Kamala Harris celebrated Israel’s murder (though they didn’t know until later that it was him) of the courageous Palestinian resistance leader Yahya Sinwar, saying that in this act justice was served, that the world is now a better place because Sinwar was killed, and that now, thanks to him being dead, the way is finally open to bring an end to the “war”.
Harris and her fellow genociders should be careful. Because the pernicious logic that these words of hers promote could turn against them, as more and more people, as they become aware of what is really happening in Palestine and why, as they become aware of who are the real aggressors and who are resisting that aggression, ponder the question, prompted by the words of Harris herself, of who the world would really be better off without!
We should not resort readily and instinctively to violent methods the way the imperialist aggressors do. But the question of what a given person may DESERVE is separate from the question of whether and in what circumstances, if any, anybody should try to GIVE that person what they deserve. And notwithstanding all of the official US and Zionist propaganda that paints a grotesquely distorted picture of matters, I think that, in light of all of the relevant facts, the following should be our conclusion about who deserves what: Sinwar was a hero who deserves honor, while Harris and her ilk deserve death, or worse, thousands of times over.
I do not mention this because our approach to enemies like Harris should be to try to give them what we think they deserve. We should not even think, if we can help it, in such soul-poisoning terms. We should instead focus on neutralizing their power to do further harm, and to do so by peaceful means if possible. (Contra the imperial propaganda, it must be stressed that violent means are NOT the Palestinians’ preferred choice. Israel has closed off peaceful paths time and again.) But I mention the question of “desert” above to highlight the egregious hypocrisy of Harris’s self-righteous empire-justifying comments. She celebrated the murder of one who courageously resisted an oppressive empire that continues to impose its domination by brutal violence, as if he deserved to die, as if killing him made the world a better place. But it is the empire that Harris serves that is making the world a worse place. The way to make things better is to work to stop the empire’s aggressions, and to dismantle the imperialist world system itself —the very aggressions and system that Harris is materially supporting and defending.
With regard to the elections in the US, Arundhati Roy advised in 2016 that when the only thing that our votes can accomplish is to choose which among two enemies we would rather have to contend with as they hold office, we should use our vote to accomplish that limited aim. I agree, and I think that is indeed the situation we are in, and that we will likely continue to be in that situation until such a point as popular movements are grown via non-electorally-centered means to such a scale that we become large and powerful enough not only to run candidates and win but also to defend such elections against anti-democratic coups and to move towards a full expropriation of the capitalist owning class, whose system and power lie at the root of our worst problems. And so I plan to vote for Harris in order to defeat Trump, who has promised to aid Israel even more, and whom Netanyahu wants to win.
But a very crucial thing must be made clear: Tactically voting for Harris in these circumstances is no reason at all to soften the meaning of the word “enemy” as it applies to her, especially in the light of her support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and her refusal to push for a complete halt of arms shipments and funding to the brutal Jewish supremacist occupiers. Regardless of who we vote for and who wins, we should do what we can —before, during, and after any elections— to see that Harris, Biden, Trump, and others are tried for their war crimes, and to bring to an end, using all ethical, useful, and necessary means, the ability of the US military-industrial complex, its Zionist partner state, and others (including rival capitalist powers) to inflict further harms on the world.
The Practical Challenge, In Brief
A More Effective Strategy Than Third Parties, Part I
A More Effective Strategy Than Third Parties, Part II
A More Effective Strategy Than Third Parties: The Really, Really Short Version
Why We Should Expect Trump To Be Worse