This article appears in the November 10, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
The Dam Bursts
Mass Demonstrations for Peace Rock the World
[Print version of this article]
As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza now stretches past its fourth week, there has been a social explosion of anti-war demonstrations across the world, unprecedented in recent history. Not only has the level of atrocity against Gaza worsened, including Israel’s bombing of hospitals, refugee camps, and other majority civilian areas, but the responses from many leading figures have been hideous, challenging our most basic tenets of humanity. Statements justifying the indiscriminate killing of civilians have become common, including comments along the lines of “they voted for Hamas,” or “Hamas is hiding inside” these hospitals or refugee camps, therefore necessitating Israel’s destruction of those facilities.
Some officials have even used the precedent of actions taken by the Allies in World War II, even those widely viewed as war crimes such as the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany to justify the deaths of civilians today. In the United States, Sen. Lindsey Graham, argued that there should be “no limits” to acceptable levels of civilian casualties in Gaza, because that’s “the wrong question.” He instead pointed to the “sacrifices” required to achieve the surrender by Japan and Germany. A New York Times article from Oct. 30 even relays a report from Israeli officials who directly cited the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as necessary “to defeat those countries [Germany and Japan].”
More importantly, the mask of hypocrisy has begun to come off, revealing the true nature of a political establishment that finds justification in sacrificing untold numbers of civilians in order to maintain “democracy” and the “rules-based order.”
As President Biden stated in his Oct. 20 address to the American people: “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy,” locating them as opposing the post-World War II “peace in Europe.” U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Oct. 30 called for defeating the new “Axis of Evil” which he defined as Russia, China, and Iran. Even more explicit was the statement from Dr. Taras Kuzio, Research Associate of Britain’s Henry Jackson Society, who wrote recently that Hamas’ attack proves the need for the “military defeat of the anti-Western axis” in order to save the “U.S.-led unipolar world that has been in place since the end of World War II.”
Any sane person should find it bizarre that stopping some “anti-Western axis” boogeyman is being used to justify what is clearly becoming a genocide of Palestinians. There are few words to describe the horrors of the events unfolding in Gaza, but to quote from the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, during his Oct. 30 report to the UN Security Council:
The scale of horror people are experiencing is really hard to convey. We have very real fears about what lies ahead. The current situation in Gaza may pale in comparison with what is to come.
In response to this, and to the callous reactions of supposed “leaders,” mass non-violent demonstrations and calls for a ceasefire have erupted worldwide. From sit-ins, to marches, to interventions on politicians, there has not been this level of citizen-activism for decades. It indicates the emergence of a new political environment.
Actions Everywhere
Mass demonstrations are becoming a daily phenomenon. In the United States, a Nov. 4 national rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C. is reported to have drawn more than one hundred thousand people from around the country, who demanded that Congress and the Biden Administration force through an immediate ceasefire to stop the assault on Gaza.
Protests have taken place in dozens of cities across the U.S. and even more around the world, many with attendees numbering in the multiple thousands. A demonstration in London at the end of October reportedly reached half a million
In Minnesota, Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg interrupted a speech to a Democratic Party fundraiser by President Biden in Minneapolis to demand a cease-fire, while at the same time thousands demonstrated outside. Members of the LaRouche movement have confronted other officials, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Sit-ins have occurred at the Cannon House Office Building, in Washington, New York City’s Grand Central Station, Philadelphia’s 30th St. train station, Liverpool England’s train station, and outside the White House. There was even a short demonstration inside a Boston area National Public Radio (NPR) station. They have also occurred at countless Congressional offices, including those of: Representatives Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Sean Casten (D-IL), Val Hoyle (D-OR), Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Katie Porter (D-CA); also Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Brian Schatz (D-HI).
On Oct. 31, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discovered he could not testify before the Senate without protest, and was interrupted five times, one after another, by different members of CODEPINK. On Nov. 2, several dozen protesters shut down a Durham, North Carolina highway at rush hour by sitting on the road, as hundreds supported their action from the side of the road. On Nov. 3, protesters in California at the Port of Oakland delayed the sailing of a ship carrying armaments to Israel; more protesters were prepared to “Block the Boat” when it arrived in Tacoma, Washington.
In addition to this, a coalition of five Belgian transport workers unions started refusing to load or unload arms destined for Israel on Oct. 31. The unions argue that “while genocide is occurring in Palestine, loading or unloading these weapons would mean contributing to the killing of innocent people.”
Police-state measures on U.S. campuses aimed at intimidating students from speaking out for justice in Palestine are backfiring. On Oct. 25, students staged walkouts on over 100 college campuses, and mass actions have continued from there. Fierce debates have been taking place at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, and many other campuses over the nature of free speech and expression versus the efforts to “dox” and intimidate students who speak out against Israel’s war crimes.
On Nov. 2, some 30 students demonstratively walked out of a Hillary Clinton lecture at Columbia University, in protest of Clinton’s and the university’s de facto approval of doxxing trucks that have been circling on and around the campus, displaying on large digital billboards the photographs of students who have participated in pro-Palestinian rallies, and slandering them as “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites.”
