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\nFor June 11, the day of International Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners, we want to offer a glimpse of the repression that the anarchist movement is facing in Greece and the ways that people are resisting it. For that purpose, we present interviews with members of two groups, the Solidarity Assembly for Imprisoned Fugitives and Persecuted Combatants and the Squatted Community of Koukaki.
\n\nThe neoliberal immiseration of Greece is taking its toll. The descendants of those who collaborated with the Nazis are in power once again here.
\n\nThey are out of touch with the lives that most of us lead in these precarious lands. They imitate the fascist narratives that are at work in the United States, pushing for the same “quality of life policing” and “law and order” doctrines while enjoying corruption and excess at our expense.
\n\nThis is taking place all across the world, and everywhere, relentless judicial repression plays an integral part.
\n\nBecause of this, for the sake of our integrity, it is critical that we engage in solidarity, learning from each other’s struggles and preserving our revolutionary communities and bonds. These are victories in and of themselves that we can grasp, even if they don’t always leave us smiling.
\n\nSolidarity is not just a means of self-preservation, but a thread connecting everyone across the world who seeks liberation rather than settling for a society dictated by domination, exploitation, and an unrelenting death cult.
\n\nSolidarity is our weapon!
\nAll we have is us!
—Anarchists
\n\nIntroduce the project you’re involved with.
\n\nWe are members of the “Solidarity Assembly for Imprisoned Fugitives and Persecuted Combatants.” Our group is an anarchist assembly, in the sense that it functions according to the principles of self-organization and without hierarchy. We are also open and have met publicly every week for the past seven years.
\n\nOur aim is to provide political support to comrades who find themselves in the hands of the state and to elevate the various battles that take place in the courts and prisons against false indictments, abuses from the guards, or for general political solidarity.
\n\nWe strive to make the demands of those inside the prisons known and to show the inherent connections they have with struggles that take place in other spheres of society. We also try to put a stop to the repressive mechanisms that the state uses against the anarchist movement. We do this by distributing political texts, fliers, and posters, but also by planning direct actions and demonstrations.
\n\nIn 2024, Kyriakos Ximitiris passed away due to a tragic accident in Athens. This also resulted in the arrests of others, who now have been taken to trial. The trial has become known in local media and by many around the world as the “Ampelokipoi case,” with some of the defendants recently being acquitted and released and others convicted and sentenced to many years in prison. Could you explore what this case was about, what happened with the loss of Kyriakos, and the arrests, prosecution, and recent verdicts that followed?
\n\nThe Solidarity Assembly was one of the main support structures that was involved in the “Ampelokipoi case,” with Kyriakos being a member of the assembly up to the point of his death and Marianna Manoura and Dimitra Zarafeta continuing to be members to this day from inside prison.
\n\n\nConsequently, it was very important for us to preserve the memory of Kyriakos Ximitiris, show solidarity to all the prosecuted comrades, and build a general political wall of solidarity for struggle, armed struggle, and the choices some of our comrades made and continue to make.
\n\nKyriakos was a dear comrade and friend. He was active in many parts of the movement. He actively demonstrated revolutionary solidarity with political prisoners, engaged in anti-imperialist and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and was active in the anti-gentrification movement in Exarchia as well as the anti-fascist movement in general.
\n\nHe had also chosen to participate in armed revolutionary struggle. It was this choice that led to his tragic death at an apartment in Ampelokipoi (a neighborhood in Athens), where an explosion took place under unknown circumstances. This explosion seriously injured his comrade in the movement and in life, Marianna Manoura, and prompted the anti-terrorist unit to devise a non-existent terrorist group, arresting Marianna Manoura, their friend and comrade Dimitra Zarafeta, and three other comrades: Nikos Romanos, Dimitris, and A.K.
\n\nThe loss of Kyriakos and the subsequent hospitalization and imprisonment of Marianna Manoura were grave incidents for the anarchist movement in Greece and abroad. The deeply divided anarchist movement of Athens came together, after many years, to grieve our fallen comrade Kyriakos, and to support Marianna Manoura, Dimitra Zarafeta, and the other three arrested in the case.
\n\nThe movement tried to deal both with the difficult issue of the political defense of armed revolutionary struggle and with critically intensifying state repression. There is a discussion to be had about what went right and wrong in all this, but as the daily mass solidarity gatherings at the courts showed, Kyriakos’ death and the Ampelokipoi case in general remain issues that deeply concern us all.
\n\nFrom the beginning, Marianna Manoura assumed responsibility for helping Kyriakos find a place to process explosive materials that would be used for the revolutionary cause. She made clear there was no terrorist organization and that the other four detained people had nothing to do with the case. Dimitra Zarafeta declared that the accusations by the state against her were false and that she was being persecuted politically, as an anarchist, as a comrade of Kyriakos and Marianna Manoura, and as a person who ideologically supports the choices and actions of Kyriakos. Dimitris, Nikos Romanos, and A.K. all declared their innocence and repudiated any connection with the case.
\n\nThe actual information that the state presented as evidence was either false or completely insufficient even by their own standards. There was none supporting the existence of a terrorist organization. The state presented some normal exchanges of apartment keys and phones between friends and partners relating to Dimitra Zarafeta and Dimitris, and claimed that partial fingerprints of Nikos and A.K. were discovered, among many others, on a plastic bag containing a gun.
\n\nNevertheless, all the accused were detained for 17 months and in the end, Marianna Manoura and Dimitra Zarafeta were convicted, resulting in a 19-year prison sentence for Marianna Manoura and 8 years for Dimitra Zarafeta. The large sentences, especially for Marianna Manoura, were chiefly due to the application of anti-terrorist legislation. Dimitris, Nikos Romanos, and A.K. were declared innocent and released.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/11/3.jpg\")
\nIs there an appeal? Will the sentences be served in full?
\n\nMarianna Manoura and Dimitra Zarafeta were recently transferred to the women’s prison of Thiva, since Korydallos prison, where they were held during their pre-trial detention, is only for those awaiting trial. This is an expected but bad development, as they are now much further away from the movement, their families, and their friends.
\n\nAn appeal has already been made, but the second-degree court is not expected to take place any sooner than one to two years from now. Depending on how the secondary court goes, we will then be able to make a better guess as to how much actual time our comrades will have to serve in prison. In general, it is standard that three- to four-fifths of the actual sentence will be served, but there are many legal factors that could affect both the actual sentence and the percentage of it that they will need to serve in prison.
\n\nThe main factor that makes these computations difficult is that since the final days of the SYRIZA administration in 2019, the penal and correctional codes have been constantly changed, making it confusing to determine how each law will affect each individual case.
\n\nWhy did Greek media report differently on Nikos Romanos than on the other defendants in this trial?
\n\nWe do not know if there was a clear intention or plan from the state in this. The comrade, Nikos Romanos, is an important figure not only for the anarchist movement but for large parts of the Greek left as well. His close friendship with Alexis Grigoropoulos, whose murder by a cop in 2008 inspired the biggest insurrection in recent Greek history, and his hunger strike in 2014 made him a point of reference for the broader “progressive” movement. This creates a social pressure that the state takes into consideration, for better or worse.
\n\nAnother aspect that makes his situation different is, in our view, the fact that he proclaimed his innocence, in contrast with the positions that Marianna Manoura and Dimitra Zarafeta expressed in court. This enabled some parts of the left, which long ago lost its ability to affirm any political choice and stance that the state deems illegal, to support him. In conjunction with the lack of evidence against him, that forced some of the more left-leaning media to try to be a bit more “objective” or considerate of his case.
\n\nAn action in solidarity with the defendants in the Ampelokipoi case.
\nDoes this case have broader implications regarding the Greek state’s approach to repression?
\n\nWe do not think that there was anything really new in how the Greek state handled this case, considering the recent years of escalated repression. Solely because there was an explosion and there were two anarchists in the place where it happened, the Greek state concluded that there was a “terrorist organization.” A pure fabrication. To invent the other members of the supposed “terrorist organization,” they accused the close comrades of the deceased or known individuals in the movement.
\n\nThis is a common method of the Greek anti-terrorist unit, with the courts following suit and engaging in an almost routine pattern: the first-degree court is usually harsher, convicting at least some of the accused for terrorism with lengthy sentences—at least by Greek standards—and the second-degree courts refine the sentences or acquit. There are, of course, notable exceptions.
\n\nOne thing of particular importance in this case are the very high sentences the court handed down, especially for Marianna. This was a direct result of the court convicting both Marianna Manoura and Dimitra Zarafeta for all the charges, including the one concerning “the supply of a terrorist organization with arms and explosives.”
\n\nThis is an accusation that even the prosecutor argued could not logically be proven for a member of this supposed “organization.” This will be a very important legal and political battle for the second-degree court, in order to shorten our comrades’ sentences.
\n\nWhat is the 187a law? We have seen the Greek state fabricating narratives and creating groups, as they did with the “comrades” case which was recently dropped after five years in the courts. Is this law enabling the state to engage in more repression without evidence?
\n\nFirst of all, the essence of this law is political. It is the law that the state uses to repress the armed struggle movement as much as possible. Using specialized courts with no jurors, harsher sentences, and an ever-growing list of crimes that can be prosecuted under the 187a law, the state aims to suppress and silence the “internal enemy.”
\n\nWith this goal in mind, the anti-terrorist law is intentionally vague, giving both the anti-terror unit and the courts enough leeway to adjust it for each case and fabricate evidence as needed.
\n\nThe law was a direct byproduct of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States. Infamously, it was first used against an accused member of the N17 (November 17th) revolutionary organization. Since then, the Greek state continuously revises and expands it according to the European anti-terror law standards, just like the 129b law in Germany.
\n\nAlthough it began as a law targeting those who enter armed revolutionary struggle, over the last few years, it is used more and more to target a wide range of practices.
\n\nAre many of these cases postponed, or are charges fabricated, in order to drain the movement of resources and time or use trauma and pre-trial detention as a means of punishment without conviction?
\n\nFirst of all, the postponement of cases has been a reality in Greece for as long as anyone can remember. Many times, the defendants choose this, so that the trial will take place long after the event it concerns, in order to make it more difficult for the state to use the trial in a retaliatory way.
\n\nOther times, trials are postponed because the prosecution does not wish for them to happen. In general, the courts are overburdened with cases, and even though the ruling New Democracy party (ND) has taken measures to force the courts to close up cases faster—at the expense of course of what the state calls “due process” and the “rights” of the accused—this is not always feasible for the judges.
\n\nHowever, it is undoubtedly true that the state uses a number of other tools to make life difficult for the accused, with pre-trial detention, restrictive pre-trial conditions, and court bonds being the most prominent of these. And it is also true that since ND returned to power, these are becoming stricter and are used more often.
\n\nAs for fabricated cases, this strategy has been used to target people of interest to the authorities; Nikos Romanos’ involvement in the Ampelokipoi trial is a case in point. We cannot say whether this indicates a broader plan to deplete the movement’s resources; there is certainly a difference of opinions regarding how organized the state and the police are, as well as how much interest they have in long-term operations against the anarchist movement. But again, what is certain is that the legal consequences of both political activism and low-level crime are becoming harsher by the day—thanks to the new repressive laws that ND passed, which are more aligned with European standards, and the “zero-tolerance for crime” slogan that brought ND to power.
\n\nWe have comrades accused of forming a criminal organization to throw paint at government buildings, people appearing many times a month at the police department because they were arrested at a demonstration, and, at the same time, the prison population is at a breaking point due to petty theft and small debts in broader Greek society.
\n\nAn action in Heraklion in memory of Kyriakos Ximitiris.
\nTwo comrades are on hunger strike to defend Prosfygika, a large squatted complex in the center of Athens. Can you explain these hunger strikes? We have usually seen hunger strikes as a last resort. Are these hunger strikes a sign of critical times and heightened repression?
\n\nWe are not the appropriate assembly to discuss this issue, as there are open assemblies to stop the eviction of the Prosfygika community. For our part, we see the squatting movement as an integral part of the anarchist and anti-authoritarian movement; this is why the state has become fixated on destroying it with ever increasing intensity over this past decade.
\n\nAristos and Souzon, the two hunger-strikers acting to resist the demolition and development of the Prosfygika squat complex, know this better than anybody. That’s why they put their lives and their bodies on the line, so it is shown in every perspective that they mean what they say, what they believe, and what the community means to them. As an assembly, we support the struggle to defend Prosfygika and we stand in solidarity with our comrades.
\n\nHave surveillance and repression increased in recent years? Has the state readjusted its priorities? Did the COVID-19 lockdown play a role in this, or is it simply a reflection of the times?
\n\nAs we said, repression has increased swiftly over the last decade, coming to keep pace with the European standards. Cameras, drones, and cops are everywhere, with new divisions of police appearing all the time—for public transportation, courts, universities, immigration, and more. Low-level crime and political activism are also punished harshly, and the scope of the anti-terrorist laws expands with every new piece of legislation. Not to mention the additional repressive capabilities that the AI frenzy may provide in a future just around the corner.
\n\nCOVID-19 is one of the big issues that divided our movement. Despite the different takes on how this whole issue was perceived, which we cannot get into here, it is evident that the lockdown was at the very least, a perfect opportunity for the state to take complete control of public space and to accustom society at large to a broad scale of repression. The safety of the population has supposedly become the number one priority, with the police always somehow being the answer to every question.
\n\nThe discourse that was emerged in the COVID period, enhanced by the far-right and aggressively neo-liberal government of ND, seeks to overcome the historically deep mistrust with which Greek society regards the state. At the same time, the pace of economic and legal scandals has risen to an extreme. The state presents itself as the only thing standing between the population and chaos—demonizing anyone who disagrees or “poses a threat to the society.” In the new era of warfare that we have entered, these same arguments are used more and more to justify military equipment upgrades and the direct involvement of the Greek state in the NATO-Israel mass killings and bombings in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/11/1.jpg\")
\nHouse raids for small charges seems to be frequently be in the news. Are they occurring more often in Greece? How should we understand this?
\n\nHouse raids have always been a tool in the hands of the state, and for good reason. The pressure and fear that they inflict on the people whose privacy is attacked, along with whatever circumstantial evidence and intelligence they can collect inside our houses, are obviously beneficial for the police. They also exert financial pressure on the movement, since in most house raids, the police steal our electronic devices. Again, it is a matter of discussion how well planned or thought out these raids are, especially when they are not organized by the anti-terrorist unit.
\n\nNevertheless, we should mention some recent developments that, if they are permitted to become normalized, will certainly have a grave impact on the movement. On one hand, we have seven comrades who are suspected of “forming a criminal organization that destroys government property” due to some paint that had been thrown many months ago at a government building in Kipseli, a neighborhood in Athens. Usually, when you are a suspect, the cops call you to the General Police Department of Athens to give a statement, under threat that if you do not comply, they will charge you. This is usually an empty threat. This time, however, the cops decided to enter our comrades’ houses, in some cases by force.
\n\nIn another case, three comrades are accused of attacking a court building with hammers and paint. Again, even though there was evidence collected at the scene which, by the cops’ standards, would be more than sufficient to proceed to trial, the cops decided to raid to their houses.
\n\nWhat do you think is behind the Greek state shifting so many resources towards repression, including pushing to expand the Greek military and tighten conscription laws? Is this a broader tendency in the European Union?
\n\nYou answer the question by pointing out that these are issues in modern societies all over the world. War is everywhere, closer to us (as “Europeans”) than it has been since the Second World War, and it seems that will continue. All Europe is re-arming, as the program informs us.
\n\nIn Greece, this is constantly present due to the construction of tension between Greece and Turkey at the eastern borders and the Aegean Sea. That’s how Greece has ended up being one of the countries that contributes the most to NATO financially. [Greece is one of the top defense spenders in NATO, consistently spending around 3.1% of its GDP on defense, which is among the highest in the alliance.] The goal of the Greek state, and every state, is to construct a society that believes in it and is ready to fight for the nation and the bosses. Maybe this also explains the repression directed at many parts of the movement in Greece.
\n\nIt is obvious that Greece is still in an economic crisis (although the government pretends otherwise), so the large amount of money that is spent on the military and police does not address other social needs that are not as interesting to those in power. For example, we have understaffed hospitals and universities, lacking basic provisions and in many cases closing; we have deteriorating public transport infrastructure that is causing more and more “accidents,” with the worst one in recent times being the Tempi train crash.
\n\nThere is also a serious problem with the cost of housing, as well as with the costs of basic needs and products. Life in Greece is difficult, and it will continue to be so unless we come together to fight back.
\n\nIt has been seven years since New Democracy abolished the university asylum policy that originated after the fall of the Junta in the 1970s. How has this impacted the anarchist movement and broader radical communities in Greece?
\n\nAgain, this is a subject regarding which political opinions vary. On one hand, it is true that now it is easier for police to enter university grounds to hunt for people after clashes at a demonstration or to break up a university occupation established by students or political groups. But there is an argument that this is a more general issue that is only exacerbated by the end of the asylum policy.
\n\nSince the right-wing government of New Democracy came to power in 2019, the state has been carrying out an attack on the movement and its symbols; this is much broader than the anarchist movement. The remnants of the left have proven themselves to be completely incapable of defending the political and symbolic ground they won after the fall of the Junta in 1974. To put things in perspective, anarchists always threw Molotov cocktails from inside the universities and the police always had the legal right to enter the universities when this happened, even with the asylum policy in place.
\n\nOne can argue that the main thing that kept police from entering the universities was not a public misconception about a piece of legislation (that obviously would never cover Molotov cocktails being thrown at government workers), but rather what strong and broad political and ideological support there was for the clashes with the police, which was merely represented and symbolized in the idea of the university asylum. It is that support that the New Democracy government has successfully put into question.
\n\nRegardless of how we analyze this subject, this has caused a big problem for the anarchist and student movements. Apart from taking a powerful political tool—university occupations—from the students’ hands, this enabled police to apply repressive measures inside the universities with ease, taking advantage of the cameras, barriers, and private security already in place. Now, discussions about a special police force for the universities are advancing, even though the first attempt to put them in place failed.
\n\nThis also impacts the anarchist movement, which uses universities for assemblies and various kinds of political events, such as events to raise money for persecuted comrades and various political causes.
\n\nLast year, the Trump administration placed multiple revolutionary groups allegedly in the European Union on its terror watch lists, equating anti-fascists and anarchists with fundamentalist groups such as the Islamic State. Two of these alleged groups allegedly originate in Greece. Has that had any effect in Greece?
\n\nThese moves haven’t made a noticeable impact here in Greece until now. Of course, the United States has always offered the Greek state a paradigm for repression, but for now, only extreme far-right groups make these analogies.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/11/4.jpg\")
\nAre there any other cases that you would like to mention?
\n\nThere are a number of cases affecting many comrades, relating to defending squats, solidarity actions with imprisoned comrades, and clashes with the police in demonstrations or in Exarchia. Here, we select, almost at random, a few that have or might have a serious impact on the comrades involved.
\n\nThe newest big case involves eight arrests that took place on May 11, 2026, with the arrestees being accused of various robberies. The case is still open, so the charges—and perhaps the list of defendants, as well—are not finalized. Six of the eight comrades are in pre-trial detention in various prisons in Greece, while two were let out under restrictive provisions.
\n\nThere is also the case of the comrades Yannis Karatsolis and Sofoklis Toutziarakis. The state accused them of forming a criminal organization with five other people in order to perform robberies. Even though the allegations of criminal organization did not stand up in court, as the other defendants were acquitted, Yannis Karatsolis and Sofoklis Toutziarakis received extreme sentences—21 and 23 years, respectively. The aim is now to pressure the second-degree court to reduce these vindictive sentences when it hears the case in October.
\n\nFinally, there are the arrests from the first big demonstration in response to the mass murder of immigrants by the state, when the Greek coast guard sank a boat transporting more than 500 immigrants close to the town of Pylos. The trial was set to take place in May, but was postponed until spring 2027.
\n\nHow can people outside Greece express international solidarity?
\n\nEvery move, intervention, text, poster, or post could make people here feel the solidarity. The continuation of political struggle in every place is inspiring for everyone. And of course, even though the Greek state is not a big one, there are related targets of economic or political interest in many countries, which is a traditional way of showing international solidarity in this movement.
\n\nFor financial support, the main fund is Tameio, which provides economic support to political prisoners on a monthly basis. Over the years, it has become one of the most important structures of the anarchist movement in Greece. In addition, there are many specialized funds for specific cases, usually to cover the legal costs of arrested comrades. These funds can be found on websites like Athens Indymedia and Firefund.
\n\nOne active Firefund campaign concerns the appeal trial for an act of solidarity during the last hunger strike of our anarchist comrade G. Michailidis.
\n\nFinally, to stay up to date with what is happening in Greece, the counter-information options are sadly not very good. The main website that the anarchist movement uses to publish its positions and actions is Athens Indymedia, which is in Greek and does not formally offer non-Greek translation, though you can use a translation-friendly browser to navigate it. The best way to keep in touch is probably by establishing direct contact with the assemblies and individual comrades that participate in the movement.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/11/6.jpg\")
\nIn addition, we spoke with one of the “Koukaki Squatted Community” defendants about their situation.
\n\nAround the same time as the conclusion of the Ampelokipoi case, members of the “Koukaki Squatted Community” were also facing trial; however, it was postponed. Could you explain the case and its implications for the broader anarchist movement?
\n\nOur project consisted of three anarchist squats that acted as a revolutionary community in the Koukaki neighborhood of Athens. The reclaimed spaces helped to foster multiple assemblies, various organizing efforts towards the broader anarchist movement, and local mutual aid projects. Our community also offered housing to members of the squat’s assembly and comrades and also to houseless individuals, refugees, struggling migrants, trans people rejected by their communities, and those who are deemed “excluded” by capitalist society.
\n\nThe houses acted as a sort of intentional community, eliminating the need to work to pay rent, so that we could direct all our efforts to resistance and organizing. This brought together an array of revolutionary individuals who were committed to rejecting property and ensuring that having “free housing” via liberated space would enable us to further the struggle for liberation.
\n\nUnfortunately, one comrade was lost in 2018 while hanging a banner in solidarity with political prisoner Marios Seisidis. His death resulted from the general commitment that defined many of those involved in the Koukaki squats. But while we all still face trial and the endless bureaucracy and opportunism of the state, I want to mention our lost comrade, Dimitris, who was an incredible and passionate comrade, to give recognition that his struggle lives on in our commitments and actions today.
\n\nThe Greek state violently evicted the squats in a coordinated assault. One of the three spaces, “Panaitoliou,” was resquatted twice, and “Matrozou” was resquatted three times.
\n\nThree of my comrades and I have been convicted for the defense of the Panaitoliou squat, but will likely not face jail time. We continue to have court obligations, and the constant stress of not knowing our fate takes its toll. At the same time, as the final defense of the Matrozou squat involved a more intense defense effort, multiple comrades remain on trial facing small charges that could potentially add up to years in prison if the state gets its way.
\n\nThis escalation of repression is the result of our efforts to defend our revolutionary community, while having sought, through our actions, to inspire the broader anarchist movement at a time when the state was attempting to destroy all the squats. The state wants to make an example of us in order to discourage the militant defense of occupied spaces. They are trying to break our will. They are dragging us through the courts with charges of using less extreme resistance than that which brought imprisonment prior to the escalated campaign against the squats that the New Democracy administration started when they came to power in 2019.
\n\nFive comrades on trial for militantly defending Matrozou were convicted of two misdemeanors each and originally sentenced to 77 months in prison. However, the sentence was suspended, and imprisonment will depend on the outcome of the current appeal. The prosecution is demanding that that the defendants serve the full sentence. Facing such a sentence for two misdemeanors is legally unprecedented in Greece. The reality is that the two misdemeanors would typically not bring imprisonment. However, because this is related to defending a squat, they will try to make an example of the comrades to demonstrate that the action itself is not what the prosecution seeks to repress, but rather the motivations and revolutionary desires behind the actions—criminalizing their goals and ideas.
\n\nIn the lead up to the most recent trial, multiple demonstrations took place across Greece to support the Matrozou defendants. However, the appeals trial was postponed until November 9. This is the second postponement of the second trial of the appeal.
\n\nNot only is postponing the trial a way of exhausting the defendants, they also hope that it will make the waves of solidarity leading up to the trial fizzle out. The state seeks to isolate the defendants, outwaiting solidarity and public attention, and then to prosecute to the fullest extent possible. They are waiting for a moment when the movement is quieter, when repression is out of the headlines, when people are overwhelmed responding to other repression.
\n\nThe momentum building up to trial was substantial, and this type of solidarity organizing does not come without effort. They aim to continue to force the defendants and the movement supporting them to constantly act in a defensive anti-repressive approach rather than engage in offensive revolutionary organizing, in order to drain our resources and consume our energy.
\n\nThe two misdemeanors are related to paint that was thrown on police officers, damaging their uniforms and allegedly inflicted bodily harm against police. Yet the police did not even bother to show up to the first trial, in December 2025; that is why it was postponed. All the Matrozou defendants face the same charges, accused by eight officers.
\n\nThis case is of political interest to the New Democracy regime. The original prosecutor is a member of New Democracy and in the law firm of Plevris; she also unsuccessfully ran for parliament as an aspiring ND politician. After the original trial, she wasn’t able to continue in the appeals court due to bureaucratic reasons. Yet she continues to escort the police who show up as witnesses and guide them as to what to say—free of charge, and without a formal legal position. She also defended the cops who faced neglect charges for doing nothing to save the queer activist Zackie Oh from being murdered. She even went on television, on a mainstream national morning talk show, and claimed that the defendants went straight from court to prison, despite the fact that the appeal actually prevented imprisonment. Once again, the point of this case is to make an example.
\n\nHowever, the hearts and revolutionary integrity of the defendants remain intact. While we lost our housing years ago, our community lives on in our revolutionary relations and committed support to one another as we overcome repression.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/11/5.jpg\")
Fire to the prison cells.
