By Benay Blend

History repeats itself today on college campuses where support for Palestinian liberation has resulted in charges of antisemitism and ties to terrorism.

“Values voter;” “Single-issue voter;” “So you want Trump to win?”—these epithets and more are reserved for Palestinian-Americans and their supporters who do not place preservation of their rights over the lives of Palestinians.

To be sure, another Trump presidency would be harmful both at home and abroad. Project 2025, a product of the Heritage Foundation, dedicated to reversing “the long march of cultural Marxism” through government institutions, provides a blueprint for what to expect from the next conservative president.

“It’s far-right policy prescriptions could transform the federal government into a MAGA instrument of authoritarianism,” writes Quentin Young. “One theme that threads through Heritage projects, and which could be the most malign quality of a second Trump administration, is a push to deconstruct the administrative state.”

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect, Young explains that government agencies would be run by Trump loyalists, not “professionals and experts” as in the past, and these “toadies” would carry out “whatever authoritarian order” came down from the Oval office, no matter how “unconstitutional or corrupt.”

Boycotting the coming election, casting a third party vote—whatever Palestinian-Americans and their supporters chose to do–is not acting as a single-issue voter, but rather operating on the principle that the genocide of Palestinians is a multi-faceted concern, ranging from destruction of the environment to understanding the connections between policing in the United States and “Israel.”

In A People’s History of the United States (revised version 1999), the late historian Howard Zinn draws connections between drumming up support for war abroad with repression of rights at home. Going back to World War I, Zinn explains that Congress passed the Espionage Act in June 1917 to enable imprisonment of Americans who spoke or wrote against the war (p. 365).

About 900 people went to prison under the Espionage Act. Throughout the Cold War, beginning in the 1950s, it was not Republicans but liberals in the government who “act[ed] to exclude, persecute, fire and even imprison Communists” (p. 431) during what was known as the Red Scare.

In conjunction, Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, led an attack on government agencies and academic freedom, like what is happening today since October 7^th.

McCarthy and his followers believed that universities served to indoctrinate students with communist propaganda, so teacher were subjected to harassment due to their alleged left-leaning views while their students were considered guilty by association.

History repeats itself today on college campuses where support for Palestinian liberation along with criticism of America’s support for Israel has resulted in charges of antisemitism and ties to terrorism.

According to the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the “glaring double standard” observed in treating domestic terrorism versus charges of supporting foreign “terrorist” organizations is clear, particularly when those accusations involve supporting the Palestinian resistance.

After an attempted assassination attempt on Donald Trump by a young man who has only been described as “troubled,” President Biden has shifted his rhetoric to blame the country’s “climate of violence” on pro-Palestinian protestors rather than right-wing ideologues such as Trump.

Even before this event, Biden was quick to target protests at a Los Angeles synagogue which hosted an expo focusing on selling homes built on stolen land in “Israel” or on illegal “Israeli” settlements in the West Bank.

When pro-“Israel” counter-protestors showed up a fracas ensued which Biden described as “an incident of violence at a place of worship, rather than a political protest at a corporate event,” according to the Intercept’s Jonah Valdez.

My Home in Israel, the firm that hosted the event, posted photos from its other events showing the interiors of synagogues lined with booths marketing their stolen wares.

“Find your dream home in Israel,” reads one booth’s banner. “Live the American dream in the heart of Israel,” another reads atop a photo of luxury apartments, and in this way attesting to the ways that imperialists find ways to benefit themselves at the expense of other people.

Indeed, those few words speak to the core of American imperialism: a desire to maintain a certain lifestyle at home (or abroad, as the case may be) no matter whose lives are sacrificed to do so.

Judging from past statements, Harris probably will not veer much from her predecessor’s agenda.

In a press release back in December, shortly after a meeting with leaders from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan,  Egypt, and Qatar, Harris said that Israel has a right to defend itself, then repeated all the lies that were used to justify Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Taking October 7^th out of historical context by ignoring 76 years of occupation that preceded it, Harris spoke of Hamas “terrorists” who launched a “terror” attack which resulted in murdered babies and civilians.

There was no mention of Israel’s admission that the Hannibal directive was in effect, meaning that Israel murdered their own people, sometimes on purpose to keep them from being taken captive, sometimes by means of “friendly fire,” plus there was no evidence that Hamas had slaughtered babies.

Though Harris also expressed concern for murdered Palestinians, she does not support Palestinian self-determination, but rather wants to impose an Israel/American plan for the day after—Gaza and the West Bank united under control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), a future which seems unlikely given understandable lack of support for the PA among Palestinians.

Harris also followed suit when she rebuked protestors outside Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. Rather than denouncing the Prime Minister’s many lies, including denial of Israel’s responsibility for Gaza’s suffering, Harris called out protestors for their “unpatriotic” acts and “hate-fueled rhetoric.”

Apparently burning of the American flag warrants more of Harris’s attention than the burning of Palestinians by way of US-funded bombs.

“[Harris] has no independent policies, worldview, and certainly no vision beyond the agenda that the party and Biden administration have been committed to over the last three and a half years,” declares Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report (BAR) editor and columnist. “That means a continuation of the same – wars abroad and austerity domestically.”

As for environmental issues, the Democrats might not declare themselves ready to defund government programs aimed at combatting climate change, a position that the Republicans espouse, but any talk of environmental justice should look at what Kaamil Ahmed calls “ecocide” in Gaza.

“This life is not life,” a displaced resident from Gaza City tells Ahmed. “There is pollution everywhere – in the air, in the water we bathe in, in the water we drink, in the food we eat, in the area around us.”

If the Democrats send more bombs to Israel, this situation is not likely to improve. Moreover, given the cost of weapons for war sent unconditionally to “Israel,” there will be less money spent at home on public education, health care, infrastructure, and other human needs.

Finally, there is the issue of police reform, which has come to the fore again with the shooting of Sonya Massey by Deputy Sean Grayson, who was discharged from the army for misconduct. After calling the police for help with a suspected intruder in her house, she was shot instead, a situation that seems to repeat itself quite often.

In her self-proclaimed role of “top cop,” writes Erica Caines, Harris was the “driving force of mass criminalization and incarceration” of poor working-class Black people, a career as California’s attorney general that hardly qualifies her for the mantle of Progressive politician.

The proposed destruction of a forest in Atlanta, Georgia to make way for Cop City also serves as a case study for the ways in which settler colonialisms are connected.

The US military already provides training for forces around the world, including Israel. As  Eran Efrati, director of campaigns and partnerships for the progressive group Jewish Voice for Peace, explains, these “exchanges refine and enhance the militarization rooted in American policing with Israeli tactics and technology of occupation and apartheid that are being tested on Palestinians on a daily basis.”

During these training sessions in Israel, US and Israeli officials visit checkpoints, prisons, airports, and other sites of human rights abuses, where they learn to refine techniques used to repress dissent in both countries.

What Harris should be “consistently criticized for,” Erica Caines concludes, “is being the epitome of a neoliberal politician.” Given this role, the matter of Palestine becomes a multi-faceted concern.  Environmental degradation, funds for war instead of human needs at home, conflation of foreign/domestic policies, and policing that becomes more brutal towards people of color with every passing year.