Jacobin Magazine and Imperial Mediation

What did Jacobin magazine write about Elias Rodriguez, the Latin American hero of last month’s attack in Washington? Nothing, as if nothing had happened. But the same magazine celebrated Luigi Mangione, who assassinated United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. American progressives are hypersensitive to armed resistance in our country. Weapons are used exclusively for their own purposes, “weapons exclusivity,” and of course, their subsequent distribution exclusively to U.S. allies.

Not only do they want us to resist genocide peacefully, but they also want to: first, liberate us, not for us to do it (and therefore we must appeal to the conscience of American voters and the American working class, which, regardless of its ethnic background, elected Donald Trump. Perhaps we haven’t appealed enough to the American working class, which Jacobin considers sacred even more sacred than our blood and takes precedence over our very existence, as is clear from its articles). Second, they call for arming Ukraine with all the military technology available to the United States against Russia (American Trotskyist leftist magazines are full of articles boasting that leftists on the front lines in Ukraine are at the forefront of the fighters; bear witness to the American working class that we were the first to fight Washington’s enemies. But the same magazine doesn’t boast about the operations of the heroes of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades in the West Bank and Gaza Strip).

Thus, one of the most absurd statements today is solidarity with both Palestine and Ukraine. The left’s litmus test today is not the keffiyeh or the colors of the watermelon, but rather the question of whether you support armed resistance against Israel and support sending money and weapons to it (as you do in the case of Ukraine). Will Jacobin magazine send money and weapons to the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, or at least grant legitimacy to those who wish to do so? To support the transfer of American military technology to Ukraine while expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people without resisting them is the essence of imperialist progressivism, and undoubtedly more dangerous than Trump’s blatant fascism.

This question should also be posed to Lula da Silva (although his positions are better than those of all Arab leaders combined, there is an intellectual flaw in his approach to the Palestinian issue. This flaw exists in his approach, as does that of many who once embraced armed resistance in Latin America before coming to power—Mujica, Rousseff, Petro, and others). In the months leading up to October 7, Jacobin magazine, The Guardian, and others were engaged in describing the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime. This meant, “We liberate you, and we see the time and method appropriate for this.”

But to liberate yourselves, even worse, through armed violence, and to dare to decide when to do so, cannot be granted intellectual and moral legitimacy (since this is the mission entrusted to them in the imperial metropolis). It’s true that we don’t support crushing your resistance with imperialist force, but we will not grant any legitimacy to your armed resistance against imperialism. You, imperialism and its armed resistance, are equally bad (this is the essence of the genocidal whitewashing that makes it possible to understand it academically and as institutional material).

Since the beginning of the war, there has been a consistent policy in Jacobin, The Guardian (the American edition written by “respected” American progressives), and others, to trivialize our resistance and every operation it carries out. When it becomes clear that serious blows are being carried out by the resistance, the achievements of the resistance are presented in boring installments over months so that the reader doesn’t sense them. The frightening thing is that these platforms are the best we can find in American society; to this degree, it is an imperialist society, where its progressives are worse than its fascists, because they make the reality of the world even more opaque for us, the peoples of the peripheries who are fighting for some clarity.

Our armed violence is a counter to the ambiguity of the global order (to which American progressives contribute) with the ambiguity of death, our Heideggerian approach to engaging with the international order. What is required is not a “more moral” stance toward these platforms, but rather a limitation of their ability to control the opinions of our local “elites” (whose power is unacceptable), because their power has a genocidal dimension, even among the most committed to moral discourse. In light of the Israeli-American attack on Iran, what did Jacobin find? It turned out to be a war “no one wants.” Jacobin magazine is the mediator between imperialism and the left around the world.

