Workers around the world can help end violence against the people of Palestine and Colombia

Through coordinated and direct action, the international working class helped end apartheid in South Africa; it can do the same now to end the violence of occupation in Palestine and the exploitation and police crackdowns in Colombia.

by Maximillian Alvarez May 24, 2021March 28, 2024

Demonstrators climb up a wall erected by the Israeli army along the Lebanese-Israeli border, during a protest on 15 May 2021 in the southern village of Aadyisseh in solidarity with Palestinians. Photo by Marwan Naamani/picture alliance via Getty Images.

Right now, working people in Palestine and Colombia are being crushed by a relentless onslaught of murderous violence and dispossession, economic degradation, and inhumane exploitation. They are fighting for their lives, and they are asking for international solidarity. In Palestine, against the ceaseless violence of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, Palestinians are rising up to resist their own erasure; in Colombia, millions have taken to the streets to fight against a corrupt system by which the government, the police, and the forces of international oligarchic plunder have waged class war on working people. In this special episode of Working People, spanning three continents, we talk to Irene Vélez Torres and Toufic Haddad about the world-changing struggles they are living through in Colombia and Palestine, and about what working people around the world, especially in North America, can do to join the fight.

Interview with Irene Vélez Torres begins at 20:25

Interview with Toufic Haddad begins at 46:51

Additional links/info below…

Irene’s faculty page
Toufic’s Al-Shabaka author page
Toufic Haddad, Bloomsbury, Palestine Ltd.: Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territory
Al-Shabaka website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Alliance for Global Justice website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Christina Noriega, NACLA, “Colombian Uprising Takes Aim at Inequality“
Estefanía Martinéz, Jacobin, “Colombians Are in the Streets Against a Violent Neoliberal Order“
Aaron Tauss, Jacobin, “Colombia Is in Revolt Against Neoliberalism“
Amanda Taub, The New York Times, “From Colombia to U.S., Police Violence Pushes Protests Into Mass Movements“
Seraj Assi, Jacobin & The Real News Network, “It’s Apartheid. Naked, Unabashed Apartheid“
Abby Martin, Gaza Fights for Freedom
Abby Martin, The Empire Files, “How Palestine Became Colonized“
Mustafa Abu Sneineh, Middle East Eye, “Palestinian Citizens of Israel Fired for Participating in General Strike“
Lee Yaron, Haaretz, “General Strike Highlights Israel’s Dependency on Palestinian Workers“
Citations Needed, “News Brief: Debunking the 5 Most Common Anti-Palestinian Talking Points“
Citations Needed, “News Brief: On Palestine, It’s Time for Progressives to Stop Reading From the Same Outrage Script & Support BDS“
“Michael Brooks Takes a Question on Israel“
Yumna Patel’s coverage from Palestine for Mondoweiss
Dominique Mosbergen, HuffPost, “Thousands Stand In Solidarity With Palestine In Rallies Held Across U.S., Cities Worldwide“
Adam Forrest, The Independent, “Italian Port Workers Refuse to Load Shipment of Arms Headed for Israel“

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

Ending Satellites, “While You Are Here”
Jules Taylor, “Working People Interlude Music”

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Maximillian AlvarezEditor-in-Chief & Co-Executive Director, The Real News Network

Maximillian Alvarez is an Izzy-Award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director of The Real News Network. He is the founder and host of Working People, "a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today," which he started after his family lost their home and life savings during the Financial Crash of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. Alvarez is the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke, a collection of interviews with US workers recorded during Year One of of the Covid-19 pandemic. His forthcoming book—tentatively titled “American Sacrifice: Working People Fight for The Lives (and Our Future) in America’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’”—is under contract with Haymarket Books. From April 2022 to March 2024, Alvarez hosted and produced The Art of Class War series on Breaking Points. From September 2016 to January 2019, he was a regular contributor and then a columnist for The Baffler magazine. Prior to joining TRNN, Alvarez was an Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to that, he was a graduate student-worker and rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (AFT Local 3550) at the University of Michigan, where he earned a dual-PhD in History and Comparative Literature, taught undergraduates, and published academic articles in Media Theory and La Deleuziana: An Online Journal of Philosophy. Prior to that, he worked a litany of low-wage jobs in different restaurants, warehouses, factories, retail stores, etc. Alvarez’s writing has been featured in outlets like The Nation, Poynter, In These Times, Boston Review, The Baffler, Current Affairs, Dissent, Protean Magazine, The New Republic, Truthout, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an analyst and commentator, he has appeared on programs like PBS NewsHour, Breaking Points, Democracy Now!, The Laura Flanders Show, NPR’s 1A, The Hill’s Rising, This Is Hell!, Krystal Kyle & Friends, The Michael Brooks Show, The Jacobin Show, CounterPunch Radio, Citations Needed, Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray, Know Your Enemy, Srsly Wrong, Left Anchor, Revolutionary Left Radio, The End of Sport Podcast, Pod Damn America, The David Pakman Show, The Megyn Kelly Show, The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, The David Feldman Show, and The Marianne Williamson Podcast.

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