Contents:
I. CUAD MARTYRS DAY: THE MEANING OF MARTYRDOM
II. “HINDS HOUSE: THE POLITIC OF THE PERFECT VICTIM” - BY THE HINDS HOUSE COLLECTIVE
III. RESISTANCE FORCES REACH NEW HEIGHTS AS GENOCIDE CONTINUES
IV. FREEING OURSELVES FROM THE CONSTRAINTS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS
V. "OUR REVOLUTION MEANS JUSTICE:" INSIGHTS FROM THE PFLP AND BEYOND
VI. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
CUAD MARTYRS DAY: THE MEANING OF MARTYRDOM
“Comrades, our duty toward these martyrs is to clearly discern things, see our cause clearly, proclaim it, and decide to act in the light of clear evidence that our revolution will continue to endure and exist in this way, and that no force in the world is capable of dominating the masses of our Palestinian and Arab people.”
-George Habash
Since October 2023 approximately 186,000 Palestinians have been martyred at the hands of the US-backed Zionist regime. The people of Gaza have lived in the most brutal and unimaginable conditions for over a year while simultaneously having to grieve their dead family members. Palestinians in Gaza have remained committed to honoring their loved ones even in death, performing Janazah prayers, the Islamic funeral prayer, for each martyr and giving them a proper burial when they can. The people of Gaza remind us that this material world is only temporary and that we must remain committed to liberation despite unbearable hardship.
The word “martyr” or shaheed شهيد in Arabic in the Palestinian context is a term used to describe anyone who has been killed at the hands of the Zionist entity or its rhetoric. The martyr is not only in Palestine. We honor and recognize all of our martyrs across the world who have been killed at the hands of Zionist ideology. We honor them the way we honor those who have been martyred in Palestine. We remember the 6-year-old Palestinian American boy from Chicago, Illinois, Wadea Al Fayoume, who was stabbed to death 26 times by his landlord in October 2023 due to the Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism that has surged in the past year.
We also know that the martyr is not only Muslim. While generally martyrdom has a religious connotation, in the Palestinian sense the martyr is honored by all regardless of their faith. In the words of Palestinian writer and revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani: “Death means a lot. The important thing is to know why. Self-sacrifice, within the context of revolutionary action, is an expression of the very highest understanding of life, and of the struggle to make life worthy of a human being.”
The idea of martyrdom being the greatest honor for Palestinians is not because they love death, rather it is because they love life so much that they are willing to accept the greatest sacrifice to continue the struggle for the freedom of the people. The martyr and former Secretary General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in 1997 when he was commemorating the martyrdom of his own son Hadi Nasrallah: “Before being a battle with guns and weapons, it is a battle of ideology, faith, loyalty, truth, reliance on God, aspiration to martyrdom, renunciation of worldly pleasures, the love of others, and the desire to serve them.” We mustn’t lose hope because the will and faith of our people are just; our fight is always just.
The Palestinian people create life and hope from death. They will choose martyrdom before they give up. Salah Mahmoud, a devoted father and husband, who was martyred in Gaza wrote his last facebook post before he was martyred. It read: “They think if they open up the border we’ll leave, but we’re never leaving Gaza unless it’s to our graves. We remain on Gaza soil liberated, or under it as martyrs.” Salah Mahmoud left behind his wife, daughter, and newborn son. Martyrdom is perceived as the ultimate sacrifice in Palestinian society and every single death is an act of resistance to the brutal Zionist occupation.
In an Islamic sense, martyrdom is very significant. Most people in Gaza are Muslim and in their pain and suffering they turn to Allah. As the people of Gaza complete the funeral rites, they know that the bodies of the martyrs - men, women, and children - are whole and unscathed in Jannah (heaven). In the Quran, Allah says: “Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it.” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:154).