The left around the world questions the US administration’s rhetoric about the peoples of this or that region, and Jacobin then jumps in to present the same rhetoric with a leftist accent, making it easier for the world to embrace it. (Washington wants to fight Russia because of the power struggle. Jacobin comes along and says, “Well, we have to fight Russia because it isn’t Marxist, not because it’s an adversary of Washington.” The same rhetoric will be repeated about Taiwan tomorrow.) From propagating the theory that Israel founded Hamas to eliminate the secular Fatah movement (some segments of the Latin American left have been convinced of this nonsense as a result of Jacobin’s commendable efforts), to demonizing Hezbollah and stripping it of any liberal character (the same applies to Iran today), to nostalgia about the 1970s in the Arab world, as if there weren’t any armed Marxist resistance factions in Palestine today, and yes, they could be supplied with weapons now.

Worse still, some leftist voices in our region are being used to whitewash imperialist rhetoric, rather than to encourage armed resistance or support and arm them to organize armed resistance. The ability of the Spanish-language magazine Jacobin to be virtually the only effective platform for the left in Latin America is an imperialist ability. It uses this ability to disseminate moralizing discourse about the genocide in the Gaza Strip (rather than systematic analysis) and, of course, to argue that Hamas and Israel are equal in their oppression of the Palestinian people (as does Bernie Sanders, the unabashed progressive knight).

Jacobin has the ability (on a global scale) to legitimize the armed resistance of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, precisely because it is an American magazine. But don’t expect that from it. It will only invite them to speak about their suffering under Israeli genocide, on the one hand, and Islamic hegemony over the resistance, on the other. Wait for how Jacobin will deal with Venezuela or Nicaragua when they are bombed by the United States. You’ll find the same evasive rhetoric about regimes that “claim” to be Marxist. In light of the Israeli-American attack on Iran, what does Jacobin find?

Branko Marketić is undoubtedly the best voice within Jacobin, but even his writing is subpar. The magazine is currently preoccupied with Zahran Mamandi’s conquests, while the real conquests of Elias Rodriguez are of no interest to it. The Guardian is quick to publish any pseudo-demonstration against Hamas in Gaza (the Guardian has a very sensitive democratic barometer; they conduct polls, even under pressure of genocide and starvation, to ask whether people are happy with the killing and starvation).

Of course, there are Jacobin names who also write for The Guardian, instead of denouncing it, which is the least left-wing belief. Jacobin magazine delegitimized our resistance under the pretext that it is not a Marxist resistance, but the magazine doesn’t have the nerve to publish any supportive material, even if the resistance is Marxist. Even more so, they will accuse the resistance of not being Marxist enough. Just look at how Jacobin delegitimizes the regime in Venezuela. All the talk is that it isn’t a Marxist regime, as it claims and alleges. In other words, even if a Marxist resistance were to arise, they would find that it “claims” to be so, because Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the true Marxists, not Nicolás Maduro or Daniel Ortega.

Jacobin’s discourse hurts us, but its discourse against the “establishment” (which I prefer to call the “imperial metropolis” to emphasize its status as a spatial and institutional unit and to make its analysis and the analysis of its institutions more coherent than the monstrous term “establishment”) is irrelevant and unrelated. The magazine’s discourse is aimed at us and our consciousness, not the decision-makers in Washington. What we read in Jacobin is not “cowardice,” or cleverness and deception of the American administration, but rather the real role of these people within the imperial discourse management system. What do we in the peripheries lose if Jacobin and its counterparts in the United States are shut down? Nothing.

Quite the contrary: the left around the world, especially in Latin America, will breathe fresh, methodological oxygen again, and the world and the global order will become more clear. Our voice, which American progressives want to hear in the wave of “decolonize X” and “listen to X” in some academic departments in the United States, is not our opinion of them or of the imperial metropolis that granted them discursive authority. For them, our armed resistance is not part of “listening to the locals.” They simply want to hold us accountable for what happens to us (contrary to their hypersensitivity to the suffering of their own people).

