Applied Internationalism: Arab Nationalism and the Left, Part 2

“During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.”–Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “The Defeat of One’s

Robespierre Monument

As the mad-scramble for Syria’s east paces on, and the US secures strongholds in Syria for joint military rule of those territories with its Zionist allies, anti-imperialists will have to ask how various grassroots projects can be brought together, namely some kind of marriage between pro-Palestine movements and the scattered remains of the anti-war movement. Because the Arab world lies at the nexus of so many material foundations of US imperial rule worldwide—oil, the dollar, weapons—it is crucial that these joint ventures commit themselves, in the long-term, to the defeat of the US military-political project in the Arab world. In short, a deeper, more serious, more uncompromising internationalism is needed. Pro-Palestinian politics in the United States, still the centerpiece of Arab and Muslim unity at a time of deepening divisions, faces a dilemma. In its earliest stages, Palestinian solidarity in the US was smaller but truer to regional context, Arab nationalist and focused on the liberation of the whole of Palestine. Over the past decade especially, the movement has grown considerably through mass politics imbued with the language of human rights. How to combine the stronger aspects of both of these trends—the militancy of the former and the numbers of the latter? How do those acting and thinking in support of Palestinian human rights go from being critics of Israel and its policies to being actual partisans of the Palestinian and Arab causes? And if that task should prove too arduous in a period of rising reaction, how to create the conditions within a mass movement that can protect, rather than reject, its most radical sub-units?

If anti-imperialists are willing to engage these questions, it should be clear, as a much-needed first order of consensus, that existing attitudes towards Syria among Western leftists are overall poorly devised. The most popular choice for partisan commitment in Syria, the YPG and YPJ, does not challenge the global US-led order, and even increasingly aids and supplements it. YPG’s collaboration with US-Zionist imperialism began as a matter of convenience, wherein the YPG could gain air cover and weaponry in their existential battle with ISIS while the US could gain a military foothold in Northern Syria in the form of Special Forces operators and bases. The relationship slowly began to transform as the YPG began to run favors for the US (and British and French) Special Forces; one report in Le Monde claimed that YPG and YPJ fighters went so far as to guard an abandoned Lafarge factory occupied by imperialist troops.

After Trump’s inauguration, the YPG’s support for the US only increased, leaving the realm of mere tactical convenience and actually affecting the subjective politics of PYD leadership. In one interview, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) co-chair Ilhem Ahmed announced that her organization would not allow SDF-held territories to become Iranian “corridors.” The timing of the announcement came suspiciously soon after the commencement of the Trump plan to target and isolate Iran. Further comment from Ahmed, this time to Al-Riyadh newspaper on June 18, described Saudi Arabia as a force for regional stability. What business does the leadership of a Kurdish liberation movement in Syria (and, depending on how wide one’s scope, in Turkey), ostensibly dedicated to socialism, have taking vocal sides in a regional dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran if they do not have the intention of doing the US’s regional bidding, i.e., serving as proxy?

The experience of the YPG and YPJ holds one potential commonality and lesson with that of Zionism: the subjective politics of a given movement—its affirmations and words, whether relating to “socialism” or “revolution”—cannot alone transcend its objective position in the global system. Many of the Zionists who colonized Palestine in 1948 were, after all, self-proclaimed socialists. What is the point of a socialism built on the bones of a so-called “inferior” race if not to build fascism? Some will object to any analogy to Zionism and insist that the Kurds are not imported European settlers, but rather an oppressed people of the region. Yes, the historic plight of the Kurdish people remains real—but even the best intentions can be co-opted by imperialism, sometimes overnight. What’s more, the anti-capitalist value of the Kurdish struggle in NATO-member Turkey remains intact, as the Kurdish struggle remains the lynchpin of left-wing and dissident activity within Turkey’s borders. There is furthermore a proud history of left-wing, pro-Kurdish assistance to the cause of Palestinian liberation. And yet it nonetheless remains true in the case of the YPG and YPJ that a “socialist” enclave run by the US empire, the national head of the global capitalist system, is absurd on its face. Would the communes of Jordan 1970 and Lebanon 1976, or even the communes of today’s Venezuela, hold any anti-systemic value, or any material grounds for Global South solidarity, if they were effectively governed by US military advisors?

