the empire that pretends it isn’t
there are empires that rule with grandeur and open spectacle, their power etched in monuments, their cruelty worn like an iron crown. and then there are empires that pretend they are not. the united states belongs to the latter category. it denies its imperial nature with the same fervor that it denies responsibility for the chaos it cultivates. it is not occupying—it is partnering. it is not dictating—it is promoting democracy. it is not funding genocide—it is ensuring stability.
but denial is not harmless. it functions like a well-oiled machine, transforming brutal realities into public relations talking points, making moral atrocities palatable. what does it mean to live in an empire that does not call itself one? it means that destruction must be disavowed even as it is enabled. it means that the screams of the oppressed must be softened, their demands twisted into something unrecognizable. it means that war must be waged not just on bodies, but on the very possibility of truth itself.
this is not new. but every war makes it newly obscene.
gaza: an experiment in annihilation
at this point, the pattern should be obvious. when israel declares that it has no choice but to flatten gaza, when american politicians echo this claim, when journalists scramble to frame mass death as a tragedy rather than a policy, we are seeing not just propaganda, but the machinery of a world order that depends on selective violence.
gaza is a place where all the contradictions of the modern global system converge. it is at once a densely populated urban enclave and an open-air prison. it is at once a symbol of resistance and a laboratory for domination. every missile dropped, every house reduced to rubble, every child buried beneath concrete is a message: your suffering does not count.
and yet, gaza does count—in ways that make empire uneasy. it forces us to confront the extent to which global politics is a carefully managed exercise in who gets to be human and who does not. if palestinians are always framed as a problem to be solved—either through displacement, subjugation, or erasure—then what does that say about the world that allows it?
the sheer scale of destruction in gaza is staggering, but the logic behind it is familiar. this is not war. war implies two sides with some semblance of equal standing. what is happening in gaza is something else entirely: an experiment in annihilation.
new york: the center that cannot hold
meanwhile, across the ocean, another battle unfolds—not over land, but over meaning itself.
new york, a city that prides itself on its intellectual vibrancy, its artistic rebellion, its supposed commitment to free thought, has become a testing ground for the limits of acceptable discourse. universities are under surveillance. student groups are banned. journalists who step out of line find themselves blacklisted. professors who dare to speak the truth about israel’s policies are forced out.
this is how hegemony operates—not just through brute force, but through the careful policing of thought. it’s not enough to bomb gaza into submission; one must also ensure that the idea of palestine as a legitimate cause is itself obliterated.
but the cracks are showing.
for the first time in decades, public opinion in the u.s. is shifting. massive protests have erupted. jewish americans, long assumed to be a monolithic bloc in support of israel, are loudly rejecting that narrative. black and brown communities, shaped by their own histories of displacement and state violence, are making the connections clear: from harlem to gaza, from rikers to the west bank, the logic of domination is the same.
this is a crisis for empire—not because it threatens its immediate survival, but because it disrupts its carefully constructed self-image. if the united states cannot even maintain the illusion of moral authority among its own people, what is left?
the myth of “both sides”
one of the empire’s greatest tricks is the illusion of neutrality.
how often do we hear calls for “both sides” to de-escalate? how often do we hear that “this is a complex issue,” as if the complexities of history somehow nullify the reality of the present? this is not complexity. this is cowardice masquerading as intellectualism.
there is no “both sides” when one side has the most advanced military technology in the world and the other has makeshift rockets. there is no “both sides” when one side is funded by billions in u.s. aid and the other is struggling to access clean water. there is no “both sides” when one side is systematically erasing the other, demolishing homes, massacring families, and calling it self-defense.
but neutrality serves a purpose. it allows the powerful to continue their destruction while appearing reasonable. it transforms moral questions into bureaucratic debates. it shifts the blame onto the victims, asking them to justify their existence while their world is being set on fire.
the role of capital: blood money in every transaction
if new york is where the battle over meaning takes place, then wall street is where the battle over capital is decided.
the financial interests behind the war are too vast to ignore. weapons manufacturers see their stock prices soar. lobbying groups ensure that congressional support for israel remains unwavering. media conglomerates, owned by the very same interests that profit from war, shape the narrative to ensure that resistance remains criminalized while state violence remains normalized.
every american taxpayer contributes to the destruction of gaza, whether they acknowledge it or not. every protester arrested for demanding a ceasefire is being detained by a system that functions to uphold the economic interests of empire. every university silencing pro-palestinian voices is doing so not because of moral concerns, but because of financial ones.
this is not just ideological control; it is material control. it is the invisible hand of the market, drenched in blood.
what is to be done?
there is a temptation, when confronted with such horror, to despair. to believe that nothing can be done. that the machine is too powerful, the violence too entrenched. but this is precisely what the system relies on—our silence, our resignation.
but here’s the thing: systems of power are not invincible. they are made, and what is made can be unmade.
the protests in new york matter. the boycotts matter. the refusal to accept the dominant narrative matters. every act of defiance, no matter how small, chips away at the empire’s facade.
but resistance must go beyond spectacle. it must be material. it must disrupt the flow of capital. workers must refuse to ship arms. universities must be made ungovernable. politicians must be held accountable, not just with words but with consequences.
and above all, we must refuse the forced forgetting. we must refuse to let the suffering of gaza be reduced to a footnote, a fleeting moment of outrage before the news cycle moves on.
because the truth is, the empire is afraid.
afraid of losing control over the narrative. afraid of losing its moral credibility. afraid that the people it has relied on to look away for so long are finally seeing through the lie.
so what happens next?
that depends on whether we are willing to act—not just to speak, not just to march, but to disrupt, to resist, to build something new.
and if history has taught us anything, it is this: nothing is inevitable. not even empire.
references:
- Zevin, Alexander. Gaza and New York. New Left Review, no. 144, Nov–Dec 2023.
- Walt, Stephen M., and John J. Mearsheimer. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
- Cockburn, Alexander. The Golden Age Is in Us: Journeys and Encounters 1987–1994. Verso, 1995..
