I Ain’t Answering All That. Free Palestine!

Two things in America create “bipartisanship”: support for Israel’s apartheid regime and support for endless US war and intervention around the world. — Ali Abunimah, October 16, 2019.

I live in the heart of the heart of the imperial core: Kansas. In September 2019, I was sitting at my Sidewalk Museum of Congress (SMoC) studio outside our then-1st District Rep. Roger Marshall’s office embroidering portraits of the Palestinian al-Farra family, most of whom were killed during “Operation Protective Edge,” “Israel’s” savage 2014 assault on Gaza.

Today, five years and eight months later, as the bipartisan support for “Israel’s” apartheid regime has morphed into an endless live-streamed US-armed genocide in Gaza, Ali Abunimah observes, “The deteriorating situation in the US underscores how unconscionable it is that @KamalaHarris @joebiden and @TheDemocrats threw their supporters to the cruelty of Trump just because they could not for a moment give up on their unshakeable commitment to murder Palestinians.”

I first occupied the SMoC space—a small stretch of pavement by the front door of Marshall’s office—in September 2018, in response to the killing of fellow Kansan Theresa Joyce-Wynne’s son Dominique White, who was shot in the back by Topeka police officers Michael Cruse and Justin Mackey in 2017. I parked myself at SMoC for roughly two years, and advocated or protested every domestic policy issue you can think of, from women’s rights to police violence, to immigration rights, and more. And, every now and then, the local anti-Trump folks would show up in welcome support, signs in hand, along with other, more creative protest tools.

But when I began protesting Washington’s bi-partisan support for “Israel’s” occupation of Palestine in September 2019, I was there all by my lonesome. At the time I didn’t think much of it and shrugged it off. And 16 months later, the ideologically-driven, self-proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden marches into office and suddenly “democracy” is back in Amerikkka.

Mind you, some liberals will tell you, “No, no, no, we’re not saying that our democracy is perfect. Not at all. We just don’t want Trump, and we don’t want autocracy.” But if the prospect of losing the 2024 election was so irreversibly horrific, wouldn’t your party have done everything in its power to make sure that wouldn’t happen? To avoid alienating vast numbers of its own voters, wouldn’t the Biden administration have forced “Israel” to end the genocide? Stopped sending psychotic Zionists shipload after shipload of weapons to kill, maim, and displace the indigenous people of that land?

Every minute of the day, for 20 months, we have been seeing unspeakable and unbearable images coming out of Gaza on our phone screens. Why has the legacy media — CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, NPR etc. — not shown us or talked about what our weapons have been doing to Palestinian children, women, men, the elderly, day and night? No, I don’t mean the occasional image or mention. I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. that the rest of the world has been witness to. How many more years of liberal comfort would our silence have gotten us post October 2023? Four? Eight? And then what?

And now that “the worst” is happening, what are the Democrats really doing for the American people besides campaigning for the next elections? The liberals of America insist on living in a perennially plastic fantasy land. Still believing in impossible futures, even ignoring the attempted annihilation of a people in the here and now. Still not holding their own party responsible for handing Trump to us on a plastic platter. Makes one wonder if they’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

I’m not saying that we should throw up our hands and abandon our fight for equality and justice in this country. Of course not. But to hold our signs on the sidewalks of our communities during one presidential term but not another is not only feeding bipartisan dysfunction; it’s morally insular and self-serving. Whatever equality and justice the people (not politicians) of this country fought for and achieved in the past is being undone today by both parties. This only perpetuates the status quo and lets Democrats off the hook. And in the end, we the people are the losers.

My question is why not start fighting for equality and justice from outside the two-party establishment? Why be so defeatist? If this is not the time for breaking from the two party system, then when?

With my Global South roots, I have never felt more alone, brown, and disconnected from my friends who showed up back then when SMoC was a thing during Trump’s first term, and are organizing and rallying now that he’s back on the scene, but did nothing in the middle. They failed to do anything when the time came to hold a “Genocide Joe” or  even “Arms Embargo Now” sign with the same fervor and gusto as they did then holding a “Deport Trump” sign, or are doing now holding a “No Kings” sign. Why?

Although I feel alone in Kansas in my support for Palestinian liberation, I am so grateful for the global anti-genocide community of which I am a small part. They are stoked that I am doing this from Kansas, and I couldn’t be more proud to be a Kansan than right now. I have started a resistance embroidery fundraiser page for a donations based aid initiative led by Palestinians called The Sameer Project — one of the few remaining lifelines in Gaza.

And as I write this, The Sameer Project’s worst nightmare has come true. Mosab Emad Ali, who “WAS The Sameer Project” has been martyred by the IOF. “Mosab was too good for this cruel world. He was loved so much, he gave so much love, he was the best of us. Our team is devastated, there is a hole in our hearts… But we will not stop. We can’t. We won’t and we will continue to serve Gaza, for Mosab, for all those who are suffering.”

Since October 2023 I have heard from my friends some choice liberal words, totally divorced from historical context, and I’m paraphrasing. There was “[Hamas] should have known what would happen if they attacked ‘Israel’”;  “But won’t things get much worse for Americans (and the world) under Trump?”; “If he gets elected, don’t you think Trump will wipe Palestine off the face of the earth?” (as if “Israel” with Biden’s support and blessings hadn’t done 94% of that job already); “Don’t you believe in ‘nonviolence?’”; and this sarcastic expression of concern: “Priti, what will you do when Stan loses his Social Security?”

My response to those and other such questions is simple: I ain’t answering all that. Free Palestine!

Priti Gulati Cox, (@PritiGCox), is an artist and writer. Her work has appeared in Countercurrents, CounterPunch, Salon, Truthout, Common Dreams, the Nation, AlterNet, and more. To see her art please visit occupiedplanet.com.