But is it clear to anyone else that the same racism used against American Blacks is being used against the Gazans? On what level is the Israeli lie of “that hospital was a Hamas weapons depot” different from the American lie of “that Black teenager had a gun”? Certainly in scale, it’s different, but qualitatively? Maybe not. They are both oppressed by white supremacist colonial forces within the borders of their settler states, after all.

And having two points of reference where the same lie is employed ineffectively gives interesting insights. One might suspect that it’s the same lie every time. Perhaps whenever white people insist that “this group is violent, so they must face our violence” is not so much a reflection of reality, and merely indicative of the speaker’s colonial mindset.

Because this is not the way revolutionaries think. They understand the necessity of violence, but not in the sense of “an eye for an eye,” but with an understanding that violence is a tool that can be employed to the ends of liberation. They do not say “We are killing for retribution,” but instead say “we will capture more until the jails are emptied.”