We Are the Revolution: The National March on Washington to Free Palestine

by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

On Saturday November 4, 2023, tens of thousands of people (estimates are as high as 300,000) converged on the nation’s capital in the largest pro-Palestine march in U.S. history. The National March on Washington to Free Palestine was organized by a coalition of anti-war and pro-Palestinian groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations, including DSA.

For weeks, our own rallies in Rochester had grown from tens of people to hundreds, as the reality of the situation in Gaza set in. Now, the masses gathered in D.C. demonstrated the gathering strength of the movement. While there have been previous pro-Palestine marches on the nation’s capital, the largest was estimated at 35,000.

I arrived in D.C. on Saturday morning with a group from ROC DSA. We were welcomed by the sight of Palestinian flags in the hands of those wandering the streets or exploring monuments prior to the event. Stepping into a nearby café, we found many of its occupants wearing keffiyehs.

The atmosphere in Freedom Plaza was somber but comradely. It was a comfort to be among others unable to remain silent to the horrors we are seeing. The opportunity to challenge this madness, by raising our voices in the seat of power, promised cathartic release.

It was a diverse crowd—in race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality—but predominated by the youth. The popularity of the Palestinian Youth Movement and National Students for Justice in Palestine, along with growing Palestinian solidarity across U.S. campuses, signals eroding support for Israeli apartheid and a future of opposition.

A Union of Movements

The March also represented a diversity of causes, but with a unity of mission: to dismantle structures of U.S. imperialism. Speakers from Indigenous, Black, feminist, and international justice movements described their struggles and expressed solidarity with that of the Palestinians.

The legacy of the U.S. government, charged Mohammed Nabulsi of the Palestinian Youth Movement, “includes slavery and Jim Crow, genocidal campaigns against the indigenous people of this land, genocidal campaigns against the people of the global South, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan,” and support for fascist dictatorships and right-wing coups. Military and moral support for Israel’s genocide is a continuation of this bloody history.

Krystal Two Bulls of Honor the Earth, spoke of the treatment of Native Americans:

“We weren’t supposed to survive this settler colonial project. They tried to massacre us. … They tried to kill our life sources. They tried to take out the buffalo, and the salmon, and contaminate our waters. They forcibly removed us from our lands and chased us down like animals when we tried to return home. They sterilized our women and kidnapped our children and tried to kill the Indian to save the man.

And when they failed—because they failed—they now try to silence us and erase us from the history books. But we are still here, and we survive. And to my Palestinian relatives, so will you.”

Such acts of elimination are repeated on Palestinians. Israel restricts access to water and demolishes wells. Olive trees are uprooted and foraging is criminalized. Homes are bulldozed and Palestinians expelled from their lands. Palestinians, too, face historical erasure, encapsulated in Israeli prime minister Golda Meir’s infamous suggestion that “there were no such thing as Palestinians.”

Other speakers invoked the Civil Rights struggle. Jonel Edwards of Dream Defenders sang a refrain from the era: “What side are you on?” to which the crowd responded, “we on the freedom side.” The choice to stand against Israeli apartheid is as clear as opposing racial segregation. Black leaders recognized the connection of these struggles, including Malcolm X, who supported “the right of the Arab refugees to return to their Palestine homeland,” and Kwame Ture, who declared that the “[Palestinians] will win because theirs is a just struggle.”

Nina Macapinlac of Bayan USA, led the crowd in a chant used in opposition to the U.S.-backed Philippines dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos—“Makibaka! Huwag matakot!” (“Fight! Do not be afraid”).

“As Filipinos we know what it is like to struggle against foreign occupation and domination. … For centuries the Philippines was colonized by Spain and colonized by the United States and up to today remains a U.S. neo-colony. … Philippine and Palestinian liberation are inextricably linked because we have a common enemy.”

And Ju-Hyun Park of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, asserted that “we have one struggle, the struggle against imperialism.”

Channeling Our Power

When the crowd chanted, shouts reverberated off the surrounding buildings and hung in the air. The gathering showed the strength of our numbers. But to end Israeli occupation and genocide we must develop a strategy beyond marching. Throughout the day, many suggestions were put forward.

First, we must educate. A surprising moment occurred when the rapper Macklemore appeared on stage. “They told me to do my research,” he said. “In the last three weeks I’ve gone back, and I’ve done some research, and I’m teachable; I don’t know enough, but I know enough that this is a genocide.”

The events in Palestine did not start on October 7. The British-backed Balfour Declaration, calling for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, was issued on November 2, 1917. During the 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe”), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced for the creation of the Jewish state. Now, “Israel’s leaders call for a second Nakba as if the first one ever ended,” said Nabulsi. Recent images of Palestinians fleeing their homes reveals the continuity with this moment of inception.