There is currently a trend in American universities that we have talked too much about colonialism and we should start paying attention to the “effectiveness” of the colonized—that they pampered oppressed peoples too much, and now we must hold them accountable. It’s similar to what Donald Trump is doing to US allies: We gave you a lot of money, now give it back. This is an American academic shift before it was fascist. American progressives have a share of our blood, and this fact must never go away. You’re being sarcastic toward us, not the American administration (of course, regardless of the “ageist” farce that the new generations are “different”).

source: Al-Akhbar

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=20109

Elías Rodríguez… El Feda’i que Reveló las Posiciones de la Resistencia

Khaled Barakat 2

Publicado originalmente en árabe en el periódico Libanes Al-Akhbar, traducido al español a partir de la traducción al inglés de Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement.

La operación que llevó acabo el Feda’i1 Elías Rodríguez no fue un evento pasajero o un acto aislado del contexto político y estratégico actual. Más bien, marcó un momento escencial en la clarificación de las posiciones y expuso las contradicciones – especialmente en la arena internacional donde los movimientos de solidaridad con el pueblo Palestino están activos. Ocurre en una de las fases más fieras del la guerra genocida que la entidad sionista desata en contra de la Franja de Gaza desde hace veinte meses, la operación fue una respuesta legítima y natural a esta brutal agresión y un eco de la voz de la resistencia que sigue viva y profundamente enraizada en la conciencia de las gentes libres.

El intelectual revolucionario y mártir Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) era el teórico de vanguardia de la violencia revolucionaria para confrontar al imperialismo y al sionismo. El vínculo de Kanafani con la lucha armada no era romántico, sino que estaba fuertemente atado a su pensamiento político, su convicción, y la perspectiva cuya coherencia lógica y moral defendió hasta el momento de su martirio. Esta conexión práctica y moral fue una de las principales razones de su asesinato.

Kanafani también libró una lucha sin cuartel en contra de aquellos – palestinos, árabes u otros – que se oponían a las “operaciones externas”. El autor del dictamen “detrás del enemigo en todas partes” afirmaba continuamente, hasta el momento de su asesinato, que no hay ni separación ni contradicción entre las acciones de los fedayines dentro de las fronteras de Palestina y las “operaciones externas,” mientras que la estrategia política sea unificada y el enemigo sea uno solo. ¿Hoy ha cambiado el campo enemigo? ¿Han cambiado sus políticas coloniales, o se han vuelto más salvajes?

La operación heroica de Rodríguez clarifica que el “movimiento de solidaridad” con el pueblo Palestino no es una sola corriente o una visión unificada, sino una mezcla de diversas fuerzas: algunos creen en el camino de la resistencia y la liberación de Palestina desde el río hasta el mar, mientras otros se posicionan en el marco liberal que confina el conflicto al discurso de derechos humanos y la arena diplomática, y que en la práctica claman por aquello que se ha denominado la “solución de dos Estados” como el único horizonte viable para el conflicto árabe-sionista. Esta divergencia no es nueva. Refleja las contradicciones políticas e ideológicas que siempre han acompañado a los movimientos internacionales de solidaridad, desde la revolución argelina hasta el apoyo a las luchas de Vietnam, Sudáfrica, Irlanda y otras. De hecho, también revela las contradicciones internas de los palestinos – pero esa es una discusión más larga…

En el centro de esta compleja imagen está la relevancia de la operación de Rodríguez. No fue solo un reto al aparato de seguridad de los Estados Unidos, sino que también se volvió un espejo donde se reflejan la realidad de las posturas: aquellos que en verdad apoyan a la resistencia, y aquellos que se esconden atrás de eslóganes generales para promover una visión entre el nihilismo y la rendición. Muchos hablan de “el derecho del pueblo palestino a resistir,” mientras rechazan cualquier práctica concreta, consciente de este derecho si sale del límite del discurso aceptable en occidente, un discurso que a menudo se traduce en llamados a arreglos y concesiones políticas, la primera entre ellas la promoción de la “solución de dos Estados” y la “paz” que implica el reconocimiento de la legitimidad de la Entidad Sionista y la rendición de Palestina – y de nuestras mentes.