Some partisans of the YPG and YPJ still maintain that the Rojava militias recognize the US as the face of capitalism, that the alliance is only temporary. These are nice words sutured to rosy sentiment, but those anti-imperialist forces based in the US are still required to think in terms of the concrete strategy of opposing the US, lest they liquidate their own raison d’être. If a rupture does form between the YPG and the US, as Rex Tillerson seems to anticipate, without an alliance to the Arab nationalists and Muslim resisters of the Resistance Axis, no such defeat of the US military will be possible. In the meantime, the YPG and YPJ are helping the US and its chemical weapons to invade Raqqa, a verifiably non-Kurdish territory, and they continue to expand relations with the regional enemies of Arab liberation, and they deepen the foothold of US and Zionist military presence in Syria, perfectly reminiscent of the KDP protectorate in Northern Iraq–a nightmare scenario with long-term ramification for other peoples in the region, from Palestine to Yemen, Lebanon to Iraq.

“Socialism,” declare the anarchists and democratic socialists. If so, it is “socialism” once more built on the corpses of the Arab masses. And like Zionism, this preferred idea of socialism is a product of national chauvinism among Western leftists, preventing them from searching for strategic allies in the objective conditions in order to build simultaneous wars of attrition against empire, waged internally and externally, through the combined strength of actually existing resistance to imperialism. Those objective forces can include organizations that do not fall under the self-defined “socialist” camp, so long as they effectively work towards the defeat of the United States in the international arena on an anti-colonial basis—a material precondition for substantive socialism, at any rate. Such organizations include Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen, both of which share necessary animosity towards the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia as the main sources of regional reaction; traverse both Islamic and Arab nationalist language in their resistance rhetoric; and consciously work to upend Sykes-Picot borders for both pan-Arab and pan-Islamic alliances.

This morning Match 25, 2025 farmworker leader and organizer Alfredo Juarez, better known as Lelo, was detained violently by ICE. He was on his way to drop off his partner at her workplace, and ICE agents broke his car window when he tried to exercise his rights. We feel this is a targeted attack on farmworker leadership, and we must not allow this to continue.

Lelo's leadership and activism have been viral in protecting farmworkers and immigrants rights and well-being. He has been serving our communities since he was 12 years old and continued to be a guiding light.

We are demanding that our friends contact the Attorney General, Governor and our elected leaders for them to take action and help in the release of Lelo.

We must not allow any more attacks on workers. As unions, community organizations, student groups and people who have decency, we demand that ICE stays out of Washington and let workers be at peace. Immigrants are not the enemy, we are part of the worker movement towards justice which includes fair wages, healthcare, education, housing and solidarity.

Join us in person TODAY March 25 at Ferndale Detention Center in solidarity! Contact Liz Darrow at 360-220-9065 for more information.

Call Ferndale Detention Center 360-380-2270

Call WA Attorney Generals Office: 360-753-6200

Call WA Governor's office 360-902-4111

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Ten years after their January 1987 arrest, the Los Angeles Eight are still on trial. While the courts continue to debate the case, the seven Palestinians and one Kenyan [1] continue to face separation from their families and homelands and the prospect of forced deportation. Initially charged under the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act — provisions not used since the anti-Communist attacks of the 1950s — the eight were accused of being members of, or supporting, an organization that advocated “world communism” — specifically the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), one of the constituent organizations of the PLO. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) quickly dropped the political charges against the six non-US residents whom it then accused of technical visa violations, and charged the two permanent US residents with associating with an organization (the PFLP) that advocates the destruction of property. The technical charges advanced against the six included working without authorization at a convenience store, and not taking enough university credits on a student visa. Initially, public outrage was widespread. Supporters of the LA 8 expanded nationally to include immigrant rights, civil rights and minority rights groups, as well as related organizations. The government’s expectation that the eight would be isolated because of their involvement with Palestinian issues was miscalculated. Soon after the arrests, a key government document was leaked to the defense team and the media. The work of an inter-agency task force, which included the INS, the FBI, the Justice Department and others, the document outlined a contingency plan to deal with threats to US national security. It called for large-scale detentions of nationals from seven Middle Eastern countries (six Arab countries plus Iran), imprisonment in a Louisiana detention facility and use of “technical” visa violations to supplement the primary political charges. While the deportation hearings themselves wound through immigration court, a coalition of Arab-American and other organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging the government’s efforts to deport the eight. Dubbed ADC vs. Meese for the Reagan administration attorney general, the name has changed several times to reflect changing administrations, new presidents and new attorneys general. Today, ADC vs. Reno remains in the Los Angeles Federal District Court, with parts of it on appeal to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Phyllis Bennis interviewed David Cole, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights/Georgetown University, who, along with Marc Van Der Hout and Leonard Weinglass of the National Lawyers Guild, has led the defense team for most of the last ten years.