The Zionist entity tries to take the right to proper mourning and burial away from the Palestinians in Gaza, but the people refuse. People are still burying their loved ones with only pieces of them present and even then, the Zionist entity frequently destroys graveyards. Through the immense destruction, pain, suffering, and heartbreak that the genocide has caused, the people in Gaza’s faith remains their priority. They thank God for every day and remain steadfast in their commitment to life and liberation. Earlier this year, during the Zionist entity’s 14 day siege of Al Shifa Hospital Complex, the martyrs wrote their final words on the walls of the hospital. Each and every single one that was photographed made mention of God’s will. The martyrs wrote “Praise be to Allah. By God, mother, I am exhausted. But praise be to Allah anyway… by God’s will we’ll get out.” Another photo of the wall read: “We accept what Allah SWT has decreed for us and we will not despair of the coming relief, God willing.”
Often seen in videos of people in Gaza, we hear them repeat the verse from the Quran حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ which means "Allah alone is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs” (Surah Ali ‘Imran 3:173). When the whole world has turned its back on the people of Gaza, they remain in unwavering dedication to Allah SWT and their faith. They know that whatever justice is not served in this lifetime, it will surely be served in the next.
Honoring our martyrs is a commitment to liberation and a commitment to never accepting defeat. Those who have separated resistance from the path to liberation are those who see martyrdom as a failure or the end of life. This thought process is simply untrue. Death is not the end for Palestinians. Every death and every martyr will be avenged. The path of the martyr is there by the path to life.
On November 11, CUAD honored Martyrs Day. In the US, this holiday, known as Veterans Day, was created to honor the patriotism, love of country, and sacrifice of American veterans. We refuse to honor the US war machine and its imperial project, and we recognize atrocities unleashed on others through its existence. Instead, we have decided to take this day and claim it for those martyred by the Israel-US war machine as Martyrs Day. Today, we will honor the patriotism, love of country, and sacrifice of our martyrs in Palestine.
On this day, we came together to grieve those lost, those who can’t be found, and those who can’t be whole again. To do this, we planted poppies for martyrs, for Palestinian martyrs, for Lebanese martyrs, for Syrian martyrs, and for any person martyred by the Zionist entity. We planted poppies for Palestinians, a people full of love and loyalty for their country, who refuse to be divorced from their land, to honor their enduring spirit, strength, and resilience. The poppy represents the blood of the martyrs and their resistance against the Zionist entity. We took a poppy, read the martyr’s story, and wrote their name down before we planted it into the field in front of Butler Library to commit their existence to our collective memory. In our own way, we returned these martyrs to the field of poppies as a final resting place because the poppies in Palestine belong to Palestinians just as much as the land it grows in.
CUAD continues to remember the martyrs of Palestine and we continue to push for divestment at Columbia. We learn from our martyrs and their words and know that death is not the end. The people of Palestine remain steadfast and we look to them to teach us what it truly means to live.
HINDS HOUSE: THE POLITIC OF THE PERFECT VICTIM
submission from Hinds House Collective
During the inception of HINDS HOUSE, we were met with the question: why invoke the name of Hind Rajab again? This introspection was necessary, as we are now over a year into the genocide against Palestinians by the imperial-zionist project. The Gaza Health Ministry has cataloged the names and identities of over 34,000 martyrs as of September 24, though most remain unnamed. We know that the circumstances of Hind’s murder are far from unique. The systematic murder of children is inherent to the imperialist Zionist project, and there are irrefutably tens of thousands of children who have met a similar fate.
The insistence on Hind’s story underscores a larger issue: the struggle to comprehend the vast, unyielding scale of death. Hind’s martyrdom is a wound that will never heal, not because it is singular, but because it reveals with undeniable clarity the blatant failure of every Western institution—from governments to tech companies, from NGOs to media outlets. As Westerners, we can no longer hide from our complicity. On the other hand, Hind’s murder was an indictment of the imperial machine, which kills with mechanical precision and washes its hands with equal efficiency. This machine operates not only through the barrel of a gun or a missile strike but also through a vast network of technology, surveillance, and institutional collaboration that covers its tracks and renders this violence routine.
