New York City, February 12—As Israel prepares to massacre thousands more Palestinians in Rafah, on top of the 28,000 already killed, angry protests are building in New York City and around the world. Rafah is the southernmost city in Gaza, where civilians had been instructed to flee, and now the more than one million civilians there are being attacked. The lack of food and clean water is killing thousands more due to starvation and disease. The U.S. government is supplying the weapons and still defending Israel’s genocidal policies.

Last Friday hundreds gathered in front of the Brooklyn Museum and on Monday hundreds met at Union Square in Manhattan and then marched through the city for hours. The police have continually escalated their violence, sometimes charging into the loud but peaceful crowds and pulling someone out for arrest. They are also grabbing speakers and leaders and others who may be on or off the sidewalk or street as an arbitrary excuse to intimidate marchers. But it won’t work because there is too much anger at the mass murder in Gaza.

These demonstrations were heavily Muslim; others have been mainly anti-Zionist Jews. What is needed is unity, not only of these groups but of a broader swath of workers and students. Even more essential is a focus on a class analysis of worldwide capitalist and imperialist murder and the need to build an international working-class communist movement.

The few million Palestinians, who have no pro-worker leaders, cannot defeat the Israeli-American monster unless they are allied with workers in other countries, even some Israelis, in an anti-capitalist struggle. Progressive Labor Party members have distributed hundreds of CHALLENGEs and had some good conversations, and we must continue to mobilize our friends and organizations to build this struggle.