An Open Letter to "Pro-Palestine" Liberals

“No compromise, no surrender, fight against America!” - Iranian students rally agains the US-Zionist war on Iran.

To the liberals and anarchists in the Palestine movement:

If you claim to oppose the war on Iran while repeating the language used to justify it—you are not opposing the war. You are helping enable it.

Full stop.

Because you are using the exact same language as the imperialists carrying it out.

“Khamenei was a dictator.”

“Iran is authoritarian.”

“Maduro is a dictator.”

“Venezuela is authoritarian.”

That’s not “nuanced” language. That’s not analysis. That is the script.

That is straight-up CIA/Mossad propaganda pushed by mainstream media, the State Department, Trump, Pete Hegseth, AOC—everyone advancing sanctions, escalation, and war.

And then you tack on: “we oppose war.”

Your words mean nothing. Your solidarity is worthless.

Because once you accept that framing, you’ve already done the ideological work that makes war acceptable.

If they’re “dictators,” if they’re “authoritarian regimes,” if they’re “illegitimate,” then of course sanctions make sense. Of course destabilization makes sense. Of course regime change makes sense.

And eventually—of course war makes sense.

So no—you’re not opposing war. You’re just softening the argument for it.

And this is not theoretical. This is exactly what we saw before and after the vigil for the martyred leader of the Islamic Revolution, Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Before the vigil even happened, and then immediately after, liberals within the Palestine movement—aligned with pro-monarch, pro-Pahlavi, reactionary Zionist elements in the diaspora—were already pushing the same recycled talking points:

“You’re praising a dictator.”
“You’re praising an authoritarian regime.”
“You’re praising a theocracy.”
“What about the 100,000 people Khamenei killed?”
“Why aren’t you honoring the victims?”

Word-for-word the same framing you hear from Trump, from Hegseth, from AOC, from the entire Western political and media establishment.

Just straight-up reactionary propaganda.

And let’s be clear about something else:

They keep saying “victims.”

We don’t use that language.

We say martyrs.

Because that is the reality—people are killed as part of a decolonial struggle, not passive suffering to be moralized and debated by outsiders.

And yes—we honored the martyrs. The schoolgirls, the civilians—this was part of the vigil.

But again, that doesn’t matter, because you’re not actually engaging with what we did.

You’re reacting based on narratives you’ve already internalized.

And that’s the real issue.

A lot of you claim to stand with Palestine, but even there, your solidarity is conditional.

As Mohammed El-Kurd explains, Palestinians are only treated as worthy of empathy when they act like “perfect victims”—passive, non-threatening, quiet.

The moment they show resistance, clarity, or anger, they’re delegitimized.

So yes—Palestine resists. There is armed struggle. There is defiance.

But that resistance is constantly policed, questioned, and forced into a narrow box of what’s “acceptable.”

And that same logic is exactly what you’re applying to Iran and Venezuela—just more openly.

Because now you’re not even asking for “perfect victims.”

You’re demanding submission.

The moment a country has real capacity to resist—actually resist at scale—Iran, Venezuela, Syria before regime change—you abandon even the pretense of solidarity.

Now it’s:
“authoritarian”
“dictator”
“we can’t support that”

So what you’re really saying is:

You don’t support resistance.
You don’t support armed struggle.
You don’t support the forces actually fighting back against Zionism and US-led imperialism.

You’ll acknowledge suffering.
You’ll talk about “victims.”
But you won’t stand with the resistance that is trying to end that suffering.

But that’s not anti-imperialism.

No one has ever been liberated by being a “perfect victim.”

And no one has ever been liberated by asking permission to resist.

Liberation comes from struggle. From resistance. From the ability to actually fight back against U.S. and Western imperialism and Zionism.

And yes—that includes armed struggle.

So when you sit there, in the U.S., in Europe, repeating “Iran is authoritarian,” “Maduro is a dictator,” you are not outside the war machine.

You are feeding it.

You are helping construct the enemy.

You are helping justify sanctions.
You are helping justify destabilization.
You are helping justify war.

And then you want to say “we oppose the war.”

No—you don’t. Not in any meaningful sense.

Because a real anti-war position—especially if you’re in the West—is very simple:

You oppose your own government.

The wars.
The sanctions.
The coups.
The regime change operations.
The propaganda.
The information warfare.

Not “both sides.”
Not “neither Washington nor Tehran.”

That’s cowardice disguised as “nuance.”

Because right now, one side is waging war across Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran.

And you’re flattening that into “everyone is bad.”

That’s not analysis. That’s liberal imperialism.

So let’s be clear:

If you’re repeating their language, you’re reinforcing their narrative.
If you’re reinforcing their narrative, you’re helping justify their war.

Whether you admit it or not.