What is it going to take to end the genocide? A question we’ve asked ourselves and people all over the country countless times. By the start of the summer, anywhere from 56,000-150,000 people had been murdered, Gaza had been reduced to rubble, and famine was spreading — destruction made possible by the US-Israel War Machine. Behind Enemy Lines entered the summer, taking stock, trying to understand how to throw a wrench into the gears of the war machine. The reality was: The encampments had fizzled, the energy of the DNC had scattered, and we weren’t positioned to lead a mass movement. We needed numbers. So we launched a broad recruitment push, calling on anti-imperialists to join us. We hit the streets, went to shows, and got posters up, but the call was too general and the pathways to get involved were too vague. People didn’t move. All the while movement for Palestine as a whole was faltering under repression and fear. The bombs kept falling, and people here in the belly of the beast were failing to meet our moral responsibility.

After months of stagnation and decreasing momentum, we needed to reignite the flame in the movement for Palestine. So we put out the call: no business as usual on October 7th. No matter where you are, host a walkout, protests, and disrupt. The call had to be bold enough to wake people up, to give those who’d fallen silent or sought a desire to do something different, a place to plug in and fight back. October 7th marked not only two years since the genocide began, but also the day Palestinian resistance rose up against their oppressors, and so serves as a day for anti-imperialists to take action and to stand with the people of Palestine. If we want to see an end to the genocide, we need a defiant mass movement that shakes the foundation of the US empire. The October 7th call was a step toward building exactly that.

How we built for Oct 7 

Despite coming out of the summer with minimal recruitment, we still had a core of contacts in Chicago and across the country who were grappling with the question of how to end the genocide once and for all. In Chicago, we focused on going deep with our contacts. That meant meeting in person, adjusting to our contacts’ schedules for outings, inviting contacts to take the lead in developing new forms of agitation, and reading together to sharpen our politics to bring forward new leaders. Rather than casting a wide net, we poured our energy into cultivating relationships with those ready to take up the call. We hosted a neighborhood planning meeting and a Palestine debate on Devon Avenue. But we also needed to go broad at times, to ensure we reach as many people as possible. To do this, we tabled at concerts and put up hundreds of posters around Chicago neighborhoods and universities. 

In NYC, planning our actions October 7 served as a good opportunity to formalize and solidify a few new memberships, meeting with people who had been coming out with us over the summer and early fall to complete new member readings and bring them forward as new leaders. In addition to (and as part of) deepening our relationships with those new members, we made several outings to schools across the city— including a high school that had planned a walk out on October 7, and CCNY, where we met two students who were interested in getting involved. In addition to our school outings, we did street teams in Bay Ridge and the South Bronx, tabled at several concerts, and distributed posters and stickers across the city calling on people to join our protest on October 7.

Nationally, we reached out to those we had organized with at the DNC and brought everyone together to make concrete plans in a national meeting. Crews varied from one to a couple of people, but were a part of a larger collective of people around the country who wanted to step out. In the build-up, our contact in North Carolina researched local protest targets among corporations and institutions complicit in the genocide for us to publish. Whenever possible, we traveled to meet in person and coordinate October 7th actions. We ensured that whatever prop (flyers, posters, etc.) were in the hands of our contacts around the country. 

What Oct 7 looked like

Chicago woke up to find banners hung on the north and south sides proclaiming “Shut it Down for Gaza! and “Be Like Gaza, Take a Stand!” We gathered at the corner of Devon and Damen, unfurled a banner and flew the Palestinian flag high. Despite being stalked by a creepy reactionary photographer and getting a death threat from a neighborhood Zionist, were were greeted by honks and cheers from passing cars. After warming up with chants, we marched down Devon Avenue, passing out flyers to cars and businesses along the way. Humorously, while people were stepping out of their stores to check out the march, or stopping their cars to grab a flyer, the CPD followed the march, demanding that we vacate the streets (we declined).

At Devon and Claremont, residents and business owners spoke out for Palestine alongside BEL members, and more than a dozen people stood strong, with BEL posters and Palestinian flags. This daytime neighborhood speakout was babysat by no less than 25 CPD cops, in a show of force and intimidation, while the creepy reactionary photographer took photos of us from a an alley (not kidding).

After a quick lunch, we jumped on the CTA train to agitate our way into Chicago’s loop, exposing the crimes of the US-Israel genocide and calling on people to join us at the Consulate that afternoon. One crew stopped off at DePaul University to confront a piece of pro-war propaganda and tell students about the protest, and another crew dropped flyers from elevated train platforms in the Loop. 