We say this not to mystify the agents of this technogenocide. This apparatus is complex in that it depends on a wide range of mathematical input to achieve wholesale surveillance, but make no mistake: it is far from untraceable. Hind Rajab’s murder was mediated by Big Tech: five United States companies with a total monopoly on our internet use. Tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are directly contracted to provide cloud services, data management, and surveillance infrastructure to military and intelligence operations. These same corporations control the digital tools we use every day, marketed to us as innovations of convenience and connectivity, while their true purpose is profit—profit built on the infrastructure of occupation and exploitation. Hind’s death was a product of this system: the phone call that pinpointed her location was not a benign act of communication but a digital signature of imperial intent. She was located through a series of technological checkpoints: satellite imagery, cellular metadata, and surveillance drones, each a node in the apparatus of power. In our technological world, the very tools designed to connect us are also used to fracture, surveil, and kill those deemed disposable.
This complicity deepens when we consider the silence that follows: the algorithms that control what stories rise to the top of our social media feeds are designed to suppress uncomfortable and politicized content, relegating information about Hind Rajab to an endless ocean of posts. Her life becomes a mere data point, a name lost in the white noise of digital space. Herein lies the absolution of the imperial machine: in its capacity to obscure its traces and fold its violence into the everyday rhythms of our lives. This is not a failure of narration, but a structural feature of power itself. As Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics usefully suggests, the machinery of empire operates on a logic of disposability—a politics of determining who may live and who must die, exercised not only by soldiers but also by software engineers, satellites, and boardrooms.
Yet, this complicity is not solely that of corporate tech and media powers; it also reflects our choices and the feedback loops we create. We are witnessing a genocide unfold in real time, with Palestinian journalists and civilians documenting and sharing the unbearable brutality on video across social media platforms. However, many choose not to engage, while others are overwhelmed by the endless stream of violence. Whether due to fatigue or deliberate ignorance, our turning away shapes the algorithms that decide what to show us next. Technology, far from being neutral, conceals the suffering we choose to ignore. HINDS HOUSE counters this numbing effect of isolation by creating space for collective witnessing and action. As Palestinians remain steadfast in sharing images and testimonies from the ground with us, we must commit to absorbing every last pixel and pen stroke.
By choosing what we see and what we don’t, we create a hierarchy of grief that is reflective of a broader narrative: the perfect victim, where only some lives and stories are deserving of our attention and empathy. This narrative—the child, the mother, the elderly as the innocent—is a double-edged sword that upholds the logic of empire by suggesting that only certain stories are even worth amplifying. To speak of only the innocence of specific victims is to tacitly accept the violence against others deemed less pure and less deserving of shared grief. Men, often labeled as ‘combatants,’ are stripped of their humanity and their deaths dismissed. In invoking Hind Rajab’s name, we refuse this selective mourning. We must honor every martyr—children, women, men alike—because each and every one of their deaths expose the indiscriminate logic of the imperial machine.
To indict this machine is to indict an entire ecosystem—a seamless web of military, corporate, and technological power that executes violence and then erases its traces, forcing us to ask: how many more Hinds must die before this machine is dismantled?
The very naming of HINDS HOUSE, notably without an apostrophe, signals that this space belongs not just to Hind but to all the children of Palestine. We stand as a workshop for resistance, a space where we can transform our collective horror and grief into a fight for the living. In the end, it’s not her name alone that matters—it’s the echo of every Hind and every life cut short. Here, we do not build a memorial to one innocent martyr; we confront and dismantle the very logic of empire that necessitates such innocence. The stories we tell must do more than expose; they must rupture. As the myth of the American Dream slowly disintegrates, so too must the myths of imperialism that maintain belief in the necessity of violence, the inevitability of empire, and the legitimacy of the machine. This is a collective cry against this machinery, a refusal to mourn passively, and a demand for action—it is a commitment to dismantle the imperial machine itself.
The next installation of Hinds House will be December 1st and 2nd, 4pm-10pm in Bushwick. Follow @hinds_house on Instagram for location details.