\nStarting on May 22, a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey catalyzed daily demonstrations outside the facility, creating the most visible flashpoint in the fight against the brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since the fight in Minnesota in early 2026. Here, we offer an appraisal of the tactics that protesters have employed outside Delaney Hall, anonymously provided by participants, followed by two interviews exploring the events in detail.
\n\nPhotographs by Talia Jane.
\n\nThe struggle to free the detainees from Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey has become the most significant sustained inside/outside protest movement at a detention center of Donald Trump’s second term. On May 22, 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike to demand their release. Supporters immediately mobilized outside to support them. For days, people rallied yards away from the building in which GEO Group holds approximately 1000 detainees captive under contract with the Department of Homeland Security. On May 27, viral videos showed ICE and private GEO Group security bludgeoning protesters outside Delaney Hall and pushing one man under an 18-wheeler, crushing his leg. Nonetheless, protesters bravely pushed back. Over the following days, more people rushed to the facility.
\n\nFor the first week of demonstrations, state and local law enforcement kept their distance. The weekend of May 29-31 marked a shift in the struggle at Delaney Hall, when New Jersey Democratic politicians Governor Mikie Sherrill and Mayor Ras Baraka deployed State Troopers and Newark Police Department to assist ICE and corral the protest. The collaboration of state law enforcement with ICE and GEO Group led to a much larger police presence outside the facility, coinciding with the largest protests outside Delaney Hall yet. In the following analysis, participants in that struggle recount the experiences on the ground Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, offering tactical reflections on how the protesters moved that weekend, followed by strategic reflections for the movement in general.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/3.jpg\")
Chinga la migra. Fuck Border Patrol.
\nFor the first seven days of the hunger strike, a combination of ICE agents and GEO Group employees policed Delaney Hall. On Friday, May 29, Newark Police Department and New Jersey State Police were deployed to manage the protest. Early in the day, Newark Police Department established vehicle checkpoints at the north and south intersections of Doremus Avenue, limiting car traffic to commercial trucks and ICE vehicles. Protesters could access the front entrances of Delaney by foot. By nightfall, the crowd had grown to about 150 people.
\n\nShortly after 9 pm, New Jersey State Police issued the first dispersal order. Ten minutes later, a line of fifty riot police advanced toward Delaney Hall. Protesters dragged steel barricades into the street; state troopers immediately absorbed these and tossed the barriers behind their advancing line. Riot police deployed tear gas in an effort to push back the crowd. From the main driveway, two dozen ICE agents shot pepper balls into the crowd.
\n\nThe riot line parted to let a half-dozen mounted officers into the crowd; they successfully used the horses to push protesters onto the sidewalk and past the south gate, away from the facility. It became clear that this maneuver was preparatory: shortly thereafter, eight ICE vehicles drove through the crowd, past the riot line and into Delaney Hall.
\n\nState police and protesters then entered a stalemate. Police held the road without deploying munitions; the crowd stared them down, but took no new initiatives. After about twenty minutes, once ICE completed its shift change, police covered their retreat by firing flash-bang grenades, tear-gas canisters, and pepper balls into the crowd.
\n\nWith the riot police dispersed, protesters quickly returned to the front of Delaney Hall. A few individuals dragged steel barricades in front of the active driveway. ICE agents immediately emerged, shot pepper balls into the crowd, and dragged the barricades inside the gate. Further up Doremus, protesters erected more steel barricades and reinforced them with paving stones. Despite these efforts, ICE successfully escorted four vehicles out of the facility.
\n\nThe night concluded with no further intervention from state police. One protester used a paving stone to crush the windshield of a parked ICE SUV. A brief skirmish broke out between protesters and a far-right TikTok influencer, after which armed security escorted him inside Delaney Hall. ICE agents stayed behind the retractable driveway gates. The crowd spent the final hours milling about.
\n\nBarricades: Protesters repeatedly deployed barricades with little forethought as to how to make use of them. In some cases, the consequence was that the State Police or ICE were able to immediately seize them. Only later, after failed attempts to deploy barricades directly in front of Delaney, did some people erect a reinforced steel barricade further up the road, out of the direct reach of ICE agents. However, as the crowd remained concentrated by the driveway, several ICE vehicles were able to clear that obstacle with ease.
\n\nIdle Time: Ideally, one should arrive at a protest equipped to take action, with the goal of altering the course of events for the better. Instead of merely attending the demonstration, individuals or crews should actively intervene and inspire others to do the same. The attempts to make barricades, the damage to the ICE vehicle, and the confrontation with the TikToker were gestures in that direction. However, aside from those few instances, which did not galvanize the crowd to action, most of the evening’s activity could be described as “milling around.” The abundance of idle time, especially in the absence of law enforcement, suppressed the crowd’s potential and momentum.
\n\nProximity to Delaney Hall: We should not take for granted the opportunity to be able to get within feet of a facility like Delaney Hall. The detention center sits along a sidewalk accessible to protesters, moderately protected by chain-link fence. After the State Police retreated, there was a multi-hour window during which people could have modified the façade of Delaney Hall. This opportunity diminished after Friday night: new fencing was installed around the driveway, state and local LEO began guarding the facility, and for two days, access to Delaney was blocked altogether.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/5.jpg\")
A barricade protesters built in the days before the local and state police established control around the facility.
\nSaturday night began with a scuffle. By 9 pm, approximately 250 protesters had assembled; the majority of them were equipped with gas masks, goggles, and helmets. They initiated a ten-minute tug-of-war with New Jersey State Police by pushing up against the steel barricade perimeter that had been constructed in front of the facility’s main gate. Eventually, protesters broke the barrier into two sections. The police retreated into the facility’s driveway, but the crowd did not advance on the building. Instead, it stepped back onto the sidewalk.
\n\nSome protesters re-appropriated the barriers to form a barricade in front of a line of riot police forming just south of the facility. As they had the night before, police quickly removed the barriers and shot tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades. The crowd fell back immediately. As the riot line advanced, protesters took up the remaining barricades and managed to push the police line back a few feet by shoving the barricades against the shields of the riot police. This was the only point in the night when the crowd was able to advance. The police broke the barricade at its weakest point—as there were only about a dozen people on the front line and they were spread thin—by bludgeoning protesters and deploying more flash-bang grenades.
\n\nAt the same time, a new unit of riot police marched in via the railroad tracks south of Roanoke Avenue. Filling in behind the existing riot line, they increased its depth by two to three officers and expanded it across the entire road. The rest of the night is best described as a rolling retreat.
\n\nTwo hundred riot police deployed a combination of pepper balls, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas canisters, both tossing the tear gas canisters and shooting them behind the front lines of protesters. Some protesters equipped with traffic cones and water bottles extinguished the canisters and kicked them back at the police; in one instance, protesters redirected the tear gas at the correctional officers loitering in the Essex County parking lot. The crowd continuously threw up barricades—dragging together jersey barriers, planks of wood, and abandoned trash—but were not able to fortify or defend them. Protesters maintained an average distance of 100 feet from the police line.
\n\nAt one point, a convoy of five vehicles was allowed through the checkpoint on Roanoke. The majority passed through the line of riot police without issue. The crowd swarmed the final car, which was tinted out with California plates. It accelerated forward; the police barely opened their line in time to let it through. There was a splash of glass as it passed.
\n\nDuring their final advance, the police line parted to let nine mounted units out into the crowd. They spread down Doremus in a flanking formation, rotating to push protesters onto the sidewalk. Two individuals leaped into the street to disorient the horses by waving makeshift shields and flashing bright lights in their eyes. This worked, albeit only temporarily. The crowd scrambled, then continued in slow retreat.
\n\nThe crowd retreated for ten minutes before the riot line assumed the stationary position that it maintained for the rest of the night. The crowd was spread out and thinning, 100 to 200 feet away from police. Fifteen minutes into this standoff, about 100 feet behind the line of protesters, someone ignited a flaming barricade assembled from tires, traffic cones, and debris. The majority of the protesters dispersed around 12:30 am. Mayor Ras Baraka retroactively instituted a curfew.
\n\nTear Gas: The prevalence of gas masks and goggles prepared the crowd to endure chemical dispersants. The crowd generally succeeded in tracking and neutralizing tear gas canisters. A small team with traffic cones and water bottles reliably followed the canisters and extinguished them; many other people kicked tear gas canisters back at police or away from the crowd. However, the crowd fell back at least 100 feet nearly every time officers deployed tear gas and flash-bangs, as the officers surely intended. It would have been preferable to remain close to the front line in order to retain offensive capacities.
\n\nProtester Barricades: We should appraise the value of a barricade by what it renders possible. Protesters threw up at least three barricades, but none of them significantly slowed the police line, nor were they ever fortified enough to do so. To accomplish that, protesters would have needed to maintain the initiative after deploying the barricades and immediately launch a new offensive. Instead, the protesters hung back after deploying them. Every moment spent in a staring contest with law enforcement is momentum ceded, enabling the state to determine the next move.
\n\nFlaming Barricade: The bonfire was an act of initiative on the part of the demonstrators. However, it occurred too late in the protest, which was essentially over by the time the fire was lit. At that point, the protesters had been pushed as far back as they would be by riot police and had been in a stalemate of inactivity for fifteen minutes. Because this took place at the end of the evening’s events, during a lull in activity, and with a dwindling crowd, it could not regenerate momentum. If fires had been lit earlier, they might have strengthened barricades against riot police and galvanized the energy of the crowd during the peak of the skirmishes.
\n\nProjectiles: The only way to push back a police line is to advance on it. It would have been possible for a few people to collect a few boxes of rocks from the nearby railroad tracks, encourage the crowd to tighten up, and then throw projectiles at the riot line. The crowd likely wouldn’t have regained much ground, but this would have slowed its retreat. Better prepared demonstrators might have packed fireworks.
\n\nFalse Dispersal Order: Near the end of the night, when the fire was burning lower, one individual took a megaphone and informed the crowd that they were being kettled from the rear. This was not true: nothing had changed at the north entrance. A few protesters fact-checked this detail and updated the crowd, but the announcement still induced panic. A number of people chose to disperse, including all of those marked as medics. A basic scouting system could have decreased the crowd’s susceptibility to fear and false information.
\n\nArtwork: Saturday’s activities amounted to a slow, rolling retreat, but the imagery that circulated was evocative and inspiring to those watching the struggle from elsewhere. At one point, anti-ICE graffiti appeared on the corrugated metal wall of a nearby business. Because artwork that appears in situations like this is often immediately broadcasted across the country, it offers an opportunity to offer slogans providing strategic direction.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/4.jpg\")
Clenched fists versus police batons.
\nSunday was the first night that the curfew was in effect. The police expanded the vehicular checkpoints of the previous days, reinforcing the Roanoke entrance with multiple squad cars and portable vehicle barriers and blocking off the entire length of the Wilson entrance with zip-tied steel barricades. Foot traffic on Doremus was prohibited.
\n\nAt 8:50 pm, there were roughly 100 protesters gathered at the Wilson intersection. The medics began packing up their supplies. A few individuals spread fear in the crowd, attempting to persuade everyone to disperse. At 9 pm, the police issued a dispersal order. It was unclear whether the intersection lay inside or outside of the half-mile curfew “zone.”
\n\nAround 9:15, a mounted unit of ten state police horses deployed out of the New Jersey Transit parking lot west on Wilson. The crowd rushed towards them. At the same time, riot police deployed from farther down Doremus to form a line across the intersection. The combination of these two forces pushed protesters onto the sidewalk at the southwest corner.
\n\nA third of the crowd dispersed down Wilson, followed by low-flying drones. Officers in vehicles with tinted windows shone bright flashlights at outbound traffic to intimidate the occupants. Police set up additional checkpoints along the exit routes, at first stopping drivers for violating curfew. Ultimately, they permitted these cars to leave.
\n\nRiot police kettled the 64 protesters who remained at the intersection. They were booked at Essex County Correctional Facility, adjacent to Delaney Hall within the curfew zone.
\n\nDispersal of the Medics: A handful of people demobilized the crowd by announcing that medics were leaving the scene. It was not clear whether the medics were speaking for themselves, how or why they made that call, or what their relationship was to those seeking to persuade people to leave. In any case, it is odd that a support role would be treated as a de facto tactical lead: the idea was that if the medics retreated, we should retreat, too. It makes sense that some people would feel less resilient without medics after experiencing everything from chemical munitions to bone-breaking beatings at the hands of GEO Group, ICE, and State Police. Regardless, it is worth considering whether the decisions of medics should determine what everyone else does.
\n\nKnowing When to Call It: It was immediately apparent that the balance of forces was not in the protesters’ favor. When officers issued the dispersal order, less than a hundred people lingered by the barricade, a significant proportion of which were press. The State Police behind the barricade matched the protesters almost one to one. When a bus of riot police arrived farther south, seizing the space behind the protesters, and mounted State Troopers descended from the west, there were limited options. A police force twice the size of the protest took over the whole intersection and announced a dispersal. Police cars started forming perimeters further up the street to close and monitor traffic. While it always feels disempowering to leave, protesters probably should have done so at that point. All other things being equal, when one has the opportunity, it is better to stay out of the bureaucratic legal process in order to keep one’s hands free to fight another day.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/9.jpg\")
\nAbove, we suggested tactical improvements that the crowd could have implemented during the specific events of each day. Below, we offer strategic proposals based on recurring dynamics across the days of struggle outside Delaney Hall.
\n\nParticipants in protests should sensitize themselves to the difference between actions that feel productive and actions that advance towards desired outcomes. We should always strive to influence our environment and learn faster than circumstances change. Doing so requires participants to communicate simply and effectively with each other, to take and maintain the initiative, and to take responsibility for maintaining the cohesion of the crowd. So far, the protests outside Delaney have not been able to metabolize lessons rapidly enough to keep up with events. The mis-application of barricades, the repeated slow retreats, and the lack of cohesion in stopping vehicles highlight this.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/6.jpg\")
A barricade protesters built in the days before the local and state police established control around the facility.
\nThe implicit objective of the crowd has been to prevent ICE vehicles from entering or exiting the facility. One of the early efforts to break the strike involved transferring suspected leaders out of Delaney Hall to other detention facilities; blocking vehicular traffic presented itself to protesters as an effective response. This same tactic was employed last summer in New York City as part of an effort to prevent the removal of detainees from 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Protesters attempted to create chokepoints by throwing debris into the intersections surrounding the immigration courts as ICE vans were leaving.
\n\nDespite the persistent desire to block traffic, it is not clear what the larger goal is besides making ICE operations more costly in general. The crowd has been largely unsuccessful at blockading entry and exit to the facility. When protesters have surrounded ICE vehicles, they have usually simply banged on the car; on a handful of occasions, they have broken a window. Otherwise, the crowd has been ill-prepared to disable vehicles despite the apparent desire to do so. The crowd’s inability to pivot on the ground is symptomatic of a broader strategic vacuum.
\n\nOne sometimes whispered-about, but largely unspoken desire is to breach the facility and liberate detainees. The appetite for this is apparent, but unrealized; desired, but doubted. It is worth identifying this horizon outright. So long as it remains unspoken, it will be impossible to determine the level of organization that it would take to make this happen or to acknowledge the concrete limits of the current protest tactics.
\n\nJohn Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry; the liberation of Assata Shakur; the siege of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis; the March 5, 2023 raid that damaged the Cop City construction site in Atlanta—such actions remind us what we are capable of. It is our duty to make daring plans together. One year ago, detainees inside Delaney Hall did just that when four people broke through the walls and escaped. It is humbling to fight at the site of a recent jailbreak; it is our responsibility to bring down the walls.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/8.jpg\")
Love your neighbor; free the captive.
\nOur movement has more strategic opportunities when we face a disunified adversary. This was the case for about a week as the movement outside Delaney Hall grew. During that time, New Jersey Democrats and DHS agents were openly hostile to each other. Democrats were routinely denied entry into Delaney Hall; they were surprised that ICE treated them as protesters, not colleagues within the ruling class. ICE arrested Mayor Baraka for trespassing, charged Congresswoman LaMonica McIver with assaulting a federal officer, and pepper-sprayed Senator Andy Kim point-blank.
\n\nDuring that time, New Jersey police were not deployed to Delaney. For a week, protesters clashed directly with ICE and GEO Group without interference from state or local law enforcement. A similar tension between state and federal agencies offered a key opportunity for resistance to the ICE to accelerate during the first two months of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. While the New Jersey governor and mayor did ultimately unite with ICE against protesters for the weekend, they have since wavered due to popular backlash.
\n\nDenouncing New Jersey state police, the Minnesota 50501 chapter posted a graphic on social media reading, “Republicans sent ICE. Democrats sent police. They shoot us all the same. Different states, same mistakes.” Shortly after, the mayor of Newark admitted to excessive and even “unconstitutional” use of force against protesters and suspended the curfew. By June 4, Baraka announced that Newark Police would further scale back their presence at Delaney, stating “It is not the responsibility of the Newark Police Division to secure a private facility. It is a clear contradiction to the City’s position with GEO group to remain there.”
\n\nDemocrat collaboration with ICE is not a foregone conclusion. It is unevenly expressed, occasionally delayed, and takes place despite the opposition of much of the party’s voter base. Any further fractures in the Democratic coalition, especially if they cause even a brief absence of law enforcement, will expand our opportunities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/11.jpg\")
\nAfter the major metropolitan ICE surges of Midway Blitz and Metro Surge, the battles inside and outside of Delaney Hall have once again directed countrywide attention to the struggle against ICE. For now, however, resistance movements lack strong organizational models to enable us to metabolize lessons, strategize, and launch stronger attacks. In the absence of those, people simply converge on spaces where they see combative actions occurring on a regular basis.
\n\nHundreds of people outside Delaney Hall and tens of thousands around the country have demonstrated tremendous courage by confronting ICE directly. Yet just as militants should not arbitrarily limit ourselves to on-the-ground tactical interventions while leaving larger political and organizational tasks to NGOs, we should not let the way that spaces of conflict currently stand in for forms of organization lock us into narrow territorial struggles. Rather than letting pitched battles over specific spaces stand in for collective strategizing, we need to create opportunities for those who have been transformed by this struggle to develop more audacious strategic goals and find the tactics to match them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/2.jpg\")
Protesters conducting a car check early in this wave of protests, before local and state police got involved and shifted the balance of power. The only thing we can ask for from any institution of authority is to stay out of the way.
\nWe interviewed Talia Jane, a journalist who has witnessed many of the protests outside Delaney Hall.
\n\nA year ago, riotous demonstrations took place outside of Delaney Hall as an uprising inside the facility enabled several detainees to escape. What has happened since then?
\n\nOver the past year, volunteers have worked around the clock to provide support to people newly released and the families of people detained at Delaney Hall. Those advocates have been attempting to raise awareness of conditions inside the facility, with little support. It was people detained inside self-organizing in protest against their conditions that set the spark that led to a surge in support.
\n\nThat support soon shifted toward direct action (attempting to block entering and exiting vehicles), which led to ICE agents attacking demonstrators, which sparked an even bigger surge in support. All of this organizing has been happening with a backdrop of growing discontent with ICE’s violent, fascist attacks on neighbors across the country.
\n\nThat served as a powder keg. People had been waiting for things to cross a certain line until the conditions outside Delaney Hall matched scenes they had been seeing in Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
\n\nSeveral hundred people at Delaney Hall launched a work and hunger strike. Tell us what you know about the strike and how people have been responding on the outside.
\n\nThe strike has been a point of fixation for DHS, which continues to insist there is no hunger strike. This is intentionally dishonest. The hunger strikers avoided eating as much as possible. I observed one ambulance wheeling someone out, who smiled but looked frail, at day five of the hunger strike.
\n\nThe hunger portion of the strike has now ended, and I’m told that ICE has threatened to pursue charges against those refusing to eat, which would jeopardize their immigration cases. Since then, many more people have been wheeled out into ambulances. Volunteers have speculated that this is due to physical abuse committed by guards and ICE agents.
\n\nOver the past two weeks, hundreds of people have been mobilizing in solidarity outside of Delaney Hall. We’ve seen blockades of ICE vans and barricades. A few days ago, the removal of Martin Soto, one of the detainees on hunger strike, was temporarily halted. Tell us what has been happening in the streets outside of Delaney Hall.
\n\nOutside of Delaney Hall, there has been a battle between the state and the people in a multitude of ways: Demonstrators organically began attempting to block vehicles and barricade access to the facility.
\n\nWith access now barricaded by DHS/GEO Group, demonstrators continue trying to add friction to ICE operations. DHS and FBI agents were documented inside a white tent that volunteers use to provide aftercare to newly released people and families visiting their loved ones. The tent was trashed, with mace reportedly sprayed all over medical supplies—a war crime. Volunteers are continuing to try to clean and repair the space for family and aftercare support.
\n\nAlongside that, people continue to show up around the clock to bear witness, rally in opposition to ICE, and impede vehicles. Initially, ICE was primarily engaging protesters. After they pushed someone into a moving 18-wheeler, New Jersey State Police came in, and immediately escalated to using tear gas, flash-bangs, and horses. One of them stole a photographer’s backpack after breaking her knee and ditched it outside his house. They appear to have plotted to kettle and mass arrest demonstrators, preventing press who didn’t have specific credentials from leaving the kettle. Everyone detained was held for at least 14 hours, some more than 24 hours total.
\n\nAfter that, Newark Police Department was sent to play nice with everyone. They ended up arresting people. Then NPD was pulled out and it was decided that the situation at Delaney Hall was a federal and GEO Group issue, not one that local police should be involved with. GEO Group took to chasing people around, beating them with batons in the street, macing people, and accelerating cars into people. One person remarked, “If they’re doing this in broad daylight, what are they doing to the people inside?”
\n\nTell us more about what you’re seeing out in the streets from ICE agents.
\n\nThe violence isn’t isolated to ICE. It’s like every state or private agency associated with ICE feels emboldened to engage in excessive use of force or plainly outrageous violence because they are collaborating with or acting on behalf of ICE.
\n\nNew Jersey State Police broke a photographer’s knee and stole her gear. GEO Group hit my colleague with a car. People have been singled out, grabbed, and brutalized by ICE for doing nothing. I watched and reported when ICE decided, for no reason other than they felt like it, to escalate from simply sweeping people into the street to dumping tons of mace to using batons and aggressively shoving. NJSP appears to have simply wanted to unleash hell on people, absent any notable instigation, after ICE’s escalations. Now GEO Group is beating people in the street. ICE sets the precedent, these other agencies follow.
\n\nAs the demonstrations have been heating up, we’ve seen a wave of Democratic politicians arrive at Delaney Hall, including the Governor and a Senator, who was maced by police. Talk about this dynamic and how has it impacted the demonstrations.
\n\nThe demonstrators are split into two camps. One camp feels completely indifferent to all politicians, on the premise that the politicians are showing up for their own benefit more than they are for others. The other camp is enamored with the celebrity of politicians, interpreting their visits as a means of advocacy and building power.
\n\nDespite Governor Sherrill appearing outside the facility, she conveniently showed up on a holiday where visits were not allowed—and she has not returned since. Delaney Hall strikers are demanding Sherrill visit them inside the facility. This has become a litmus test for Sherrill that she continues failing.
\n\nThe dynamic is a classic case of spectacle. The prominence of those who visit raises awareness and can generate support among people who support those politicians.
\n\nBut spectacle can serve multiple masters. Speaking of which, far-right streamers have been on the ground more in the last few days, as you have been reporting. Tell us more how that is playing out.
\n\nFar-right streamers have been getting in people’s faces, eagerly documenting people who prefer not to draw attention to themselves. They’re there to generate propaganda, to agitate fascists, and to bleed support for the growing uprising by slandering and mischaracterizing it.
\n\nSome demonstrators ignore them; others try to buffer them; others take more aggressive measures. I suspect the latter will become more common as the streamers increasingly get caught filming things that they know will upset those they’re filming. One of the streamers—I’m not going to name him, because his whole grift relies on name recognition—had his phones taken and broken after he was running up close to people’s faces trying to identify them while verbally boasting about collecting intel in order to dox people. He was boasting aloud while surrounded by protesters, mind you! He and other far-right propagandists have also been desperately trying to infiltrate organizing and support chats in order to slander those involved. It’s annoying and stupid noise that, unfortunately, has the president’s ear.
\n\nPeople are split, as seems to always be the case, between those taking opsec precautions to stay safe and those eschewing them completely in a blend of arrogance and what they seem to believe is a strategic defiance or apathy regarding potential consequences.
\n\nThere’s been a lot of mutual aid organizing and infrastructure popping up at Delaney Hall. Tell us about what’s going on beyond just the protests and confrontations with ICE.
\n\nCosecha New Jersey and the broader Eyes on ICE coalition have been organizing to support people detained at Delaney Hall, advocating for the closure of the facility since it first opened. Their infrastructure grew rapidly as protesters surged to express support, but the foundation was built long ago. People are working to connect newly detained people with legal support and help families meet facility dress code for visitation. They are advocating for detainees to receive proper medical care and serving as a megaphone for the voices locked inside.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/10.jpg\")
\nThey’ve raised funds for people’s commissary accounts and for their families. The volunteer network has stepped up to meet every possible need that may arise, whether that be finding missing paperwork or bandaging up a paper cut. People are coming together to figure out how they can be helpful.
\n\nThe recent confrontations in New Jersey represent one of the largest flash points of anti-ICE resistance since the explosion in the Twin Cities. What do you anticipate in the coming days and weeks?
\n\nI see the state making stupid choices that further intensify the call to resist. I see support networks maturing from uncertain vulnerable spaces to highly functioning machines. I see many, many people becoming radicalized in a way few ordinarily experience. I see those with a greater depth of radical knowledge welcoming in those less informed and raising them up, not gatekeeping or judging. I see people learning a lot of awful lessons about how to withstand a waking nightmare and figuring out how to remain soft and kind despite it and because of it.