The day concluded with a direct confrontation against the Israeli Consulate in Chicago’s West Loop. When we arrived to set up our protest, Brandon Johnson’s CPD had already barricaded off the entire area in front of the Ogilvie transit center that houses the genocide consulate. This is part of an absurd pattern of CPD protection of this building, claiming the sidewalk in front of a busy regional transit hub is off limits to protesters. Undeterred, we set up across Madison street, where a few other protesters had already unveiled Palestinian and resistance flags. In addition to CPD clownishness, we also confronted a Zionist counter-protest, celebrating 2 years of genocide by welcoming some of the fringiest weirdos and far-right reactionaries in the Chicago area. Attendees at this so-called “Rally for Love” (yes, the really called it that) went out of their way to harass, film, and attempt to intimidate (unsuccessfully) the BEL protest, going so far as to pepper-spray a few people who went to heckle them for supporting genocide. 

Our protest filled the sidewalk and spilled out to the street, with flags, posters, and a beautiful banner defiantly declaring: “Be Like Gaza! Take a Stand!” We rallied with chants, speeches, poems, and mostly a challenge: what will it take for people in the US to step up and become seriously mutinous to empire? At the height of the rally, two comrades gave a damning indictment of the legacy of US imperialism, and made it clear: the flag of US imperialism can’t be reclaimed. It’s not enough to fly it upside down. It represents misery for the people of the world. And than we gave the US flag and the Israeli flag the treatment they so richly deserve. 

We capped off the day with a march to the Sears tower, where InspereX has its office, a company who underwrites the the mass surveillance and targeting infrastructure of the US-Israel genocide. 

In New York, our crew kicked things off with a speakout in the South Bronx where we invited people to come up and say what was on their minds on that day. Some people walking by stopped to speak, and some people stuck around just to hear what was going on. Although we pitched our efforts to people in the neighborhood we’ve primarily been working in, it wasn’t that well-attended, and our hope that people would stick with us to go protest at the Israeli Consulate didn’t pan out. That being said, the overall activity got people’s attention and drew them in and we encouraged people to participate – either by speaking on the mic or throwing a bloody shoe at the portrait of a war criminal.Later that afternoon, we rallied outside of the Israeli Consulate and drew a modest crowd of about 30 people. We took up a street corner since we couldn’t take the front of the consulate with the numbers we had. The whole street was barricaded off and dozens of cops circled the area, but we went ahead with the protest undeterred. After protesting, agitating, and chanting for only fifteen minutes, NYPD grabbed and arrested two of us for no reason. We unfortunately froze in that moment when we should’ve immediately intervened and agitated about the arrests happening in front of us, but we picked things up shortly after. To end things on a strong note, we ceremoniously burned American and Israeli flags while pledging allegiance to the people of the world before departing. We gathered our forces at the precinct the protestors were taken to for jail support and put together a press release to begin strategizing our legal and political defense.

Across the US, in big and small actions, people took up the call. Banners were hung for Palestine in Dallas, Texas. In Denver, Colorado, a crew went out putting up posters and talking to people about the genocide and the complicity of the US. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, students walked out of class, and others held a noise demo. In Dubuque, Iowa, posters were made to be distributed on campus. 

What we were up against

Our bold calls attracted attention from the vipers pit of far-right and pro-genocide reactionaries.  These reactionaries lied about our social media posts identifying (clearly labelled) protest targets, falsely claiming that they were calls for anything other than first amendment activities. They set up fake Instagram accounts to try and infiltrate our organizing meetings, and deployed creeps to try and photograph protesters, presumably to dox and harass people for speaking out against a genocide.  We have no fear of these clowns and cowards, and no interest in attempt to “dialogue” with people who, after two years of genocide, still express their support for a government that incinerates children as a matter of routine policy. As Mao said, “Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.” Whether they are acting out pure grift, or genuine ideological support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, these reactionaries, with their large platforms and ties to the Trump government can successfully intimidate people from stepping up and stepping out. Even as we continue to expose these petty fools, we need to develop the capacity to prevent them from surveying and intimidating people. 