RESISTANCE FORCES REACH NEW HEIGHTS AS GENOCIDE CONTINUES
November 11 was Martyrs Day. It was a day of remembrance for the many lives lost as a result of Israel's genocide in Gaza. For over a year, Israel has intensified its genocidal occupation which has killed and injured hundreds of thousands and displaced millions in Palestine and Lebanon and across the Middle East. For over a year, the resistance to this genocidal occupation has been a banner of hope for many since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, with the axis of resistance remaining strong.
On Martyrs Day, the IOF targeted a gathering of Palestinians waiting for food aid and humanitarian assistance in Gaza City, killing and injuring several, amid the ongoing food crisis inflicted by Israel's regime. Sending aid to Gaza has become more difficult than ever with northern Gaza being almost totally cut off. Food security experts say that "famine thresholds may have already been crossed" due to Israel's blockade. Throughout the week, the IOF carried out several airstrikes against Palestinian civilians across the Gaza Strip, some in the center of refugee camps, killing and injuring many, including 10 Palestinians martyred in a house in the Jabaliya refugee camp on November 13. Since last week on Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes leveled half a dozen buildings in Daniyeh and killed at least 8 people south of Lebanon's capital. Haret Hreik and Chiyah areas in the suburbs of Beirut were hit after five days of heavy Israeli bombardment–attacks that killed at least 59 people and wounded hundreds across Lebanon within 24 hours. An Israeli airstrike on November 14 martyred at least 12 people in Baalbek, Lebanon. Israeli forces also targeted Salah al-Din School in the center of Gaza City, which shelters thousands of displaced Palestinians. The Zionist entity conducted a horrific massacre on Sunday, November 17. Israel attacked a five-story residential building in Beit Lahiya, killing at least 72 people, leaving dozens under the rubble of the leveled building, and further displacing already displaced people. One-third of the people killed were children. Efforts to retrieve people from the rubble for medical care have been challenging due to Israel's constant bombardment of residential and civilian areas. On Sunday, November 17, Hezbollah's media relations officer, Mohammad Afif, a civilian, was martyred in another escalation by the Zionist entity. The Zionist entity has attempted to conflate the resistance as groups of senselessly violent and chaotic militants, and has used this to attempt to justify the murdering of civilians. Many in the resistance serve government roles as civilians. Afif was assassinated during an Israeli airstrike targeting a residential building belonging to the Baath Party, which has seen escalations in threats from the Zionist entity. Al Jazeera analysis says this pattern of Israeli attempts to diminish the resistance's capabilities at all levels does not fit with the narrative Israel has been selling that they are only targeting the group's fighters.
More than a year ago, Israel attacked al-Shifa Hospital, impacting Gaza's healthcare capacity. Israel has continually attacked hospitals and shelters, killing healthcare workers, and denying medicine and medical resources to injured Palestinian civilians through the blockade, producing hundreds of thousands of people in need of care due to bombings, disease, and famines inflicted by the Zionist siege. Palestinians have reopened the emergency department of al-Shifa Hospital, including three operating rooms, and have 40 doctors and 70 nurses. Israel has tried to undermine the will of the resistance in Palestinians continually, but it remains strong.
