We Are Winning This
Hopefully, our children will live to tell the story
Last week, I went to hear Mahmoud Khalil on a panel at San Francisco State University. I left there inspired and determined. The primary message from Khalil, the other panelists, and the 400 people in attendance was, “We are winning.” To sum up what I heard, ‘Bombs may be falling on us; we may be hungry, but this is all changing in front of our eyes. Zionism is collapsing; the US Empire can no longer push us around. There is a long way to go, with a lot of work and a lot of suffering ahead, but Palestine will be free.’
Did the panel know what they were talking about? Mahmoud Khalil became famous as the face of the Columbia University encampment for Gaza in April 2024. Although he had committed no crime, the school banished him and the Trump administration tried to deport him. ICE arrested him in March of 2025 and moved him to a detention center in rural Louisiana. He remained there for three months, until his legal team got him released, pending the government’s creating a cause for deportation that a judge would accept. They haven’t come up with one yet, but they’re still trying.
Another panelist, attorney Marc Van der Hout has represented Palestinian causes for 50 years. He spoke about the many different ways the government has tried to shut down Palestinian voices during his career. He represented the LA 8, community leaders raising money to feed children in refugee camps, who were charged with terrorism. Faculty have been fired for writing in support of Palestine. Laws have been passed labeling criticism of Israel as “antisemitism” and punishable as violation of civil rights law.
But, Van der Holt said, things are changing fast. Khalil’s team was joined by over 20 lawyers. More volunteered but had to be turned away. Wherever Khalil has spoken, crowds turn out to hear him. People come up to him and thank him for his work. In polls, a majority of Americans now support Palestine over Israel, a reversal of a pro-Israel consensus that had existed for over 60 years.
A movement is building. You could feel it in the room, with all the students, faculty, and community members of all ages. Two children were sitting next to me with their mother and grandmother, paying attention and clapping. Nearly everyone there seemed to feel part of this movement, whatever their personal role was. As Khalil said, “We grieve those we lose, and then we go back to the fight.”
The spirit in the room was something I had not felt since VietNam drove the US out of their country in April, 1975. It felt then like colonialism might be on the way out, but that hope only lasted until Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. Since then, it has felt like things were going backward. The American labor movement was crushed as union jobs moved away. Progressive Latin American governments kept getting overthrown with CIA help. Most Arab states came to be ruled by pro-Western monarchs or dictators. Israel kept expanding, while governments in Libya, Iraq, and Syria who opposed them were invaded and destroyed under US direction.
I’ve been active in Palestine solidarity for about 20 years now, and I never before got the sense of winning. Palestinians had a strong commitment to keeping up the fight, but the goal of reclaiming their land seemed a distant dream. Until now. What changed? I’m sure the US/Israeli genocide in Gaza and their constant wars contribute, but I think Iran has a lot to do with it.
The subject of Iran never came up
I don’t remember anyone at the panel mentioning the war in Iran even one time, but in my heart, that’s where the turnaround started. With their miraculous success against Israel/US assault, they have shown the world an alternative to bowing down to US power. After decades of destroying smaller, weaker countries around the Middle East, US/Israel have picked on somebody who can fight back. Iran is large, developed, backed by Russia and China. Iran is not Libya or Syria, accessible to jihadist terrorists in the pay of the CIA. The Empire has to best them by itself, and so far they have failed.
Of course, there’s more to it than America losing one war. The world’s revulsion with Israel/US has become overpowering during 2 ½ years of live-streamed genocide, which features sadistic, depraved behavior no horror movie director could have imagined. Imagine using trained dogs to rape prisoners. Who thought of that, and who approved taking the time and money to train the dogs?
So there are multiple reasons Palestine could be winning, chief among them their people’s courage and steadfastness. The world has seen who they are and has come to support them. Even in the US, support for the genocidal alliance is fading fast.
Will Palestine winning save the world?
I see two major caveats to the belief that ‘We are winning.’ There is a saying in chess that “The hardest thing to do is to win a won game.” A hundred things could go wrong. One atom bomb could set Iran or Lebanon back 30 years and kill millions of people. Even without going nuclear, enough bombing might shut society down completely. Leaders might get corrupted; rising fascism in the US might lead our government to do something crazier than they are already doing.
The other caveat is deeper and doesn’t depend on the Empire’s behavior. Would defeating the Empire heal the planet? Too much to discuss here, but for now, I would say it’s a start, but it’s not nearly enough. My hope would be that, absent the constant wars and threats of war, in a world not run for the profit of a small group of oligarchs, people would be able to focus on Earth and what it needs. In a peaceful world, we could start restoring habitats. We could stop filling the world with chemical poisons. There might be critical scientific breakthroughs if top scientists stop working for the war machine.
Anyway, for the first time in a generation, there is hope. Join the movement in whatever way you can. Let’s win this for our children, their children, and everyone of every species on this Earth.
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