Palestinan Genocide is Relevant to Wisco Electoral Politics

If you have attended any sort of protest, or politically charged event where the people are mobilized around a left leaning issue, there have likely been Palestinian flags present. This has at times puzzled me, especially in events that seem otherwise unrelated (Mayday, anti-ICE demonstrations, etc.) Unequivocally I support the struggle for Palestinian self-determination, and yet I have been feeling confused.

The Sunday afternoon following the United States illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro (plus the murder of 100 Venezuelans, and 32 Cubans!) there was an emergency demonstration at Red Arrow Park. When Heba Mohammad of Milwaukee 4 Palestine spoke, it finally clicked. The forces that fund the genocide in Gaza are the ones who enable regime change in Venezuela to steal their oil. The powers that uphold Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine are the same as those that have concentrated ICE’s capabilities to become Trump’s secret police. Wherever white supremacist capitalist patriarchy is unchallenged, their influence spreads 

Zionists would love to pretend that the direct correlation of power from a politician to the military is the only link that matters. It would make their project much easier if their positions were unburdened by this issue in fact! This is another tool in the hands of Zionists to reduce the cultural identity and person-hood of Palestinian people. Due to an intentional muddying of the waters around antisemitism by the right, one must clarify that true antisemitism is yet another force that joins Islamophobia, racism, transphobia, et al. Angela Davis best summarizes how the tension is resolved through radical solidarity: “Solidarity commands us to recognize the fallacious either/or construction that effectively forbids the proximity of positions of solidarity for Palestine and of deep and heartfelt condemnations of antisemitism.”

So I’ve realized it isn’t only not unreasonable to show solidarity with Palestinians in any moment where we stand with other oppressed people, it is an imperative. Therefore, if in any realm in which the left is struggling against right-wing machinations Palestine may be centered, then it certainly is relevant to Wisconsin politics at every level and should continue to be relevant to me as a writer for Milwaukee Beagle and for us all as we engage in electoral politics. No, the governor of Wisconsin does not explicitly make the call on funding the bombs that have at this point killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza, but they do have the ability to support that genocide indirectly, and uphold fascism to our state in other relevant ways.

Indirect Aid

The government in Wisconsin does materially support the ongoing Israeli occupation, but in a more roundabout way. The first example of this is the defense contracting company, Derco who Pro-Palestinian activists have declared “quite literally the lifeline of the Israeli Air Force.” A subsidiary of the internationally infamous Lockheed Martin, Derco is a local company that is responsible for the manufacturing and maintenance of the weapons of war used to perpetuate this genocide. They have also recently signed a contract with Saudi-Arabia, and are maintaining the machines for the genocide in Yemen as well. Wisconsin provides tax credits such as the Manufacturing and Agriculture Tax Credit to incentivize their business being in Wisconsin. This is a tacit admission that the price of about 300 jobs in Wisconsin is worth the massive death of an increasing number of brown people in the Middle East. 

The support is not only in tax breaks for defense contractors, there are laws in Wisconsin that explicitly restrict any organization with a state contract of over $100,000 from criticizing Israel. These anti-BDS laws from 2018 also restrict any state agency from engaging in boycotts, divestment, or sanctions of Israeli companies or the state. This is the exact thing those cool students at UWM were protesting in 2024, in an effort to see their school (funded by their tuition and tax dollars) divest from the money they were sending to the colonial state. Politicians in Madison have real control over the money that is given to support the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

This is only the surface of the issue being scratched, the financial ties between Israel and the United States are as tight knit as a bath towel. I would love to learn more and to help expose more as we continue to write about this situation. We know that there are all sorts of little and non-financial ties between the state, such as Milwaukee Police Chief Norman’s visit to Israel. Our chief of police was part of a class of law enforcement officers from the United States that went to Israel to learn “counter-terrorism strategies.” We can only speculate what this means, and how he intends to bring this training to our city, however we do know how Israeli “Anti-Terror” methods have been weaponized against the Arab minority in the state of Israel, and it is heinous. 