For more than 400 days, resistance groups have remained steadfast and continued to confront the Israeli occupation and the Zionist entity in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon is reportedly coming to an end with Israel boasting achievements over Hezbollah, including assassinating leaders. However, the Zionist ground invasion in Lebanon is truly failing due to Hezbollah's steadfast resistance and its ability to wage guerrilla warfare and a war of attrition. Over the past week, resistance brigades have repeatedly targeted Israeli military equipment, infantry forces, and command and control headquarters of the Zionist entity, inflicting heavy damage, injuries, and fatalities. As part of the many scenes of the resistance in Gaza, Merkava 4 tanks are blown up daily, bulldozers are set ablaze, and Nemer personal carriers are shattered. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, and the Martyr Abdul Qader al-Husseini Brigades, as well as Hezbollah, inflict shelling and rocket barrages on the Israeli occupation. On Martyr's Day, Israeli media reported that Hezbollah launched its heaviest barrage of rockets and more intense shelling in Haifa and Krayot since the Zionist entity escalated its operations. This operation came one day after the Israeli defense minister claimed Hezbollah had been defeated. In the besieged Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, Al-Qassam Brigades clashed with Israeli occupiers holed up in a house, resulting in deaths and injuries among them, and destroyed military vehicles near a hospital. For the first time, Hezbollah attacked the headquarters of the Israeli army and the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv with drones on November 13. On this same day, amidst the IOF's ground invasion, six Israeli soldiers were killed by the resistance in southern Lebanon. On November 14, Al-Qassam brigades bombed enemy forces in Al-Waha, and Hezbollah targeted several gatherings of Israeli enemy forces with rocket barrages in Sasa, Houla, Markaba, and other areas occupied by the Zionist entity. On Sunday, November 17, Ansar Allah successfully carried out drone strikes against Israeli military targets in Yaffa and Ashkelon in southern occupied Palestine. On Monday, Hezbollah struck Tel Aviv with a large number of missiles and rockets. This attack caused power outages, the closing of Ben Gurion airport, and several critical injuries.
More than a week ago in Amsterdam, Israeli Zionists tore down Palestinian flags, beat an Arab taxi driver and vandalized his car, and chanted genocidal, violent anti-Arab slurs. The Israeli hooligans chanted songs swearing at Arabs, mocking the violent destruction of schools and the slaughtering of children in Gaza. During a moment of silence for victims of the recent floods in Spain, these chants continued. These events took place before and after a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam. In response to the Maccabi hooligans, Amsterdammers mobilized and countered their actions. Some of the Zionist instigators were surrounded and attacked. At least 50 people were arrested. Israel sent two Boeing 737 planes to "rescue" Zionists who traveled to the Netherlands, including IOF soldiers. In response to the mass mobilization against them, the Zionist hooligans have called for the burning of mosques and revenge attacks. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine praised and commended the supporters who countered Zionist aggression and advocated for the Palestinian people in the Netherlands. These events have shown the global awakening of the rejection, isolation, and the discrediting of the Zionist entity. The PFLP urged continued efforts to counter Zionist narratives, calling on the people to isolate it and boycott it, highlighting the need for international resistance to the Zionist genocidal project.
On Friday, November 15, the US Agency for International Development announced the provision of $230 million for recovery in the West Bank and Gaza. The press release that followed this announcement includes a statement on how this aid is intended to "reduce the influence of Hamas". There is no statement on reducing the settler violence, colonialism, destruction of hospitals and schools, and the slaughtering of Palestinian civilians by the Zionist entity through the withdrawal of aid to Israel.
FREEING OURSELVES FROM THE CONSTRAINTS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS
In the days and weeks leading up to the elections, Columbia sent mass emails encouraging students to vote, urging us to “participate in our democracy” and make “our voices heard.”
People across the country did indeed make their voices heard, but it wasn’t through voting in the elections – it was by boycotting, abstaining from, and protesting them. The Democratic Party, the commander in chief of the genocide of the Palestinian people, lost 7 million votes compared to the 2020 elections. Protestors flooded the streets of major cities around election day, demanding “no votes for genocide.” Millions of people in the US made their voices heard, loud and clear: genocidal politicians do not represent us, and we refuse to vote for and legitimize them.
Despite being the most expensive electoral circus to date, the parties of the imperialist class were not able to coax more people out to endorse their rule. Workers and students in this country are increasingly aware of the farcical nature of the elections as a tool to prop up the dictatorship of the rich by spreading illusions that the contradictions of imperialism can be fixed by the representatives of imperialists. The genocide of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese along with the mounting economic crisis in the US speak louder than the glamor of the circus and its shrieking clowns.
