Norma Reyes, Illie Pérez – septiembre 22 de 2025
Since the onset of the Zionist genocide in October 2023, we have witnessed massive demonstrations of condemnation in several countries, particularly in Europe, as part of the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people. Even more encouraging has been the recent increase in such mobilizations across different parts of the globe, along with new manifestations and denunciations of Israel by sports fans, artists, NGOs, intellectuals, and journalists—many of whom have seen their colleagues killed while reporting on the extermination.
For nearly two years, the world has observed live and in real time the famine and multiple methods of Nazi-style extermination aimed at annihilating the people of Gaza, with the explicit purpose of displacing them and seizing their territory for new settler colonies.
Beyond the systematic massacre, atrocities such as the implementation of so-called “death traps” designed to mow down civilians seeking food, combined with the ongoing aerial and ground assault on Gaza by the Zionist army to completely devastate the city, have unleashed the current wave of outrage and repudiation. This surge of indignation breathes new life into the resistance struggle against the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. [See also: “Between Bombings and Hunger: Gaza Has Become a Hell for the Palestinian Population”].
If the massive mobilizations held in August in Istanbul (Turkey), Madrid and other Spanish cities, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Geneva (Switzerland), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), among others, already lifted the spirits of those who defend the Palestinian cause, the iconic images of demonstrators filling one of the main bridges and streets of Brisbane (Australia) sparked jubilation.
Ese impulso se ha multiplicado en septiembre, con masivas protestas en Londres, París, Seúl, Pensilvania, Bruselas, México, Frankfurt, Tokio y Buenos Aires, entre muchas otras. En todas ellas se expresa un mismo mensaje: el nazi sionismo genocida de Israel y sus financiadores yanquis y europeos no son imparables.
Another symbol of this wave of solidarity has been the mass actions at the ports of Barcelona, Madrid, Genoa, Paris, and Istanbul, in support of the Freedom Flotilla—a valuable initiative by activists from 44 countries who, in defiance of Israel, decided to set sail from various locations to deliver supplies and humanitarian aid to Gaza.
One action of particular significance in this global struggle between genocidal Israel and those who support the Palestinian cause—which is also the cause of the world’s workers and the poor—was the blockade of military cargo destined for Israel by dockworkers at the port of Genoa (Italy) in August. Before reaching Genoa, the ship carrying the cargo was met with protests by Greek dockworkers in Piraeus, who also called mass demonstrations to prevent the unloading of military-grade steel from the vessel Ever Golden. These and many other actions, in which European dockworkers have refused to handle shipments bound for Israel since the genocide began, offer a powerful example to follow. They demonstrate the potential power of the working class to paralyze the machinery of war, for it is workers who produce the goods that constitute social wealth. Strengthening and extending such methods to more countries could give significant momentum to the struggle to halt the Zionist genocide.
To all this must be added the actions of fans and activists during the Vuelta a España cycling tour, which concluded on August 14. During several stages of the competition, residents carrying Palestinian flags blocked the passage of cyclists in protest against the participation of the Israeli team. In the final stage, thousands took to the streets of Madrid, preventing the race from concluding, while chanting “This is not a war, it is genocide” and “Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people.” Despite the absence of a podium and customary protocol events, one could say that the true winner of the Vuelta a España was indeed the Palestinian people.
Although many more positive and encouraging actions have taken place within this renewed wave of rejection of the genocide, special mention should be made of the numerous statements and denunciations issued by well-known actors and intellectuals, as well as the displays of solidarity with Palestine at the recent San Sebastián Film Festival. Equally noteworthy was the extensive and emotional standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival for the film «The Voice of Hind», based on the final anguished emergency calls of young Hind to the Red Crescent and the rescue team’s desperate attempts to save her.
The strength of the protests and actions rejecting Israel have compelled the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to shift away from their unconditional support for Israel and to announce recognition of the Palestinian state, even prior to the UN General Assembly in September 2025. This immediately drew Israel’s rejection, as it continues to count on the firm military and political backing of the United States and Europe.
In the same vein, the condemnations issued by the foreign ministers of Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain regarding Israel’s recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, or the announcement by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of a decree—still pending approval by parliament—imposing sanctions on Israel, including a total arms embargo, can be understood. Likewise, the European Commission, on September 17, proposed a series of measures against Israel and sanctions targeting certain settler associations.
Thus, Palestinian resistance increasingly receives support from peoples and sectors who defy the complicit silence of the major powers. These diverse expressions of solidarity—now spreading and intensifying worldwide—are indeed encouraging. Yet it must also be noted that the ground offensive against the people of Gaza continues to intensify, forcing mass displacement toward the south.
“There are 42 square kilometers where nearly 2 million people are expected to live, while access to water, food, and medical services is already completely overwhelmed,” explains Esperanza Santos, coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza.
