By the Marxist Youth League (MYL)

Buffalo, New York

The following statement was issued on Oct. 24, 2023.  Email [email protected]

Hundreds of students and community members came out in force on Oct. 19 to join a campus demonstration organized by the University of Buffalo (UB) chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). This massive show of organized opposition to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by the illegal Israeli occupation came on the heels of two other demonstrations held in Buffalo on Oct. 13 in two different parts of the city, and just before another several-hundred-large demonstration on Oct. 20 at Niagara Square. 

The people of Buffalo are beginning to link together and say “Hell no!” to Israeli apartheid and the U.S.-funded bombing campaigns, as are people in towns, cities, and universities across the country.

While the U.S. corporate media spends its time beating the drums of war and dehumanizing the Palestinian people for their existence and resistance, tens of thousands within the U.S. have decided that enough is enough. They have decided that they are not willing to stand idly by as bombs and tanks, hunger and thirst, are used to advance an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people on their own land. 

At UB, where most of our efforts have been focused as of late, various community and student groups either attended the rally or gave statements of solidarity with the Palestinian people. This includes the UB chapters of the SJP, Organization of Arab Students, Bangladeshi Student Union, and Young Democratic Socialists of America, along with groups like Workers World Party, Starbucks Workers United, and the Marxist Youth League (MYL). We reiterate our first call to solidarity with the Palestinian people and affirm their right to resist occupation and apartheid by any means necessary.

The MYL wholeheartedly condemns the illegal Zionist occupation for its 75-year-long genocide of the Palestinian people; we condemn the imperialist United States and other Western powers for funding, arming, and running propaganda pieces for the illegal settler-colony, and we condemn Dr. Satish Tripathi, president of UB, and other Western New York university officials for trying to cry crocodile tears to stir up sympathies for the Israeli state while hypocritically refusing to take action against hate speech and the needs of oppressed students here! 

We cannot forget President Joe Biden, warmonger-in-chief, throwing his full support behind the occupation forces, fueling the fire of genocide while pretending to sympathize with the Palestinian people for votes. We condemn him too, of course. But condemnations are mere words. 

As communists, we understand that we must go beyond condemnations into the realm of organized action if we really intend to pose a threat to our own vicious ruling class for its perpetuation of imperialist, white supremacist violence at home and abroad. The Israeli Defense Forces train with the pigs, aka police, here in the U.S. 

They receive arms and ammunition directly from the U.S. military just like the pigs do. All over the world, bodies of armed men and women have been stationed in Black and Brown communities for the express purpose of taking legal control over these communities and imposing both direct and systematic violence.

The Marxist Youth League firmly sides with the Palestinian people and with all progressive forces in occupied Palestine in their fight against Israeli settler colonialism. We affirm their right to national self-determination and we affirm their right to revolution against their colonial occupier as an oppressed nation. 

Furthermore, we firmly side with the Palestinian community here in Buffalo in its fight to force the U.S. Empire and its leadership into supporting a ceasefire and withdrawing military and diplomatic aid to the illegal Zionist occupation. 

As they organize in this city, we, as working class and oppressed youth, will support and show solidarity with them.  We will provide a platform for Palestinian organizers and try to expand the reach of their voices within our communities. We believe the U.S. Empire must fail for the total liberation of the working class and oppressed people to be achieved here and abroad. 

Furthermore, we consider the illegal Zionist occupation to be one of the most prominent and vulnerable tentacles of this vicious imperialist octopus. If the Empire and its ruling class are so hungry for an imperialist war, if they are so resolute in their support for the occupation, then we must be doubly resolute in our opposition to it! We must make use of every available and effective tactic to help end this genocide now!