RED LINE: reflections on resistance to genocide

Genocide in any age is horrifying…for painful months, my outrage has burned–but I had not found time to do more than share posts or talk about the issue in my communities… 

On Saturday, June 8th, I was proud to take to the streets… our mobilization attempted to surround the White House with a red banner–we declared ourselves Biden’s red line… challenging our national complicity in ethnic cleansing

The banner was inscribed by hand with a multitude of names-men, women, and children among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been slaughtered in Gaza…

But I am left with burning questions… it is not clear to me that this movement has a viable strategy… I worry that we raise chants that feel good to hear, without thinking about meaningfully broadening the movement….

We need a movement that envisions an inclusive solution to conflict on holy land… We need a state in historic Palestine where Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live side by side…

Yet we live in this moment of collective anguish and rage… it is painfully hard to hold out hope for this vision… our capacity to live in harmony is undermined by the horrors of empire and the vicissitudes of capitalism…

Anti-zionism and antisemitism are different phenomena… but I heard far too much at this protest that blurs that critical distinction… 

A popular chant was “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”… This references the historic demand for a secular state… but this can easily be heard out of context… 

I heard hundreds shout “We don’t want a Jewish state”… I don’t believe in ethnocentric or religiously exclusive states as a rule–but this chant is easily read as a call for the expulsion of Jews from historic Palestine…

We need a red line against genocide–but also a red line separating opposition to the zionist project from callous expressions of bigotry towards Jewish people…

Beyond the question of antisemitism, I feel we lack a strategy… a large radical minority has made resisting this genocide the cause of our generation–this commitment is heroic…

But if we want to win, we need coalitions and alliances–we need to have meaningful conversations across lines of difference…

There is a toxic and unsustainable level of polarization… our movements are addicted to the righteous fire of rage…

Hate breeds hate–war breeds war… we need to envision inclusive liberation–a world freed from the hydra of imperialism, racism, and corporate profiteering…

I saw hope in the eyes and spirits on the streets yesterday but I also saw confusion and lack of clarity that are becoming crippling…

Amidst the tumult of the mobilization, I took a pause to do a reading from the deck Liberation Tarot as I enjoyed the flame of rebellion…

I saw the ace of spirals as our past–linking our lineage to a burning flame of jewish resistance… the chariot was our present, evoking the passion of movements marching forward… the six of vessels was our future– inspiring me to link ancestral wisdom and spiritual grace to the work of the moment… 

The healer of vessels was my card of purpose–the graceful and powerful being of adrienne maree brown emblazoned on a card drawn in front of the White House…

We need adrienne’s vision of emergent strategy in this moment… we need to imagine ourselves as an expanding colony of mycelium seeking symbiotic relationships with divergent ideological trees in our social forest… we need to manifest collective solidarity and liberation in the smallest gestures of love and kindness… 

We need to boldly resist genocide and settler colonialism… but we need a strategy that builds bridges and fosters healthy conversation… we need a zeitgeist of imagination to realize our aspirations for collective liberation…

Let us summon the fire of inclusive spiritual righteousness… the phoenix of Palestinian liberation may yet rise from this inferno of barbaric slaughter

–BYPO PHOENIX c)2024