International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

On Nov. 28, some 20 protesters brought part of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City to a halt for five minutes. They jumped the barricades for a sit-in in the street to protest Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. With their fists in the air and an unfurled banner, these activists chanted “Free Palestine!” repeatedly as millions of people in the U.S. and around the world witnessed this on television and online. The protesters were then violently attacked and arrested by the New York police. 

But this small group of heroic protesters was able to achieve their goal to never let the world forget about the racist ethnic cleansing that continues in Gaza. The genocide is entering its 14th month thanks to the U.S. government’s arming of the Zionist state of Israel with billions of dollars worth of 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons of terror. 

This protest took place one day before the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 29. This date is in recognition of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Partition Resolution in 1947 calling for dividing Palestine into an “Arab” state and a “Jewish” state. 

It’s a tragic reality that all of Palestine evolved into occupied territories like Gaza and the West Bank. The only state established was the Zionist state of Israel in 1948, backed by U.S. and British imperialism. The Palestinian people had become refugees in their own land.

While the originators of this Day of Solidarity called for a two-state solution facilitated by the U.N., this day of action has evolved for over seven decades into a worldwide rally demanding liberation of all of Palestine from imperialist-backed Zionism. This demand has only intensified since Hamas and other Palestinian resistance forces carried out the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. 

While the Israel Occupation Forces continue their heinous daily massacres with bombings and airstrikes and impose forced starvation and famine, especially in northern Gaza, the Palestinian resistance has not wavered one iota in its armed struggle against the IOF and fascist Zionist settlers. The resistance has delivered unprecedented casualties and demoralization within the Israeli military. 

A growing number of Israeli youth are speaking out on why they are willing to risk imprisonment for refusing to participate in the genocide. Israelis, including armed settlers, continue to flee Israel in the thousands as the economy plummets with tens of thousands of businesses shutting down.

The Palestinian resistance has sacrificed many heroic fighters in their struggle for national liberation, but their deaths have not been in vain. Their resistance has inspired millions of people around the world to oppose the genocide, including inside the U.S. 

The solidarity movement here has organized massive demonstrations and direct actions, such as student encampments, banner drops in shopping malls and on bridges. It has confronted Israeli defense manufacturers like Elbit Systems and organized sit-ins like the one that took place at the parade on Nov. 28. 

These protests and future ones reflect that every day should be viewed as an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People — until Zionism is finally defeated and the Palestinian people can reclaim their homeland as full citizens with reparations paid to them. 

Such a defeat for Zionism will strike a significant blow to a dying U.S. empire. Imperialism and Zionism are already feeling the impact of the heroic Palestinian resistance which they have utterly failed to crush.