\n\nHow can people follow your work and support you?
\n\nYou can support the strikers and their families here. You can find my links here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/1.jpg\")
Celebrating a birthday outside the facility. ICE separates children from their parents. Resistance is a way of reestablishing our shared humanity.
\nTo include information about the events outside Delaney Hall up to the time of publication, we interviewed an anarchist who has participated in the protests in June. The protester chose to remain anonymous.
\n\nCan you describe what has happened at Delaney Hall in June?
\n\nOn June 1, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a press conference outside of Delaney Hall in response to what he admitted was “unconstitutional” use of force by officers over the previous nights. A few people tried to disrupt the press conference, but Baraka closed it to the public. Newark police established hard checkpoints leading into the facility, completely closing access to foot and vehicle traffic. He announced that he would lift the curfew from Delaney Hall.
\n\nOn Wednesday, June 3, about fifty protesters gathered in front of Delaney Hall. A “free speech zone” was set up in front of a driveway to the facility that had been closed. Newark PD guarded the other two driveways. NPD facilitated the entry and exit of ICE vehicles, getting into petty shoving matches with protesters who sought to stop cars from entering.
\n\nAt some point, protesters noticed that ICE vehicles were leaving through a back exit. About fifteen people moved to the back of the facility to try to obstruct vehicles there. The back of the facility is a dimly lit street with no foot or vehicle traffic. Suddenly, six unmarked SUVs pulled up on the protesters and fully kitted-out agents leapt from the vehicles barking “GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!” They did not identify which agency they were from. Several people escaped; the others were briefly detained and then shoved down the road and told to leave. ICE and Essex County Sheriffs arrested one person. Another was repeatedly slammed to the ground by ICE, causing an injury to the protester’s arm. An ICE agent reportedly pulled that protester’s mask back, said “Are you a fucking girl?”, and spat in their face.
\n\nOn Friday, June 5, Mayor Baraka scaled back NPD presence outside Delaney Hall, having officers mostly monitor vehicle checkpoints at the north and south entrances to Doremus Ave. At 7:30 pm that night, the mayor instituted a “ban” on those wearing face coverings or carrying backpacks passing the police checkpoint to protest in front of Delaney Hall.
\n\nOn Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, with Newark PD having scaled back, a few dozen protesters clashed directly with ICE and GEO Group private security outside of Delaney Hall. On Saturday night, a few dozen protesters stood out in the rain and attempted to block ICE cars entering the detention facility. A few protesters have been followed by plain-clothes officers who photograph and occasionally handcuff protesters. These men do not identify themselves with any agency; they have not arrested anyone, only briefly detained those in masks as they leave.
\n\nWhat other strategies besides gathering outside Delaney Hall have supporters of the hunger strike employed?
\n\nTo date, there have not been many other strategies apart from the demonstrations outside Delaney Hall. A few noise demonstrations have been called, one at the Attorney General’s office and one at Mayor Baraka’s house, though the latter was called off after the curfew was lifted.
\n\nThe Democratic governor used the language of “outside agitators” to delegitimize demonstrators outside Delaney Hall, even though people are held there who have been arrested around the region. How have local participants in the grassroots organizing against Delaney Hall related to demonstrators from outside Newark?
\n\nThis has not been a tension on the ground outside the facility. The charge of “not being from here” would be tone-deaf to levy outside a migrant detention center. A handful of people active in the anti-ICE struggles in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis have come here to share lessons from those fights. This has been useful and appreciated by the crowd. We are in a nationwide struggle against ICE.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/7.jpg\")
\nAcross more than a decade of unfinished revolution and civil war in Syria, Syrian activists in exile participated in organizing in other parts of the world. At last, at the end of 2024, the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell, enabling them to begin to return home. One of the projects that Syrian exiles helped to establish is the Peoples Want network, a worldwide network of organizations and collectives seeking to foster an internationalism from below. In the following interview, participants in the Syria group within the Peoples Want discuss the situation they confront in Syria today and describe how they will participate in the Mujawara campaign, a month of events intended to interweave horizontal organizing initiatives around the world.
\n\nCan you give us a brief update on the current political situation in Syria? What is the dynamic on the ground for revolutionaries, social movements, and other popular struggles? How do exiled and diasporic communities factor into these?
\n\nThe fall of the regime enabled millions of people to return to their homes and lands, reuniting families. People are starting to rebuild villages and neighborhoods. Entire towns had been entirely cleansed of their populations.
\n\nSo the first barrier has fallen—people can safely come home—but the second barrier remains: the economy. The majority of people who left are still in camps or in exile, unable to come back. The government is prioritizing attracting foreign investors and monopolizing resources over rebuilding the large areas destroyed by the Assad regime, most of which were very poor. The horrors of the old regime are still present, too, as people discover mass graves and search for the forcibly disappeared, sometimes finding death certificates without finding the remains. Syrians are still waiting for justice.
\n\nWe are also living through economic and ecological disasters. Prices are extremely high, wages very low, and the new government has raised the costs for basic necessities such as electricity and food in an unprecedented disproportional way. At the same time, after years of drought, this year saw heavy rains and storms resulting in violent floods that impacted the wheat season and damaged infrastructure in areas including Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, leading to power and water cuts.
\n\nDuring this period, forces within or allied with the new government have committed two massacres, one on the western coast of Syria in March 2025 and one in Sweida in July 2025. The perpetrators enjoy near-total impunity. Serious clashes between the new regime and Kurdish forces in the northeast in January 2026 forced through the integration of large parts of the Syrian Democratic Forces into the new central government in Damascus. In the provinces of Deraa and Qunietra, the Israeli occupation continues to annex lands and strategic positions. In some areas, we are witnessing systematic sectarian pressure on minority groups via through direct violence as well as political and economic abuse of power, including the kidnapping of women and regular clashes between different ethnic or religious groups with or without the complicity of governmental forces.
\n\nNonetheless, despite everything, the fall of the regime has opened some space for collective organizing. Those who were operating underground have started working publicly; groups functioning informally now want to get more organized, and those doing local work want to connect with other initiatives around the country. We have seen groups including an independent journalist union, agricultural cooperatives, civil peace initiatives, and even a housewives’ syndicate. That represents a gain of the revolution. Today, it is possible to organize protests in the street without barrel bombs falling on your head. The government fears demonstrations and has reversed its decisions following protests about the alcohol ban in Damascus, a contested construction plan in Homs, and the price of wheat. Each time, the government has retreated, showing that it fears even small popular mobilization.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/5.jpg\")
“If the farmer is starved, the country is starved.” A protest against wheat pricing in Raqqa on May 22, 2026.
\nStill, this will not last if there is no sustained fight to defend the gains of the revolution against a state increasingly veering into authoritarianism. The new government is building its own surveillance and repression apparatus; there are already cases of arbitrary detention, torture in prisons, and pressure to suspend political activities. The question is why it remains difficult to build an opposition capable of confronting its neoliberal, reactionary, and authoritarian tendencies. The political space is there, but the chief obstacle preventing people from organizing against oppression is not the new government per se so much as the country’s divisions along lines of identity.
\n\nIdentity-based conflicts are extremely strong. Over the past year, opposition movements have often emerged along ethnic and sectarian lines: Druze in the south demanding independence, Kurds in the northeast moving back towards a more Kurdish nationalist project, Alawites demanding separation or autonomy. At the same time, Sunni supremacism among supporters of the government leads to violence and hatred directed at entire communities. Despite the fact that anger at the government’s economic policies is growing across every community including Arab Sunnis, it remains difficult to establish concrete class-based alliances. This is a blessing for the new government: it protects it from any serious opposition, enabling it to present itself as the central balancing force able to restore order.
\n\nThe situation is further complicates by deep divisions within what used to be the revolutionary camp, especially following the two massacres, because some ex-revolutionaries have tried to justify them or downplay the horror. The chief strategic debate today is over how to position ourselves towards a new government that includes many ex-revolutionaries in public office and the new security forces. Some oppose the new government for reproducing the repressive logic of the old regime; others seek to avoid direct confrontations in a time of local, regional, and global instability.
\n\nWe believe that we should fight all expressions of authoritarianism and neoliberal policies whenever possible, while distancing ourselves from a reading of the situation that exclusively focuses on the religious ideology of those who run the state.
\n\nFor those of us who managed to return after the fall of the regime, it is important to learn to understand the context here and listen to those who did not leave the country. The transmission of experience between local activists and those returning from exile will be key, but those who were abroad, especially in Western countries, must not reproduce paternalistic attitudes like “We should teach people how things are done abroad.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/6.jpg\")
\nThe Syrian revolution received less recognition from revolutionaries in other parts of the world than struggles in Rojava, Palestine, or Chiapas have. What lessons have you derived from this? Why do you think that it is important to focus on expanding international networks of support and solidarity?
\n\nThere are a number of reasons why we did not see as much solidarity with the Syrian revolution. First, in comparison with the Kurdish movement, the Palestinian movement, or the Zapatistas, the Syrian revolution was a new awakening, which had to begin to establish international connections from scratch. All of those movements had established solidarity over a long period of time through extensive work and relationship building. In the case of the Syrian revolution, much of this work began after 2011, carried out by Syrians in exile and the diaspora, as Syrians who remained inside the country increasingly had to focus on survival.
\n\nAnother factor in the lack of solidarity for the Syrian revolution is the “campism” that has divided the left in both the West and the Arab world. Campism is the position held by those who see everything through an “anti-imperialist” lens according to which the United States, other Western states, and Israel are the only imperialist actors, or at least, the only imperialists that should be opposed. Consequently, campists invariably defend these nations’ geopolitical competitors—such as Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime (the “axis of resistance”). They ignored or justified the oppression of Syrians, refusing to support the Syrian revolution and backing counterrevolutionary forces instead.
\n\nStill another factor is the lack of a clear discourse and narrative with which to address liberation struggles and leftist groups outside of Syria. The revolutionary movement in Syria was very decentralized. Much of it lacked strong ideological underpinnings, even if various shades of Islamist currents were increasingly present. One lesson is that we can’t count on support from the “international community” that uses the language of “human rights.” We needed to develop a positive project and articulate the kind of change we wanted to make, beyond bringing about the fall of Assad.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/4.jpg\")
Syrians participate in a sit-in in the Bab Tuma neighborhood of Damascus, on March 22, 2026. “The Syrian people are one; do not divide them with discriminatory laws.”
\nIt is often easier to build solidarity and networks based on trust and mutual support in times of relative “peace” in order to strengthen our alliances for the future. This is a time for Syrians inside and outside Syria to connect and deepen our relationships, as we have much to learn from each other, and also to build relationships with others from around the world. We believe that by working together, increasing our knowledge of transnational struggles, sharing our resources, and recognizing each other as actors in a common struggle for liberation, we can strengthen and sustain our movements at home.
\n\nWhat can you tell us about the Mujawara campaign of The Peoples Want and how it relates to self-organized initiatives underway in Syria?
\n\nThe “Mujawara” campaign is not a general slogan about solidarity, but a concrete attempt to build connections between spaces and initiatives that already exist on the ground both within Syria and outside it. The idea is to look for places where something of the spirit of self-organization has survived—houses, farms, social centers, local councils, agricultural initiatives, feminist and youth groups—and to see how we can support them, learn from them, and connect them with other experiences.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/1.jpg\")
\nIn Syria, we started working in a very concrete way: visiting, meeting, discussing, and assessing the spaces we could collaborate with. For example, in a particular city, there is a space run by a local team whose members did not leave the country, with a building and a garden and the capacity to receive people and organize meetings. This space is very close to the idea of “Mujawara”: an independent place rooted in the local environment, based on relations of trust, open to social, political, and cultural activities, and capable of hosting meetings for comrades from different areas. That is why we will organize a gathering there during the month of June as part of the Mujawara campaign. Through this gathering, we will get to know more about the people running the space, and we will invite other groups and places we have visited in Syria to join us. We will cook together, listen to each other’s experiences and struggles, and talk about the role that the Peoples Want network can play in the Syrian context.
\n\nWe have also visited and discussed with other places and collectives. In one city, there is a new initiative started by some old revolutionaries returning from exile: an Arab house that hosts political, social, and cultural activities for adults and children. In June, in this space, we will organize a film screening and discussion about the Sudanese revolution, in the presence of local activists and a Sudanese comrade who is a member of a resistance committee in Khartoum. The opportunity to do this—not only in exile but in Syria—represents the fulfillment of a dream: connecting people involved in the two revolutionary experiences that inspired our manifesto “Revolutions of Our Times” and which serve as something like a political compass for the network.
\n\nWe have visited a place in one of the suburbs of Damascus, a lovely social center with a café and large spaces around it. Political events were taking place there underground before the fall of the regime. In the countryside around Damascus, we have also visited agricultural projects, nurseries, and seed collections connected to question of food sovereignty and the rebuilding of the land after destruction. In the northwest, we have connections with other agricultural and women’s initiatives focused around medicinal plants and local knowledge. Ecological farming initiatives give us a clear example of how politics can begin not only from statements but from the seeds, from the water, from the land.
\n\nIn all these places, we have discussed internal organization and political visions for the future. We did not treat these initiatives with romanticism. Every place and project has its contradictions, its problems, its social and political questions and limits. That is why we do not see “Mujawara” as a stamp of approval that we place on any space, but rather a process of building trust and joint work.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/2.jpg\")
A banner for the Mujawara campaign elsewhere on the surface of the earth, displayed by other participants in the Peoples Want network.
\nWhat matters to us is connecting with and supporting self-organized initiatives, not replacing them or leading them. As Syrians, we know that people on the ground are tired of organizations that come with ready-made projects and of funding that creates a donor-recipient relationship. First, we ask: What do you need? How do you work? What is your relationship with the local environment? Can this space receive people from different areas? Does it contribute to building material and political autonomy for people?
\n\nThe connection of “Mujawara” with Syria comes from this: the Syrian revolution itself gave rise to a tremendous amount of experience in self-organization, from local councils to coordination committees, from collective kitchens to field hospitals, from justice initiatives for victims and the disappeared to farming projects and cooperatives. Today, after the fall of the regime, after all of this destruction, it is not enough to say “the revolution continues” as a slogan. The question is: where does it continue? And who carries it in a concrete way? In which house, farm, library, social center, community committee, or meeting between people from different places in Syria will it continue?
\n\nThat is why in Syria, “Mujawara” must be a small but practical step: meetings for collective thinking about how to build a long-lasting mutual support network. The goal is not to announce the “opening of a revolutionary headquarters,” but to contribute to restoring the connections between people, areas, and experiences that years of war and revolution has separated.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/08/3.jpg\")
\nThis is the original call to make June a month of global outreach and connection through the Mujawara campaign.
\n\n\n\n\nJoin us for a month of internationalist organising throughout the month of June! This is a global call to all local places and collectives for gatherings, actions, communal banquets, celebrations, fundraisers, marches and rituals in honor of those who have fallen.
\n\nThe goal is to build new internationalist connections and mutualize our resources to support the creation of new shared spaces by Syrian and Sudanese revolutionaries.
\n
We could begin again with a list. A list of threats, of wars, of uprisings cut short, of incomplete revolutions. A list of all the dead, of all our dead.
\n\nBut why state again what everyone knows, reads, sees, and feels: The world, once again, is devastated by the lust for power and the greed of the powerful.
\n\nSo how do we carry on? We who have known the jubilant crowds, the ransacked palaces, and the power of our tenderness. How do we carry on in the face of horror and powerlessness? How do we carry on as revolutionaries?
\n\nThere are the cynics, the “realists,” who, blinded by the anguish of their own weakness, tell us we must choose. Choose between those who massacre their own peoples and those who believe they can slow their own downfall by declaring war on the world.
\n\nThere are those who give up or stop hoping. Exhausted, resigned. But who may one day stand with us again.
\n\nAnd then there is us.
\n\nUs who weep, us who feel weak, us who sometimes doubt. But us, too, who have not given up. Neither our compass, nor our flame. Neither the hope of avenging our own, nor the hope of seeing a dawn at the end of the night.
\n\nUs who, rather than remain trapped in the shock of the present, search everywhere for those who continue to resist. For we remember that from our uprisings, a force has awakened. And though minds tend to forget, bodies remember.
\n\nUs who see this force still alive in plain sight, carried by a pirate generation shouting in the world’s face that the game is not over.
\n\nIt is this force that our comrades in Nepal have rekindled in the open, in flames that consumed their assembly. It is this force that we have glimpsed within the plenums of Serbia, those gigantic assemblies that, for months upon months, organised the revolt from below. It is this force too that is embodied in the inhabitants of Lebanese villages who remain on their land despite yet another evacuation order from the IDF, as well as in the farmers in Palestine who replant their crops again and again after the bombs. It is this force that we feel within the Sudanese emergency response rooms, born of war to take up the mantle, both at home and in exile, of the powerful resistance committees of the revolution.
\n\nIt is this force that keeps our comrades standing firm in the jungles of Myanmar or Chiapas, in the Ukrainian trenches, and in the mountains of Rojhelat. It is this force that we see flying at the mastheads of those boats setting sail to defy genocidal Israel. It is this force, finally, that drives the crowds in Iran, Minneapolis, Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco, and Madagascar to brave, time and again, the death promised by all these regimes that hate their peoples.
\n\nYes, our strength is real. It is nascent, incomplete, fragmented, but real. Contrary to what counterrevolutionaries on both the right and the left would have us believe. And no party, no supreme savior, will be able to unify it in our place.
\n\nSo the task lies with us: to seek one another out, to recognize one another, and to make visible to the world—and to ourselves—the power that could emerge from our coming together.
\n\nThis is what we call Mujawara. The pooling of our efforts and our resources, through the interweaving of ropes, long and strong enough to allow us to hold together in the face of the challenges of our time. A revolutionary neighboring that we have already begun to weave from all these territories, these places, and popular powers born of our struggles. This Mujawara will not be made of empty talk or grand statements on every tremor our world experiences. It is being built, and will continue to be built, under the radar, in the tunnels of the revolutions to come.
\n\nAnd to inaugurate it, and to begin weaving this neighboring that crosses borders, we will organize, across five continents and throughout the month of June, a series of internationalist actions within all these places born before or in the wake of our uprisings and maintained over the years despite every hardship: neighboring councils, autonomous spaces, social centers, shelters, collective farms, self-managed bookshops, cooperatives.
\n\nAll that will allow us to bring into being, materially and symbolically, this neighboring we need: gatherings, actions, communal banquets, celebrations, fundraisers, marches, rituals in honour of those who have fallen.
\n\nFrom this global mutual aid that we will set in motion in June, new places will rise from the ground, safer paths will be forged, roofs will be repaired, new alliances will be woven, and from all of this, perhaps, wounds will be healed and new hopes will take root.
\n\nThis moment is but a step—yet a decisive one: that of the slow but unwavering construction of a grounded material power, linking across the four corners of the planet the fragments of our nascent strength.
\n\nFrom the places we have grown accustomed to naming:
\n\nTaipei, Mexico City, Nancy, the Beqaa Valley, Berlin, Santiago de Chile, Galloway hills, Paris/Montreuil, Damascus, la Provence, the Limousin mountain
\n\n\n\n" }, { "id": "https://crimethinc.com/2026/06/04/inside-the-clashes-at-delaney-hall-detention-center-a-timeline-from-a-mutual-aid-volunteer", "url": "https://crimethinc.com/2026/06/04/inside-the-clashes-at-delaney-hall-detention-center-a-timeline-from-a-mutual-aid-volunteer", "title": "Inside the Clashes at Delaney Hall Detention Center : A Timeline from a Mutual Aid Volunteer", "summary": "A participant in mutual aid efforts at Delaney Hall Detention Center recounts how the clashes with federal, state, and local authorities unfolded during the hunger strike.", "image": "https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/header.jpg", "banner_image": "https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/header.jpg", "date_published": "2026-06-04T13:05:05Z", "date_modified": "2026-06-12T09:15:28Z", "tags": [ "ICE", "police", "politicians", "prisons", "borders" ], "content_html": "On May 22, 2026, amid a surge of hunger strikes in immigration detention prisons across the United States, 300 detainees announced from their cells in Newark, New Jersey that they would not eat and would not toil for their captors until their demands were met. This sparked ten days of protest and furious retaliation from federal, state, and local authorities. What began as a peaceful vigil outside Delaney Hall Detention Center in solidarity with the hunger strikers ended with New Jersey State Troopers encircling, brutalizing, and arresting scores of people.
\n\nThe series of events leading up to the strike and culminating in a marathon of violence has been densely packed. Consequently, the fog of war has obscured key details, including the complex dynamics at play between protesters and mutual aid workers, between experienced anti-ICE activists and the local terrain, between the government of New Jersey and federal mercenaries. Here, a participant in mutual aid efforts at Delaney Hall over the preceding months—who was on the ground for much of this wave of protests—recounts how the clashes unfolded.
\n\nYou can donate to support families impacted by immigrant detention here.
\n\nI am a volunteer with Eyes on ICE New Jersey, a mutual aid collective that has been providing aid and hospitality to the detainees held captive in Delaney Hall—which is one of the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in the Northeast—and to the families that travel to visit them.
\n\nEyes on ICE is a coalition of volunteers and a preexisting network of aid organizations, including Movimiento Cosecha, Pax Christi New Jersey, First Friends of New York and New Jersey, Mami Chelo Foundation, and others that have emerged over decades of advocating for those subjected to an increasingly archaic immigration system. Established immigrant justice and faith-based communities with aligned advocacy goals converged on Delaney Hall soon after it reopened in May 2025. Despite the forceful retaliation of federal and local police, the protests continued, only slowing down after the arrests of faith leaders and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
\n\nOver the following weeks, protesters self-organized and refocused their efforts—shifting to assisting detainees and their families through networks of aid distribution, lawyers, and advocates, seeking to catch people before they fall through the cracks. At the same time that the aid group was being built, a ring of concertina-topped mesh-fencing sprang up around the prison. As the weather grew colder, the government of Essex County, the county that holds the detention facility, erected a permanent white tent to house Eyes on ICE. That tent has come to be called the “Radical Hospitality Zone.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/4.jpg\")
The “Radical Hospitality Zone,” where Eyes on ICE volunteers built a space for visitors coming to see people incarcerated in Delaney Hall.
\nVolunteers who do not have professional careers in advocacy participate by helping to maintain a community at the prison gates. Some of us cook or battle inclement weather. Others offer child care, collect donations of groceries and diapers, assist visiting families with transportation, or beautify the tent that houses us with art and music. All of us work together to document the detainees and their captors.
\n\nDelaney Hall Detention Center is situated in one of the busiest shipping hubs in the country. Located directly behind Newark Airport, the private prison shares the same square mile with multiple incineration plants and a busy commercial road. Periodically, a train screams by loaded with trash to be incinerated or animal carcasses for reprocessing at the facility across the street. The prison is about the size of a Costco, with a 1000-bed capacity. It is operated by GEO Group, one of the largest private prison contractors in the world. GEO Group has a poor human rights track record and is quick to dismiss any inquiries or criticisms.
\n\nThe New Jersey Globe reports that the prison is often at maximum capacity; volunteers do their best to count the number of captives inside the tinted windows of the vans that come and go. Some of the people who are released tell us they were arrested just days earlier, usually by accident or as a consequence of racial profiling. Others have been in the system for months,
\n\n\n\n\n“…transferring between detention centers in Louisiana, Texas, and then back to Delaney, seemingly with the dual purpose of keeping them hidden or underrepresented in the legal system, while also creating excuses for GEO Group (owner of Delaney and often the largest private prison company in the states) to run up quite the tab with the obsequious federal government.”
\n\n \n
The facility is built on a filled-in portion of marshland and river. Backfill and debris from old construction form the foundation for Delaney Hall and the rest of the Ironbound neighborhood. The Ironbound is a historically redlined neighborhood, meaning it has long been home to Black, brown, and immigrant communities. Consequently, the Ironbound was zoned for heavy industry, and the 16-mile stretch of land that Delaney Hall sits on has come to be known as “Chemical Corridor” due to rampant environmental contamination from every form of industry imaginable.
\n\nIn short, it is desolate. There are no homes nearby and a single bus line serves the area. This was the arena for the week of state violence that shook the country.
\n\nOn May 22, Gabriela Soto, whose husband Martin Soto was then held in Delaney Hall, announced that a protest had begun within the prison. During the early hours of the protest, she publicly shared a phone call with Martin. The privilege of speaking on the phone with detainees has since been revoked for all families, along with all other forms of visitation. During that call, Martin announced that he had coordinated with up to 300 other detainees to begin a hunger and labor strike to draw attention to inhumane living conditions and lack of due process under the law.
\n\nDetainees in Delaney Hall are forced to do all the work to maintain their own prison, receiving $1 per day in return; they regularly report receiving extremely poor quality food, including spoiled food. There are also consistent reports of mistreatment, unsafe living conditions, medical neglect, and sexual assault. Navigating the legal procedures around their detention is difficult; at best, these are intentionally opaque.
\n\nStarting months before the strike began, Eyes on ICE volunteers and participating organizations received a series of handwritten letters from detainees. In March, a letter arrived captioned with a large “S.O.S.” and undersigned by 300 detainees from across various cell units. They detailed horrendous conditions, rapid transfers and deportation hearings, and other forms of torture. Many called specific judges out by name for their cruelty.
\n\nThe strikers demanded that New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill come to Delaney Hall to meet with them and witness the conditions in the prison. They also called for the very young, very old, and medically infirm be released from the prison; an end to coercive pressure to sign voluntary deportation papers; and a meaningful review of cases and habeas corpus filings.
\n\nGabriela Soto’s announcement precipitated a coordinated call for all Eyes on ICE volunteers and their communities to participate in a 24/7 vigil in solidarity with the strikers.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/3.jpg\")
May 22, 2026: the hospitality tent outside Delaney Hall. Gabriela Soto holds a sign she made with her family as she announces the hunger strike.
