The Palestinian liberation movement is one of the last national liberation and decolonization struggles. The PSM resembles anti-imperialist, antiwar and solidarity movements since the Spanish Civil War, but for the first time since the 1930s the Marxist left is not central to organizing it. The PSM is also similar to the George Floyd movement in that it has raised mass awareness and discredited state violence, even as ruling-class interests and institutions struck back with police violence and political and legal repression. The challenge for the PSM is building power to disrupt US support for Israel – just as the antiwar movement did during the Vietnam War, which combined with Vietnamese resistance and armed struggle to defeat the American war effort. This requires organization, leadership and a mass movement that is broad, strategic, disciplined and refuses to compromise on Palestinian national liberation and ending Zionist settler-colonialism. But it also faces the same trap confronting all movements today. PSM protests are highly dependent on social media and can unleash mass disruptive power seemingly out of nowhere. But social media also determines the form of protests, and in particular the ephemeral viral tactics they adopt, making them almost impossible to organize and institutionalize in the very moment when they have the most influence.
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