Trump, Israel, and the “imperial boomerang”

Here’s what we mean when we say, “when we fight for Palestinian freedom, we fight for all of us.” 

The weapons and tactics used to surveil, displace, and kill Palestinians abroad inevitably find their way back to the country supplying them (the U.S), and are used to silence dissent here.  

In the weeks after October 7, 2023, the Israeli military requested dozens of surveillance drones from Skydio, a U.S.-based drone manufacturer. Those drones were used to carry out a genocidal campaign of mass slaughter and destruction in Gaza.

Less than six months later, as Gaza solidarity encampments were erected on college campuses across the country, the Yale police department was deploying its own arsenal of drones — including a military-grade weapon — to surveil student protesters. That military-grade drone was supplied by Skydio, too.

In the words of Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, the imperial boomerang “has come hurtling back with astonishing speed.”

Israel and the global right: a shared agenda

The forces waging war on our communities and trying to dismantle our fundamental rights in the United States share an agenda with the anti-Palestinian lobby that’s pushing for unquestioning U.S. support for Israel. Increasingly, they’re working arm-in-arm — and deploying the same tactics to silence their opponents.

The Trump administration understands, like successive U.S. administrations before it, that Israel plays a central role in protecting U.S. dominance over a region critical to U.S. interests. It’s the reason why, despite the isolationist posture his movement projects, Trump is currently pushing to authorize a $7.4 billion dollar weapons transfer to Israel, one which Biden introduced at the tail end of his term.  

But after a year and a half of U.S.-funded genocide, more Americans than ever are questioning why their government sends billions in weapons each year to the Israeli military. There are now hundreds of thousands of people of conscience taking action across the country to end U.S. support for Israel. Our movements are only growing, and the Right knows we have real power.

It is in this context that the pro-Israel lobby and the far-Right are joining forces — and sharing tactics — to crush dissent. 

Though it was founded as a civil rights organization, the Anti-Defamation League’s work today revolves around protecting the U.S.-Israel alliance. That’s why, instead of fighting antisemitism, they spend all of their time trying to slander and shut down Americans organizing for Palestinian freedom. The Trump administration also cares deeply about maintaining the U.S.-Israel relationship, and like the ADL, they will use any means at their disposal to crush those who get in their way. For years, the ADL has spied on activists, partnered with law enforcement, weaponized false accusations of antisemitism to shut down their opponents, and lobbied to make criticizing the Israeli state a crime, all under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” But with the far-Right in power, this repression is only escalating.

Teaming up with groups like the ADL to “fight antisemitism” is what has allowed the Trump administration and the rest of the far-Right to obscure their true aims, providing them with convenient moral cover for their war on higher education and their egregious attacks on fundamental rights like freedom of speech. Criminalizing criticism of Israel — and shutting down our movements, the same movements on the frontlines of the resistance — lays the groundwork for Trump to crush all opposition to his violent, Christian nationalist agenda. 

“The Imperial Boomerang”

As Noura Erakat points out, U.S. imperialism has had a profound impact on political conditions inside the United States. In the 20th century, the quest to establish U.S. control over the Philippines, and later Vietnam, helped transform stateside law enforcement into the militarized police forces we see today — the same police forces brutalizing student protesters and arresting pro-Palestine demonstrators en masse. 

“Counterinsurgency in Vietnam further militarized U.S. police, ushering SWAT teams, military-grade weapons, and a willingness to deploy disproportionate force into urban policing.”

_{Noura Erakat, “The Boomerang Comes Back”}

Legal frameworks created to target Palestinians are also being used to silence dissent at home. U.S. counterterrorism laws were originally designed to delegitimize the Palestinian liberation struggle, and they were pushed heavily by pro-Israel groups like the ADL — with the aim of eventually using them to criminalize Palestine solidarity organizing in the United States. That repression is only escalating today: The “nonprofit killer” bill that Republicans pushed at the end of 2024 was created to target the Palestine solidarity movement, giving the U.S. treasury secretary sweeping powers to revoke a nonprofit’s tax exempt status on the grounds that it materially supports terrorism.   

But pro-Palestine activists are not the only targets. In 2021, climate activist Jessica Reznicek was sentenced to eight years in prison and labeled a “domestic terrorist” for damaging a water pipeline. In Georgia, counterterrorism laws are being used to slap years-long prison sentences on “Cop City” protesters. Yale police deployed “counterterrorism tactics” on student protesters demanding divestment from genocide. Soon, Republicans will be pushing another version of the same “nonprofit killer” bill — and though it was designed to shut down pro-Palestine organizing, there is no doubt that the unconstitutional powers it would grant the Trump administration will be used to target all progressive movements for justice.

U.S. support for Israel also enables fascism to flourish in the United States because it helps undermine the international rules-based order. The existence of this global system makes it more difficult for Trump and the Right to remake the world in their image — and they are thus eager to see it delegitimized and destroyed. The Biden administration’s policy of supporting an increasingly belligerent Israeli government, even as it carried out a genocide in Gaza, has done exactly that: deepened the crisis of legitimacy for international law and international institutions like the U.N., and laid the groundwork for an expansion of right-wing populism across the globe. 

Palestine as a core part of the anti-Trump resistance

U.S. support for Israel has laid the groundwork for the rise of authoritarianism in the United States. It has made a mockery of the global rules-based order, which only serves to empower the far-Right. The U.S. technology, weapons, and repressive legal frameworks used to target Palestinians in Palestine and undermine their struggle for liberation inevitably make their way home, where they are turned against American protesters and activists. Increasingly, the anti-Palestinian lobby is teaming up with the far-Right because their agendas intersect and reinforce one another. 

For both the anti-Palestinian lobby and the far-Right, pretending to fight “antisemitism” helps obscure their authoritarian aims. Groups like the ADL want to criminalize criticism of Israel — and Trump is already using those efforts as an opening to completely dismantle basic rights like freedom of speech and expression.

The relationship between U.S. support for Israel and the ascendance of right-wing populism at home tell us two things. First, our oppressors are the same — which means none of us will be free until Palestinians are free. Second, the Palestine solidarity movement is on the frontlines of the fight to resist the far-Right. The struggle for Palestinian freedom should be understood as a core part of the anti-Trump agenda, and the only way to defeat the far-Right agenda is through collective liberation.

Tell Congress: Protect students’ freedom of speech.

Congress is once again pushing a dangerous bill aiming to silence and censor students and faculty who support Palestinian rights. 

The so-called “Anti-semitism Awareness Act” would codify the controversial and discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism in order to more easily attack those on college campuses that speak out for Palestinian freedom. 

Tell Congress: End U.S. weapons to Israel.

The Trump administration is picking up where the Biden administration left off: moving to authorize a $7.4 billion weapons shipment to the genocidal Israeli government. 

Use this tool provided by our sister organization, JVP Action, to email your members of Congress and demand an end to U.S. military funding to Israel.

Tell University of California: Take action to protect your students.

On January 29, Trump signed a blatantly authoritarian Executive Order that lays the groundwork for a wave of deportations of non-citizen student activists, in retaliation for exercising their right to freedom of speech, under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.”

As the largest public university system in the U.S., the UC administration has the opportunity to set a precedent for protecting students nationwide.

Email University of California regents right now to demand that they commit to taking concrete action to protect students and free speech on their campus.

What we’re reading.

In an interview with +972 Magazine, Palestinian human rights lawyer Zaha Hassan explores how the Israeli government’s repression of Palestinian civil society has been “exported” to the United States.

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