En cambio, hay quienes apoyaron firme y claramente a la resistencia, no solo como concepto teórico, sino como acción práctica basada en los principios de liberación, retorno, y el rechazo de la legitimidad de la ocupación. Estos son la extensión natural del movimiento de liberación de Palestina alrededor del mundo, que ven la lucha palestina como parte de un frente global contra el colonialismo, el racismo y el capitalismo brutal y depredador. Por esto, estamos presenciando el avance de fuerzas radicales obreras, juveniles, estudiantiles, y de la mujer, mientras la tendencia de la “solidaridad condicionada” está en retroceso.

La operación de Rodríguez no solo reveló los límites del discurso liberal, también restauró el valor de la acción directa como una herramienta de movilización y agitación, enfrentando a todos con sus responsabilidades. La amplia respuesta popular a esta operación, sobre todo entre los jóvenes y las comunidades palestinas, árabes y musulmanas, revela que el sentimiento popular sigue alineado con la lucha armada y una posición revolucionaria en Palestina. La batalla librada por el pueblo palestino no está confinada a Cisjordania y Gaza, mas se extiende y expande globalmente dentro del marco del de la lucha revolucionaria contra el imperialismo, el sionismo, y los regímenes fascistas y reaccionarios.

Estas diferencias, a pesar de su agudeza, no deben de volverse una fuente de discordia nihilista; más bien, deben de ser comprendidas como parte de la pluralidad natural dentro de los movimientos globales de liberación. Históricamente, los movimientos de solidaridad con las causas justas han sido testigos de divergencias similares, tanto si era el apoyo a la revolución cubana, las luchas de América latina, o incluso posiciones en torno a la resistencia en Irak o Líbano. Sin embargo, hay una necesidad urgente de prevenir que el enemigo explote esta “pluralidad”, especialmente frente al genocidio. Los sionistas, vía las campañas de propaganda y la presión política legal, buscan demonizar a todos aquellos que apoyen la resistencia, y sembrar duda y desconfianza entre las filas de los activistas solidarios en general.

Nuestro balance es que la mayoría del pueblo palestino – tanto en la tierra natal como en la diáspora – especialmente de cara a las masacres en Gaza, ven el regreso de las acciones de feda’i como una necesidad revolucionaria. Llaman a una participación popular más amplia en apoyo a la resistencia, sea apoyo político, financiero, mediático o cultural, o vía involucrarse directamente. Esta es la plataforma popular y la fuerza del impulso revolucionario necesario para detener la agresión, cambiar la correlación de fuerzas, y alcanzar la liberación. Entre más grandes son los crímenes de la ocupación, más profunda es la convicción de que no hay lugar para la neutralidad y que confrontar al enemigo se ha vuelto un deber, no una elección.

El día de hoy la batalla no está confinada a Gaza o Cisjordania, sino que incluye también a la diáspora. Entonces, la operación de Rodríguez representa un grito frente al sistema norteamericano, y un mensaje de que la resistencia no depende de la geografía, raza o color, sino que es una afiliación, una identidad, y una postura ética y política que no permite ninguna consesión.

En conclusión, las fuerzas de la resistencia y sus aliadas deben de construir en este momento, ampliar los círculos del diálogo revolucionario con los movimientos de liberación a nivel internacional, y proteger sus filas contra la campaña sionista que busca aislar y difamar a la resistencia. La batalla es larga y abierta a todas las posibilidades, pero la claridad de visión y dirección – como la que demostró Rodríguez – es la primera condición para la victoria.

1. Palabra árabe que quiere decir “sacrificio” o “aquel que se sacrifica”, y que se usa para designar a los combatientes palestinos, más conocida por el plural fedayin.
2. Miembro de la red de solidaridad con los presos palestinos (Samidou)

Free Elias Rodriguez: Build the International Popular Cradle of Resistance

Elias Rodriguez’s targeted attack on two israeli diplomatic staff on May 21, 2025 was a legitimate act of resistance against the zionist state and its genocidal campaign in Gaza. After twenty months of non-stop apocalyptic violence wrought by the zionist movement, inflicted upon Palestinian civilians striving for national liberation as well as on the freedom fighters advancing that national liberation; after twenty months of political and legal repression by these same zionists against our international movement opposing their campaign of total destruction—the time has now come for real consequences. They have left no other option for effectively opposing their rampage and utter disregard for any boundaries, whether those of human decency or political borders, as they engage in repression against even the possibility of non-violent protest across the entirety of the imperialist alliance led by the so-called United States.