\nThat vigil began immediately after Gaby made her announcement at noon on May 22. At 2 pm, family members of the detainees who were on strike reported that they were unable to communicate with their loved ones. The detainees typically had access to tablets that could make video calls, but the prison guards had revoked the communication privileges of the units that were on strike in retaliation. This information was confirmed by a person detained in the striking unit 2a/b. About to be deported, he used his final phone time to validate this detail. While other detainees in other units had agreed to the strike, 2a/b was the unit Martin Soto was held in, the unit that had initially announced the strike.
\n\nBy 6 pm, the number of protesters at the vigil had swelled to between thirty and forty people. There were several local media vans on scene. The story garnered a brief mention in the evening news in relation to the other strikes across the country.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/6.jpg\")
Outside Delaney Hall on the evening of Friday, May 22.
\nAs protesters chanted and sang into the night, detainees could be seen silhouetted in the windows closest to the street—waving, dancing, and placing heart-shaped cutouts against the opaque glass. Their response drove home that the vigil was cutting through their isolation.
\n\nAs the evening went on, a few detainees were released, as usual, one or two at a time, often as a consequence of paying bail. The volunteers carried out their intake process and made sure they were safe and had access to transportation and legal advice.
\n\nThe protest lasted through the night and into the following days without incident. Guards and protesters exchanged insults, but neither side deployed anything stronger.
\n\nOn Saturday, May 23, Gaby shared that her husband Martin, now seen as the primary instigator of the strike, had been offered release if he would call off the strike. According to Gaby, he said, “I don’t want to talk, put me back into my cell.”
\n\nThe alarm system for the building was set off for the day and night, a tactic that Eyes on ICE volunteers have witnessed as a means of psychologically torturing the detainees. The alarm is about the volume of a fire alarm in most high schools, but left on for the entire day and night to prevent sleep.
\n\nThough guards initially denied him entry, Senator Andy Kim was eventually able to enter the facility. He spent several hours inside, speaking to dozens of detainees. In a speech he made afterwards, joined by Representative Rob Menendez, Kim confirmed most of the claims of the strikers, including the poor food and water quality, unacceptable sanitary conditions, and reports of mistreatment and medical neglect.
\n\nAnother night passed without incident as the protesters maintained a continuous presence. On Saturdays and Sundays, the facility is open for visitation and families are allowed in. Families continued to come for regular visitation throughout the weekend, bringing children and elders. This gave a familial air to the protest, with children chalking on the driveway leading to the gates and sometimes leading chants.
\n\nOn Saturday evening, Martin’s cell mates reported that ICE agents or guards came to the room to remove Martin to solitary confinement. Each twenty to thirty or more people inside. All thirty of Martin’s cellmates grouped around him and locked arms, refusing to let him be punished for his role in the strike.
\n\nAt about 4 pm on Sunday, May 24, Gaby approached the prison for a scheduled visit with Martin. Once she was inside the fence but had not entered the facility itself, she saw two ICE agents physically carry her husband out of the prison and throw him into the back of one of the white vans used for detainee transfer. Later, when she was eventually permitted to talk with him, she discovered that guards had lured him into leaving his cell by reassuring him that he was going to be released. He followed them to a second room, where ICE officials attempted to interrogate him, then prepared him for transfer and tossed him into a van.
\n\nA call went out to Eyes on ICE volunteers and to various other leftist and aid groups as far afield as New York and Pennsylvania. Because Delaney Hall receives detainees from a large area, this was not just New Jersey’s fight. The message of Eyes on ICE was simple: “They’re retaliating against the strikers, and we won’t let them disappear even a single one until their demands are heard.”
\n\nElected officials who had been planning a congressional oversight visit that week were notified. The US representative for New Jersey, Rob Menendez, arrived later that night for an unannounced visit. He had visited a week prior but had left with the impression that the prison had been prepared in expectation of his inspection. Menendez was allowed into the gates of the prison, but was barred from entry for fourteen hours while a cleaning crew came to dispose of whatever they did not want him to see. He remained in the courtyard in the rain that whole night, trying to check vehicles for transfers and relaying information to protesters outside the gate.
\n\nThe blocking action started immediately with the legal protection of a federal judge’s court order—put in place pending the review of a previously filed Habeas petition barring Martin’s removal from the facility. With the blocking action in place, protesters formed a barrier from orange plastic water tanks commonly used as construction barriers. About 150 protesters stood behind the barrier by 8 pm on Sunday night.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/5.jpg\")
Outside Delaney Hall on the evening of May 24.
\nAs the night wore on, the crowd thinned to about 75 people, but they successfully stopped each attempted transfer from the facility. Eyes on ICE volunteers attempted to persuade the crowd to respect the property boundaries and refrain from physically obstructing the personal vehicles of GEO Group employees. Newark Police were dispatched several times to escort the transport vans past the crowd; people clearly and calmly explained to them that they were participating in an illegal removal. They disengaged at about 11 pm.
\n\nSpirits were high, but several protesters argued over tactics. Many did not understand why volunteers asked that GEO Group vehicles be allowed to leave. The crowd did their best to inspect non-transport vehicles as they exited, but some protesters wanted to limit all vehicle movement in and out. Volunteers with Eyes on ICE repeatedly explained their reasoning for not wanting to engage with the police. Many volunteers had been present for the previous year’s protests at the facilities’ opening and did not want a repeat incident.
\n\nAt several points, GEO employees lurched their vehicles through the crowd, hitting people and almost pinning one against a barrier.
\n\nAt 1:30 am that night, a light rain began to fall. Protesters were formed in two groups, one by the main gate composed of between forty and fifty protesters and a smaller group of about ten by a secondary unused gate a hundred yards to the south, called gate five. It had been almost two hours since the agents attempted any transports, and the energy of the protesters was settling for a night’s vigil.
\n\nSuddenly, approximately twenty ICE agents stormed from the south gate, armed with pepper spray. They shoved through the newly assembled barriers and sprayed several people in the smaller group of sentries. The ICE agents grabbed those who attempted to defend the barrier and threw them to the ground. One woman in her sixties remained at the barrier; three agents shoved her to the ground, picked her up, and threw her back down with considerable force about ten feet away. She was taken to the University Hospital about an hour later for broken ribs and trouble breathing.
\n\nAs soon as they had cleared a pathway, a convoy of ten unmarked vehicles, mostly Jeep compasses, sped out of the facility headed north toward downtown Newark. Later, a suspicion was confirmed that one of the vehicles carried Martin Soto, illegally transporting him to Elizabeth detention center—a smaller ICE facility.
\n\nOnce the vehicle carrying Martin and an escort vehicle were clear of the main body of protesters, the remaining eight cars turned around in the entrance of the Essex County Corrections Facility, a medium-security state prison right next to Delaney Hall. The feds sped recklessly through the protesters on the street, narrowly missing several. They stopped their cars in a line directly in front of the south gate and deployed from their vehicles, one to two agents emerging from each car. Most agents were armed with telescoping batons, and about five carried large cans of pepper spray (likely MK 38, supplied by Safariland).
\n\nThe protesters at the north gate began responding to the ICE agents. Gaby was taken into the hospitality tent and instructed not to leave, as she was four months pregnant. Some protesters stayed behind at the north gate to ensure that the agents were not acting as a decoy. The rest rushed south. Just as they arrived to find that the crew at the south gate had been beaten and sprayed, the agents resumed spraying. However, the parallel parked vehicles on the street partially screened the protesters, and a truck returning from the port with a large shipping container in tow was stopped, further blocking the spray.
\n\nSome protesters and independent photographers ran into the street to confront or photograph the agents. They were sprayed and chased back to the sidewalk, where agents hit several people with batons and sprayed several more at point-blank range. The entire encounter lasted about three minutes from the ICE agents exiting the gate to the moment they returned to their vehicles and sped south for the night.
\n\nThe pepper spray had severe effects, as most of the protesters that evening lacked adequate PPE.
\n\nRepresentative Menendez maintained that he did not see the agents move Martin from the back of the van that he was believed to be in, but Menendez did not claim to have been watching it the whole time.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/2.jpg\")
Graffiti directing people in New York City to show up outside Delaney Hall in Newark.
\nThe events of the previous night marked the escalation that set the tone for the following week. A continuous presence of volunteers and protesters maintained the vigil throughout that night; the following morning, approximately ten protesters remained outside the gates of Delaney Hall. Governor Mikie Sherrill was due to arrive at 10 am to attempt entry and give a press briefing at the facility. Menendez remained inside the gates, still barred from entry.
\n\nAt about 7:30 am, a group of ICE agents could be seen staging down Doremus Ave, the road on which Delaney Hall is located. The agents were joined by a BearCat—a police armored personnel carrier. The roughly twenty agents were armed with pepper spray; the agent in the turret of the BearCat sported a FTC PRO pepperball gun.
\n\nThe agents dispersed the last few protesters and tore down the temporary barriers, lifting them into the dumpster beside the south gate. They then staged in front of the gate, standing across from a slowly growing crowd of protesters and journalists.
\n\nGovernor Sherrill arrived with more media in tow to cover her press briefing. She unsuccessfully attempted to enter Delaney Hall, then delivered a speech in front of the gates. Her speech frustrated protesters, as she offered few details about how the strikers’ demands might be met. She also misrepresented some details of the demands and the operations of the facility, suggesting that she had only a superficial understanding of the conflict.
\n\nThe governor departed by 11 am, and tensions between protesters and ICE agents mounted quickly. ICE agents attempted to clear a path through the crowd for a steady stream of transport vehicles. Senator Kim attempted to intervene, negotiating with the ICE agents and the gathering crowd to allow vehicles to pass if he could check them for transfers. Some protesters continued blocking vehicles. For the most part, Kim was denied access to the transport vehicles.
\n\nWhile Kim stood between protesters and the agents, still negotiating, a transport approached from the gates. The crowd pressed forward and the agent on the turret of the BearCat opened fire indiscriminately. Afterwards, Kim reported that he felt the sting of something hitting him in the back, and then a chemical burn in his lungs and eyes. The agents also deployed pepper spray, striking many people, including Kim and several of his staffers, who required eye flushing afterwards.
\n\nKim eventually gained entry to the facility after personally calling the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayn Mullin. This was possible only because of congress is the source of funding for all DHS operations, which secures them legal power of oversight. Afterwards, Kim was able to confirm that Martin Soto had been transferred.
\n\nAfter the melee, the pressure of the crowd diminished as protesters and volunteers regrouped. Throughout the day, reports returned from family that the strikers were being collectively punishment. Most of the strikers were prevented from communicating with anyone outside, including with lawyers or with commissary accounts needed to purchase supplemental food. Some prisoners were forced to stand for extended periods of time, and many were threatened with transfer. Visitation was canceled indefinitely. The strikers reported that they were frustrated that people outside Delaney Hall were focusing on the conditions in the prison, emphasizing their desire for freedom, due process, and the closure of the detention facility.
\n\nThe agents who had attacked the crowd eventually reentered the facility. The rest of the afternoon and evening passed without incident.
\n\nThroughout the afternoon and evening, protesters built a barricade, tearing up cement bricks from a retaining wall between the prison and the sidewalk. They employed additional scrap metal and refuse from the adjacent train tracks to reinforce the barricade.
\n\nOnce again, at 7 am, ICE agents reinforced by a BearCat deployed from the south gate. Using pepper spray and batons, they cleared a path through the crowd of about twenty protesters. Confrontations between protesters and ICE agents continued.
\n\nBy 4 pm, the crowd had grown to about 60 protesters. As the number of protesters grew, more agents appeared, forming a line. They pulled up three vehicles branded with ICE logos. These vehicles are typically not used for regular immigration enforcement operations; they first showed up in Minneapolis during a retaliatory rampage Greg Bovino led on January 13. They staged the vehicles in front of the gates, with the agents shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk facing the protesters assembled in the street.
\n\nAs the sun set at 8 pm, the shoving match between agents and protesters settled into a 30-minute rhythm in which agents repeatedly lunged forward across the five feet separating the two lines. First, some agents would deploy pepper spray while others charged forward holding their batons horizontally as a bar at chest height. Once in contact with the arm-locked crowd, they would shove people to the ground, often swinging the batons at people’s knees. Sometimes this push coincided with vehicles leaving or entering the south gate, but often, there were no vehicles coming; it was as if they were adhering to a schedule.
\n\nThe agents deploying the pepper spray repeatedly sought to pull protesters’ protective masks and goggles away from their faces in order to spray directly into their eyes and mouths. At first, the medics treating those impacted by the pepper spray were baffled by how long the effects lasted and how resistant the spray was to decontamination with soap solution. They eventually concluded that ICE had switched to a pepper-gel formulation, likely to compensate for the persistently windy conditions on Doremus Avenue.
\n\nThree individuals were marked for capture in the course of the night, and agents repeatedly broke through the line of protesters in twos or threes to chase them down. ICE agents incapacitated one of these individuals with a taser, and slammed the other two to the ground. All three were carried through the prison gates. One of the detainees was a volunteer with Eyes on ICE, marked with a red cross and explicitly operating as a medic. The agents flashed their flashlights at him repeatedly, and one protester reported hearing a confirmation of location and target from the agents immediately before they attempted to detain him. Eight agents surrounded and tackled the medic about twenty yards outside the conflict line, and carried him face down back to the prison.
\n\nLater that evening, all three of the people that ICE had captured that day were left under a bridge about two miles away with all of their possessions. The medic was still marked with his red cross. One of the detainees reported being locked in an unventilated van for almost seven hours with his hands restrained and a possible concussion.
\n\nClashes continued through the night, with the agents using copious amounts of pepper spray. By morning, when many of the protesters had dispersed, the BearCat returned. During an outdoor recreation period, one of the detainees called out to the protesters: “Libertad, libertad, libertad!” Guards were observed mocking the prisoners and attempting to goad them into a confrontation, threatening them with large canisters of what volunteers suspected to be tear gas.
\n\nThe detainees who were still able to call their lawyers reported that the labor strike had forced the prison administrators to clean the bathrooms themselves. The strikers were not allowed to leave their rooms, and there were reports of a strong chemical odor emanating from the ventilation pipes. One ambulance left the facility that evening. One of the hunger strikers was released.
\n\nOnce again, the ICE agents adhered to the 30-minute intervals, repeatedly pushing protesters back, often into heavy traffic. Doremus Avenue serves as an industrial artery, with large cargo trucks comprising much of the traffic. ICE agents repeatedly shoved protesters into the wheels of passing trucks. The agents appeared to be attempting to coordinate their attacks with the passing of traffic.
\n\nThe agents mostly used their batons as barring tools to secure space while other agents swung the batons at the knees of protesters. In the course of the day, several protesters required transport to the hospital, suffering nerve and bone damage from beatings or vehicle strikes. The same woman who had been the first casualty of Sunday night required a return trip to the hospital. She was unable to walk.
\n\nThat evening, protesters intensified their defensive strategy, employing shields constructed from traffic cones. More experienced anti-ICE activists from the Twin Cities, Los Angeles, and Chicago arrived to share tactical experience. Activists from Minnesota reported shock at the intensity of violence on display at the gate.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/10.jpg\")
Demonstrators confront ICE agents outside Delaney Hall on Wednesday, May 27.
\nGovernor Sherrill held a press briefing on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28, announcing a need for DHS to step back from crowd control functions at the gate and declaring that the state police would take their place the following day. She also announced the establishment of a “First Amendment Zone” to “protect” the protesters. During the day, prison officials spray-painted a line marking the boundary of the property of Delaney Hall. In fact, apart from the private property of the prison, the entire sidewalk and street is public property, and should legally require no special demarcation regarding where people’s rights begin and end.
\n\nAt about 1:30 pm, advocates and family members began receiving calls from detainees relaying that about forty guards from the Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT) had entered their unit and began beating selected targets among the strikers, with ICE agents joining in.
\n\nThis retaliation occurred when CERT entered the striking unit 2a/b to remove a detainee who had been translating for the strikers’ communications with advocates outside. The strikers, gathered in a common area between cells, locked arms around that person. The agents and CERT team beat them and deployed CS gas in the hallways to drive the strikers back into their rooms. Then they opened each door in the unit and sprayed a heavy dose of pepper spray into the poorly ventilated rooms. Four ambulances carried away severely injured detainees later that afternoon, and nearly all of those in the striking women’s unit (unit 1) were transferred out of the prison.
\n\nThe contact between the line of ICE and the line of protesters replicated the established pattern of the previous day, intensifying at sundown, then becoming less frequent in the early morning as the number of protesters dwindled. During the day, the agents used batons less, opting for direct hand-to-hand confrontation. They would grab demonstrators’ clothing or PPE and use it to throw the protester to the ground. The agents appeared to be rotating on a nightly basis; Thursday night’s agents were visibly larger than their predecessors. They bodily lifted smaller protesters in order to throw them at the ground or into oncoming traffic. They continued to use batons, spray, and pepper balls, but to a lesser degree. Once again, a number of protesters were injured and required medical attention.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/11.jpg\")
ICE agents prepare to brutalize protesters outside Delaney Hall on Thursday, May 28.
\nOn Friday, May 29, reports began filtering in that strikers were eating again. The strikers communicated a new demand that outside medical treatment be offered to the members of unit 2a/b who had been beaten.
\n\nA number of Facebook groups announced a counter-protest at the prison planned for Saturday at 10 am. Pro-ICE counter-protesters had been appearing in growing numbers throughout the week, though never exceeding a handful. They typically arrived during the day and stood with the ICE agents, antagonizing the protesters.
\n\nNewark Police, in coordination with New Jersey State Police, began staging at the two roads intersecting Doremus about a half mile north and south of the prison. They put new barriers in place. The ICE agents were still visibly staged at the mouth of the south gate. An additional line of state and local police formed between the protesters and the ICE agents, facing the protesters. They conducted a few arrests, but much of the day passed without conflict. All non-commercial traffic was blocked from Doremus Avenue, forcing protesters and volunteers to park on the perpendicular roads, Roanoke Avenue and Wilson Avenue.
\n\nAs 9 pm approached, the crowd of protesters, holding steady at about one hundred people, received warning that they would be subject to arrest if they remained. State Police in riot gear closed off both ends of the street. At about 9:30 pm, a third line of State Police in riot gear appeared 300 yards north of the gathered protesters. The protesters formed their own line, facing north, and waited to see what sort of assault was coming.
\n\nAssuming a shield wall formation, the police began shooting mortar-fired tear gas behind the assembled protesters, into the direction that they were ordering the protesters to disperse. The police advanced, attacking the protesters with flash-bang grenades and less-lethal 40 mm foam rounds. Throughout the confrontation, they also used stinger pellet rounds, while ICE agents fired pepper balls from their position on the flank of the retreating protesters. The CS gas was largely ineffective, as the wind was blowing the gas from the south to the north, where the police line was formed. Mounted horse units moved in front of the advancing shield wall and charged the slowly retreating protesters.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/7.jpg\")
A photo supplied by a protester showing spent munitions that the New Jersey State Police fired at demonstrators on the night of May 29.
\nState Police fired tear gas directly at independent media journalists, hitting at least one person. Reporters from national media outlets suddenly disappeared into their vehicles and did not film the advance. It is possible they were instructed to do so ahead of time. As the protesters made contact with the shield wall of police, some shoving took place. The protesters eventually dispersed, retreating to their vehicles. Police arrested some of them. It was eventually learned from the police that the goal of the action was to open space for a shift change at the prison.
\n\nThe New Jersey Attorney General released a statement about the clashes between State Police and the protesters, characterizing the protesters as the instigators. Absurdly, they accused the protesters of attacking the police with tear gas, directly contradicting ample video documentation of what actually happened.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/1.jpg\")
A Department of Homeland Security vehicle damaged during a protest outside Delaney Hall on May 29.
\nNewark Mayor Ras Baraka announced a 9 pm curfew, calling for “order” in the streets. Newark Police erected metal corral barriers in front of their line facing the street and created a separation between the designated spaces for protest and counter-protest.
\n\nOver two hundred people assembled, despite the ban on parking on the entire street. Several hundred police were present as well, from multiple departments, both local and state.
\n\nAll this time, the volunteers at the hospitality tent had been organizing to receive people as they were released, as between one and three detainees had been released each day over the preceding three days. Volunteers also continued organizing peaceful protest events including prayer circles, singing, and dancing. Conflicts continued between volunteers and protesters who wanted to block vehicles. Multiple chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America had been called to the protest by the Eyes on ICE volunteers, with the request to train and assist in marshalling the crowd.
\n\nAt the most, between twenty and thirty individuals participated in the counterprotest. About eight of them claimed to represent the Proud Boys, arriving in shirts and masks branded with their signature logo. One carried a bottle of bear mace. No physical confrontations occurred and they eventually left at about 2 pm.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/8.jpg\")
Outside Delaney Hall on the afternoon of Saturday, May 30. Photograph by Fizzy Fox Photographer.
\nThe rest of the day passed without incident until the 9 pm curfew. Once again, the State Police staged to the north; but this time, they deployed the shield wall to the south of the crowd. They advanced on the crowd the same way they had the previous night, firing tear gas over the heads of protesters while throwing gas canisters and flash-bang grenades in front of them. Horse units deployed again, but this time, the protesters were less willing to give ground.
\n\nPolice pushed the protesters back to the part of the street directly in front of the south gate. At that point, Newark Police were attempting to hold the barrier fences between the police line and the street, perpendicular to the advancing shield wall. None of the local police were equipped with PPE; they began choking and covering their faces with their uniforms as clouds of gas wafted into their line. Protesters grabbed the dividing fence and pulled it away from the police, repurposing it as a barrier between themselves and the advancing shield wall. The Newark Police retreated into the prison gates.
\n\nThis time, protesters clashed more directly with the State Police, pushing back with makeshift shields and holding on to the barriers that they had pulled away from the local police. The police used same crowd control weapons again, eventually forcing the crowd of people north toward Roanoke Avenue. They made about a dozen arrests as the crowd retreated and inflicted severe injuries on several protesters, primarily by means of rubber bullets and other less-lethal rounds but also by slamming their shields into protesters.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/9.jpg\")
A confrontation outside Delaney Hall on the evening of Saturday, May 30. Photograph by Fizzy Fox Photographer.
\nAs the line of conflict moved past the hospitality tent, the police targeted several volunteers with Eyes on ICE and its affiliated aid organizations for arrest.
\n\nThe protesters slowly backed down Doremus until they reached the intersection of Roanoke and Doremus, where a second shield wall of riot police was waiting. The police stopped there and faced the remaining protesters for almost half an hour while the protesters led chants and gave speeches. Someone started a fire using the tires and debris scattered over the road. The protesters chanted “When the streets get hot, ICE MELTS! When the streets burn, ICE MELTS!” as they prepared for what appeared to be a kettling action.
\n\nThe confrontation fizzled when a person in a wheelchair, accompanied by someone pushing it, approached the police line and began asking to be let through. Both people identified themselves as press; one was an Associated Press photographer and the other, a New York Times reporter. Both were displaying press credentials on lanyards. The person in the wheelchair informed the police that their knee was broken and they needed to pass the shield wall to reach immediate medical attention. The police were silent.
\n\nThis encounter lasted for ten minutes, with the protesters offering to back up to convince the police to open a passage for the injured person. With no audible instructions from the police, the journalists continued to plead; eventually, the police opened a small hole in their line. The injured person asked several times if it was safe to approach; the police gave no discernible answer. Eventually, without instruction from the police, the two passed through the opening. Police issued warnings to the remaining protesters, arresting and charging a few of them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/12.jpg\")
A fire down the street from Delaney Hall on the evening of Saturday, May 30.
\nFar fewer protesters arrived on Sunday, May 31. The entire street was closed to nonessential traffic. Those who did show up stood at the intersections with Roanoke to the north or Wilson to the south. For the first time, police did not let in volunteers to receive released detainees.
\n\nAt midday, Governor Sherrill held a press briefing, announcing a coordinated effort to cooperate with local police to take over and eventually close Delaney Hall through legal means.
\n\nAs the curfew approached, between fifty and sixty protesters gathered at the intersection of Wilson and Doremus, facing the State Police at the new roadblock. Some protesters pleaded with the police to reconsider their actions, informing them that the protesters were unarmed and holding their hands up to demonstrate this. At one point, people on foot who had traveled to Doremus to visit friends in the Essex County Corrections Facility walked into the middle of the standoff and, not knowing what exactly was going on, joined the protesters. They down sat in front of the protesters, who gave them helmets to protect them from less lethal munitions.
\n\nAll of the medics departed, pleading with the protesters to do the same, arguing that they had sustained too many injuries and arrests to remain in danger.
\n\nAt about 10 pm, the police began firing rubber bullets sporadically. Officers could be seen coordinating to target specific protesters. Some protesters began singing, “All that we are saying is give peace a chance,” hands raised in the air. Police received the order to advance and began rushing toward the protesters, shooting rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. The protesters turned and ran.
\n\nSynchronizing their movements, the police encircled the retreating crowd with a shield line. They formed a half circle around the protesters, backing them up against a wall. For ten minutes, they periodically picked off protesters at the edge of the kettle. Four police officers seized one of the people who had happened upon the protest while on their way to visit the Essex facility, dragging him into the wall of shields in a seated position. The wall of police closed around him, concealing the officers as they beat and pepper-sprayed him.
\n\nThe police closed in three steps in unison. Then they announced that individuals with “verified” press credentials would be allowed to leave. An officer checked press passes as at least ten independent journalists left the kettle.
\n\nAfter pushing the journalists to a distance of over a hundred yards away, the police mass-arrested the remaining detainees. They made a total of sixty-four known arrests that night, including mutual aid volunteers. All the arrestees were held overnight and released with court summonses after twenty hours in custody. Most of the charges were “disorderly persons” and resisting arrest.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/04/13.jpg\")
Demonstrators use traffic cones to attempt to extinguish tear gas canisters on the night of May 30. We recommend immersing canisters in water to extinguish them; you can learn about how to do so safely here.
