To hell with imagery, it’s a genocide
Last Thursday, Netanyahu addressed the UN in New York City. Mayor Mamdani, who made it a campaign promise that he would arrest the war criminal with an international warrant out for his arrest, walked back this threat (despite thoughtful legal arguments for his duty and right to carry out the arrest) and also announced that he would not protest Netanyahu’s arrival in the city.
Instead, Mamdani set his police upon the closed, invite-only gathering organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and Democratic Socialists politicians and candidates, arresting them as they chanted at the rear side of the United Nations building. In the days leading up to Thursday, organizations including Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestinian Feminist Collective, Code Pink, Jewish Voice for Peace, Democratic Socialists of America, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, and others, all advertised a public march set for hours after the start of Netanyahu’s speech (and nothing else); when folks online asked why they set the march for hours after the speech, rather than organizing a confrontation which many seemed eager to participate in after years of watching Netanyahu personally animate a genocide, the comments were ignored and/or reportedly removed from social media posts.
While these organizations — JVP, PYM, DSA, and others — all mobilized to help get Mamdani elected, they were unable to leverage that support in any meaningful way at the exact moment in which it mattered. They did not put any public pressure on him to this end. In fact, JVP’s public gathering outside of the UN seemed to be primarily about advertising for the benefit of other politicians and those running for office. They did not disrupt the speech. But, for me, watching from afar, the most simultaneously depressing and enraging thing was knowing that Palestinian organizations were not even there. They didn’t even show up. It wasn’t just that they organized a march for hours later, ensuring that there would be no confrontation — they ceded the space for JVP and DSA to hold this political theater, lobbying for the advancement of more Mamdani-like politicians when they were not even able to hold Mamdani himself accountable to his own promises. All of these groups didn’t just fail to call for any sort of public pressure on Mamdani or anyone else; they curated (by action or omission) a photo opportunity for future Mamdanis at the cost of meaningful action in solidarity with Palestine. All as the person who has orchestrated this genocide from beginning to end spoke in the building beside them.
GSC has published plenty of critiques on NGOs and their shortcomings. We’ve also written on social media about the impact of JVP’s work and claims — you can read a couple of recent posts here. Our Substack is currently running a series, as you’ll know, studying JVP’s specific rhetorical strategies with regard to anti-zionism in the wake of this ongoing genocide. I know folks appreciate these insights. But more than ever, it feels clear to me that we need to ask why Palestinian figures and organizations continue to make way for these NGOs, to lend their names and credibility to them by asking for their endorsements, and to step aside when they want to carry out actions with no function except that of photographs and public arrests — imagery. These organizations are accountable to all of us — not just Palestinians, and certainly not just Palestinians in the diaspora. If an organization wants to cede ground to those that would turn a genocidaire’s visit into a political advertisement for milquetoast DSA candidates, the responsibility falls on others to either 1) demand an answer for why that is the case, and 2) organize the next protest themselves. This is not acceptable. Three years into a genocide, it is time to find ways to be brave and be disruptive, not continue business as usual.
