I had not considered that protestors might descend on Washington, D.C., to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress last week. With all the other things (*gestures widely*) going on, the entire speech slipped my mind. I also didn’t see much about it on social media. In previous “days of action” surrounding the War in Gaza, promotions for protests were plastered all over my feeds. This time, though, not much.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t surprised when protestors showed up. Nor was I surprised when they made a spectacle out of themselves to the extent that required condemnation from practically everyone, including Vice President Kamala Harris, on the third day of her presidential campaign.
While Bibi spoke to Congress, protests defaced a replica of the Liberty Bell and several statues between Washington’s Union Station, where they gathered, and the U.S. Capitol. Most shockingly, they tore down the American flags on the three flag poles in the plaza outside the station, burned the flags, and then hoisted Palestinian flags in their place. The Right pounced on the protestors, trying to tie them to Harris and the entire left-liberal coalition, hoping to once again get some mileage out of the “Liberals hate America” message that has served them well in the past. Democrats across the board slammed the protests, leading many online leftists to cry foul.
The main complaint from those who support the Pro-Palestinian movement and last week’s protests is that people were too focused on the protestors’ vandalism and not on the cause they are trying to call attention to.
“If you care more about the vandalized stuff than Palestinian lives, then you’re a terrible person,” they say, believing, I suppose, that it will convince people to rethink their anger over the burning flags and vandalized monuments and refocus on Palestinians who have been killed in the ongoing war.
Take it from someone who tried this in his activist youth: It won’t. The war in Gaza is one of several horrible events that are going on in the world at the moment. There are actual genocides in Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, and arguably China. There are wars in Ukraine, Yemen, and Syria. What’s happening in Gaza, regardless of how bad it is, is not new or unique.
Human beings act in their self-interest and, in many cases, the interests of those close to them. If they do not have direct ties to Gaza, they are never going to care enough to pressure officials to take drastic means to end the war. If you find that people are more offended by how you protested than what you protested, you have failed as an activist. You can be mad about that. You can say that people are broken or “lost the plot,” or whatever your disappointed broken heart tells you to feel. It doesn’t change that you’ve failed if your antics distract from the cause rather than call attention to it.
If you haven’t persuaded enough people to join your cause to build enough public pressure to force those in power to bend to your will, then you’re doing it all wrong. That is ultimately the goal of activism, is it not?
At that point, the correct course of action is to change tactics, refine your message, and develop a new plan. When marriage equality advocates realized their activism wasn’t working, they did not go home and whine that everyone is broken or evil. They recalibrated and tried new ways to persuade people to their side. They engaged in uncomfortable discussions. You have to find a way to connect the issue to the self-interest of the people you are trying to persuade. Progressives are unable or unwilling to do this because they would have to accept that people act in their self-interest and not in the collective interest, which would shatter their worldview.
At the very least, one thing progressives can do to achieve that end is not to make themselves seem repulsive to the masses. You can’t persuade people to your cause if they hate you, and antics like burning flags, defacing property, and blocking streets make people hate you. When people hate you, they will be skeptical of the cause you’re fighting for and every other cause you are associated with. When progressive activists protest one issue, they represent the entire movement, from LGBTQ rights to labor issues. When you burn a flag or spray paint “Hamas is coming” on a statue, it doesn’t just turn them against Palestine. It turns them against everything else you’re associated with. Every progressive cause suffers because of your anti-social and narcissistic hijinks. Marriage equality advocates understood that.
Of course, marriage equality advocates cared about legalizing marriage equality, which is why they acknowledged failures and shifted their strategy. The cause wasn’t a venue to get likes on social media or piss off their conservative parents. The goal wasn’t to do things that would shock people and call attention to yourself; it was to give gay and lesbian people rights. I am not sure we can say the same for the Useful Idiots for Palestine.
I think these protests are best understood in religious terms. The goal is to purify their souls and demonstrate that they are among the Elect who would be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven. Or, in more earthy terms, the goal is grandstanding and self-righteousness. Either way, it is a mistake to think of the protests in instrumental terms as an attempt to achieve change in this world. Actual Palestinians despair of “friends” like these.
re: "If you haven’t persuaded enough people to join your cause to build enough public pressure to force those in power to bend to your will, then you’re doing it all wrong. That is ultimately the goal of activism, is it not?"
I believe that it is not, and in the Democratic party hasn't been so for quite a long time. The object of the exercise is to show power -- that you can mobilise your group, certainly, but more
impressively that you can threaten the Democratic leadership into submitting to your will,
in part because you threaten to riot and burn down the neighbourhood. If might makes right, then you no longer have to convince others that your position is correct -- indeed the more cynical do not believe what they are professing themselves.
Tanner Greer, quoting political theorist Jo Freeman writes about this here: https://scholarstage.substack.com/p/why-republican-party-leaders-matter