\nThe next day, Mayor Baraka announced that he would not be participating in cooperation with the State Police or ICE. He cited the misuse of police force, claiming that it was putting Newark’s own officers in danger.
\n\nGovernor Sherrill also made an announcement, presenting a plan to close Delaney Hall by bringing a lawsuit against GEO Group for illegally barring state inspectors from accessing the facilities’ medical units, bathrooms, and sleeping areas. She characterized the Eyes on ICE volunteers who had been rendering mutual aid and legal assistance to detainees and their families as “peaceful protesters, there for the past year,” implying that the Radical Hospitality Tent was some sort of state-sanctioned, palatable protest center. This is how her remarks were reported on outlets like Fox News. She also announced that she would be handing management of the street over to the Newark Police and withdrawing most of the State Police.
\n\nOn Monday, as a limited number of Eyes on ICE volunteers were allowed back to the tent, they discovered investigative units from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations inside, ransacking it. The agents had overturned everything inside the tent; many items were missing including diapers, an electric cooler, announcements of prayer gatherings posted on a bulletin board, and personal possessions.
\n\nThe hospitality tent still stands, though it will take professional cleaning crews to decontaminate it of CS gas residue. The volunteers are exhausted, but those who were arrested have been released, albeit with charges. Eyes on ICE continues working to ensure some degree of independent monitoring at the detention facility as well as supporting detainees and their families.
\n\nNew Jersey is still reeling from the week of vicious retaliation for the strike from both the state and federal governments. Narratives about the protests are regularly misrepresented in corporate news outlets. Nonetheless, centrists who were mostly sympathetic to the volunteers before this week have experienced collective disillusionment with state authority, especially with their Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill.
\n\nIt remains to be seen whether conditions will improve for the detainees in Delaney Hall. Yet their story has been elevated to a national audience, forcing another discussion about police violence and immigration enforcement. For now, ICE continues to operate from their field office in downtown Newark at 614 Frelinghuysen Avenue.
\n\nAn increasing number of people have been released from the facility, including some who managed to obtain the attention of congresspeople on oversight visits. Many of those released have expressed profound gratitude for the nationwide expressions of solidarity, and the solidarity of the protesters, which they could hear from within their cells. The strike at Delaney Hall has sparked strikes in other facilities around the country.
\n\nVisitation is set to resume soon with new restrictions. The people who stand at the gates of Delaney Hall, day in and day out, will continue to stand there. Many will continue working to dismantle the unjust immigration system, as they did before the opening of Delaney Hall.
\n\nAnti-ICE protesters will regroup and converge on the next flashpoint, wherever that may be. Their numbers will likely be bolstered by new companions from New York and New Jersey, who will add their recent experience defying ICE to the movement’s collective memory. The fight will continue as they refine their tactics and strategies.
\n\nFollowing last winter’s showdown between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the population of the Twin Cities, momentum is picking up on another front: resistance from within detention facilities. At least 51 people have lost their lives in the custody of ICE since Donald Trump took office, twice as many as died between 2021 and 2024. In response to this tragedy, as well as to unbearable conditions and the looming threat of deportation, detainees and their supporters are staging strikes and protests around the country.
\n\nOne of these fights is playing out at Delaney Hall, a federal detention facility located in Newark, New Jersey. The facility closed in 2017, but the private prison profiteering company GEO Group reopened it in February 2025 in return for a billion dollars of taxpayer money.
\n\nDelaney Hall has been a site of conflict for over a year. On May 9, 2025, a confrontation took place between ICE agents and Democratic politicians attempting to inspect the facility. On June 12, 2025, after detainees reported unacceptable conditions and lack of food, raucous solidarity demonstrations took place outside it. During an uprising inside the facility, four prisoners escaped after breaking through a sheet-rock exterior wall.
\n\nThis month, on May 22, 2026, more than 300 detainees at Delaney Hall launched a hunger and labor strike, citing rotten food and lack of medical care and legal resources. In response, hundreds of protesters mobilized outside the federal detention center, building barricades and blockading the exits in order to stop ICE from removing strike organizers from the facility. Federal officers responded by firing pepper balls and other projectiles at demonstrators, tear-gassing protesters, and once again attacking a politician who visited the facility in an effort to report on the conditions within.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/2.jpg\")
\nThe strike in New Jersey is part of a growing wave of actions across the US. In Southern California, at least 20 detainees are participating in a hunger strike at the Desert View Annex, where previous hunger strikes have occurred. Four people have died at that facility since it, too, reopened in 2025. Detainees are also participating in a hunger strike at the neighboring Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
\n\nDetainees held inside Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas have also announced a hunger strike. Last summer, Texan authorities sought to make an example of demonstrators who held a noise demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center, leading to a high-profile case that Trump’s supporters intend to use to set new precedents in repression. The hunger strike currently unfolding at Prairieland highlights why those demonstrators went there in the first place.
\n\nIn New Mexico, Rogelio Bolufé launched a hunger strike to protest employees of CoreCivic, the company operating the private prison, seizing his legal documents. In retaliation for launching the strike, authorities transferred Bolufé to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. The Northwest Detention Center, which is also owned by GEO Group, has itself been the scene of ongoing protests, acts of resistance, and hunger strikes for many years.
\n\nOn May 19, the Tacoma-based group La Resistencia released a statement from detainees, announcing the formation of “La Union de Secuestrados por ICE (USI),” the Union of People Kidnapped by ICE. Over 140 members of the USI from both Torrence County and NWDC signed the letter, declaring that they “firmly denounce that the current operations against immigrants are not driven by security concerns… but rather by a system that has turned human suffering into a business.”
\n\nMeanwhile, private prison contractors like GEO Group and CoreCivic are reporting record profits. Following the ignominious departures of the officials previously leading ICE, Trump tapped David Venturella—a former GEO Group executive who previously oversaw contracts for detention centers. Venturella is best known for helping to imprison and then deport the ex-girlfriend of Paolo Zampolli, a Trump associate linked to Jeffrey Epstein. It could not be clearer that what Trump calls “the largest deportation program in the history of America” is above all a means to enrich his allies in the private prison industry.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/5.jpg\")
“The ones who remained with ICE over the past year are there because they want to kidnap children, to pepper-spray grandmothers, to murder mothers like Renee Good and nurses like Alex Pretti. Not just for the money, but for the thrill of kidnapping, torturing, and killing with impunity. Every single one of them. The others already quit.”
\nAt Delaney Hall, hundreds of protesters have been mobilizing alongside family members of those locked inside to support those on strike. They have rallied in support of detainees every day for several days now. According to one report,
\n\n\n\n\nOn Friday morning, at a small rally organized by Gabriela Soto—a rising immigrants’ rights advocate who’s married to Martin Soto, a Peruvian man detained at Delaney since February—several men held at the center spoke to the crowd via video chat.
\n\nOne man said he and the nearly 300 others in his unit at the facility had decided to “stop eating and stop working” indefinitely until the inhumane conditions inside the facility improve. “But that’s not all we demand,” he said. “We are also doing this to demand freedom.”
\n
With pressure building, protests grew over the weekend, pushing a Democratic politician to tour the facility. The senator reported on the horrific conditions inside which include rotten food, lack of access to medical care, and echoed calls for the facility to be shut down.
\n\nMartin Soto is one of the organizers at the center of the strike. He was scheduled to be released on Sunday night. However, it soon became clear that ICE was attempting to move him to another facility in an effort to break the strike. According to another report,
\n\n\n\n\nWord of Martin’s supposed release reached [Soto’s wife] Gabriela, who immediately went to Delaney Hall… While she waited to greet Martin and bring him home, Gabriela instead saw guards put him in the van. Sally Pillay, an advocate with Eyes on ICE NJ, was with Gabriela at the time and previously described the scene to Gothamist.
\n\n“ We ran out [to] the van. [Martin] was banging onto the van. I clearly saw him in the van. He was the only one in the vehicle that they were trying to take out,” Pillay said. “He was still wearing his uniform. He was shackled, but he was banging furiously. He could see [Gabriela]. She was running frantically in and around the van.”
\n\nProtesters outside the fence quickly realized ICE was attempting to move Martin, and they formed a human chain in front of the gate to prevent the van from leaving. Word of the transfer attempt spread rapidly online, and the crowd of protestors grew throughout the evening.
\n\nThe effort forced the van to retreat, thwarting Martin’s transfer temporarily. Minogue declares in the filing that when Martin was brought back inside Delaney Hall, he was thrown to the ground, accused of damaging the transfer van, and placed in solitary confinement.
\n
Further protests took place on Monday, May 25, as demonstrators looking for Soto attempted to block and inspect every vehicle leaving the facility. Then it came out that Soto had been transferred to the Elizabeth Detention Center, also located in New Jersey. According to a filing from his attorney, “[Martin] remains housed in solitary confinement conditions and wildly restricted to access to counsel as well as terminated visitation for his family.” Clashes with federal law enforcement nonetheless continued.
\n\nOfficials in the Trump administration have held to their longstanding policy of blatantly lying about resistance to ICE, with acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis declaring that “There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are NO subprime conditions or abuse at the facility.” Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement maintaining that “No individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles.”
\n\nIn another letter from strikers inside Delaney Hall, prisoners addressed those demonstrating outside the prison walls: “We appreciate the support of everyone who is protesting outside the facility. We want you to know that you give us strength and determination to keep going. Please, DON’T GIVE UP!”
\n\nOn Tuesday night, clashes between federal officers and demonstrators intensified as federal agents attempted to move detainees out of the facility, repeatedly pepper-spraying and beating protesters. Nonetheless, protesters held their ground, linking arms and pushing the agents back again and again.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/4.jpg\")
An anti-fascist flag at the barricades outside Delaney Hall.
\nThe clashes taking place in New Jersey represent the first large-scale public resistance to mass deportation since Donald Trump fired Greg Bovino and Kristie Noem in response to outrage over the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The new secretary of DHS, Markwayne Mullin, has sought to remove the agency from the spotlight, hoping that keeping a lower profile will diminish popular resistance. Even Stephen Miller, the white nationalist and former college buddy of neo-Nazi activist Richard Spencer, has begun avoiding media coverage in order to dodge pushback against his efforts to build a white ethno-state.
\n\nYet people may not forget ICE so easily. Across the US, people have been mobilizing against proposed ICE warehouse prisons. The fight against Delaney Hall could return ICE to the headlines.
\n\nAs social media pundits and corporate media outlets turn their attention to the upcoming midterm elections, it is crucial to mobilize against ICE detention facilities in solidarity with those locked within them. This is an opportunity to keep the atrocities ICE is perpetrating in the thoughts of the general public—both to ensure that the plight of detainees and other immigrants are not forgotten under this or any future administration, and also because ICE agents will likely form the shock troops of any effort to use force to preserve Donald Trump’s control over the government. We should gather outside Delaney Hall and other detention centers around the country and aid the families of those who are imprisoned within them.
\n\nSupporting the resistance of detainees is a way to show that we cannot be intimidated, that solidarity is ultimately a more powerful force than greed or fear. We must stand together against this autocratic regime, from both sides of the detention centers’ walls, or be defeated and disappear behind them one by one.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/1.jpg\")
\nSome printable materials relevant to the hunger strikes inside ICE detention centers.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/support-the-hunger-strikes.png\")
Detainees are engaged in hunger strikes in several facilities. This poster is circulating in support of them.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/usi-kidnapped-by-ice-poster-english.png\")
A printable version of the statement from the Union de secuestrados de ICE (USI)—the union of those kidnapped by ICE. The logo and artwork arrived with the original handwritten statement.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/usi-kidnapped-by-ice-poster-espanol.png\")
“Comunicado Oficial de USI—Union de secuestrados de ICE.” En Español.
\nWe Demand Freedom: Fourth Letter from Delaney Hall, May 31, 2026
\nThey Escalate, We Escalate: A Short History of the Fight against ICE in the Twin Cities
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/27/3.jpg\")
\n Our comrades at Kaos Editorial have published a Spanish-language book collecting our coverage of Trump’s return to power and popular resistance to the violence of border enforcement, entitled FUCK ICE: Luchas contra la política migratoria de Trump en Estados Unidos.
\n\nYou can order the book online here. You can download a digital version here:
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/20/1.jpg\")
Click on the image to download the book.
\nFrom their description:
\n\n\n\n\nThis book is a compilation of texts originally written by individuals associated with the American [sic] collective CrimethInc. They contextualize Joe Biden’s downfall, chart the rise of Donald Trump’s neo-fascism, and analyze the expansion of ICE in the US. This is accompanied by chronicles of the various mobilizations and demonstrations that participants have organized in response to the repeated murders of those who have confronted fascist racism in recent times.
\n
To order copies for distribution, please contact the publishers.
\n\n\n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/20/2.png\") \n | \n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/20/3.png\") \n | \n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/20/4.png\") \n | \n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/20/5.png\") \n | \n
You can find the book on archive.org here and on our site here.
\n\nIf you are involved in an anarchist publishing project in Latin America and you want the printer files so you can produce a version of this book for your region, please contact us.
\n\nThanks to comrades from A Planeta and other projects for the assistance with translation into Spanish.
\n\nFrom the introduction:
\n\n\n\n\nA few years ago, amid the fervent crowds taking to the streets of many of the world’s metropolises, it would have been hard to imagine things could get any worse. And yet, that time has arrived.
\n\nThanks to the failure of global social democracy to maintain the bare minimum of the welfare state without any real change, our times are drawing dangerously close to the dark ages of the past. And thanks also to the elites who have rejected the idea of a more humane capitalism or a green transition, the most rancid and archaic form of fascism is making a comeback.
\n
On May 18, 2026, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, two teenagers attacked San Diego’s largest mosque. They murdered three people before killing themselves. This is not just another episode of gun violence; it is an aspect of the joint terror campaign that the Trump administration and its supporters are waging against us from both within the state and outside it.
\n\nAll evidence suggests that the tragedy in San Diego is the latest in an ongoing series of white supremacist shootings. According to news reports, one of the shooters “left [a] suicide note that contained writings about racial pride”; the words “hate speech” were written on one of the firearms used in the attack. Anti-Muslim writings were reportedly found in the attackers’ vehicle. A photo is circulating that shows an “SS” sticker on a gas canister that the attackers used. The attack seems to have been at least partially inspired by the anti-Muslim Christchurch massacre in New Zealand in 2019, which left 49 people dead and almost 100 injured
\n\nThis comes amid a year-long uptick in both autonomous far-right violence and state repression targeting immigrants and anti-ICE protesters. And at the same time, Donald Trump has been promoting the blatantly false narrative that those who oppose this violence are the real threat to the general public. For example, in their “2026 Counterterrorism Strategy,” the Trump administration alleges that “anarchists and anti-fascists” represent one of the “three major types of terror groups” endangering the public, alongside “narcoterrorists”—which, for all intents and purposes, now simply means whichever unfortunate fishermen Pete Hegseth chooses to murder on a given week—and, unsurprisingly, “Islamist terrorists.”
\n\nThe tragedy in San Diego once again shows how the institutions of power encourage far-right terror while seeking to smear anti-authoritarian protesters and social movements as the dangerous ones. In fact, those who are taking action to oppose fascism are the only ones who are responding appropriately to the dangers of our time.
\n\nRacist violence has played a fundamental role in shaping the United States for centuries, from the wave of terror that the Ku Klux Klan used to suppress Reconstruction to the bombing that the white supremacist Timothy McVeigh carried out in Oklahoma City. Today, there is no longer any distance between the Republican Party and the openly fascist street organizations through which it seeks to execute its agenda. Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party works directly with Proud Boys, neo-Nazi “groypers,” and the Christian Nationalist movement, endeavoring to popularize and weaponize anti-immigrant sentiments and conspiracy theories such as the “Great Replacement.”
\n\nPromoted by ruling-class institutions like the Republican Party, reactionary tech billionaires like Elon Musk, and elite propagandists like Tucker Carlson, the “Great Replacement” conspiracy seeks to channel anger originally provoked by the consequences of capitalist globalization and a declining standard of living against poor migrant laborers who are themselves among the worst impacted. This narrative only pretends to challenge the power of the billionaire elites. In fact, it is designed to excuse and defend it.
\n\nThe “Great Replacement” conspiracy continues to motivate horrific violence against working-class people, taking the pressure off politicians and capitalists. The attack in San Diego is only one of many mass shootings that fascists have recently carried out in the US. Alongside it, we can count the massacre that the neo-Nazi Dylan Roof perpetrated in a South Carolina church in 2015, the murder of Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the slaughter of working-class Latinos in Texas in 2019, and the attack on working-class Black community members at a grocery store in New York in 2022.
\n\nThe bloodshed shows no signs of slowing down. This past week, someone murdered a trans student on a college campus in Washington, a man in Pennsylvania was arrested for threatening to carry out attacks, and in Tennessee, where racist politicians have just redistricted to suppress Black voters following the elimination of the Voting Rights Act, a white supremacist live-streamer was arrested after shooting a Black man he had been taunting with racial slurs.
\n\nThese are part of a much broader trend. At the opening of 2025, a veteran blew up his Cybertruck in front of a a Trump high-rise in Las Vegas, leaving behind a manifesto calling for racial violence. In Florida, a Trump-suppporting white nationalist that students reported as part of a local Turning Point USA chapter went on a mass shooting spree at his university. Online followers of neo-Nazi groups carried out numerous school shootings, as did anti-vaxxers and anti-abortion activists, targeting workers at the Center for Disease Control and others.
\n\nAt the same time, neo-Nazi and Proud Boy groups have attempted to attack or intimidate participants in the No Kings and Telsa Takedown demonstrations. Trump supporters have harassed anti-ICE student walkouts, while the state rushed to silence and criminalize those who criticized Charlie Kirk.
\n\nRepublicans are increasingly embracing openly exterminationist rhetoric against Muslims and Black communities. Likewise, they have promoted neo-Nazi conspiracies about Somalian and Haitian communities. Anti-Muslim white nationalists like Laura Loomer have a direct line to Trump.
\n\nThis rhetoric has immediate real-world consequences. According to the LA Times, the San Diego shooting occurred directly on the heels of a far-right smear campaign intended to turn people against Muslims in southern California:
\n\n\n\n\nAmy “Mek” Mekelburg, a social media influencer who frequently propagates anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, had posted on X claiming that plans by the Islamic Society of Orange County to expand would create a “parallel” society and “Sharia enclave” where US laws do not apply, in service of the “Islamization” of Orange County.
\n
The Trump administration directly benefits from far-right violence. They hope that the threat of such violence will frighten people out of taking the streets, out of standing up for themselves. Just as often, however, their strategy has backfired, discrediting Trump and his allies and convincing people that they must come together and take action before things get even worse.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/19/1.jpg\")
Anti-fascists in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.
\nFrom 2016 to 2020, hundreds of thousands of people across the United States mobilized against the threat that the far right posed under the first Trump administration. At the time, Trump and his supporters were doing their best to provide cover and support to the so-called “Alt-Right” while attempting to demonize and prosecute antifascists. After a neo-Nazi murdered Heather Heyer during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, people flooded into the streets in popular mobilizations that succeeded in shutting down the emerging fascist threat. Neo-fascist groups like the Proud Boys were consistently out-mobilized; for example, in Portland, Oregon, thousands bravely stood strong in the face of violent attacks from both the far right and the police.
\n\nIn 2023, anti-fascists mobilized across the US again in response to neo-Nazis and other far-right groups attacking drag shows and other queer- and trans-inclusive events around the country. Many helped to organize security for Pride demonstrations and similar community gatherings.
\n\nEvery time that popular community mobilizations have gotten off the ground, they have shown themselves to be more powerful than far-right movements, despite the fact that the latter receive direct financial, logistical, and media support from Republicans and billionaires like Elon Musk. Musk himself spent tens of billions of dollars to take over Twitter for the express purpose of preventing it from serving as a space where people could organize to resist fascism. As soon as he secured control of the platform, he immediately banned us as well as other leading anarchist and anti-fascist accounts. Yet none of these efforts have succeeded in giving fascism the upper hand in the streets, even to this day.
\n\nNow that the Trump administration is losing ground, once more, we will likely see them return to their playbook of fomenting street violence, seeking to tie down their opponents in struggles that do not engage the state itself. They are doing everything they can to shift public attention from the gruesome brutality of ICE agents to the supposed threat represented by anti-fascists. Yet as Trump and his cronies become less and less popular, being among their most visible enemies will afford opportunities, as well.
\n\nWe cannot protect ourselves by attempting to stay out of harm’s way—if we cede the streets to them, we will only see their joint campaigns of ethnic cleansing and political repression intensify, backed by billions of tax dollars stolen from us and the ill-gotten fortunes of powerful tech giants. As Trump continues to lose popularity, he will become more violent and unpredictable; we recall how in 2020, Trump goaded US Marshals into shooting the anti-fascist Michael Reinhoehl down in cold blood. Nonetheless, resistance is our best hope. The only way out is through.
\n\nWe must convey to the general public that white supremacist mass shooters and ICE agents are part of the same project, and only mass action can defeat them. This was true in the Twin Cities last winter and it remains true today. As data centers, ICE concentration camps, and Flock surveillance systems proliferate, we must articulate and demonstrate what solidarity and community defense means in practice. We can do this.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/19/2.jpg\")
\nIn the following analysis, Ayman Makarem of the From the Periphery media collective reviews a century of colonial violence in Palestine and Lebanon to illuminate the current Israeli occupation and what it would take to resist it.
\n\nYou can watch a video version of this essay here.
\n\nFor the third time in my relatively short life, Israel has invaded my country. They have made it clear that they want to establish a long-term occupation of Southern Lebanon. This is not the first time that this has happened; several\nmedia organizations and social\nmedia accounts have published timelines of Israeli invasions and attacks on Lebanon. These timelines usually focus on major flashpoints like the 1982 or 2006 invasions, but fall short of demonstrating the full breadth and continuity of Israeli violence targeting Lebanon. Lebanon’s encounter with Zionism goes much further back than most know, predating the establishment of the state of Israel itself.
\n\nLet’s start with Moshe Dayan.
\n\nMoshe Dayan was an early Zionist leader, born to settler parents in Palestine in 1915. He was present at practically every major landmark event in the Zionist colonization of Palestine. He joined the Haganah—a Zionist militia in Mandatory Palestine—at the age of 21, participated in crushing the Palestinian Revolt of 1936, and fought in the 1948 war, expelling swathes of Palestinians during the Nakba. From the 1950s until his death in 1981, he moved between high-level positions within the military and then within successive Israeli governments, serving as Minister of Defense in the late 1960s.1
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/14.jpg\")
Moshe Dayan as Minister of Defense, circa 1967.
\nDayan encapsulates a lot about the state of Israel. A number of quotes attributed to him indicate considerable self-awareness about what he and his colleagues were doing. The words of early Zionist leaders like Dayan cut through the smokescreen of contemporary Zionist propaganda. Here, he describes the foundation of the state of Israel:
\n\n\n\n\n“We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish state here. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”2
\n
He said this as a person proud of his accomplishments. For those who know the history of Palestine and its encounter with Zionism, that story is very familiar—it’s just notable that it’s coming from a Zionist leader. However, Dayan also said things that reveal parts of the history that are more obscure, parts that are muddied by the tendency to focus on major flashpoints like the Nakba or the Six-Day War.
\n\nFor instance, in the early 1950s, when he was a Commander of the Southern Command, Dayan developed a policy of dealing with what they called “infiltrators”—in some cases, expelled Palestinians trying to return home or collect things that were left behind when they were forced off their land; in other cases, unorganized Fedayeen militants who would “infiltrate” their own homeland and carry out operations against the nascent Israeli state. This is how he described his policy:
\n\n\n\n\n“Retaliation is the only method that has proved effective, not justified or moral but effective, when Arabs plant mines on our side. If we try to search for that Arab, it has no value. But if we harass the nearby village… then the population there comes out against the infiltrators… The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective… There are no other effective methods.”3
\n
There’s another term for what Dayan describes: terrorism. Or still another: war crimes. Dayan’s words shine a light on the periods between the major ruptures, a history that is often forgotten. Between 1949 and 1956, there were tens of thousands of “infiltrations” every year, and Israelis carried out hundreds of bloody retaliatory raids in other parts of Palestine, specifically Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon.4
\n\nIn 1955, to put an end to the returnees and attacks from the north, Moshe Dayan, then Chief of Staff under Moshe Sharett’s government, proposed a plan that shocked even his Prime Minister:
\n\n\n\n\n“All that is required is to find an officer, even a captain would do, to win his heart or buy him with money to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and create a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will fall into place.”5
\n
This is precisely what the Israelis did 23 years later in 1978, when Dayan himself was Foreign Minister. A few years earlier, in 1974, Moshe Dayan had summarized his goals thus:
\n\n\n\n\n“We will make all life impossible in South Lebanon.”6
\n
Moshe Dayan speaking to the press as Minister of Defense in 1974.
\nIt is difficult to not see the parallels with what the Israelis are saying today. It has now been two and a half years since the start of the genocidal war in Gaza, and Israeli leaders have made statements like this over and over again. Since March 2 of this year, Israel has displaced\nover a million people, claiming\nthey will never be allowed to return, destroyed\nwhole villages, invaded with ground troops, destroyed hospitals and schools, killed\nentire families, killed\nmedics, and journalists, and academics. Put these together and they spell out one word: genocide. Their main targets are Shia Lebanese.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/5.jpg\")
Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, killed by Israel on April 22, 2026 in a double-tap strike.
\nWith full US backing, the Israeli government is pursuing a policy of genocide in Lebanon. In the last two months, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has issued not one, but two red-flag warnings of genocide in Lebanon.