The illusion of democracy in electoral politics can also be found here at Columbia, whose billionaire Board of Trustees have refused to meet the demands of the overwhelming majority of Columbia students who have voted in favor of the university divesting from israeli companies. Much like imperialists with their elections, Columbia tries to hide its anti-democratic essence behind its “Listening Forums” to woo us into thinking that we have a say in their decision-making processes.
Following the elections, Columbia sent emails with endless lists of post-election “processing and support spaces” that they had set up. Meanwhile, students have had to fight for spaces where we can mourn the genocide of the Palestinian people and celebrate and defend its resistance. When we hold vigils to honor Palestinian martyrs, Columbia sends over the Pinkertons – the anti-union private detective agency – to patrol us. These double standards come as no surprise from an administration who themselves are funding and profiting from the deaths of the people we are mourning.
These "processing and support spaces," much like the "listening forums" that have been set up to stifle our struggle, are forms of counterinsurgency that aim to redirect our anger into "legitimate" channels under the control of the institution. It is designed to be a relief valve to let out excess pressure through the farce of dialogue, a dialogue that leaves the power of the trustees untouched.
In order to move forward in our struggle, we have to rid ourselves of any illusions of collaboration with those in power in the hopes of gaining a seat at the table, whether it be electoral illusions or conciliation with university administration. Winning divestment from genocide won't come through appeals to the morality of those who stand to profit from it, but by imposing a cost on their blood money. Our democracy is practiced by imposing our collective aims on the dictatorship of capital; leave the ballot boxes and listening forums to rot with the rest of the dying system of imperialism.
"OUR REVOLUTION MEANS JUSTICE:" INSIGHTS FROM THE PFLP AND BEYOND
For our last reading group, we read more selections from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)’s Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine and a series of articles intended to help familiarize ourselves with the political line, significant actions, and key figures of the PFLP. These included selections from the May 1984 edition (No. 3) of Democratic Palestine and George Habash's speech on Martyrdom, Revolution, and Resistance, ‘We Will Overcome’. In our discussion, we explored themes of commitment, organization, and the interplay of grief and resilience in revolutionary movements.
George Habash emphasized that honoring martyrs is not merely about remembrance but about continuing the struggle with clarity and determination:
“Our duty toward these martyrs is to clearly discern things, see our cause clearly, proclaim it, and decide to act in the light of clear evidence that our revolution will continue to endure and exist in this way, and that no force in the world is capable of dominating the masses of our Palestinian and Arab people.”
This commitment to resistance is not abstract; it is grounded in scientific awareness and a refusal to let doubt and despair erode revolutionary resolve. One comrade reflected on how this semester’s discussions have more explicitly engaged with death and loss, referencing our Martyrs Day action and ongoing vigil. She dispelled the misconception that resistance fighters are in a “cult of death,” asserting instead that they love life so deeply that they are willing to sacrifice their own for the collective future of their people.
In agreement, another comrade highlighted the importance of celebrating resistance as a source of inspiration, referencing the Democratic Palestine article Two Military Operations in the Heart of the Beast. This article detailed operations by the PFLP and the DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) following the 1982 Zionist invasion of Lebanon. These operations were inspired by the Lebanese National Resistance Front, whose actions placed Israeli occupiers in a state of daily insecurity.
The PFLP drew a sharp contrast to Palestinian and Arab circles justifying surrender by claiming it was impossible to confront Zionist military strength. Instead, they argued that military struggle could escalate in new forms, transforming political and material conditions. Through collaboration with the Lebanese National Resistance Front, the revolutionaries proved that creating insecurity among occupiers was in fact a possible way to advance the struggle.
“Once again, through a very courageous military operation, the Palestinian revolutionaries asserted that the Palestinian armed struggle is the road to liberation. Once again, our revolutionaries working inside the occupied homeland exposed the Zionist false pretext of ‘security’ and affirmed the strength of our people’s war…”
Our discussion underscored that revolution is not a spontaneous reaction but a deliberate and organized process, a people's war. As Habash articulated, the path to liberation requires commitment to the people, rigorous self-critique, and the willingness to adapt and learn from history. Habash’s analysis affirms that ideology is fundamental to resistance. One comrade referenced Hassan Nasrallah's remark: “Before being a battle with guns and weapons, it is a battle of ideology.”
