Celebrating our Collective Power
a speech given at the UNC Defendants for Palestine gathering on december 3, 2024 by a defendant in the bloc. a video of the speech can be found here.
Sometimes I struggle to find joy in the achievements of the Palestinian liberation movement between october 7 and now, because my constant awareness of the Zionist entity’s ongoing genocide in Gaza is like a huge dark cloud in my mind threatening to overshadow everything. But we mustn’t let this happen; we must celebrate our victories. First of all, because these achievements are sweet in and of themselves, and that is reason enough. We deserve to feel happy at seeing residents of southern Lebanon defiantly return to their homes even as the Zionist entity violates the ceasefire agreement it used as cover for the retreat of its ground invasion; we deserve to feel happy when Israel lets more aid into Gaza, or when money sent to Gaza allows a child to seek medical treatment abroad; or, as much as we hate the American criminal legal system and believe it should be abolished, when our favorite doxxer Sloan Rachmuth is caught on the wrong side of it.
The plea deals some of my comrades and I will take today, as well as some deals that other comrades took previously, also deserve celebration for this reason. To be clear, they are not the ideal outcome. They require us to do community service, and to pay the state roughly 200 dollars each. On the other hand, after no more than 6 months from now, each of us can walk away with no record of our charges, even the assault charges, if we’re careful enough to avoid catching any new ones during the probation period.
Another reason I celebrate my plea deal is that it bring us a little closer to a free Palestine. Many other interim achievements of our movement do the same. Every time someone in the imperial core starts to question the Zionist propaganda they have been fed, that brings us closer. Every time someone decides to go to a rally or a teach-in or a march in this movement for their first time, that brings us closer. Every time an institution divests from Israel; every time people damage a weapons factory; every time dock workers refuse to load military equipment being shipped to support the genocide; every time the Houthis strike ships destined for Israeli ports; every time a state announces it will arrest Netanyahu for war crimes if he sets foot on its soil; and especially every time resistance fighters in Gaza or Lebanon destroy a Merkava tank or kill an occupation soldier in combat, that brings us closer to a free Palestine.
To be clear, I don’t want to compare myself too closely with resistance fighters and thereby dishonor their bravery and sacrifice, which are much greater than that of any of us here. But my plea deal will allow me to focus more on forms of resistance that I think are better uses of my time and energy than taking my case to trial, given the relatively low chance of beating my charges of Resisting Arrest and Assault on a Pig. That being said, many of my comrades have made a strategic decision to reject their plea deal offers and stick it out for trial, and I am proud to support them as they keep up the fight in court.
Furthermore, supporting my comrades going to trial is the least I can do to reciprocate for their steadfastness since april 30 in helping pressure Orange County District Attorney Jeff Nieman into offering deals like the one I will take today. Some of my comrades with only trespassing charges were initially offered deals months ago while I and other folks with higher charges were given nothing, but those comrades who were in a position to do so stuck it out, winning some of us our first deal offers. These deals sucked, however, and still the DA did not even offer everyone a deal, so my comrades and I remained firm, finally pressuring the DA to give everyone a path to the dismissal of all their charges.
It was not the DA’s sympathy for us, if he had any to begin with, which brought us to this point. Nor was it the mainstream media, which has by and large refused to support our call for the DA to dismiss our charges. Instead, it appears that Nie-man gave us routes to dismissal because he wanted to avoid a large group of us going to trial—and thereby threatening increased public outcry over his refusal to unconditionally dismiss charges, plus straining the court’s resources for evildoing—almost as much as he wanted to avoid unconditional dismissal itself. We brought ourselves to this point—our bloc of codefendants, and our pro-bono lawyers, and all of our supporters who have demonstrated to the DA that we will not back down from raising hell in and out of court unless we are offered certain concessions.
For those of us scheduled for trial, the only concessions we will accept are acquittal or the unconditional dismissal of our charges. If the DA continues, as we think is likely, to refuse unconditional dismissal, the first trials will take place on Friday the 13th at the Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough. We’ll send out more information about this soon on social media and via the usual Signal chats. Hopefully, that day is unlucky only for the Zionist entity, in which case we will rally in celebration. If it ends up being unlucky for any of us, then we will rally in protest and our lawyers will appeal to Superior Court. And really, any public celebration of progress in the fight for Palestinian freedom is already a protest against the Zionist entity and especially against the sense of futility with which it attempts to fill anyone who escapes the other parts of its propaganda machine. Even if not within our lifetimes, Palestine will be free, and we are honored to participate in the multigeneration campaign against the Zionist entity. Similarly, even if not within our lifetimes, Amerikkka will dissolve, and we are honored to join the centuries-long fight against settler colonialism in this land as well. We are not afraid to say that even if we were guilty of all the crimes the UNC Pig Department charged us with, we would be on the right side of history. We are not afraid to say that the criminal legal system is unjust and that all cops are bastards, because punishing infractions of unjust laws is inherent to their job. There is no point in catering to the dominant frameworks of respectability—imperialist frameworks, White supremacist frameworks—when universities, cops, the injustice system, and the entire state apparatus of Amerikkka does not so much as respect the basic human dignity of all people. We must and will continue to collectively defend—and liberate—ourselves.