\n\nThis is an existential war on Lebanon. It has been going on for decades, but now it is reaching its logical end. The Israeli government aims to tear Lebanon apart, to dismantle its capacity to exist. To understand any of this, we have to examine the joint history of Lebanon and Zionism.
\n\nThe term Lebanese Entity many not be as familiar as the term Zionist Entity, but it emerges from an analysis of the formation of the state of Lebanon that recognizes the colonial relations that formed it and its many structural and exclusionary flaws. These aspects make Lebanon particularly vulnerable to exploitation by the Israelis as well as other regional powers. They have kept Lebanon in a state of perpetual crisis since its foundation.
\n\nHere, we will outline a chronological history of the two entities and how they intersect. As an aid, we offer this timeline, which includes Israeli attacks on and invasions of Lebanon alongside key regional events throughout the period that are essential to understanding this history.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/israels-long-war-on-lebanon.jpg\")
Click on the thumbnail to access the timeline at full scale.
\nWhat Lebanon is experiencing today is not just the consequence of Hezbollah’s actions or the Iran War or the presence of Palestinian resistance in Lebanon; it is the culmination of decades of continuous assaults by the state of Israel on our sovereignty itself. We must understand Lebanon as a key vector of the European colonization of this entire region, which the state of Israel has extended and expanded.
\n\nWe begin this story in the midst of the First World War with the secretly drawn up Sykes-Picot\nagreement, which mapped out Britain and France’s ambitions in case of a victory over the Ottoman Empire—a victory that came to pass a few years later. What followed remains one of the classic examples of white men carving up Indigenous land in Asia.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/7.jpg\")
The French mandate of Lebanon and Syria.
\nBoth the Lebanese and Zionist entities emerged out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Both had previously existed as ideas but only became manifest at this point. Lebanon as a state was devised in this period by the French. Palestine, for its part, was taken over by the British, who openly declared their intention to create a Jewish Homeland in Palestine for European Zionists. The key document here is the Balfour\nDeclaration, which was drafted the same year as Sykes-Picot.
\n\nThe region that the two colonial powers carved up had been known for centuries as Bilad al Sham, which is often translated as “the Levant,” but more precisely translates to “the countries of the left.” If you consider the Arab Hejaz [the western coastal region of Saudi Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located] to be the center, which it was for centuries of Islamic rule beginning in the 7th century, when you look east towards the sun, Bilad al Sham will be on your left, and Yemen (from the Arabic word Yameen, “right”) on your right. Colloquially, al Sham is also an Arabic name for Damascus, as it was one of the most important cities in the region.
\n\nFor hundreds of years, Bilad al Sham passed from the hands of one ruler to another. Then, in 1918, European forces conquered the land for the first time since the Crusades. This is where our story really begins.
\n\nIn 1920, in collaboration with local Maronite elites in Mount Lebanon, France created what is known as Greater Lebanon, a colonial state under French supervision. Before this, the name “Lebanon” referred to the Mount Lebanon range. To this day, older British people sometimes call Lebanon “The Lebanon,” like “The Ukraine” or “The Gambia.” It’s because those names referred to a geographical location rather than a state.
\n\nGreater Lebanon was an expansion of Mount Lebanon to include areas around it, specifically the coastal cities of Beirut, Saida, and Tripoli, as well as Akkar to the north, Bekaa to the east, and Jabal Amel to the south. The idea was to separate Lebanon from Syria and the rest of Bilad al-Sham in order to create a viable state led by a majority Christian Maronite population, as the latter was friendly to the French. Annexing those other territories ensured enough farmland, access to ports, and surplus populations for this new state. It also meant access to key water sources such as the Litani River.7
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/23.jpg\")
Lebanon was created as an expansion of Mount Lebanon via the annexation of the coastal cities—Akkar to the north, the Bekaa to the east, and Jabal Amel to the south.
\nThe British Historian, Patrick Seale, summarizes thus:
\n\n\n\n\n“[Greater Lebanon] was intended as a haven for the predominant Maronite community, France’s main clients, but, in terms of geopolitics, it was also conceived as a French fortress in the eastern Mediterranean, which could be used against European rivals as well as against Arab nationalists of the Syrian interior.”8
\n
This is the origin of the Lebanese entity. A Maronite Christian state built to advance the strategic interests of France in the region.
\n\nDuring this same period, another ethnostate was slowly being constructed south of Lebanon. But instead of allying with an existing local community, the British opted for settler colonialism, aiming to make European Zionists the dominant force in Palestine.
\n\nThe contempt that these white, colonial Europeans felt towards Indigenous populations was clear not just in these actions but also in how they described what they were doing. For example, in response to objections to using the new technology of aerial bombardments against civilian populations, Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922, is reported to have said
\n\n\n\n\n“We must reserve the right to bomb ni**ers.”9
\n
Those were the people who were now in charge of Mandatory Palestine. At that point, Zionist colonists had already been settling in Palestine for almost 40 years, though very slowly. With support of the British, that migration increased dramatically, and it soon became evident to the local Palestinian population that the British were giving favorable treatment to the new European Jewish communities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/16.jpg\")
A newspaper cover from Palestine with a cartoon depicting Balfour supporting Jewish migration and industry in Palestine, as well as the disenfranchisement of local populations.
\nExamining maps from 1918 and 1920, we can see the beginnings of the conflict over the southern part of Lebanon. The first map broadly depicts the future state of Israel, as well as Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria, without any defined borders whatsoever.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/22.jpg\")
A map from 1918. Those red lines are actually train lines; there are no borders on this map. Though hundreds of miles of railway once ran through Lebanon, they were rendered inoperable by the Lebanese Civil War. The last trains ceased running in the 1990s.
\nThe map from 1920 shows three lines that could define the northern border of the future state of Israel. The first is the Sykes-Picot line; the second is the “suggested” border, extending into Southern Lebanon; the third represents a “Maximum Demand” border engulfing all the territory up to and including the Litani River.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/21.jpg\")
A map from 1920.
\nSykes-Picot wasn’t the final agreement between the French and the British. In 1923, the two powers drafted a more detailed accord, the\nPaulete-Newcombe agreement, defining the borders between Mandatory Lebanon and Palestine more precisely. This agreement moved the borders, placing several Lebanese villages under the authority of the British Mandate. Britain took over about 20 Lebanese villages—including Malakiyya, Saliha, and Hunin, all of which were inhabited by Shia Muslims.
\n\nOver the next twenty years, the colonization of Bilad al-Sham met ongoing resistance. The largest effort to oppose the colonial process during this period was the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936-1939. The British, alongside Jewish settler militias such as the Haganah, employed a tremendous amount of violence to crush the revolt. Yet the rebellion was so powerful that in order to crush it, the British stationed more troops in Palestine than they had in the entire Indian subcontinent.10 Afterwards, they expelled its surviving leaders to neighboring countries.
\n\nWar gripped the region over the following years; it was one of the theatres in which the European powers contended in the Second World War. Lebanon was one of the few places where the British and French fought each other directly. During this period, Allied Forces armed and trained Jewish militiamen like Moshe Dayan; this ultimately left them far better equipped than the national armies in the region.11
\n\nIn the midst of the war, in 1943, after the Vichy Government was defeated in Lebanon, Lebanese elites declared independence from France. But it wasn’t a bitter breakup; they maintained a very friendly relationship with their former colonizers.
\n\nJust after the end of the Second World War, Zionist militias stepped up their own campaign for independence in Palestine. They did so by carrying out terrorist attacks against the British, most notably the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.12 By May 1948, when the British Mandate of Palestine was set to expire, the British were eager to wash their hands of the conflict they had been instrumental in creating.
\n\nThis led to what Arabs call the Nakba, the Catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Palestine, with at least 100,000 heading to Lebanon. The villages mentioned above—Malakiya, Saliha, and Hunin—were among\nthe destroyed villages whose entire populations were expelled into\nLebanon.
\n\nLebanon participated very little in the war that ensued, known as the first Arab-Israeli war. In most locations, even within Lebanese territory, the Lebanese army withdrew, refusing to fight the Zionists. The only town that saw the Lebanese army resist was Malakiya, a Lebanese village with a predominantly Shia population that had been turned over to British Occupied Palestine. The Lebanese army successfully fended off assault after assault in Malakiya, lost the town, recaptured it, and thereby demonstrated that fighting back was possible. In the end, the Lebanese army only withdrew from Malakiya after intense international pressure.13 An Israeli kibbutz has stood in its place ever since.
\n\nThe Shia Lebanese inhabitants of Malakiyya, like those of the other permanently cleansed villages, became refugees in Lebanon. In fact, they had the\nsame legal status as Palestinians in Lebanon until the 1990s. To both the Zionists who perpetrated the Nakba and the bureaucrats of the Lebanese entity, the Shia of Jabal Amel were no different from the Palestinians.
\n\nZionist forces also carried out attacks in Southern Lebanon, notably during Operation Hiram. Not only did they invade the country, they also committed numerous massacres against Lebanese civilians, such as the\nHula massacre in November 1948, in which they killed approximately 60 civilians. Their forces reached deep into Lebanese territory, as far as the Litani river. Finally, in 1949, Lebanon agreed to an armistice with the state of Israel, which brings us to our first ceasefire.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/13.jpg\")
A memorial in the Southern town of Hula with the names of all the martyrs of the Hula Massacre.
\nThe state that was founded through this ethnic cleansing, known to many as the Zionist entity, went on to be an expansionist, ethnonationalist, armed garrison state. This is clear to a lot of people today. But not as many people understand the nature of the state of Lebanon.
\n\nThe defining feature of the Lebanese entity is the political system of sectarianism. In 1943, the ruling Christian Maronite and Sunni elite drafted the\nNational Pact, stipulating that Lebanon should have a Maronite Christian President, a Sunni Prime Minister, and a Shia speaker of the house—an agreement that remains to this day. At the time, the President had tremendous executive power and the Speaker of the House was largely symbolic. Other posts in the government were likewise divided up along sectarian lines, with a majority going to Christian Maronites.
\n\nIt is a mistake to imagine that Lebanon has this sectarian system because of its many religious communities. The sectarian system is not simply an organic expression of the sectarian divisions in the country. It is a system that enabled the local elite from the main sects, with the Maronite elite on top, to become mediators between the colonial powers and the local populations. The Lebanese Marxist intellectual Mehdi Amel offers a concise description of this system:
\n\n\n\n\n“Sectarianism is the particular historical form of the political system through which the Lebanese colonial bourgeoisie exercises its class dominance within a relation of structural dependency on imperialism.”14
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/12.jpg\")
Mehdi Amel, Lebanese Marxist intellectual, 1936-1987.
\nThat might sound like Marxist word soup, but in fact, it is incredibly precise. This system means that different posts in the Lebanese state are divided among the sectarian elite—whether Christian or Muslim—with a disproportionate number of those positions going to Maronite Christians. That elite politics offered continued access to European finance, which came to form the backbone of Lebanon’s economy to the detriment of local productive economic activities like industry and agriculture.15
\n\nAt the level of everyday life, it means that, as citizens, we only exist to the state as members of one sect or another. When I vote in elections, I have to go to my father’s village, and I can only vote for Druze or Christian candidates, because they are the main inhabitants of my area. I don’t exist as a citizen, as an individual, but as a Druze from a specific area. This is somewhat similar to the current system in the state of Israel, where universal citizenship does not exist and the state reduces people to their ethnicity. Ultimately, this system disenfranchises the vast majority of people; it is not even representative.
\n\nThe sectarian system in Lebanon went through several crises in the 1950s and 1960s. But the greatest threat to its existence emerged a decade later: the Lebanese National Movement of the 1970s.
\n\nWe can divide the chief obstacles to the fulfilment of the sectarian system into three distinct aspects of Lebanese society. First, the existence in Lebanon of an entire sect, comprised predominantly of agricultural communities in the South and East, that had practically no representation within the sectarian or oligarchic system: the Shia. Located mostly in the South of Lebanon, in a region known as Jabal Amel, these communities also suffered an economic blow following the creation of the state of Israel, as their economy relied heavily on trade.
\n\nSecond, the real divisions between people were not based on sect, or religion, but on class—and the sectarian elite had no serious plan to deal with the contradictions of colonial or capitalist class divisions, let alone the feudal divisions that still existed.
\n\nMehdi Amel summarizes these first two issues in the same text quoted above:
\n\n\n\n\n“The foremost obstacle was the mass of toilers who belong to the downtrodden ‘sects’ and live either in the countryside or in the clutches of poverty in the capital. As their voices were raised, so did their acts of resistance. They demanded the system be changed, whether by putting an end to sectarian hegemony without destroying the system itself, or by putting an end to the system entirely.”16
\n
And the third major obstacle to the system was the introduction to Lebanon of over 100,000 Palestinian refugees who had been forcibly expelled from their country, most of whom were Sunni Muslim. Not only did this mess up the carefully arranged demographic balance within the country, it also forced Lebanon to reckon with the fact that it is not an island separate from the rest of the region.
\n\nAlmost immediately after their expulsion, unorganized Palestinian Fedayeen militants began carrying out operations against the nascent state built on the ruins of their homeland. Palestinian refugees also tried to return to their homes.17 In Lebanon, the army moved quickly to block these attacks and returnees, fearing Israeli reprisals. They did this by placing\nPalestinian refugee camps under what amounts to martial law, controlling movement and political activity.
\n\nThis was the context in which Moshe Dayan made the statement quoted above about annexing Lebanon up to the Litani river to put an end to these cross-border raids by Palestinian militants. In the end, they didn’t have to do that, as the Lebanese armies proved quite effective in suppressing Palestinian efforts.
\n\nAt the same time, Israel was occupied in conflicts with Egypt, Syria, and the Palestinian territories they had failed to capture in 1948.
\n\nA few key events led to the Israelis focusing more on Lebanon. The first was the Palestinian\nRevolution of 1965, which saw the creation of Fatah, the first serious attempt for Palestinians in exile to unify and organize around armed struggle. The largest organization was the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was mostly based in Jordan at that time but had a strong presence in Lebanon too.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/17.jpg\")
A rally involving Palestinian fedayeen militants circa 1965.
\nThe next major development was the defeat of the Arab armies in 1967, and with it, the crushing of the hope that Arab nationalist regimes would liberate Palestine. Then, in 1970, Black September in Jordan saw the Jordanian army wage a war against Palestinian militants and expel them to Lebanon. That was when Israel really turned its focus to Lebanon. Wanting to quell assaults from the north, the Israelis begin implementing a multi-pronged strategy.
\n\nFirst, they attacked targets in the areas from which they suspected that assaults might emerge. This went hand in hand with indiscriminate bombing campaigns that did not differentiate between civilian and military targets.
\n\nSecond, Israel intentionally carried out attacks on civilians in order to try to turn them against Palestinian militant groups. For instance, in 1974, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire called the “Olive Truce” in hopes of enabling Lebanese farmers to harvest their olives. Israel violated it after just three days, carrying out ground raids and aerial bombardments.18
\n\nMoshe Dayan had summed up this policy of collective punishment in the 1950s:
\n\n\n\n\n“We could not prevent every murder of a worker in an orchard or a family in their beds. But it was in our power to set a high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying… It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce ‘the policy of strength’ toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.”19
\n
And the third strategy that the Israelis implemented in Lebanon was to court Lebanese Maronite collaborators—both in Southern Lebanon and in Beirut. Already in the early 1970s, the Israelis were arming the Phalange, or Kataeb, a far-right Maronite party founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936 in the image of the Nazi party in Germany.20
\n\nIn response to these conditions and contradictions, in 1969, leftists in Lebanon formed what became known as the Lebanese National Movement. This proved to be the greatest threat to the sectarian system to date. The Lebanese National Movement was an explicitly anti-sectarian, pluralistic movement with strong socialist currents; it was allied with the PLO. They understood that the Lebanese struggle against the sectarian oligarchal system had to be connected with the struggle for Palestinian liberation against Zionism.21
\n\nThe Maronite elite, organized mostly within the Kataeb Party, hated all of this because they had a lot to lose. They blocked any change to the system. The first efforts to change it took the form of political maneuvers; when those failed, armed struggle erupted. This was the backdrop of the civil war in Lebanon, which ignited in 1975. As future president Amin Gemayel put it,
\n\n\n\n\n“We have tried to save institutions from any change. Although violence leads nowhere, it has helped us at least to save what could be saved. It was violence to conserve the system.”22
\n
For its part, Israel had already been supporting the Phalange for years, hosting meetings with their leaders, training their soldiers, and sending them weapons. They preferred the continued domination of the Maronite Christian elite to anything else: not only because of their mutual antagonism to the Palestinians, but also because in many ways, the sectarian system that elevated the Maronite elite to power mirrored their ethnonationalist system more than the pluralistic, leftist, and pro-Palestinian tendencies represented by the Lebanese National Movement.
\n\nWhen war broke out in Lebanon in 1975 while all other fronts functionally closed, Israel turned its full attention to Lebanon. They continued to fund the Kataeb, even though—or because—the Kataeb were massacring Palestinians. In 1976, Israel created what they called the “Good Frontier” in Southern Lebanon as a buffer zone.23 There, they installed Saad Haddad, an officer who defected from the Lebanese army to serve as Israel’s viceroy in South Lebanon. In this collaboration with Saad Haddad, the Israelis could finally fulfill the fantasy that Moshe Dayan had described twenty years earlier.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/18.jpg\")
The collaborator Saad Haddad on a tank in Southern Lebanon with Lebanese and Israeli flags.
\nThree years into the war, in 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon in what they called Operation Litani. The Foreign Minister of Israel at the time was Moshe Dayan himself. Many people think of this as the beginning of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon—a period that saw Haddad’s forces commit numerous massacres in the South and solidify his hold in this newly-created buffer zone.24 But Israel’s presence in the rest of the country was short-lived. On October 10, the United States, then under Jimmy Carter, forced a ceasefire deal on Israel, which withdrew. Yet the occupation of the South continued, and so did the resistance against it.
\n\nThat ceasefire played out exactly like the ones we’ve seen more recently. Israel continued bombarding Southern Lebanon and arming their fascist Maronite Christian proxies across the country, while both the Lebanese people and the PLO acted with restraint. Eventually, this became unsustainable. On July 15, 1981, the PLO finally began firing rockets into Israel; Israel responded by carpet-bombing populated areas in the south, attacking Tyre’s port, and setting fire to an oil refinery.
\n\nOn July 24, the US brokered another ceasefire. Again, the PLO abided by it, while Israel violated it repeatedly. Then, on June 6, 1982, when the ceasefire had been in place for almost a year, the Israeli military invaded Lebanon. This time, their excuse was an assassination attempt targeting the Israeli ambassador to the UK, even though the group behind the attempt was openly opposed to the PLO. In fact, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had already been planning the invasion for months.25
\n\nThe 1982 invasion took place on a much larger scale than previous Israeli assaults. It was the first time they crossed the Litani River. The Israelis besieged Beirut and, after bombarding the city and cutting off electricity and water, managed to force a ceasefire on the PLO.26 As part of that ceasefire, the PLO agreed to evacuate Beirut, fulfilling the primary stated aim of the Israeli invasion. But the Israelis didn’t withdraw, because another aim of the invasion was to ensure the election of Bashir Gemayel, the head of the Kataeb Party, as president of Lebanon.
\n\nOn August 23, with Israeli tanks in the streets, Bashir Gemayel was elected president, a terrifying prospect for the Palestinians and the Lebanese left. Two weeks later, Gemayel was assassinated in a car bombing outside his headquarters. The assassin was later identified as a Lebanese Maronite, Habib\nShartouni, a member of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party.
\n\nNonetheless, many who were loyal to Gemayel quickly blamed Palestinians. Christian fascist militias under the protection of the Israelis committed the most notorious massacre of the war, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which the Israelis aided their Christian allies in killing over 2000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.
\n\nFollowing this horrific massacre, resistance against the Israeli occupation increased dramatically. Alongside other pressures, this compelled Israel to withdraw from Beirut in September 1982. This was the first time an Arab\ncapital liberated itself from Israeli occupation through armed struggle.
\n\nDuring this period, the Americans created the Multi-National Force, which entered to enforce the ceasefire between the PLO and Israel. In September 1983, the US sent 2000 marines into Lebanon to ensure the success of the Lebanese government under Bashir’s brother, Amine Gemayel.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/15.jpg\")
A badge of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) with flags of all the participating powers.
\nOn October 23, 1983, two truck bombs targeting the headquarters of the US marines and the French battalion center inflicted many casualties. The former was the single largest loss of life for American marine forces since the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. The attack was claimed by a group nobody had heard of at the time, which later revealed itself as Hezbollah, the party of God.27 The US and the rest of the Multi-National Force were forced to leave Lebanon the following year, in large part because of these attacks.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/4.jpg\")
The aftermath of the bombing of US marine barracks in Beirut, 1983.
\nIn 1985, Israel “withdrew” from Lebanon; in reality, the buffer zone in the South remained, where Israeli soldiers and settlers could move freely. This continuing occupation led to the rise of Hezbollah, whose guerilla fighters carried out attacks targeting Israeli troops and their proxy militia.
\n\nIsrael’s first major attempt to crush this\nresistance took place in 1993, when they unsuccessfully attempted to push them north of the Litani river. They attempted the same thing with a 17-day assault in 1996, “Operation\nGrapes of Wrath.”
\n\nThe Lebanese civil war went through many phases, ending in 1990 with the signing of the Taif Accord. But the core issues that ignited the war were never addressed, nor the issues that arose during the fifteen years of fighting. What started as a demand to end the sectarian system descended into sectarian chaos, and was ultimately resolved with some shifting of sectarian quotas and power divisions among the sectarian elite. The chief losers of the war, the Palestinians, were blamed for the war and lost almost all of their political and military presence in the country.
\n\nThe occupation of the south ended in 2000, after the resistance forces that emerged in response to that occupation—most notably Hezbollah—made it untenable. But one territory became a major sticking point, the Occupied Shebaa Farms, which the Israelis captured from Syria in 1967. Hezbollah claimed that this territory was Lebanese, arguing that the Israeli withdrawal remained incomplete.28 Others saw this as an effort to continue to validate Hezbollah’s existence as an armed resistance group after the withdrawal of occupation forces.
\n\nThus began a six-year low-level cross-border conflict, culminating in the 2006 July War. Israel once again invaded Lebanon, destroying infrastructure including oil depots, vital bridges, and the country’s only international airport. They were demanding the demilitarization of the entire region south of the Litani river. The conflict ended with a ceasefire deal brokered by the UN, stipulating that UNIFIL forces should expand their deployment as far as the Litani river.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/1.jpg\")
The destruction of a bridge in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes in 2006.
\nThe intervening period saw a relative calm between Lebanon and the state of Israel, with few clashes and attacks. At the same time, Israeli jets, reconnaissance planes, and later drones flew over our heads continuously. Between 2007 and 2022, Israel violated\nLebanon’s airspace over 22,000 times—about four flights a day.
\n\nThis was also a period of uprisings and violence in Palestine, specifically in Gaza. After the election of Hamas in 2006, Israel blockaded Gaza. Every few years, the Israelis bombarded Gaza—what they called “mowing\nthe lawn.” Israeli settlements in the West Bank expanded throughout this period. Israelis focused on consolidating hegemony over the territories they had occupied since 1967 while making threats against Hezbollah and Lebanon.
\n\nFor their part, Hezbollah expanded from simply being an armed resistance group to become a player in the Lebanese political scene and regional affairs—for example, getting involved in the Syrian Civil War.
\n\nThat was the climate leading up to 2023. Three years after the United Nations declared that Gaza was on the way to becoming uninhabitable, Hamas’s armed wing carried out the October 7 attacks, igniting the regional war that continues today. Hezbollah responded the following day by opening up what they called the Support Front, firing rockets into northern Israel.
\n\nThis fighting simmered until September 2024, when Israel dramatically escalated its attacks on Lebanon, beginning with the notorious pager massacre. In the weeks that followed, Israel displaced over a million people, massacred civilians, killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, and targeted weapons depots belonging to the group. On September 30, they invaded Lebanon, again with the claimed intention of pushing Hezbollah back behind the Litani River. On November 27, they reached a ceasefire agreement stipulating that Hezbollah will disarm below the Litani River and tasking the Lebanese government with overseeing this. Israel remained in five\npositions in the South, claiming that it would withdraw if Lebanon fulfilled its obligations.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/2.jpg\")
The destruction of homes by Israeli attacks, 2024.
\nDuring this ceasefire, the UN estimates that the Israelis violated the ceasefire\nover 10,000 times, while Hezbollah violated it once—a single time—in response to Israeli attacks. The Israeli violations included near-daily air strikes, assassinations, demolitions of homes, and ground raids.
\n\nThen, against the backdrop of the US/Israeli war on Iran, Hezbollah fired six rockets into Israel, precipitating the new escalation that we are witnessing today. There are many theories as to why they did this. Initially, Hezbollah claimed it was to avenge the killing of Ali Khamanei the previous day, and that it was a response to fifteen months of daily Israeli bombardment during the supposed ceasefire. Some suggest that the decision to resume bilateral hostilities offered a way for them to break out of the dynamic in which Israel treated Lebanon as a free-fire zone with zero deterrence from Hezbollah, the Lebanese state, or the so-called international community. Others argue that it was a reckless attempt to reclaim legitimacy after the defeats that Hezbollah suffered in 2024.
\n\nRegardless, we are here now. The Israelis are in Lebanon and they aim to stay. They want to create a “yellow line” in Southern Lebanon, yet another\nbuffer zone. Many people see this as a land grab that could potentially establish permanent Israeli settlements there. Others believe that Israel is setting the stage for a massive resource grab—targeting not only the fertile agricultural area but also the waters of the Litani River. Based on the full-scale demolition of the villages they have captured, as well as the last two years of ecocide in the south—for example, Israel\nusing white phosphorus munitions to poison the land—it is safe to say that the Israeli military is trying to fulfil the threat that Moshe Dayan made in 1974: “We will make all life impossible in South Lebanon.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/19.jpg\")
Israel has regularly used white phosphorus munitions in Southern Lebanon.
