Youth must confront America’s role in Gaza genocide

Jeremiah Kim The Electronic Intifada 17 December 2023

A protest sign reads: I condemn you neutrality

People protest in New York on 9 December after the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire.

Derek French SOPA Images/SIPA USA

I am 26. I have never seen anything like this moment.

Numerous social justice movements have overtaken my generation in the past few years – the anti-Trump reaction, the George Floyd protests, the climate justice movement.

These quickly became rife with virtue signaling and a deadening conformity. Whatever our original intentions, we have been misled to adopt assumptions and slogans that are often conveniently friendly to the ruling elite and status quo.

Today is different.

Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza has ruptured the consciousness of young people in America, and indeed around the world. We cannot escape the images of Palestinian children being pulled from mountains of rubble, their hair matted with dust and their little limbs mangled.

We cannot escape the feeling that the blood of these children is on our hands – because it is our country, our government, our so-called “liberal” administration which is fueling this massacre.

Today is different.

We find ourselves crying often. We see ourselves in the children, the teenagers, the young men and women of Palestine.

They could be our siblings, our cousins, our friends; they could be us.

Yet we also see ourselves in the unnatural psychology of young Israelis who have been taught that it is right to kill in the name of the Zionist project. They, too, could be us.

Herein lies the horror.

It is thus a painfully raw crisis of the conscience that has exploded our inner sense of safety and normalcy. We go running to the streets to march and protest, driven by a gnawing fear that if we stay silent – if we act as if life is normal – we will kill our very souls.

I categorically reject the notion that the protests for Palestinian freedom erupting in countless cities and campuses across America can be simplistically reduced to a symptom of wokeness.

Our responsibility

In reality, it is the dire question of war and peace which is now forcing many of us, in particular the college-educated, to realize the grotesque inadequacy of the artificial language and self-serving mentality we have internalized over the years.

Here, the fierce battle raging among American Jews to determine the future of their religion and identity reflects a much wider struggle of this generation, no matter our background.

The shameless cowering of university administrators before the demands of wealthy donors signals a broader crisis among college students who must decide whether they will become foot soldiers of the ruling elite, or agents of real change in this society.

Gaza forces all of us to realize that America is, in fact, our country; and the extent to which she brings further catastrophe on the rest of the world – or finds some way to redeem herself – is a question for which we must bear responsibility.

Of course, political habits die hard. Among my peers, there is an awkwardness, a vacillation between shallow academic frameworks and the search for new ways of thinking about the world.

For others, the shell of apathy is breaking – without yet a firm conviction to take its place.

But that is the beauty of youth. We can change; we can grow; we can learn.

Indeed we must learn. We are now confronted by real political questions with enormous human consequences.

At a personal level, some of us face possible threats to our careers, social standing or wellbeing.

Amid such an inferno, we may not have all the right answers immediately. But we must try to discover what is right and what is necessary.

We can only do this by finding each other and joining together in ways we never have before.

All the entrenched alliances and ideologies of the American political system are collapsing. New political relationships and coalitions must form.

We will discover new ways of engaging in politics that are ripe for experimentation. We will discover the imperative of seeking a common ground with other sections of our country whom we have been taught to fear, yet who viscerally reject the ruling class and its war agenda as we do.

A rich inheritance

This is a time for courage; it is a time for openness.

In the students and young people of this generation, I see echoes of the heroism and creativity emblazoned by the students who waged the Nashville sit-ins and Southern Freedom Rides. I also see the anger and sense of betrayal that marked the student movement against the US war in Vietnam.

Ours is a rich inheritance. With each act of protest and civil disobedience, with each song and prayer we raise in the public square, we grow increasingly aware of the history that has produced us.

In his historic “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. looked out upon the nation and said: “The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve.”

An unrelenting cascade of wars has disfigured numerous generations since. Perhaps it will fall to the youth of America today to achieve the maturity of which he spoke.

America can no longer survive as an empire in this fast-changing world. If we are to have a future, it will depend on whether we can transform this country from “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” to a nation that “studies war no more.”

Some may balk at this immense task. But I believe many of us will choose to see it as a challenge and a mission that will make our lives worth living.

From Gaza comes the call for our generation to grow up; to become what the world needs us to be.

The children of Gaza have seen evils and borne suffering that no child or human being ever should. In the span of weeks, they have crossed the threshold of decades. Those who have made the passage to martyrdom must be immortalized in the memory of mankind, and consecrated through the building of a world that deserves them.

Let them be our teachers.

Let us face the fire.

Let us pass the test.

Jeremiah Kim lives in Philadelphia where he is an organizer with the Saturday Free School for Philosophy & Black Liberation, as well as co-editor for Avant-Garde: A Journal of Peace, Democracy, and Science.

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Comments

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Anne Henschen replied on

Beautiful, inspiring piece! Thank you, and thank you to all the young people striving to make the vision described a reality.

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David Rossi replied on

The author of the piece 'Youth Must Confront' provided by i.e. is full of hope and encouragement. Unfortunately, the publication he edits perpetuates a sectarian attitude in its polemic against one important current in youthful activism and revolutionary thought. In continuing the misguided polemic on this part of the movement, it weakens the
possibility of a non-exclusionary united struggle...
cf'Warning About Trotskyism.'

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Sufia alsughayer replied on

Wonderfully touching piece. Thank you and my heart felt gratitude to all the young people that are the only entity that is making a difference and standing up for the injustice and atrocities that the American government and Israel continue to commit on the Palestinian people. I’ve lost all hope of any western government to make a difference. But my heart flutters with hope as I see the youth rising up and becoming the antidote to evil

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denny replied on

i object to my American government enabling genocide, ethnic cleansing, in Gaza or anywhere. the citizens need to keep protesting peacefully and using social media to show their disgust. but they'll be censored for telling the truth. this literally is a conspiracy and everyone is in on it. the US, the EU, NATO, any of the usual suspects.

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Diana Richardson replied on

At nearly 80 years of living and working for justice and harmony in this criminal enterprise, my country, Ive never seen anything this devastating to heart and conscience. Thank you for your beautiful, heartening, inspiring words,Jeremiah. May they travel far, wide and deep!