Second, we must continue to pressure the country’s leaders to call for #CeasefireNOW. DSA’s No Money for Massacres campaign has made around 250,000 calls urging representatives to do so. More than fifty have now voiced support. The recent six-day truce falls short of a ceasefire as the necessary first step in ending the occupation.

But it will take more than phone calls to end the genocide. As Nabulsi put it, “we do not stand here because we believe that we can appeal to your conscience to end genocide. We stand here because the power of the people will force you to.”

President Joe Biden has quickly become the face of these horrors. Biden has made only tepid remarks to calm Israel’s bombing while repeating false claims about beheaded babies and mythical Hamas headquarters under al-Shifa hospital, and disputing the legitimacy of the death toll reported from Gaza. Biden bragged about sending $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Gazans, but continues to supply weapons to kill them in much greater volume. As Brian Becker of ANSWER Coalition put it, “Israel pulls the trigger, but the U.S. government sends the weapons, they pay the bills; it’s their genocide too!”

“Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” chanted the crowd. The pressure building over Palestine directly threatens the reelection of “Genocide Joe” Biden. If the President refuses to respect the wishes of his voters, he cannot take their votes for granted. The election may be a full year away, but this only provides additional time for horrors to unfold and be laid at Biden’s feet. Those present at the March promised that “in November we remember,” and “no ceasefire, no votes.”

Third, demands for Palestinian liberation must be backed by the threat of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. We must refuse to support businesses that profit off the occupation, and pressure pensions, college campuses, and corporations to divest from Israel. Most importantly, the U.S. must end all military aid to Israel and condition future aid on an end to apartheid and occupation.

Finally, we must take direct action by setting our bodies upon the gears of war. Calling to “Shut it Down,” disruptions have promised no business as usual while support for genocide continues. Targets have included weapons manufacturers Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin, the investment company Blackrock, media entities New York Times and Fox News, college campuses, transportation infrastructure, political events, and individual politicians.

We can only accomplish these tasks by continuing to organize a mass movement. In addition to a visible demonstration of strength, protests and marches provide an opportunity to join organizations or to link arms across movements. Those present at the March were encouraged by Celine Qussiny of the Palestinian Youth Movement to “take a good look around you. Remember the energy that you’re feeling today and bring it home with you. Bring it to your workplaces, your schools, your neighborhoods, your streets.”

Those taking part in the struggle must support one another as a community. We have seen the consequences for those speaking out against genocide in lost jobs, censorship, and condemnation. “They want us to think that we are paying personal prices,” said Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd. “They want us to think that we are alone, but we have our people supporting us.”

“Are you afraid?” he asked. “No!” came the resounding cry.

We Are the Revolution

“This march is the beginning,” proclaimed several speakers. It is often said that financial bankruptcy happens “slowly, then all at once.” The same is coming true for the unraveling of American empire.

Following Donald Trump, it was claimed that Biden would restore America’s moral leadership. Not only has he failed in this regard, but America’s complicity in genocide has exposed the hollow reality of the entire liberal order. Its ideals of democracy and human rights have been quickly sacrificed on the altar of power.

At the pro-war “March for Israel,” Democratic Party leadership—our supposed saviors from Republican fascism—joined the stage alongside election deniers and bigots. CNN and other news outlets have accepted censorship as the price of access for ride-alongs with the lie-prone IDF. And the “rules based international order” has been revealed to mean nothing but submission to U.S. imperialism.

Afro-Caribbean writer Aimé Césaire recognized Hitler’s fascism as the application to Europe of “colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.” In the same way, endless funding to maintain overseas American military hegemony manifests at home in the militarization of police, expansion of the surveillance state, and crushing of dissent. Techniques adapted from the occupied territories are used to reinforce America’s ongoing racial segregation.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government makes no pretense of providing material security for its people. “What are they doing for us today?” asked Edwards.

“Universal healthcare is too expensive. Canceling student debt is too expensive. Everything for the people is too expensive. But when it comes to funding the police, funding militarism, they always cut the check.”

These revelations are causing a shift in tone. In front of the White House, the marchers announced their presence: “We are the revolution.” A new era will be ushered in by these generations for whom the American mythos has been dispelled. The optimism of the moment was expressed in chants of “I believe that we will win.”

We will continue to organize for the liberation of Palestine and decolonization in all its forms. As Ahmad Abuznaid of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights quoted from the Palestinian poem Enemy of the Sun, famously found in the prison cell of Black Panther George Jackson: “I shall not compromise, and to the last pulse in my veins, I shall resist.”