Vietnam and Palestine

Over the last fifty years, the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s occupation has been described in various ways by friend and foe alike. The descriptions coming from the latter are usually echoes of Israel’s perception of the situation. In other words, they tell us that Israel has a right to exist and the Palestinian rejection of its occupation is an extension (on some level) of the centuries-long persecution of the Jewish people. This interpretation intentionally ignores or dismisses the fact that the Palestinian people, who continue to be displaced by the Zionists, lived on the lands in question for thousands of years. It also demands that the rest of the world accept the religious myth perpetrated by certain Israelis that their god gave them that particular land many centuries ago. Without getting into the various interpretations of this supposed promise, it seems reasonable to say that the use of this myth by the Israeli government and its propagandists requires a dismissal by reasonable humans no matter what their beliefs. Instead, it seems that anyone who dismisses this fairy tale justification is instantly labeled as being anti-Semitic, which at one time meant that one hated Jews just because they were Jewish, but now is supposed to mean anyone who opposes Israel’s occupation and the slaughter its military is executing. Of course, we know that the latter definition is self-serving and should be rejected for several reasons.

As for those who oppose the occupation, their opposition typically takes on different emphases. Many in the global north tend to focus on the victimization of the Palestinians by the Israeli military and the Western war machine supporting it, while downplaying the armed nature of the resistance. It is not my intention to criticize this approach, given its intrinsically humanitarian source; people are upset, distraught, and angry when the slaughter of innocents takes place within their sphere of awareness. Their witness demands a response, and in the case of Palestine, it is that response which has probably prevented the total annihilation of the Palestinian people by Israel. Unfortunately, a response spurred by such emotions tends to focus solely on victimhood, often rejecting or ignoring the role of the resistance. Others support the resistance as it is currently composed for religious reasons, together with non-religious supporters who support it for its anti-colonial and anti-imperialist nature. Then—and this must be acknowledged—there are actual anti-Semites who support the resistance because it wants to kill Jewish people. Obviously, the latter group must be rejected for reasons that should be obvious eighty years after the defeat of the Nazi regime and the world’s discovery of the Nazi attempts to exterminate the Jews, Romany and thousands of others.

I was introduced to the idea that Israel was a colonial-settler state and that the struggle of the Palestinians was much like the struggle of the Vietnamese people against western colonialism (France and then the United States) during a conversation with a member of the Black Panther Party in the spring of 1972. This was while the Pentagon was pulling out the last of its combat troops from Vietnam but intensifying its bombing and other such attacks from the air and from US Navy ships offshore. In many ways, explained the man introducing me to this reinterpretation of global realities, the struggle of the Palestinians was quite similar to that of the Vietnamese. When it comes to facts on the ground, this becomes even more true: civilians forced into safe zones and detention camps by the invaders and the destruction of food sources are two of the most obvious similarities. In our conversations to come, I would also learn about the Algerian struggle for independence and its relationship to that of the Vietnamese and the Palestinians. Needless to say, 1972 was a very instructive year for me. The Panther with whom I had been having these discussions returned to the US right before the Olympics in Munich. My consideration of the concepts he introduced continues today.

Let me finish this essay with the following reflection. While it is of course true that the specifics of the political, economic, and historical situations are different, the essential facts of colonialism, imperialism, and resistance to those phenomena are present and universal in the Vietnamese struggle and the Palestinian one.

On New Year’s 1966, the Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh wrote a message to the people of the US, especially those opposing the US aggression in Vietnam. One paragraph of the letter read:

“Nevertheless, the U.S. Government has continually clamoured about ‘peace negotiations’ in an attempt to deceive the American and world peoples. In fact, it is daily expanding the war. The U.S. Government wrongly believes that with brutal force it could compel our people to surrender. But the Vietnamese people will never submit. We love peace, but it must be genuine peace in independence and freedom. For independence and freedom, the Vietnamese people are determined to fight the U.S. aggressors through to complete victory, whatever the hardships and sacrifices may be.”

Now, replace every instance where the letters U.S. appear with the words Israel and the US, and every instance where the word Vietnamese appears with the word Palestinian. This paragraph would then read:

“Nevertheless, the U.S. and Israeli Governments have continually clamoured about ‘peace negotiations’ in an attempt to deceive the American and world peoples. In fact, it is daily expanding the war. The U.S. and Israeli Governments wrongly believe that with brutal force, they could compel our people to surrender. But the Palestinian people will never submit. We love peace, but it must be genuine peace in independence and freedom. For independence and freedom, the Palestinian people are determined to fight the U.S. aggressors through to complete victory, whatever the hardships and sacrifices may be.”

While it is reasonable and humane to oppose Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian children and their families, and its destruction of their homes, farms, and livelihoods, it is also important to support the Palestinians in their struggle against a brutal and illegal occupation by Israel’s military and the West’s weaponry (mostly that of the United States). It is an occupation that has been resisted since its inception. Furthermore, it is the occupation that has brought devastation to the region, not the resistance to that occupation. Like the resistance in Vietnam and Algeria, the actions of the resistance may not always be to one’s liking, especially if one is far from the never-ending slaughter and destruction undertaken by the Israeli military. Although each struggle against colonialism is different, there is always one thing the people living in the nations complicit with the colonizer can do: in Occupied Palestine, it is our job to do everything we can to end aid to the genocidal state of Israel, demand a permanent ceasefire and an end to the ongoing and expanding occupation of the region by Tel Aviv.

*Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: [email protected]

Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/17/vietnam-and-palestine/