Witness the outright banning of protest and expression of support for Palestinian liberation from within Europe, particularly in Germany and France; themselves no strangers to committing genocide. Witness the arbitrary arrests, detentions and deportations of Palestinians and Muslims across North America and Europe. Witness the targeted lawfare and phony “terrorist” and “sham charity” designations against Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network for their unwavering defense of the Axis of Resistance and the prisoners locked in zionist concentration camps. Witness the terror lists that criminalize international solidarity. Witness the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine at multiple campuses, the civil suits aimed at students to demobilize the most active part of the movement, the collaboration between zionist vigilantes and militarized police forces, the doxxing and death threats and expulsions. Witness the terror of attacking the livelihoods of opponents, bullying people out of jobs and institutions. Witness the political prisoners of the Palestine solidarity movement locked up for their conscience, from the Holy Land 5 to Casey Goonan. Witness the brutal murder of six-year-old Palestinian Wadea al-Fayoume in Chicago, whose picture was displayed in Elias Rodriguez’s apartment window. Witness the utter impunity with which they accomplish all of this—cynically cowering behind the absurd assertion that zionists are the real victims while having the backing of the most militarized empire in the history of humanity, the USA.

Extending beyond this repression within the West, the zionist movement uses all means to repress opposition among the people and states existing outside of, or on the boundaries of, western dominance. They have used diplomatic, economic and even military means, through the provision of weapons, mercenaries, and training to any agents whom they can use as tools for their interests. They have crossed every line and boundary, attacking Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. Engaging in perfidy across the world, killing civilians and assassinating even negotiators, often under a flag of truce. Witness their diplomatic and economic attacks on South Africa, through their senior partner in crimes against humanity, the US government. The zionist movement, as concentrated and formalized in the israeli state, are explicit that they will not respect any limits, everything and anything is permitted in advancing their supremacist world view, and cementing the festering settler colony they have, temporarily, established on Palestinian land.

In this light, the operation conducted by Elias Rodriguez against israel’s diplomatic functionaries in Washington DC—people actively engaged in facilitating this comprehensive violence across the globe by creating the diplomatic space to continue and deepen it—was, by his own account, a declaration of ENOUGH! To paraphrase a great revolutionary, protest is when we say “we don’t like this”, resistance is when we put an end to what we don’t like.

To be clear, what we are asserting is more than a recognition that the violence and oppression meted out by the zionist movement will inevitably give rise to counter-violence, an indisputable truism. We are saying that such counter-violence is legitimate. It is justice.

Elias Rodriguez’s act was fully justified, at that place where legal and moral duties meet. It is clear that international law, which the West itself established and whose institutions are dominated by the interest of these imperialists, establishes a duty to take action to stop genocide, including the use of violence to do so. Under international law, this duty is assigned to states—it is not for non-state actors to assert. But what of the case where no Western state has taken sufficient action to stop the devastation, where a genocide occurs in front of everyone’s eyes, live streamed both in the carnage of Gaza and also in the explicit and implicit admissions of the israeli government and broader zionist movement? In this case, our case, the only actors who dare to impose consequences have been, by the designation of the imperialists themselves, non-state actors, besides Iran.

This is the point at which those legal obligations, derogated and left unfulfilled by those responsible to them, fall to the free people of the world to fulfill. Elias Rodriguez exacted a consequence, a mere drop in the bucket of consequences due to the zionist movement and its military garrison of a state. May it redound to teach a lesson and set an example. To finally give pause to the zionists, that there are limits and that impunity will not be permitted, anywhere.