In addition to the chucklefuck media eco-system, disgraced former NY governor Andrew Cuomo slandered BEL in a bizarre tweet, attempting to link us to Zohran Mamadani. While were happy to add such a disgusting freak to the list of ruling class figures who hate Behind Enemy Lines (everyone from Larry Snelling to Ritchie Torres), we’re obligated to note to both Cuomo and Mamadani that 1) we don’t endorse candidates or participate in elections, and 2) we very much want to globalize the intifada. 

In Chicago especially, our October 7th confronted a dynamic and contradictory political situation, several weeks into the ICE-Gestapo invasion of the city, and on the first day that the National Guard was deployed to Chicago (and before a court ruling blocked that deployment). While we probably gained some numbers during our consulate protest from people wanting to protest for Palestine and against ICE and the National Guard, we also know that our numbers were diminished elsewhere, especially in the immigrant-heavy Devon neighborhood where residents deeply understand the specific repression targeted towards immigrants who speak out for Palestine. The constant stream of news about ICE and the National Guard also limited our reach into the media. 

A persistent challenge is the opportunist Leftist protest organizations who have misled the Palestine protest movement for years, keeping it safely behind police lines. Across the country, organizations that were well aware of our call for action on October 7th organized events at the same time as our protests, in effect isolating us to face repression on our own. In Chicago, the “SJP Chicago” grouping decided to organize a protest on October 7th at the exact same time as our protest at the consulate, away from the consulate at the campus of DePaul University. This was particularly galling, not just in trying to pull people away from a confrontation at the representation of Zionism in Chicago, but to a campus that BEL is banned from. On top of that, many of the endorsing organizations of the SJP event have long sacrificed principles to boost Chicago’s Zionist mayor— holding a boring campus rally on October 7th, and making it more likely that the mayors goons in the CPD would attack BEL. In NYC as well, Within Our Lifetime decided to call a last minute protest at News Corp, essentially dismissing the possibility of any real escalation for Gaza. 

Similar scenes played out across the country, where various people saw BEL’s call to escalate as a threat to the position that they’ve gained. The ossified leadership of these organizations have used their ability to put on boring marches or their identities to claim that they are the genuine representatives of resistance or protest for Palestine, and worked to isolate anyone willing to call them on their bullshit, or who is honest about what another Saturday stroll will accomplish. In the coming months, as this phase of the long arc of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine is summed up, we have the important role of working to de-legitimize organizations that played such a deleterious role, especially the PSL and USPCN. 

Successes and failures 

Regardless of the obstacles, we succeeded in carrying out bold plans of action in Chicago and NYC, proudly and defiantly confronting the Zionist consulates. In numbers big and small, we planted a flag of resistance: we made it clear that there are people in the US who won’t go along with the program and are committing themselves to bringing down this criminal empire. In the face of threats from reactionaries, arrests by the NYPD, we didn’t back down in doing what we set out to do. 

October 7th also marked a significant step forward in our ability to bring forward people outside of our organization to step out. We found that, through a combination of putting forward a bold challenge to people and being persistent in contact follow up, we were able to expand the the numbers of people taking up the call for October 7th. 

Across the country, we did not pull the requisite numbers that would have laid the groundwork for a new wave of organization, or given us the ability to seriously step up resistance. And in Chicago and other cities threatened by the ICE-Gestapo, we need to find creative ways to bring forward masses of people who are fearful of publicly speaking out. In NYC, we tactically blinked in the face of state repression, not pivoting fast enough when the pigs grabbed people for no reason to immediately expose what they were doing. 

What’s next 

The most pressing followup from the October 7th actions is supporting the NYC Drop the Charges campaign, to support the two brave people arrested. For too long, people have accepted that the NYPD and other police departments can brutally arrest protesters as the cost of doing business. It’s right to rebel against genocide, and we must get the backs of the people who are targeted for standing up. 

We also have a new opportunity to expand our reach nationally. October 7th proved to us that, however small in numbers, there are people who are willing to defy the imperialist ruling class and the social dictates of the do-nothing Left to take a stand with the people of the world. Together, we confront a new situation: the Gaza genocide is now paving way for a proposed neo-colonial occupation of Gaza, the ICE-Gestapo has fully invaded Chicago, and the Trump government is making war moves towards Venezuela. Our mission, what we’ve decided to make our lives about, is to stand with the people of the world, against this vicious beast. Those convictions have been rewarded with an opportunity to organize a new of resistance, politically and organizationally. Our challenge is to seize that moment. If you’re down to do the same, if you were inspired by disgusting rags of this empire burning, join us.