Not surprisingly, public support in the U.S. for a bloody conflict in Palestine is low. A survey conducted by Data for Progress found that 66% of voters either “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that a ceasefire should be called. This includes 57% of Independents, 56% of Republicans, and 80% of Democrats.
The Strategic Context
As EIR readers will recognize, these protests are taking place within a much larger strategic context—something which the majority of the demonstrators themselves are likely not conscious of.
Over the recent two months, NATO’s war in Ukraine has all but failed, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive has flopped and Russia has restarted forward operations. At the same time, a growing faction within the U.S. Congress has put its foot on the brakes of any further funding, putting into question Ukraine’s sole lifeline: American dollars and military materiel. Despite a new Speaker of the House along with much hooting and hollering over the importance of defending Israel in its war against Hamas, Republicans have resisted efforts to package Ukraine aid with the agreed-upon Israel aid, vowing to keep them separate, and thus non-existent for Ukraine. Many admissions have been made, implicitly as well as explicitly, that that cause is winding down.
For over 30 years now, U.S. and NATO wars throughout Southwest Asia and North Africa, in every case, have proven to be abject failures. Not only did these wars squander trillions of dollars and leave the countries far worse than before “democracy” was brought to them, but the number of suicides of veterans has far surpassed the actual combat deaths of American soldiers during those conflicts. This is not to mention the millions of lives sacrificed within these countries themselves. These were not a series of bad coincidences. The fault was the policy itself—a “divide and conquer” strategy targeting any nation deemed a threat to the continued reign of the “rules-based order.” (This has itself played a significant role in creating and spreading currents of radical Islamic militancy, in an ongoing vicious cycle which must now be stopped.)
It is this policy which is behind the war in Ukraine—not a war to defend Ukraine or democracy, but a war to “weaken” Russia, as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in 2022. Despite intensive arm-twisting to get the world to “isolate” Russia, the West has succeeded in getting only a handful of nations outside of the EU to join their anti-Russia sanctions, and Russia has continued to enjoy strong or stronger relations with countries outside of the Western bubble. Much of the world has instead opted for peace, calling for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the conflict.
Beyond this, the discussion about a new system which recognizes the realities of a “multipolar” world has rapidly expanded. From August 22-25, the BRICS countries convened in Johannesburg, South Africa made major moves toward the creation of new avenues of cooperation and economic development, including adding six new members and furthering plans for the creation of new economic systems. Paired with China’s Belt and Road Initiative—the largest engine of economic development in the world today—a serious dynamic of growth is now in motion.
It can be definitively stated that the world is undergoing a transition it has never seen before, as members of the so-called Global South have declared that neocolonial powers will no longer run the world.
Over the past year and a half, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has insisted that today’s peace movement must join with this movement against colonialism coming from the BRICS and the Global South, if a real alternative to the architecture of endless geopolitical conflict is to become possible. Consider the fact that four of the new BRICS members—Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt—surround Israel and Palestine. The dynamic of economic growth represented in the BRICS nations could commence the process of increasing the standard of living from one generation to the next—an urgent requirement for Palestine—restoring the sense of human dignity which must be the cornerstone of any durable peace process. As Lyndon LaRouche said in 1986:
Durable agreements on peace and mutual security, among groups of nations, are critical for economic development. Without cooperation in economic development, political agreements lack the durability to survive.
The Spiritual Challenge
The protests which have broken out in response to the conflict in Southwest Asia now have the chance to catalyze an entirely different political process within Western nations and the world at large. While many of the people now protesting were silent during the past twenty months of the Ukraine conflict, and may not understand the broader strategic context, this is nonetheless an activation of sanity which is opening a tremendous opportunity. Beyond that, it is an activation of a love of humanity in a society that had become nearly numb over these 30 years of wars based on geopolitical lies—otherwise known as “We know better than you.”
It is of note that there is a near complete lack of violence in these protests, with many even incorporating music and song into their demonstrations. As with the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi’s movement for Indian independence, if a group of people can respond to an injustice with a desire, not for retribution, but to address the fundamental causes of that injustice—then the cause becomes ennobled, and the movement sets its sights on a higher mission.
As English poet and political organizer Percy Shelley said in 1812, there are certain occasions—
which excite the benevolent passions that generalize and expand private into public feelings, and make the hearts of individuals vibrate not merely for themselves, their families and their friends, but for posterity, for a people, till their country becomes the world and their family, the sensitive creation….[fn_1]
Such is the task today—to evoke those “benevolent passions” and work toward a common future for all, born and unborn. Whether or not today’s crisis can become a catalyst to forever end that oligarchic disease currently marching us toward a tragic end, will likely depend on it.
[fn_1]. Paul Gallagher, “A Mass Strike—For the Benefit of Mankind,” EIR, January 25, 2019. [back to text for fn_1]