Nonetheless, whether Zionism succeeds in consolidating the ethnic cleansing and occupation of Palestine—which has already left approximately 65,000 dead—will ultimately depend on the strength of the mass movement.
The Effect of the Mobilizations
One of the most significant effects of the recent wave of mobilizations has been the moral and political boost given to Palestinian resistance, which endures despite the brutality of Zionism. Each march, each blockade, and each public denunciation becomes a reminder that the Palestinian people are not alone and that their cause resonates across the globe. This phenomenon not only strengthens the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, but also energizes the struggles of workers, the poor, and the oppressed worldwide, who mobilize in their own contexts against their governments, oppression, and exploitation.
Although Zionism continues to receive political, military, and financial backing from the United States and Europe, as noted above, international repudiation has sharpened contradictions between Israel and certain governments, including Arab bourgeois regimes that have been compelled to speak out after Israel’s brazen bombing of Qatar, a firm U.S. ally in the region.
It can be argued that the camp of states supporting Zionism is undergoing a slow weakening—an undoubtedly positive effect of the worldwide actions that have unfolded, which in turn breathe life into the struggle. This became evident when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, compelled by the protests that disrupted the conclusion of the Vuelta a España, declared: “We stand for what is right, which is to side with the victims, not the aggressors.” Netanyahu’s immediate response—accusing him of “antisemitism”—confirmed that pressure from the streets is forcing certain governments to distance themselves from the genocide. [See also: “International Rejection of the Zionist Genocide Against the Palestinian People Grows”].
Another visible effect has been the posture of governments that, under pressure from the magnitude of the protests and in an attempt to contain mass mobilizations within their own borders, have announced recognition of the Palestinian state. While many regard this as an entirely positive development, it represents a revival of the old two-state policy—one that accepts the existence of the State of Israel, thereby legitimizing Zionist occupation and usurpation of the territory. [See also: “La respuesta de Irán a Israel y la ocupación interminable de Palestina”].
Tensions are also surfacing within other European countries. Recently, in the Netherlands, five ministers resigned over the government’s refusal to impose sanctions on Israel, while in Spain the solidarity movement maintains growing pressure for the implementation of an arms embargo. These developments illustrate how mobilizations are beginning to fracture the steadfast support European powers have historically extended to the genocidal Israeli state.
The wave of protests has also reverberated within Israel itself. Increasingly, youth, academics, intellectuals, and NGOs openly denounce the government’s genocidal policies. Whereas in the beginning this amounted merely to electoral distancing from Netanyahu, today one can hear voices directly criticizing the genocide and—albeit in limited ways—expressing solidarity with Gaza. This positioning signals a leftward shift that favors the Palestinian struggle and, to some extent, weakens Netanyahu’s government.
Within this context, it is important to highlight the initiative of the Freedom Flotilla, which openly sought to challenge the blockade in order to deliver aid to Gaza. The decision by business actors to finance vessels carrying assistance—despite their limitations—reveals a rejection of Zionism even within sectors of the bourgeoisie that had historically remained silent in the face of genocide.
Just as the Soviet working class, wearing military uniforms and despite a Stalinist government that had previously struck a pact with Hitler, dealt a decisive defeat to German forces at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943—marking the beginning of the collapse of Nazism—the potential decisive victory of today’s democratic struggle against the genocidal State of Israel, combined with a workers’ revolution, could bring about a historic shift in favor of the Palestinian cause and that of workers worldwide. [See also: “80 Years After the Defeat of German Nazism: Witnessing the Genocide of the Palestinian People by Israeli Zionist Nazism”].
Is the UN an Institution That Helps the Palestinian People?
The official statement issued by the United Nations in August, “formally” acknowledging that Israel is indeed committing genocide as well as causing famine in Gaza, has received significant coverage and generated enthusiasm.
The UN—despite being largely funded and therefore dominated by the United States, its host country—is described by its promoters as “the most inclusive multilateral forum on the planet.” Even more so as it has been the target of attacks by the Trump administration, which, among other anti-democratic measures, denied visas to delegates of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for the September 2025 summit.
For this reason, many activists and workers who sincerely support the Palestinian cause and reject genocide genuinely place their trust in this institution, as though it were a democratic and neutral body. Under the influence of liberal-democratic propaganda disseminated by political leaders and “progressive” governments, many look “upward” with hope, expecting that some pronouncement or resolution by the UN might halt the genocide. In a serious misconception, they place confidence in an organization endorsed as a defender of democracy by bourgeois governments worldwide, both of the right and the so-called left. Yet, in reality, the institution is entirely dominated by the governments of the capitalist powers, above all the United States. Such confidence in the UN downplays or ignores the fact that it was precisely the UN which, in 1948, legitimized the colonization and occupation of Palestine by Zionism.
Thus, the importance of UN declarations is relative: they are formal in nature and, as experience has shown, devoid of practical consequences. In this case, not only because the UN belatedly recognized something Israel has been carrying out since 2023, but also because the statement has neither halted nor isolated Zionism.
