The Fight for Palestine Is the Fight Against Fascism

It has been over 450 days since Israel began its genocide and military invasion of Gaza and then Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. With the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president, the American government will continue and increase support for Israel’s all out war against Palestinian people.

For the past year, students have rallied and protested to demand divestment from Israel and its apartheid regime. Heated protests have erupted across the country, including in San Francisco where students planned walk outs and took over quads with encampments and teach-ins.

Alongside these students, parents from Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) communities went up against San Francisco’s school board to insist that their children cannot be censored for supporting Palestinian people. Many of these parents are Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) members, so I joined a meeting between these parents and the superintendent. When the superintendent would not bring up pressing issues around how students were being impacted by the ongoing genocide, parents disrupted the meeting and demanded their kids’ rights to speak up.

Through organizing, we build trust and are able to inoculate the harmful disinformation coming from white Christian nationalists and other right-wing forces.

However, not too long ago, I saw these same parents swayed by white Christian nationalists who were mobilizing Arab and Muslim parents around transphobia and homophobia. By circulating hateful rhetoric and drumming up fears about the “influence” of LGBTQ+ acceptance, white Christian nationalists convinced Arab and Muslim parents to pull their children out of public schools in the Bay Area. This is a trend we have seen across the country as Christian nationalist groups like Moms for Liberty recruit conservative Asian faith-based groups to rally against curricula portraying LGBTQ+ families and themes.

What happened? How did these parents go from being swayed by one fascist force to vehemently countering another fascist force? What can we learn as organizers from this moment?

The fight for a free Palestine is deeply ingrained into the many other fights against rising facism in the United States and abroad. We must understand that to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, we must also develop a longer-term strategy that contends with the growing power of far-right forces here in the U.S. We cannot do one without the other.

What does this take? First, we must be clear about who we’re up against and what strategies they are using. After 75 years of occupation and a year of military invasion, Zionism has made clear their strategy: complete annihilation of Palestine and its people. To do this, the Zionist system requires the support of other right-wing forces for monetary, political, and narrative power.

One formidable partnership is between white Christian nationalists and Zionists. Nationally, the largest Zionist organization in the United States is Christians United for Israel, which funnels millions of dollars into the Israel lobby every year. Project 2025, the 900-plus-page policy document spearheaded by the far-right Heritage Foundation, lays out far-right forces’ plan to transform the United States into a Christian nationalist theocracy that would sustain Israel’s military expansion. Locally, in San Francisco, when AROC campaigned with parents and students for the addition of Eid as holidays on the school calendar, Christian nationalists and Zionists allied to threaten the school board and halt the decision.

This issue of transphobia is a longer-term struggle that we will continue to face. We have not resolved it with our members, and there is no success story. However, we are helping our members to understand the contradictions of right-wing forces in order to move our communities on various contentious issues.

For years, Christian nationalists have made inroads into organizing Muslim and Arab parents in the Bay Area by manufacturing fear and outrage around queer and trans “influences” in schools. In the past year, as AROC has mobilized thousands of people to call for a permanent cease-fire and an arms embargo on Israel, we have also been engaging in deep political education and long conversations with our communities to point out the connections between various right-wing, fascist forces.

This past year has politicized many to call for Palestinian liberation. It has especially mobilized the SWANA families in AROC’s membership, many of whom have direct connections to the region that Israel is devastating. This past year has reemphasized that we need to deeply invest in grassroots organizing and basebuilding. This allows organizers and working-class people to work together to protect our communities from right-wing disinformation and come up with real solutions that can transform lives.

When the attacks on Gaza began last October, AROC was able to provide the space and container for our parents, youth, and activists to identify key issues and leverage our power locally. We got the cities of San Francisco and Oakland to adopt resolutions for an immediate and sustained cease-fire. Through those processes, we saw our community really engage with democratic processes and understand the power of civic engagement. Through organizing, we build trust and are able to inoculate the harmful disinformation coming from white Christian nationalists and other right-wing forces. This is key to winning our communities away from right-wing influences and building a stronger anti-fascist movement.

Grassroots organizing is how we build the power of our movement! Power means we can shift conditions in society and in our own lives. Power means we can end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and block the rise of far-right fascism.