NATO countries for over 15 months to demand the genocide in Gaza stop. A ceasefire has finally been achieved. This movement must ask itself the following question: What do we do now to contribute to liberation for Palestine?

Despite the avalanche of pro-imperialist propaganda from the Israeli and Western corporate media, hundreds of millions of people around the world have been propelled into action to oppose the horrible, genocidal war against Gaza. Millions have learned that Israel is an extension of world imperialism. The people know now, if they didn’t already, that the U.S., its NATO allies and Israel use military technology to murder civilians, including children; the imperialists and Israel destroy schools, homes, workplaces and hospitals.

And the people learned that despite this imperialist ruling class’s ruthless cruelty and advanced weapons, it is possible to resist.

The first thing this movement should do is make sure no one forgets that lesson: Resistance is possible.

The second is to refuse to demobilize those anti-imperialist forces that have been in motion. Those who have been battling on the campuses and the streets denouncing the Israeli war crimes and the complicit role of U.S. and NATO imperialism, which have kept the Israel Occupation Forces armed with the bombs, rockets and ammunition for genocide, those forces must continue their solidarity with Palestine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and General Yoav Gallant remain two Israeli war criminals facing charges at the International Criminal Court. The journalists who confronted the outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at his final news conference set a good example. Blinken too is guilty of genocide. Those confronting the new cabinet nominees have it right. The new administration is no less dangerous to the people of the world.

We at the International Action Center are part of the movement that developed over the past 15 months, and we know this movement must continue with the same determination. The lessons of this period will feed and nourish the ongoing struggle that will be as necessary as it was from October 7, 2023, until now.

We must continue fighting for the just punishment of the Israeli genocidal regime and its NATO backers. Continue demanding to boycott, divest and sanction the crumbling Israeli economy, continue to fight to stop supplying Israel with weapons, and expand the fight to stop feeding the military budget of the U.S., its NATO allies, Australia and Japan. This last demand is an essential part of the struggle for the working class in all these countries.

We must continue to expose the lies of the Israelis and the imperialists. This starts by telling the truth about almost 77 years of land theft from the Palestinians, who the Zionist settlers expelled starting in 1948. It continues with exposing the lies about October 7, 2023, itself. Even some Israeli media have admitted that hundreds of the casualties that day were caused by the Israeli forces following their “Hannibal Directive” that dictates they slaughter their own population rather than allowing them to be captured.

We must demand that the oppressive Israeli state free all the Palestinian hostages that they have seized, held in prison and, yes, tortured, and not only in the last 15 months.

Whatever course the ceasefire takes — and we have no confidence that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or President Donald Trump will adhere to the agreement — we must hold the imperialist warlords’ feet to the fire and keep them from restarting the genocidal war.

Only while strengthening our commitment to Palestine can we develop the working-class struggle needed here in the center of world imperialism to confront the cabal of oligarchs now reigning in Washington and their imperialist opposition in the outgoing administration. We will continue to thank the Palestinians and their allies in West Asia for showing us how to be brave, resilient and steadfast under the most horrific conditions.