The Palestinian struggle is the tip of the spear against global imperialism. As imperialism has made the entire world its battlefield, it is justified to fight it, by any means necessary, without regard for geography. This holds especially true for those of us struggling behind enemy lines, inside the US, an entity that is an equal party in all crimes committed by the zionists. Whether in the beseiged Gaza Strip, the Red Sea, the South of Lebanon or the heart of the US, there must be consequences for genocidal zionist imperialism, and those consequences are righteous.

The moral force that compels us to put an end to the unprecedented brutality of the Gaza genocide—and the imperialist world system as a whole—is grounds for asserting a new law, a law created by revolutionary actors, and standing in defiance against established law which has proven itself to be inadequate and fundamentally illegitimate. In the face of unfathomable imperialist and colonial violence executed on a starved and imprisoned people with absolute impunity, we have an obligation to rupture with the authority that has made that violence possible. Elias Rodriguez did exactly that and his act of resistance has put the law itself on trial.

But this is only the beginning of his battle, and he must have the support of all free people around the world. Opponents of imperialism, zionism, and genocide must rally to defend Elias Rodriguez, and through this defense support the legitimacy and necessity of resistance itself. What takes place with regard to his case over the next months and years will fundamentally alter the trajectory of the international movement against zionism and US-led imperialism. Revolutionaries and people of conscience everywhere have a stake in this fight.

The US state will undoubtedly seek the death penalty for his case, as they have with Rodney Hinton Jr. and Luigi Mangione, whose alleged actions also helped to balance the scales of justice. The zionists will make Elias Rodriguez an avatar of our movement, while distorting his and our message, seeking to strike yet more fear, to intimidate us further into silence and hapless, hopeless “protest.” If we allow them to silently kill Elias Rodriguez, if we sit back and watch or allow ourselves to forget his resistance, then they will have also killed a part of our movement, a part of us; that part that yearns for justice against the outrageous and humiliating impunity of this system of genocide and, indeed, biocide. Again, we have no choice but to defend Elias Rodriguez. All the better that his actions are eminently defensible and morally righteous.

And so, we call on all people of conscience, those for whom the outrages of the last 20 months are simply too much to bear, to gather in support of Elias Rodriguez. Take some part of his act of justice for yourself by supporting his struggle to the end. Send him moral support by mailing letters. Send him monetary support by putting funds in his prison account and by supporting his legal defense. Gather at his court hearings. Gather at the dungeons in which they hold him. And, in all cases, raise your voices to echo his own words and actions for the sake of justice and accountability, that this genocide against the Palestinian people ends now and Palestine be free. Do it proudly and without shame. This too is a way of imposing consequences and sending a message to genocidaires and their accomplices that from this point forward accountability is coming, swift, unforgiving, and unrelenting.

FREE ELIAS RODRIGUEZ! FREE THEM ALL!

BUILD THE INTERNATIONAL POPULAR CRADLE OF RESISTANCE!

GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA!

—Free Elias Rodriguez Organizing Committee (free.elias.rodriguez@proton.me)

Signatures:

Cultural Workers Against Empire

Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network

Bronx Anti War

Resistance News Network

Unity of Fields

JDPOD

Nidal Seattle

Third World Solidarity Front (TWSF)

Resistance Archives

Free Radical

Chorley4Palestine

Collectivize!

People’s Defense Charlotte

Crown Heights Bites Back

Teatro de la Psychomachia

Montgomery County for Palestine

Mateo Feliciano, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective

Kamau Franklin

DSA Liberation Caucus

Civilian Freedom Movement worldwide (CFM)

Costurero Anarquista Popular Nueva York

Jewish Bund at Brandeis

Community Liberation Programs

Palestine News Network (PNN)

Brevard Vanguard

—

Note: We understand security-minded people may question why we are gathering a list of signatures. We believe showing as much possible public support for Elias is important right now, particularly from anti-imperialist and anti-repression political organizations. We especially encourage organizations and public individuals to sign on. Other individuals, especially those less known to the state, should be mindful of their security and consider signing anonymously with an anonymous Proton mail account if they want to receive updates from the Free Elias Rodriguez Organizing Committee.

source: Tariq El-Tahrir

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19340