\nThe Israelis are trying to ethnically cleanse the entire south. Although Lebanon and Israel agreed to a new ceasefire on April 16, the Israelis have not stopped their assaults. They are wantonly destroying whole villages, making sure that life is impossible, let alone return. This raises the prospect of a prolonged displacement crisis on top of the many other crises afflicting Lebanon at the moment. This is the familiar theme of Israel’s one-sided “ceasefires,” in Lebanon as in Gaza. For the Israelis, a ceasefire is a chance to recoup, plan, and establish new facts on the ground in the areas they’ve seized. They view this as a single, continuous war, now lasting the better part of a century.
\n\nIsrael aims to destroy Lebanon. That will not change if Hezbollah disarms. The situation is pushing the country towards civil war, especially with the current government being so focused on disarming Hezbollah—both as an end in itself and in hopes of somehow deterring Israeli aggression. Civil war in Lebanon will advance Israel’s aim of fracturing and weakening the Lebanese state.
\n\nWhat are people in Lebanon supposed to do? What are the propositions on offer? Is there any feasible way to end Israeli assault and enable displaced Lebanese people to return to their homes in the south?
\n\nLebanon is at a crossroads. Two camps are forming and neither is speaking to the other. One camp, led by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, is pursuing direct negotiations with the Israelis. They have committed themselves to the goal of monopolizing\narms in the hands of the state, while deferring anything to do with Israel to the so-called international community. The other camp, led predominantly by Hezbollah, is pursuing a course of armed struggle. Continuing on the path it set out over four decades years ago, its main strategy is continued reliance on the Islamic Republic of Iran and the military strategy of the so-called axis of resistance.
\n\nTo the former camp, the sole problem is Hezbollah: supposedly, once Hezbollah is disarmed, Israel will stop bombing us and pull its troops out of the country. To the second camp, the only recourse is directly resisting the invading Israeli army and continuing the military confrontation with Israel. Each is accusing\nthe other of treason for working on behalf of a foreign power.
\n\nThose critical of the current government accuse it of sacrificing Southern Lebanon for the sake of the rest of the country. Those critical of Hezbollah accuse them of sacrificing the rest of the country for the south. This division has a corresponding sectarian aspect as well. Added to the polycrisis in Lebanon, especially the grueling economic collapse which many claim to be one\nof the worst in a century, globally speaking, all of this is indeed a toxic recipe for civil war.
\n\nHow do we stop Israel from bombing us? How do we get them out of Lebanon? How do we reign in the militant fascism and brazen expansionism that has become mainstream in Israeli society and politics? How do we protect ourselves from the growing imperialist mania of the US empire? Apart from arming Israel to the teeth, the US has not yet gotten involved in Lebanon directly—but if history is any indication, it very well might at some point.
\n\nIt is difficult to answer these questions—not least because most of them have very little to do with us. Israel has become a deeply sick society, with poll after poll showing continued majority support for the genocide in\nGaza, the war on\nIran, the war on\nLebanon. Settlers backed by the army are conducting wholesale pogroms in the West Bank. There seems to be no internal or international mechanism to stop their expansionist and genocidal ambitions.
\n\nI left Lebanon in 2021. I left for many reasons, but the one that made remaining there unsustainable was that I saw this war coming. I was constantly terrified by the sound of Israeli warplanes overhead. I could see the growing fascism in Israeli society for what it was—a lust for domination and expansion. Israel has never declared its borders, and it’s been clear for a long time that they want to take over Gaza and the West Bank. Then what? Will they start demilitarizing their society? No. The dominant force in Israel, both politically and socially, is the need for an external enemy so they do not turn on each other. This is a recipe for violent expansionism with no internal brakes. Today, the fire that the Israelis lit in Gaza is spreading to Lebanon. Where it will stop?
\n\nI am on the record criticizing Hezbollah. The party has played a role in all of this. It has allied itself with reactionary and corrupt forces, both in Lebanon and in the region. Its military backing of the Assad regime—a significant departure from its stated goal of resisting Israel—made it unpopular in the region and may be the reason why the Israelis breached its security apparatus in the last two years. Its distinctly sectarian form of resistance and foreign backing contribute to significant strategic weaknesses.
\n\nHezbollah has proven unwilling or unable to make its case to the rest of the country. There are many valid reasons why a lot of people in Lebanon do not trust Hezbollah. A key event that contributed to this distrust, which is not well known outside of Lebanon, was the\nbrief civil war of May 2008, when Hezbollah and its allies turned their arms against pro-government parties, leading to weeks-long street battles reminiscent of the civil war.
\n\nYet in this context, I wonder about the utility of focusing on these issues. These are problems that must be discussed within the country. But the situation has changed, and we must update our analysis accordingly. Israel will not leave if Hezbollah is disarmed. History demonstrates that very clearly. The situation in Gaza shows that very clearly. The statements of Israeli leaders make that explicit.
\n\nThe fact is, Israel has been assaulting Lebanon since before Hezbollah existed. Hezbollah only exists because of Israel’s occupation. If they do successfully disarm Hezbollah, another group will form, because occupation breeds resistance.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/20.jpg\")
Israel’s Yellow Line in Lebanon, a so-called “security belt” where the Israelis have stationed troops and are systematically demolishing villages.
\nHow do we stop the Israelis from bombing us? This question grips me every single day. But the most sober-minded people I know are just as perplexed as I am.
\n\nTo attempt to understand logic of the Lebanese government and the shortfalls of its approach, we can consult an essay that was published in the Lebanese daily L’Orient–Le Jour on April 6, 2026. The title is “Neutrality,\na Viable Lifeline for Lebanon.” This paper reflects the perspectives of some of the commentariat in Lebanon are saying, and the article represents a rare elaboration of the strategy that the Lebanese government is currently pursuing
\n\nThe essay begins with this short preamble:
\n\n\n\n\n“The imagery of our army evacuating posts in the south while leaving behind villagers unwilling to abandon their homes in the face of Hezbollah-Israeli conflict and Israeli incursions raises an important question: what is the role of a state that cannot defend its borders from invasion and occupation?”
\n
This question summarizes the basic contradiction. The government’s plan is to replace Hezbollah in the south with the national army, with the idea that the latter will protect civilians—but the author takes for granted that in fact, the army cannot do this. As we saw last month, the army\nwithdrew immediately when the Israelis began invading. So in fact, there is no basis for the argument that monopolizing violence in the hands of the state will bring order and protection, even though that is the premise of the path that the government is taking.
\n\nThe writer continues:
\n\n\n\n\n“The reality is much simpler: no army in the region can win at war with Israel; no proxy group can sell victory beyond survival; and Lebanon cannot function as a governable country—no matter how sophisticated its military capabilities—unless we dislodge ourselves, entirely, from regional war.”
\n
But how could the Lebanese state dislodge Lebanon from the geopolitics of the surrounding region?
\n\n\n\n\n“… that requires adopting a policy too often misunderstood: neutrality. Neutrality is neither dismissing the Palestinian plight by throwing morals away nor equating anything with Israeli crimes. It is demanding that Lebanon no longer pay an enormous price for hosting the Arab-Israeli conflict, or in this more recent round, the Iranian regime’s survivability.”
\n
The phrase “hosting the Arab-Israeli conflict” is particularly confusing. What could that mean? Where should it be “hosted”? How do we change “hosts”? The closest thing to a historical answer is the events of Black September (1970-1971), when Jordan violently expelled Palestinian groups to Lebanon. After that, in a sense, Jordanians did stop paying the aforementioned “enormous price,” but they simply pushed that cost onto Lebanon. How could Lebanon offload that onto some other polity? Surely the author isn’t suggesting that the Lebanese government should expel both Palestinians and its own citizens into Jordan or Syria?
\n\nSpeaking of the “Arab-Israel conflict” as if it is a timeless abstraction makes no sense. The very language is the rhetoric of Zionists. Framing the war on Lebanon as the “Arab-Israeli conflict” ignores Lebanon’s particular history with Israel, presenting this war as the consequence of abstract Arab antagonism toward the state of Israel rather than a continuous, intentional, and carefully orchestrated expansion on the part of the Israeli state.
\n\nIt is arguably true, as the author claims, that “no army in the region can win at war with Israel.” The failure of Arab states and societies to develop different means of engaging with this problem over the last several decades is one of the reasons we have arrived here. But this war has been imposed on us. It’s not our choice. The alternative, as we have seen time again, is surrender, occupation, humiliation. Or rather, the alternative to war is war by other means.
\n\nArmed resistance liberated the south of Lebanon in 2000—specifically, a strategy of asymmetrical warfare. They didn’t need to defeat the Israeli army, just as the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in Algeria didn’t need to defeat the French Army,29 just as the Vietcong didn’t need to defeat the American army.
\n\nWhat could a “policy of neutrality” mean? The proposal implies that the Lebanese government has the agency to determine what happens, but also, that neutrality is both possible and desirable in the face of a genocidal force. What mechanisms would serve to assert this neutrality? Are there any historical precedents to suggest this is even possible?
\n\nThe writer’s sole example is the 1960s, when he claims that Lebanon was neutral and it worked. This claim is purely ahistorical. At the time, Israel was occupied elsewhere, fighting against Egypt. That was before the Palestinian revolution of 1965, before the crushing of Arab nationalism in 1967, before Black September in 1970, before the Arab-Egyptian peace treaty of 1977. It was only after those developments, when all other Arab states had been pacified and Palestinian militants had been expelled from those regimes, that Israel shifted the full force of its attention to Lebanon.
\n\nThe period the writer refers to as a period of neutrality was also a period of harsh repression targeting Palestinians in Lebanon. Until the Cairo Agreement of 1969, they were living under what amounted to martial law.
\n\nThis is a recurring theme throughout the region that the writer neglects to mention: neutrality comes at an internal cost. With substantial portions of the population opposing Israel, with many wanting to fight it militarily, the only way for states to prevent this is to crack down on their own populations via violent means. We can see this in Egypt’s authoritarian regime, in the Palestinian Authority, and in many other governments across the region. Instead of employing violence against the aggressor, Israel, these states turn that violence inward to repress those who would defend themselves as well as those who are moved to act in solidarity.
\n\nThose are in fact the stated ambitions of the current government in Lebanon. The president, Joseph Aoun, was elected on a platform of promising to monopolize arms in the hands of the state. However, it is clear that the Lebanese government cannot do that. The risk of civil war is too great.
\n\nSo the writer proposes that Lebanon should be occupied by a new international force that would replace the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL):
\n\n\n\n\n“Where UNIFIL is unable to deliver, an alternative security arrangement should fill the void. Greater powers must support Lebanon in its desired transition away from permanent war…”
\n
Without going into any detail about who those “great powers” might be, he confidently declares that they will ensure Lebanon becomes “neutral” and that “neutrality” will be:
\n\n\n\n\n“Lebanon’s shield—denying Israel a foothold on any single square meter of our geography. It remains our strongest defense.”
\n
Why does the writer believe this? How could anyone believe this? This is not dealing with the material realities at all. Look at Syria, where the Sharaa administration is attempting to demonstrate its “neutrality.” That hasn’t stopped Israel from occupying more Syrian land, bombing the country on a regular basis, and fomenting sectarian conflict.
\n\nThe writer’s only historical argument is that the siege of Beirut in 1982 ended after the expulsion of the PLO and the introduction of the Multi-National Force. He ignores the fact that it was popular armed resistance that liberated Beirut. He ignores the fact that even after the Israelis withdrew and the Multi-National Force remained, there was fierce resistance against the latter as well, eventually compelling them to retreat. He ignores the fact that even after the Israelis withdrew from Beirut, they continued to occupy the South of Lebanon for eighteen years, and that that occupation only ended after fierce and consistent resistance. Finally, he ignores the fact that the 1982 siege began as a violation of a 1981 ceasefire agreement. What would a new “international force”—inevitably, an American or European force—do to guarantee security for Lebanon when the Israelis violate international law day after day, year after year, decade after decade, with complete impunity?
\n\nThe idea that what Lebanon needs is more imperialism is absolutely ridiculous.
\n\nAfter what we’ve seen the “international community” do in regards to Gaza, trusting them like this is delusional. Yet this seems to be the plan of the current Lebanese government. That is the premise of the current direct talks between Lebanon and Israel, which presumes good faith on the part of Israel (and the US) where there clearly is none. Lebanon has no leverage in this context. This is asking too much of people who have no cause to trust the US or Israel or the so-called international community—especially now with the US under Trump, who has demonstrated a complete disregard for international law. Are we supposed to work with the Board of Peace—the same people who suggested turning the entirety of South Lebanon into the Trump Economic Zone? Is this the viable alternative to Israeli occupation?
\n\nThis type of thinking is pushing Lebanon towards civil war. It insults the inhabitants of Southern Lebanon, portraying them at best as deluded by Hezbollah or at worst as complicit in dragging the rest of the country into a conflict. Are they not Lebanese? Do _they_ not deserve sovereignty? Do they not deserve protection?
\n\nThere are no easy answers as to how to accomplish protecting them. But it is certain that the kind of wishful thinking represented by the article in L’Orient–Le Jour is removed from reality and history. It serves no one. It can only perpetuate the confusion of the current moment and deepen the rifts that are already tearing apart the thin fabric of Lebanese society.
\n\nThe government’s strategy is unpopular, dangerous, and doomed to fail. Resistance to the occupation is necessary; it is also a right under international law. Hezbollah is facing issues of legitimacy in the country, in many cases for very legitimate reasons. For example, one of the reasons that the author of the aforementioned article in L’Orient–Le Jour opposes Hezbollah is because Hezbollah killed his father. A lot of Lebanese politics boils down to longstanding sectarian conflict like this. That is the result of being ruled by a coalition of warlords for the last fifty years.
\n\nMany people are saying that there needs to be space to form a popular resistance movement similar to the Lebanese National Movement of the early 1970s. Such a movement would have to combine a program of anti-sectarian social cohesion, a revolutionary political program to overcome the sectarian oligarchy plaguing the country, a progressive economic program moving away from a financialized dependence economy, and an armed wing (whether of state or non-state forces) that could defend their communities from Israeli aggression. It would also have to stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation.
\n\nThis is another form of wishful thinking. Who would organize this? With what resources? Lebanon has been a playground for imperialist powers for so long now that it is difficult to imagine how any form of organizing could overcome that. Nonetheless, in view of the fundamental contradictions within the Zionist colonization of Bilad al-Sham and the colonial, capitalist, and exclusionary core of the Lebanese entity, nothing less will suffice. We can still attempt to think positively, to identify what we can fight for, not just against. That is the essential thing missing in this moment of despair and humiliation.
\n\nIsrael wants to destroy Lebanon. We must all resist that by any means necessary. That means setting our priorities straight, it means unifying, it means forming communities based on common struggle. It means aiming for liberation, not just sovereignty. It also means forming connections of solidarity with other communities across the region and the world.
\n\nThe beast that is setting upon Lebanon is global and our only hope is global resistance. The fire that started in Gaza is spreading now to Lebanon. But it will not stop there. It will consume all of us—all of you, as well—unless we extinguish it.
\n\nMoshe Dayan, Story of My Life, 1976 ↩
\nFrom an address given to Technion University students (March 19, 1969), a transcription of which appeared in Ha’aretz (April 4, 1969), quoted in The Question of Palestine (1980) by Edward Said, p. 14 ↩
\nBenny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, p. 177. ↩
\nIbid, p. 28. ↩
\nAvi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 146. ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 142. ↩
\nKamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions_,_ 1987 ↩
\nPatrick Seale, Post-colonial Syria and Lebanon, 2007 ↩
\nFrancis Stevension, Lloyd George: A Diary by Frances Stevenson, 1973 ↩
\nIllan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006, p. 15 ↩
\nIbid, p. 38 ↩
\nIbid, p. 25 ↩
\nFawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2007, p.113 ↩
\nMehdi Amel, On the Sectarian State, 1986 ↩
\nHisham Safieddine, Banking on the State: The Financial Foundation of Lebanon, 2018 ↩
\nMehdi Amel, On the Sectarian State, 1986 ↩
\nBenny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, p. 28 ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 160 ↩
\nPart of a funeral oration Dayan gave in 1956 for a soldier killed on the front. ↩
\nFawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2007, p. 102 ↩
\nIbid, p. 187 ↩
\nIbid, p. 191 ↩
\nIbid, p. 206 ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 242 ↩
\nIbid, p. 260 ↩
\nIbid, p. 278 ↩
\nDavid Hirst, Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East, 2010, p. 192 ↩
\nJoseph Daher, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God, 2016 ↩
\nMahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria 1830-1987, 2002 ↩
\nBen Morea has passed away. Known for his participation in Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, the self-styled “street gang with an analysis” active in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1960s, he withdrew from the city and pursued a path into revolutionary animism. In the following eulogy, Tasos Sagris of Void Network recounts Ben’s subsequent visit to Exarchia, the Athenian neighborhood famed as a hotbed of anarchism.
\n\nToday, the Exarchia that Tasos describes has also changed. To mourn a person is to mourn an entire vanished world. Yet, as Tasos explores, there is a silver thread that connects Ben’s life and the legacy of Exarchia to our own present and possible future.
\n\nBen Morea is dead, motherfuckers.
\n\nTo many of us in Void Network, Ben was not simply an old revolutionary from another era, nor a nostalgic remnant of the American counterculture. He was one of those rare human beings who attempted to transform rebellion into a total form of life—to erase the borders between self and other, poetry and insurrection, art and survival, to bring global social revolution to the streets of the metropolis.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/1.jpg\")
Ben Morea.
\nWe met him in April 2016, when my sister, Georgia Sagri, invited him for a series of talks and meetings at Ύλη[matter]HYLE, a space in the center of Athens bringing together art, politics, and the sciences. He was a beloved friend of hers from her years in New York. She enthusiastically introduced him to many different people—not only anarchists but also artists and other creative people from the Athens underground scene.
\n\nI enjoyed a long day and night walking around Exarchia with Ben. It was during a high point of the anarchist solidarity movement with refugees and migrants, when more than ten occupied buildings across the neighborhood housed over a thousand displaced people fleeing the wars and wreckage of the global order to seek a better future in Europe. Exarchia was no longer simply the legendary neighborhood of anarchists, punks, radical students, and street riots; it had become a fragile liberated territory where the uprooted of the Earth attempted to survive collectively in the face of the violence of borders, police raids, fascists, poverty, and abandonment.
\n\nWe walked endlessly through the narrow streets. We passed the occupied refugee squats where children played on the rooftops under torn flags, living in buildings powered by improvised, illegal electricity connections. We passed assemblies in smoky rooms filled with comrades speaking ten different languages. We walked through old cafés where anarchists argued all night about revolution, defeat, and desire while armored riot police waited at the entrances of the neighborhood like an occupying army.
\n\nI brought him to the Free Social Center Nosotros, which Void Network participated in for fifteen years, and to the self-organized political spaces scattered across Exarchia. I translated for him the slogans painted on the walls and the posters announcing demonstrations, solidarity kitchens, anti-fascist patrols, underground concerts, assemblies for imprisoned comrades, open discussions on gender, social collapse, and insurrection. He looked carefully at everything—not with the cold curiosity of an intellectual tourist, but with the trembling attention of someone recognizing fragments of a long unfinished dream.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/13.jpg\")
The Free Social Center Nosotros.
\nPerhaps what moved him most was not the militancy itself, but the atmosphere of collective survival. The defiant beauty of people who possessed almost nothing yet continued building common spaces in the ruins of austerity and social collapse. Young anarchists sharing food and ideas with refugees from Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, illegal kitchens feeding hundreds every day, people from many different countries dwelling together. Abandoned buildings transformed into living organisms of solidarity as artists, dropouts, migrants, junkies, fugitives, students, and political outcasts attempted to create another form of life.
\n\nFor Ben, this was not activism as moral duty. It was the continuation of a war against alienation that had begun decades earlier in the streets of the Lower East Side.
\n\nThat night, as we were walking through Exarchia, he stopped and looked at me with an expression I will never forget and said:
\n\n“Tasos, I feel so happy that now I can die.”
\n\nI asked him what he meant.
\n\n“Everything we did so many years ago, so far away, has taken root here. Exarchia is what we were fighting for with the Motherfuckers!” Since the early 1960s, from the days of Black Mask and Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers, he explained, he had dedicated his life to creating liberated social zones in New York and across the United States. Spaces where people could escape the prison of normality to invent new forms of collective existence. Free territories where art was no longer separated from life and revolution was no longer separated from everyday experience.
\n\nNow, decades later, on the other side of the planet, he had encountered another generation continuing the same struggle in different historical conditions. Not the white American dropouts of the psychedelic era, but refugees, migrants, precarious youth, and anarchists surviving the catastrophe of neoliberal Europe.
\n\n“Now I can die happy,” he told me. “We are winning.”
\n\nWe continued walking through the streets of Athens, surrounded by the graffiti, the helicopters, the police sirens, and the burning memory of all unfinished revolutions.
\n\nThat same night, in the center of the city, Ben Morea gave what was for many of us an unforgettable historical speech. For hours, he answered questions from anarchists, freaks, radical artists, and young rebels who gathered around him with the hunger of people seeking lived experience. He spoke about the birth of the counterculture as if describing an underground war. He told stories about riots, communes, outlaw survival, collective madness, criminality, revolutionary theater, the attempt to assassinate Andy Warhol as a strategy to block the spread of heroin in freak communities, sabotage, psychedelics, fugitives, and impossible dreams with a mixture of tenderness and levity.
\n\nMost of those stories would be impossible to summarize here. Perhaps they can only survive the way all insurgent knowledge survives: passed from mouth to ear to mouth, from generation to generation, like a secret fire moving through the darkness of this world.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/16.jpg\")
\nBen Morea belonged to a generation that understood something that has almost been erased from the collective political imagination today. They grasped that revolution was not merely a program for the future but a transformation of everyday life in the present. Not an ideology to be consumed, not an identity to perform, but a dangerous reorganization of existence itself.
\n\nBefore the museums, universities, and fashion industries domesticated the aesthetics of revolt, before rebellion became a commodity circulating through social media and cultural branding, Morea and the comrades around Black Mask and Up Against the Wall Motherfucker attempted to dissolve the separation between art and life completely.
\n\nThey did not want radical art, but radical existence.
\n\nFor them, art could not remain imprisoned inside galleries, theaters, literary circles, or intellectual prestige. A painting that did not attack the conditions of everyday alienation was merely decoration for the ruling class. A poem that did not open breaches inside consciousness was simply another dead object circulating in the market of culture. Even revolution itself risked becoming another form of bureaucracy if it lost contact with desire, ecstasy, madness, and collective imagination.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/7.jpg\")
\nThis was one of the deepest contributions of Ben Morea and the Motherfuckers: they understood that capitalism does not survive only through economic exploitation or police violence, but through the colonization of perception itself. Through the production of obedient identities. Through the management of desire. Through the reduction of life to work, consumption, and passive spectatorship.
\n\nLong before the language of contemporary critical theory existed, they were already attacking the society of separation with their bodies, their actions, and their forms of collective living.
\n\nThey stole food and distributed it freely.
\n\nThey occupied spaces and defended houses with open doors where anybody could be free at any time.
\n\nThey organized street theater as social attack.
\n\nThey disrupted cultural institutions.
\n\nThey transformed everyday gestures into acts of refusal.
\n\nThey attempted to create temporary liberated zones in the heart of the metropolis where people could experience forms of relations outside commodity logic.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/2.jpg\")
\nIn this sense, Ben Morea was not only an anarchist militant. He was a poet of social space creating poetry inscribed directly upon the nervous system of the city.
\n\nDuring those years, the streets of the Lower East Side became laboratories of anti-capitalist imagination. Runaway teenagers, junkies, artists, political fugitives, radical musicians, criminals, undocumented people, trans and queer outcasts, psychedelic heads, and street gangs all collided in an unstable ecosystem where counterculture and insurrection became inseparable. It was dirty, chaotic, often self-destructive, and filled with contradictions, but it carried an intensity almost impossible to imagine today within the managed sterility of contemporary urban life.
\n\nWhat terrified American society was not simply the riots or the political extremism. It was the appearance of human beings who no longer desired to be integrated into the existing order.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/8.jpg\")
\nThe Motherfuckers represented a direct attack upon the American dream because they rejected the entire psychological architecture of normality: career, patriotism, private property, productivity, family discipline, social obedience. They transformed dropping out into a collective weapon.
\n\nThis is why they remain important today.
\n\nNot as a romantic relic of the sixties, but because the central conflict of our era remains exactly the same: will human life be completely reduced to economic functionality or can new forms of collective existence emerge against the machinery of control?
\n\nAnd perhaps this is why Ben recognized something familiar in Exarchia.
\n\nBecause despite all the historical differences, he once again entered a territory where people were attempting—however imperfectly—to reclaim life from the structures managing it, refusing ideological purity and political branding and living together in political and social antagonism against the establishment.
\n\nCommunal kitchens / Occupied buildings / Illegal assemblies / Underground art / Collective risk.
\n\nFriendships formed inside repression / People discovering each other again through struggle instead of competition.
\n\nThis was always the real battlefield.
\n\n\n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/6.jpg\") \n | \n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/5.jpg\") \n | \n
The dominant culture constantly tries to convince us that capitalism is natural—to accomplish this, it destroys every social experience that could generate another perception of reality. Isolation becomes normality. Competition becomes common sense. Fear becomes social organization. Human beings cease to imagine freedom because they cease to experience collective power.
\n\nThe Motherfuckers and other anarchist and autonomous movements across the world have sought to explore the opposite possibility: that people can become ungovernable when they rediscover themselves and each other outside institutional mediation.
\n\nFor this reason, the system always attempts to neutralize rebellious movements in two ways simultaneously: through repression and through cultural absorption.