Where does the case now stand?

There are two tracks in the case: The INS’s deportation proceedings are being held in immigration court. Our challenge to the constitutionality of the immigration proceedings goes on in federal district court. The immigration proceedings have been temporarily halted because the federal courts have found that we have a strong case that the government selectively targeted our clients in retaliation for engaging in political activities that are protected under the First Amendment. Given this, the deportation effort is unconstitutional.

The INS singled out our clients for deportation because of their peaceful political activities in support of the PFLP, but the INS did not seek to deport other non-citizens who supported organizations such as the Nicaraguan contras, the Afghan mujahideen, anti-Castro Cubans, RENAMO in Mozambique — all groups that would qualify as “terrorist organizations” under the immigration law. Given that the government singled out our clients for the same activities, and because those activities were protected under the First Amendment, the federal judge ruled that the deportation proceedings should not go forward. There is currently a preliminary injunction in place barring all deportation efforts.

It is extremely rare for anyone to use a selective prosecution defense against a deportation case. We have gotten this far because the government itself admitted selective prosecution. Former FBI Director William Webster openly stated, very early on, that after a lengthy investigation, the FBI had concluded that the eight had not engaged in or supported any terrorist activity. Only then, when they could not prove any kind of criminal activity, did they hand the case over to the INS for deportation of the defendants. Webster testified under oath to Congress that the FBI found no evidence of terrorism, and that if the eight had been US citizens there would have been no basis for their arrest.

Subsequently the INS has been required to release to the court a whole range of documents indicating their basis for selecting our clients for deportation. Those documents show that despite 24-hour-a-day surveillance, all they could report was involvement in demonstrations, carrying anti-US or anti-Israel placards and planning and helping out at fundraising events for humanitarian causes. The FBI also claimed they were distributing pro-Palestinian literature.

Did the government claim they had evidence of planning or discussion of violence?

No.

These cases were initially brought by the Justice Department of the Reagan administration. They have now gone through the Reagan administration, the Bush administration and the first term of the Clinton administration. To what do you attribute the government’s commitment to deport these eight people?

First, it’s impossible to say why these particular people, of all the politically active Palestinians in the United States during that time, were singled out. I think the INS, once the care arose, decided they would use it as a test case. They saw that if they could deport these individuals on such evidence, they would establish a very effective tool that could be used against disfavored political groups. They wan the power to go after people without having to demonstrate they engaged in or supported any kind of illegal activity.

The legal permutations of this case are extraordinarily complicated. Besides recognizing that the case is still going on, how should we respond to a case that is now ten years old?

It is important to note that the case has not gone away. The government is pursuing this case today as vigorously as it was ten years ago. Under the Clinton administration, much as with earlier administrations, the government is making a very extreme argument about the rights of immigrants, as well as the First Amendment rights of citizens. The progression of the case is one that should be of concern to everyone. This case demonstrates the old adage that first they will go after the group deemed the most vulnerable, and then the next, and then eventually they will come to pick up you and me. The government has made an argument that, if accepted by the courts, will deprive all of us of First Amendment rights. It is important to monitor this case, to put as much pressure as possible on the Clinton administration to drop the case. Letters should be sent to Attorney General Reno and the INS Commissioner Doris Meissner urging them to drop the proceedings. The government has been making these arguments without success for ten years. We win a decision, they change the law. We need to keep up the pressure, and see it through to what I still believe will be a successful end.