This theme resonated as we explored the necessity of revolutionary education and structured organizing. One comrade brought up Ahmed Sadaat’s letter from prison, which emphasized the need for bold action, a critical review of political paths, and rebuilding a revolutionary base through reflection and learning. Sadaat wrote:
“Reality has confirmed that such is not possible without undertaking a serious and bold critical review of the political path and line of our people and of the Palestinian national movement, and working to rebuild its base, drawing lessons from the mistakes…”
A few comrades highlighted the importance of meeting people where they are, raising consciousness patiently, and connecting struggles. Habash’s insistence that “the people themselves have the strength that alone can deliver victory and make history” reflects the necessity of engaging with the masses. He elaborated that “the masses” are not the dominant class but the working-class people in camps, peasants, students, and revolutionary intellectuals — those directly impacted by imperialism and colonialism.
“Without exception, all these people — women and children, old and young, everyone regardless of their actual situation — must provide the continuous efforts and work that, thanks to these individuals, will allow us to create the force that will overcome.”
This emphasis on the people’s war for liberation tied into our discussion on class struggle. The PFLP handbook identifies workers and peasants as the revolutionary classes, warning against reliance on collaborationist bourgeois forces.
One comrade highlighted the billionaire CEO of BlackRock, who remarked that it “really doesn’t matter” who wins the U.S. presidential election because both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris would serve their interests. This statement underscores that, regardless of the outcome, sellouts and elites will remain unscathed, as their interests are protected by the imperialist system. BlackRock, a major financier of the genocide of Palestinians, exemplifies how U.S. electoral politics serves the ruling class's domination over the people.
The movement for Palestinian liberation is not isolated; it is part of the global anti-imperialist struggle. One comrade expressed this sentiment, saying, “The struggle in Palestine is my fight as a Black person in America.” The interconnectedness of struggles against imperialism is critical — revolution sparks revolution.
One comrade brought up the General Union of Palestinian Students, founded by diaspora Palestinian students in Arab countries and later expanded to the U.S., Europe, and beyond. These students understood that the Palestinian liberation struggle was deeply interconnected with global movements against imperialism. They worked tirelessly to bring people into the fight by making these connections apparent. The union’s efforts were highly successful for a time, demonstrating that Palestinians have long recognized the need for international solidarity and have organized accordingly.
The PFLP exemplifies this balance of structured organization and mass participation, saying in their handbook:
“Revolution needs the exuberant vitality of all and needs to benefit from their qualifications. This cannot be achieved unless the members feel that the revolution is theirs and that they are its protectors from any deviation. The way to this is the member's freedom of discussion, dialogue, and criticism.”
Through these discussions, we reaffirmed that the Palestinian revolution is a collective, ongoing struggle — one driven by the masses and carried forward through the courage and sacrifice of those who refuse to be silenced.
In the words of George Habash:
“What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice, means having back our homes, having back our country, which is a very just and noble aim.”
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
We would love to hear your comments, critiques, and perspectives! If you would like to contribute to The Barricade, please email cuadthebarricade@proton.me. You can also follow us @ColumbiaBDS on Twitter/X and @CUApartheidDivest on Instagram. Get a legal or disciplinary notice related to alleged pro-Palestine activism? Contact CUAD's collective defense team at cuaddefense@proton.me and our legal support team at columbiapalsolidarity@proton.me for help!
DIVEST AND BOYCOTT THE GENOCIDAL APARTHEID STATE OF SO-CALLED ISRAEL
GRANT COMPLETE AMNESTY TO STUDENT PROTESTORS
LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA
LONG LIVE THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RESISTANCE
FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA WITHIN OUR LIFETIME
GLORY TO ALL OUR MARTYRS