Building Radical Solidarity

Can you imagine that you are knee deep in whatever political project that is most dear to your heart, maybe it’s food security in low-income neighborhoods. Pretend that there is someone working alongside you and they are great, they are on mission, and even compliments your cute Pride t-shirt/patch/neck tattoo. Turns out that this guy is actually gay himself (wow!) and with all of these hella green flags, he then tells you that he just hates black people. Fullstop. He doesn’t like to be around them, and wants to tell you all sorts of filth about how they have ruined something as he sees it. 

How else could you react to that other than to seek this person's removal from the movement? Or do the hard work of sitting down and having an in-depth heart to heart, and see if you can help get this person out of these harmful beliefs that only serve to propagate harm to a marginalized group, but even undermine the mission that brought you together in the first place! There is no room to find a compromise position, this person needs to fix their heart or else they have no place within this project. This is precisely how we should understand the Zionist position within left spaces - and yes in this instance I am including Democrats as a part of “the left” here.

As Israel continues to breach cease-fire agreements and move forward with construction efforts that further colonize land from the Palestinians that they have stolen it from, Israel grows more and more contemptible. The hard work of winning hearts and minds of the popular majority is ongoing, but we do have reason to believe we are steadily growing. Despite what some loud voices in the Wisconsin Democratic Party would have you believe, the people in the party stand united with Palestine. Zionists in our movements are operating from a compromised position; if they are willing to overlook genocide then what other atrocities are they willing to stomach. 

So… Purity Politics?

Kinda! I mean kinda? There are a lot of issues in which there is a broad spectrum of acceptable thought, even in regards to Palestine. But there are certainly positions that are unacceptable! The “left” in the United States holds certain views that are disqualifying for our movement, and support for Israel’s apartheid occupation must sit comfortably with pro-life views, support for The Thin Blue Line. This is an explicit call for a deconstruction of the Democratic strategists insistence on a big tent, as it was one where Palestinian-Americans were decidedly not welcome anyway.  

This is relevant again to Wisconsin electoralism. This Ta Nehesi Coates quote is evergreen: “We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy... and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.” You can replace “democracy” with any other issue that you care about as a voter, and find reason to disregard the Democratic position. 

Democrats have positioned themselves as the moral beacon, especially in contrast to the Trumpist Republican Party. This is their mantle to grab and surely by comparison the difference is night and day… but we don’t judge by comparison, and Dems keep letting us down. Watching the party split over Bill Clinton’s implication within the Epstein files (or for that matter, DPW-financier Reid Hoffman,) has been illuminating. For months the left has siphoned energy around this issue, but that deflates when the Democratic “big tent” stifles their ability to act. 

That Ta Nehesi Coates quote has been a lighthouse for political reality in the Trump 2.0 era. Palestinian liberation-activists would take his argument even further in light of recent ICE escalation in Minnesota. Last Wednesday at the Democratic Governor’s forum, only one candidate was willing to suggest that we abolish ICE. This is also the only candidate who has openly said we need to end the genocide in Israel, and this is because the same forces that will not openly repudiate a genocide in Palestine, will not be able to hold the line when that violence is turned on the American people. 

In Conclusion

Corporate Democrats keep hoping that people will get so sick of Republican chicannery that we will see the mythic “blue wave.” If that is their only strategy (or just throwing more money at the election) we will see the same repeating pattern we’ve had since at least 2018. Their dreams of the Democratic Trifecta simply manifesting from distaste for Trump is a fantasy if they themselves are not willing to budge on the issues that their party desperately wants and needs. Many of them are still flaunting campaign talking points like “expanding Badgercare!” As if in the last 10 years of failure to do so something has changed when it hasn’t.

We need a politics that moves the people, not one of complacency and that is  represented by the inaction on Palestine. A Democratic Party who refuses to enfranchise Palestinian-Americans will allow ICE to trample on all of us. We need to push the issue of genocide in Palestine with anyone who is asking for our vote. It fucking matters, and anyone who wants to pretend a local election is unrelated doesn’t want to be moved from their position of comfort.