Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2025, pp. 82-83
Waging Peace
AFTER MORE THAN 20 months of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, organizers across the movement for Palestinian liberation are confronting the question of tactics and strategy. Millions have mobilized in demonstrations, boycott and divestment campaigns have gained momentum across the world and groups have taken direct action against complicit governments and corporations. Yet, Israel’s mass killing and starvation of the people of Gaza has only continued with increased brutality.
In a virtual discussion hosted by Palestine Deep Dive, Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq spoke with Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), one of the UK’s largest organizations mobilizing against the genocide in Gaza. They engaged the question that has reverberated across the movement: “Have we done enough?”
Jamal’s answer was a decisive “no.” However, he argues that no single tactic is sufficient to bring the genocide to an end. Alnaouq referenced the feelings of despair many have that mass mobilizations have failed to stop Israel’s assault, but Jamal responded that each tactic must be considered in relation to the fundamental question: “Is [this] going to increase our power” not only to end the genocide but to “dismantle the infrastructure of oppression on which this genocide is founded?”
Jamal maintained that mass mobilizations, many of which have been organized by the PSC, are one tool of many that advance critical goals in the movement for the liberation of Palestine. He explained that mobilizations send a message of solidarity and mass power that gives renewed hope to those suffering in Gaza—and those faced with looming defeatism in the West. Most importantly, mobilizations serve to bring people into campaigns and organizations and galvanize them toward other forms of action that have substantial material effects, such as boycott and divestment campaigns. This, Jamal contends, “is how you build a sustainable movement.”
Jamal is currently facing charges for a protest in January that allegedly violated police restrictions on gathering outside the BBC headquarters in central London. Jamal asserts, however, that the protest broke no such restrictions, and that the true motivation behind the charges and the British state’s repression of protests for Palestine is “because they’re afraid of the strength of the movement.” Part of the increasing pressure facing the British state is that the PSC, alongside many other organizations, is not only mobilizing in the streets; they’re also building power with British trade unions, over 14 of which have joined the PSC in their demands, uniting the Palestine movement with the power of organized labor and “frighten[ing] the government.”
While Jamal criticized trade unions that have not acted for Palestine, he believes that the role of organized labor in the struggle for Palestine is vital. He referenced the historical role of British trade unions in refusing to participate in the transfer of weapons to Pinochet’s Chile, and contends that organizers need to be asking, “how can we still push to the absolute limit the ability of our workers and support workers who say, ‘I don’t want to be complicit?’”
The PSC has worked with trade unions to adopt policies supporting an arms embargo on Israel and organize regular “days of action for workers to take action in their workplaces.” Jamal also emphasized their importance in the context of the current Labour Party government, which won a landslide electoral victory against the Conservative Party last year, yet has not significantly altered the UK’s policy toward Israel. The Labour Party has long relied on organized labor as a critical segment of its base, making labor action for Palestine especially important in winning changes in British policy toward Israel.
Fundamentally, Jamal believes that the tide is turning. “There is a whole generation that’s been politicized on this issue,” who have undergone irreversible shifts in consciousness on the question of Zionism. However, “the end of Zionism” is not inevitable on its own, he argues. “What’s required for that is actually that the rest of the world is simply not going to sustain or allow [Zionism], and that means that across the world there are enough progressive people who will be able to employ power….And that’s the bit that’s only true if we make it true.”
—Lance Lokas