At this point it is worth recalling the still-relevant definition articulated by revolutionary leader Nahuel Moreno:
“The UN and its specialized agencies are accomplices of imperialism. They are not neutral: they conceal interventions, military coups, and even genocides. They are a diplomatic masquerade designed to legitimize the policies of the great powers.”
This definition precisely characterizes the UN as a “concealer” of genocide under the guise of a “diplomatic masquerade.” Its apparent passivity, as well as the intent of its “humanitarian” statements and communiqués regarding the Palestinian tragedy, must be understood in this light.
On the one hand, through its longstanding role in coordinating “humanitarian aid” for the Palestinian people, the UN has played a role in offering palliative measures that contain the struggles of the Palestinian masses. On the other hand, in the face of the genocide in Gaza and the siege of the West Bank, the façade of its apparatus for the supposed defense of human rights has been exposed—the so-called “International Humanitarian Law” and the “International Court of Justice,” as well as the ideology of “never again Nazism” under which the UN was created.
It was the UN, through Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, that legalized the occupation and colonization of Palestine by Zionism and its continued presence in Gaza and the West Bank. Similarly, through its role in coordinating aid in refugee camps, it has allowed for palliative management of the consequences of the ethnic cleansing process that began not on October 8, 2023, but in 1948.
¡ISRAEL GENOCIDA! GRITO DE LAS MASAS A NIVEL MUNDIAL
Como se ha señalado, las multitudinarias movilizaciones que hemos presenciado en muchos países de Europa, Australia, Asia, África, EEUU y con menor intensidad en América Latina, así como las demás acciones de rechazo a Israel en el mundo del arte y la cultura, la academia, el deporte, entre otras, se han venido incrementando en el último período, lo cual ha tenido un impacto político positivo a nivel mundial ya que la causa palestina es la causa de los trabajadores y los pobres por no dejarse expoliar de aquellos que gobiernan el mundo. Se requiere aumentar la presión de la movilización obrera y popular sobre los gobiernos genocidas, ampliando y extendiendo la fuerza de las acciones de protesta a más países y que la clase obrera, que ya viene realizando acciones de solidaridad con Palestina, entre de lleno a liderar el proceso y participe con sus métodos como la huelga, tomas de fábricas, entre otros.
Apostamos a que la lucha de la clase obrera y la lucha popular que ha protagonizado diferentes estallidos sociales en varias regiones del mundo, con esto se retroalimente y siga manifestándose. Esas luchas y las que se dan en otros países, así sea por razones económicas o políticas internas, de hecho, ponen en nuevas y mayores dificultades a los gobiernos de las potencias y países capitalistas, aliados del sionismo y cómplices del genocidio.
En perspectiva, el inevitable ataque al nivel de vida de las masas, inherente a todos los gobiernos de este sistema capitalista, tenderá a producir respuestas de inconformidad, malestar, movilización y lucha de sectores de trabajadores e incluso capas de clase media, tal como sucedió con las huelgas y revoluciones producto de la crisis económica de 2008 y como sucedió recientemente en Nepal, lo cual abre la posibilidad de revertir la situación actual, si triunfa la revolución obrera. A parecer se avizora “un horizonte de puños levantados”, como se ha dado a conocer periodísticamente.
ISRAEL, A GENOCIDAL STATE! THE CRY OF THE MASSES WORLDWIDE
As has been pointed out, the massive mobilizations we have witnessed in many countries across Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, the United States, and to a lesser extent in Latin America—as well as other acts of rejection of Israel in the worlds of art and culture, academia, sports, and beyond—have been steadily increasing in recent times. This has had a positive political impact worldwide, since the Palestinian cause is the cause of workers and the poor who refuse to be plundered by those who rule the world.
What is required is to intensify the pressure of workers’ and popular mobilizations against the genocidal governments, by broadening and extending the strength of protest actions to more countries, and by ensuring that the working class—already engaging in solidarity actions with Palestine—takes the lead in this process and deploys its own methods of struggle, such as strikes, factory occupations, and more.
We place our hopes in the struggle of the working class and the popular struggle that has already led to various social uprisings in different regions of the world, with the expectation that these experiences will feed into each other and continue to manifest. These struggles, as well as those taking place in other countries—whether for economic or internal political reasons—are in fact creating new and greater difficulties for the governments of capitalist powers and states, allies of Zionism and accomplices to genocide.
Looking ahead, the inevitable assault on the living standards of the masses—an inherent feature of all governments within this capitalist system—will tend to produce responses of discontent, unrest, mobilization, and struggle among sectors of workers and even segments of the middle class. This has been the case with the strikes and revolutions that followed the economic crisis of 2008, and as seen more recently in Nepal. All this opens the possibility of reversing the current situation if the workers’ revolution succeeds. Indeed, what seems to be looming is “a horizon of raised fists,” as has been described in journalistic accounts.
