From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go!

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction
By Sumaya Awad and brian bean, Eds.
Haymarket Books, 2020

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” is more than a slogan, it’s the call of a liberation movement. The Palestinian struggle for liberation is international and the fight for socialism begins when we unite to fight imperialism, colonialism and capitalism. The anthology Palestine: A Socialist Introduction published by Haymarket Books, gives us an overview of the possibilities of a better world, starting with Palestinian liberation. Editors Sumaya Awad and brian bean offer us a succinct historical background of Palestinian liberation and an internationalist framework of socialism from below through which we can view this struggle.

This book is key to understand the politics surrounding Palestine and the need for self-determination to end the Israeli occupation. We also learn that the fight against U.S. imperialism in the Middle East starts with the sovereignty of Arab nations and building a revolutionary Left to challenge capitalism and how the U.S. and Israel use their capital to impose their power over other nations.

The book also provided useful historical lessons about Palestinian liberation. For example, in the chapter titled “The National Liberation Struggle; A Socialist Analysis” there is a very interesting section that covers the foundation of a left-wing Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) which split from Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that acted in a reactionary way towards nationalist Arab states. The DFLP presented the politics of the working class as the only force to win against Israel and U.S. imperialism. The DFLP was the first resistance group that advocated to work with allies in the Israeli Left. They also supported the creation of a “secular, democratic state” in Palestine where both Palestinians and Jews would have equal rights. An important difference is that the DFLP presented an independent mass movement that resists U.S. imperialism and Arab regimes.

The resistance starts with Arab workers building a socialist alternative centering those who produce all the oil and wealth having democratic control over the means of production. Those political positions are important today because our resistance relies on the working class of the world. Palestine winning this struggle is a key victory in building a socialist alternative across all nations.

This work also claims that Palestinian liberation is linked to U.S. immigration and the struggle to abolish ICE. In the chapter “Cops Here, Bombs There”, Black-Palestinian solidarity activist Khury Petersen-Smith argues that the struggle for Palestinian liberation is linked to liberation of Latinos in the U.S. For example, the US uses Israeli technology to monitor immigrants crossing the border. In a statement published by the Committee of Black Americans for Truth in the Middle-East in the New York Times on November 1, 1970, presented the argument of a united struggle against imperialism. They stated “We state that the exploitation experienced by Afro-Americans, Native Americans (Indians), Puerto Ricans, and Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) is similar to the exploitation of Palestinian Arabs and Oriental Jews by the Zionist State of Israel''.

Those similarities are shown in the struggle against the use of drones manufactured by Israel’s Elbit System, and how they are used in the U.S. southern border. Another connection is the tear gas used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinians is also used against asylum seekers and the Black activists during the Ferguson uprising. The struggle against imperialism is international because they are tied to the freedom of the right to return of Palestinians, the right to seek asylum at the border and the right to fight for Black lives.

As an immigrant living in the United States, this book speaks to me in several ways. For example, the struggle of immigrants coming to the U.S. for a better life is tied to Palestinian liberation. Our land was also taken from us through war waged against Mexico. I was born in Ensenada “Baja California” and today I live in Los Angeles “Alta California” which was once a Mexican territory. The U.S. and Mexico ended the war with the “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo'' that gave control of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and half of Colorado to the U.S. Our struggle continues today to fight to legalize all undocumented people living in the U.S. and to have all full rights.

This book is essential for Latinx who want to understand, analyze and organize for Palestinian liberation, while also drawing a connection to what happens in the U.S-Mexico border. It is a key analysis for anyone who wants to organize solidarity across the world against colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. Our struggle is the same across the globe and working-class unity is key to achieve success. While it may seem cliché to some, Marx’s words from are still apt, “Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

Josué Ammerman is an immigrant anti-capitalist writer and activist. He lives in Los Angeles California.