\n\nPolice attack bodies. The spectacle attacks memory.
\n\nEvery radical gesture is eventually transformed into style, merchandise, or harmless mythology. The revolutionary becomes an icon. The outlaw becomes an aesthetic reference. The living experience of revolt is emptied of danger and returned safely to society as entertainment.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/10.jpg\")
The Free Social Center Nosotros.
\nBen Morea refused this domestication until the end of his life. He disappeared. This disappearance was itself a political gesture. Unlike so many public revolutionaries who slowly transformed themselves into celebrities, academics, or nostalgic commentators of their own past, Morea withdrew from visibility almost completely. Hunted by the state and exhausted by the implosions that destroyed much of the revolutionary energy of the sixties, he turned away from the machinery of political spectacle.
\n\nBut he did not surrender to normality. He did not “grow up.” He did not reconcile with the world. He did not moderate his politics or his passions. Instead, he moved toward another frontier of existence.
\n\nFar from the metropolitan centers of visibility, consumerism, and ideological production, Ben Morea spent years living close to Indigenous communities and spiritual traditions across North America. Not as an act of exotic escapism, but as part of a search for forms of knowledge and relation that industrial civilization has almost annihilated.
\n\nBen Morea speaks at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University on April 23, 2024, describing why he and his comrades had occupied the same university almost six decades earlier: “It wasn’t just to stop the war, it was to replace the ideology that created the war. The idea of occupation, a colonialist mentality. Not only did we want to stop the war, we wanted to end the mental state that would allow the war to become a reality.”
\nMany Western revolutionaries speak endlessly about liberation while remaining trapped within the same colonial mentality they claim to oppose: domination over nature, domination over time, domination over imagination, domination over the body, domination over meaning itself. Morea began searching elsewhere. In Indigenous cosmologies, communal memory, ritual practices, and non-Western understandings of land, he encountered another dimension of resistance—one far older than the modern revolutionary tradition. A resistance not centered solely on seizing power, but on preserving relationships with the Earth, the ancestors, the spirits, and collective forms of life against the expanding desert of industrial capitalism.
\n\nThis journey lends an almost mythic quality to his later life. He never became a new age guru or a “spiritual leader”—he probably hated such descriptions. For us, he embodied a rare continuity between revolt and transformation of the self. He remained, until the end, a human being searching for freedom beyond the categories offered by the dominant civilization.
\n\nAnd perhaps this is why his presence affected so many younger anarchists decades later. Because beneath the stories, the legends and the historical aura, people sensed something increasingly rare in contemporary political culture: he had truly risked his life for another world, and he had never psychologically returned from that journey.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/12.jpg\")
\nToday, in an era where even dissent is rapidly transformed into consumable identity, the legacy of Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers becomes important again not as historical nostalgia but as a living provocation. Because the catastrophe they fought against did not disappear. It expanded across the entire planet.
\n\nThe Metropolis they saw emerging in the 1960s—the society of alienation, surveillance, spectacle, and emotional paralysis—has now become almost total. Capitalism no longer simply exploits labor. It occupies attention, emotion, sexuality, language, memory, and imagination itself. Human beings are increasingly transformed into isolated economic units permanently connected to systems of consumption and digital control while simultaneously disconnected from collective experience, from nature, from physical community, and from any deeper sense of meaning.
\n\nThe result is a civilization filled with information but emptied of presence, a society of communication without encounter, visibility without intimacy, opinion without lived experience, a planetary loneliness managed by algorithms and pharmaceutical industries.
\n\nInside this landscape, the radicalism of the Motherfuckers acquires new force precisely because it was always more than merely ideological. They were fighting against a model of existence. The battlefield they fought on remains the central battlefield today.
\n\nA contemporary revolutionary cannot simply imitate the aesthetics of the sixties. The costumes, slogans, and mythology of past revolts are useless when they are disconnected from the historical necessity that produced them. What matters is the impulse beneath their actions: the refusal to allow capitalism to define the limits of reality and human possibility.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/15.jpg\")
\nTo live “against the wall” today means refusing psychological integration into the machinery of fear and passivity.
\n\nIt means defending spaces where people can still encounter each other directly outside commodified relations. It means rebuilding forms of solidarity in societies designed to fragment every collective bond. It means fighting against the war, the apartheid, the genocide, the environmental and psychological destruction, protecting zones of human unpredictability inside a civilization obsessed with management and control.
\n\nThe liberated territory is not only the occupied building or the street confrontation. It is also the communal kitchen / the underground art space / the collective garden / the occupied university and the collective house / the public assembly and the secret meeting / the barricades, the fires on the streets, the smell of benzine on my hands, and to hold you in the mist of the tear gas / the pirate radio station / the neighborhood organization of mutual aid / the friendship that survives a political defeat / the refusal of narcissism and permanent digital mediation / the defense of the imagination against the dictatorship of cynicism.
\n\nBecause cynicism has become one of the primary weapons of Power.
\n\nThe system no longer asks people to believe in a beautiful future. It merely asks them to stop believing that anything other than a dystopian future is possible. This emotional exhaustion produces populations that continue obeying not because they are convinced, but because they feel existentially defeated.
\n\nThis is why every authentic community of resistance becomes dangerous. Because it immediately threatens state power militarily and existentially, and because it reawakens suppressed human capacities: trust, collective joy, solidarity, courage, eroticism, care, spiritual intensity, and the experience of shared risk.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/18.jpg\")
Spirou Trikoupi, a squat in Exarcheia that housed nearly a hundred migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Kurdistan, and elsewhere. The squat was run by a regular weekly assembly and featured a bar, a library, and classrooms for children. Police brutally evicted it in August 2019, kidnapping the migrants at gunpoint and taking them to detention centers and concentration camps.
\nThe Motherfuckers understood that revolution without the transformation of everyday life becomes just another authoritarian structure. But they also understood the opposite danger: that counterculture without social struggle degenerates into narcissistic lifestyles and harmless bohemian consumption.
\n\nThis conundrum remains unresolved today. On one side, we see political movements emptied of poetry, desire, and imagination, reproducing the same emotional misery as the system they oppose. On the other side, we see cultural scenes obsessed with personal expression while completely detached from material struggle and collective responsibility.
\n\nBen Morea and his friends, among them Osha Neumann and many others, represented a rare attempt to hold these two dimensions together: insurrection and beauty, fury and tenderness, collective discipline and ecstatic freedom. Perhaps this is why his words in Exarchia carried such emotional force for me. He recognized that despite all defeats, despite repression, cooptation, and exhaustion, fragments of that old dream still survive wherever people attempt to create living communities of resistance in the ruins of capitalism. Not perfect communities, not ideological utopias, but temporary breaches in the social machinery. Places where people can breathe differently.
\n\nAnd perhaps this is the deepest lesson that his life can offer younger generations of anarchists, artists, and revolutionaries today: that resistance is not only the struggle against oppression. It is also the defense of human intensity against the civilization of emotional death.
\n\nTo remain capable of wonder in a world organized around despair.
\nTo remain capable of love in a culture built on contention.
\nTo remain capable of collective imagination inside systems designed to isolate consciousness.
\nTo continue creating free spaces even as history appears to collapse around us.
This was the invisible thread connecting the streets of the Lower East Side to Exarchia decades later.
\n\nNot a political model or an ideology frozen in time, but the persistence of a dangerous human desire: to live differently / to feel differently / to relate differently / and through this transformation of everyday existence, to open cracks in the apparent inevitability of this world.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/11.jpg\")
\nPerhaps this is what Ben Morea understood better than most of the revolutionaries of his generation: that the struggle for liberation is not only about changing institutions. It is about protecting the possibility of another kind of human being from extinction.
\n\nBen Morea’s life leaves behind no doctrine, no party line, no strategic blueprint that future generations could mechanically reproduce. Perhaps this is precisely why his presence continues to resonate so deeply today. He reminds us that the most powerful revolutionary experiences escape institutionalization and refuse to solidify into ideology. He belonged to a generation that believed that history could suddenly open upon new horizons. That everyday life could be reinvented. That human beings could escape psychologically, existentially, and materially from the systems shaping them.
\n\nMany of those dreams were defeated. Others were absorbed by capitalism and transformed into style, fashion, or harmless cultural memory. Entire fragments of the counterculture were commodified and sold back to society as entertainment while the economic and technological machinery of domination expanded to a planetary scale.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/14.jpg\")
\nAnd yet something survived. Not the mythology of the sixties, the romantic image of rebellion, the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, but a certain irreducible human force. A refusal.
\n\nA refusal to accept alienation as destiny.
\nA refusal to reduce existence to work and consumption.
\nA refusal to abandon collective life even in periods of historical darkness.
\nA refusal to surrender imagination to the administrators of reality.
This refusal passed through many forms across the decades: through communes, occupations, pirate radios, underground newspapers, autonomous social centers, Indigenous struggles, anti-fascist networks, street riots, collective kitchens, night attacks, artistic experiments, migrant solidarities, and invisible friendships formed in the margins of defeated movements.
\n\nBen Morea carried this force through his entire existence. Even his disappearances were meaningful. In a civilization obsessed with visibility, self-promotion, and political branding, he chose opacity, distance from fame; he chose to protect the living intensity of revolt from becoming another spectacle to be consumed. This choice gave his life a rare integrity. He remained dangerous because he never fully allowed himself to become socially legible. And perhaps this points toward one of the deepest lessons emerging from his trajectory: that revolution is not an identity.
\n\nIt is not a subculture, a career, a scene, or a posture of moral superiority. Revolution, at its deepest level, is a transformation of relations—with others, with the body, with desire, with fear, with nature, with the self and with time itself. This is why the most meaningful revolutionary moments are often experienced not as political obligation but as sudden expansions of life.
\n\nA collective meal inside an occupied building.
\nA forbidden conversation lasting until dawn.
\nThe preparation of explosives in the living room.
\nA street filled with people refusing fear together.
\nA neighborhood defending migrant residents from fascists and police.
\nA city without government.
\nA temporary experience where the loneliness imposed by capitalism suddenly cracks open and another form of existence becomes thinkable.
These moments are fragile. Often temporary. Sometimes tragic. But they leave irreversible marks inside personal and collective consciousness. Once someone has experienced this intensity, normality itself becomes unbearable.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/9.jpg\")
The Free Social Center Nosotros.
\nPerhaps this is why so many people who met Ben Morea across generations felt affected not simply by his ideas but by his presence. He carried within him traces of another relationship to reality—one shaped by collective risk, existential commitment, and lived rebellion rather than intellectual abstraction. He belonged to that increasingly rare category of revolutionaries who understood that freedom is not a future paradise guaranteed by historical progress.
\n\nFreedom exists only when people create it together in the present. Even if briefly. Even if imperfectly. Even when the entire world appears to move in the opposite direction.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/17.jpg\")
\nToday, as authoritarianism rises globally, as surveillance penetrates everyday life and war industries reorganize the killing machine, as genocide in Palestine and ecological collapse accelerate, as social existence becomes increasingly mediated by automatic behaviors and algorithms, the temptation to despair has become enormous. Many people retreat into cynicism, private survival, digital paralysis. Others seek refuge in ideological certainties that cannot address the spiritual and emotional devastation that contemporary capitalism is inflicting.
\n\nAgainst this landscape, Ben Morea’s life stubbornly demonstrates that human beings remain capable of creating liberated social spaces even within catastrophe. Small territories of intensity, lovers of Total Freedom, moments of collective beauty, communities of resistance, experiments in chaos.
\n\nThis is how I choose to understand the meaning of the phrase he whispered to me while we were walking through Exarchia: “We are winning.”
\n\nThe state had not collapsed. Capitalism had not been defeated. History had not fulfilled the dreams of the sixties. But somewhere, on another side of the planet, amid crisis, migration, repression, and social devastation, new generations were still attempting to continue the unfinished work of liberation. The fire had not been extinguished. It had simply changed languages and places.
\n\nWe fight to defend the human capacity for insurrectionary imagination, to preserve tenderness against brutality, collectivity against isolation, poetry against the administration of existence, living memory against the spectacle, and freedom against all the visible and invisible walls surrounding human life.
\n\nBen Morea is dead.
\n\nBut somewhere tonight, in occupied demolished buildings, underground gatherings, spontaneous conversations, illegal raves, and secret psychedelic ceremonies, in hidden bars and collective kitchens, in street riots, acts of solidarity, existential poetry, abstract paintings, in impossible dreams, fragments of his spirit continue moving silently through the darkness of this world.
\n\n—Tasos Sagris / Void Network
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/3.jpg\")
\nA Life in Rebellion—Ariel Uesseler
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/13/4.jpg\")
\n Adapted from de-arrest tactics popularized by participants in protests against police, this guide outlines several strategies that community members can combine with rapid response networks, patrols, neighborhood hubs, and other yet-to-be-conceived models to protect our neighbors from abduction. Ideally, people who are working together to resist ICE should organize a one-hour community defense workshop to learn and practice these skills, using this material.
\n\nUnder the second Trump administration, a combination of federal agencies has been carrying out federal immigration enforcement operations, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). By late 2025, CBP had overtaken ICE as the lead agency, generalizing its cowboy tactics and supplanting the leadership of ICE; as a result, the distinction between ICE and CBP has functionally dissolved in street scenarios.
\n\nCBP and ICE agents, many of them recent recruits pursuing the $50k sign-on bonus, have very little training of any kind and almost no training in crowd control tactics. They are undisciplined, erratic, ideologically motivated, likely to break with standard procedure, and easily overwhelmed by crowds—especially if a crowd can create distance between them and their cars. This stands in stark contrast to local police, who are trained extensively in crowd control, familiar with procedure, ideologically heterogeneous, and largely risk-averse. Consequently, our strategies for dealing with these agencies must be different.
\n\nWe often see immigration operations involving caravans of four to eight officers, with two in each vehicle. Their modus operandi is to get in and out quickly, visiting the homes and workplaces of immigrants or racially profiling people and snatching them off the street. They also tend to repeatedly target particular hotspots, such as Home Depot locations, big-box stores, and other day laborer hiring corners where they know they can reliably find people and abduct them in untargeted sweeps.
\n\nParticipants in community defense projects can adapt their approaches to both the dangers that CBP pose and to CBP’s specific vulnerabilities, as explained here. With these skills, participants can practice tactical thinking, real-time risk assessment, and collaboration in teams using diverse tactics and techniques.
\n\nTo practice these skills in a workshop, you will need:
\n\nThe purpose of this practice is to demonstrate how disorienting it can be for an agent if people are surrounding them and shouting at them, even if the people never actually touch the agent or engage in more active de-arrest techniques. Facilitators should introduce swarm at the beginning of the training and emphasize it as the primary tactic that has proven effective. Do not skip practicing swarm in small groups! While the other de-arrest maneuvers are exciting to learn, swarm is the foundation of the other tactics.
\n\nBreak into groups of four and distribute the following roles in each group:
\n\nAs the agent approaches the target, the responders should try to get in the way without touching them by:
\n\nGenerally, the responders practice creating chaos and encroaching on the agent’s space without making physical contact. Even absent other techniques, swarming creates a chaotic and disorienting experience that makes it more likely for the agents to withdraw, and builds participants’ comfort in engaging in different types of intervention to try to stop a kidnapping, rather than simply remaining at a distance and documenting. For many, this could be the first time they’ve experienced shouting at another person or assertively taking up space. Facilitators should communicate that swarming in all forms is brave, useful, and necessary.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/3.svg\")
\nThe second fundamental technique to cover is the “Gable grip.” It can be an effective tool in situations where we might want to keep ourselves or our comrades out of law enforcement’s hands. In encounters like this, linking our own hands together often feels organic. However, the grip that comes naturally, interlacing our fingers together with our thumbs over one another, leaves us in a weak and vulnerable position: it’s easier to pull apart, and you may end up with broken fingers.
\n\nInstead, try this:
\n\nThis grip leverages the muscles in your arms as well as those in your hands and fingers, making it stronger and harder to break apart and reducing the risk of broken fingers. It’s also easy to teach and fundamental to many other techniques in community defense tactics.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/6.svg\")
\nYour stance is the most fundamental technique; everything else depends on it. In daily life, most of us assume a neutral stance, keeping our legs straight and alternating between hyperextending and slightly bending our knees. In a society built around standing for prolonged periods, this saves us energy; however, it does not brace us, and leaves us very vulnerable to pushing or pulling. Because most people do not realize this, it helps to demonstrate this physically.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/11.svg\")
\nInstead of standing straight, try this:
\n\nWith a lower and more balanced center of gravity, this stance should increase your stability and put you in a state of active readiness, more mobile and ready to respond to sudden movements. A physical demonstration will help to show the advantages of this stance over a standard upright stance; it should be harder to push or pull the person in a proper stance.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/2.svg\")
\nIn this stance, you can also brace or be braced by another person. Bracing is best practiced against light resistance. Have participants partner up into groups of three or four, assume a bracing stance, and practice applying pressure against one another. Aim to minimize the distance between the two partners who are braced; the person in the back should support the one in front. Have the person in the back put their arms under their partner’s arms, with their hands in front of their partner’s chest, and seal their hands in a gable grip.
\n\nPartners who are bracing should mirror their stances. The non-braced partners should pull on the first braced person’s arms, attempting to pull the braced partners apart. Start with unidirectional pressure and gradually move towards more erratic movement, moving back and forth, while remaining braced.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/7.svg\")
\nThis is also the stance to use when bracing with shields, should that prove useful. However, in most street situations, fluidity is key, especially when dealing with erratic and inexperienced agents. In these situations, committing yourself to a defensive position should be a last-resort tactic. Start by creating commotion and staying mobile.
\n\nThere are times when it may become unwise to remain braced. If you are bracing with a partner, make sure you are attentive to what the other person wants. If they want to get out, let them!
\n\nIn some circumstances, it may be useful to form a human chain or blockade line to block law enforcement, whether to protect the entrances of a building that agents are trying to enter, to prevent agents from reaching a person they are pursuing, or to block a vehicle—although ICE and CBP are much more likely to keep driving and run people over than most cops. While a human chain with bracing offers some protection against being grabbed and can impede agents, it will not protect people from less lethal munitions or other weapons. In action settings, it could be combined with other defenses, such as shields or umbrellas to protect from munitions.
\n\nThe human chain combines stance, grip, and bracing. Try it:
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/5.svg\")
\nTrainers and other participants can pretend to be law enforcement and attempt to pull someone from the human chain or to push through it. Test out how much of a difference it makes to add an additional row of people bracing those in the front of the chain. Be aware that those on the edges of the human chain will be most vulnerable.
\n\nPeople sometimes default to forming a human chain when this does not make sense—for example, in situations in which the line actually blocks people, trapping them between the line of demonstrators and law enforcement, or preventing those who need to flank law enforcement from reaching them. Be clear on your goals in forming a blockade line; remain aware of where the line is positioned relative to other people and what role it is serving.
\n\nIn the following scenarios, people can practice the skills introduced here in concert with the usual rapid response protocols—filming, recording information for hotlines and rapid response networks, providing information about legal rights, writing down the target’s information to contact their loved ones, and the like.
\n\nAssign the following roles:
\n\nBegin with all the agents, one target, and two responders. There should be something indicating the location of the agents’ vehicle(s). You may also indicate a business or home—get creative and adapt the scenario to your local context. All other responders line up and wait for the signal to join.
\n\nEach time the conductor signals, another responder joins the scene. With the first two people likely covering the tasks of getting the person’s information and filming, new people should take on other roles, like getting in the way, distracting the agent, getting between the agents and their car, shouting at the agent, or trying to draw others in. New strategies become possible as more people join.
\n\nThe agents’ goal is to move the target(s) to the car. The scenario ends when the crowd de-arrests the person or the agents successfully get the target(s) into the car and depart.
\n\nParticipants will likely be excited to practice their new moves. That’s great! However, facilitators should emphasize that in actual encounters, agents will likely be violent, less-restrained, use less-lethal munitions, and possibly brandish firearms. Participants should focus on practicing communication skills and ongoing risk assessment based on the crowd size and composition and the unfolding situation.
\n\nFacilitators may opt for a rule that responders cannot make physical contact with an agent until all participants are in play, which the conductor will signal.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/4.svg\")
\nIn a second scene, several people are assigned to play the role of responders who think they should only film. It is up to other participants to persuade them to intervene in a more active way. Each person in this role should choose a reason they will not intervene, and the other responding community members must convince them to put down their phones and start acting.
\n\nDebrief after each scenario, discussing how things went and why.
\n\nAbolish ICE!
\n\nBe Sand, Find a Gear!
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/07/9.svg\")
\nOn May Day, anarchists in Portland participated in two black blocs, adding a confrontational edge to public protests. As anger against the economy and the government spreads alongside desperation and despair, it’s up to us to create opportunities for collective action.
\n\nAnarchists organized various events in the lead-up to May Day in Portland, Oregon. On May Day’s eve, we held a ritual for the anarchist dead, mourning both friends and forebears. Such practices are important not just to facilitate emotional processing, but also as means of torch-carrying and world-making.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/8.jpg\")
\nIf that had been all that anarchists had organized, it would have sufficed, but it was just the beginning.
\n\nMay first proper began when a prominant reactionary, counter-protester, and streamer Tommy Allen, known on the internet as Tommyboi or Tommy4Trump, woke up to find that his car had been vandalized. Tommy Allen walks the line between MAGA and neo-Nazi, sporting apparel connected to European Kindred, a neo-Nazi prison and street gang. A few weeks ago, he was apparently bear-maced after attacking a presentation on the Breaking the ICE: Lessons from the Resistance in Minnesota tour.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/4.jpg\")
\nThat same morning, the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement staged a sit-in blockade at the Hilton-owned Porter Portland hotel in response to their decision to house mercenaries from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, and other Department of Homeland Security agencies. The sit-in ended when Portland Police arrested eight accused participants. Sunrise Movement PDX also made the news recently for being the first chapter to experience lawfare attacks over their nighttime “Wide Awake” noise demos targeting hotels that house federal agents. It may seem tragic that these young people—who wholeheartedly desire to stop the machine that places profit above life—imagine it is useful to get arrested on purpose, but if we cannot offer points of entry for them to encounter other methods and more critical analysis, then we are partly responsible for the tragedy.
\n\nAround noon, a radical community fair got underway at the departure point of the “Workers & Migrants Unite!” march that was scheduled to begin three hours later. Groups like the Industrial Workers of the World and anarchist literature distribution projects spent three hours tabling and talking to interested passersby and demonstrators. The Free Society People’s Library brought their mobile truck and distributed books and pamphlets about abolitionist, communist, and anarchist struggle. There were many liberal and authoritarian socialist groups tabling, as well, but anarchist materials were as popular as ever.
\n\nMonths ahead of May Day 2026, a loose cluster of anarchists learned that an array of more or less radical organizations were calling for a “Workers & Migrants Unite!” May Day march. The organizers included anarchists, but also the left flanks of unions, anti-deportation groups, and hierarchical political parties ranging from social democrats to niche variants of Stalinism, Trotskism, and Maoism. With so much antagonism already in the air towards capitalism and the state, many surmised that it would worth engaging with the march as a space of encounter. Ever since federal mercenaries attacked the ICE Out of Labor march, opposition to police has been fomenting in rank-and-file unions, anti-deportation front groups, and other circles around Portland.
\n\nThe organizers of the march explicitly declared that they would not be working with the police and would use the march as an oppurtunity to highlight local sites of capitalist and police-state infrastructure. It looked like a great oppurtunity to spread anarchist ideas and action models and to join forces with other disaffected people. Of course, it was still possible that attacks on capitalist and state infrastructure would be seen as something coming from “outside” the movement, allegedly “giving them [the Trump regime and its supporters] what they want,” and self-appointed or org-deployed peace-enforcers could no doubt be a problem.
\n\nThe rough plan to deal with this political terrain was to join the big march as a black bloc with anarchist banners and flags and, at the very least, to give out zines and handbills. If the opportunity arose and the crowd seemed comfortable with it, other activities could take place, as well.
\n\nPeople made banners out of painters cloth decorated with black paint and flags out of black fabric, staples, and dowels. These can be transported in guitar cases if it is important not to attract attention.
\n\nAfter the community fair, anarchists bloc’d up, growing in numbers to about two dozen. One person who had just donned black and a mask and was making their way to the others, was stopped by a passerby, who asked, “Who are you with?”
\n\nThe question gave the lone anarchist pause. There are many different reasons someone might ask such a thing. Still, they decided to go with honesty. “I’m with the anarchists,” they answered.
\n\nThe inquirer persisted. “Who’s that?”
\n\n“We’re against corporations, capitalism, the police, and government. Oh, and racism.”
\n\n“All right, I’m with you.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/1.jpg\")
\nThousands participated in the march. Anarchists distributed zines and handbills to hundreds of them. About a dozen people made the “thank you for your service” joke, which is also a way for people who attended a march in their normal clothes to flag their support for potential self-defense or direct action. The bloc shouted chants that pushed an insurrectionary and revolutionary position amid the tepid slogans of the surrounding groups, joining the other groups for the more revolutionary chants. Some moved out of the bloc to sabotage parking meters and paint slogans and anarchist symbols. Anarchist graffiti appeared on the Portland World Trade center, which houses the Portland Metro Chamber, a pro-development, pro-cop, and anti-worker group. All of this was met with support from the crowd.
\n\nThe only person with a problem was an aggresive man filming with his phone who took issue with people sabotaging the meters, despite the fact that parking enforcement in Portland is particularly draconian and largely serves to fund transit cops. This chud was successfully rebuffed, his camera often being blocked by an umbrella. Some speculated that he was a Democrat who believed outlandish theories about anarchists and antifa. He is still a chud, insofar as a chud is anyone who engages in extra-state repression; the term comes from a science fiction movie in which Cannibal Humanoid Underground Dwellers do what the state and capitalists cannot do themselves without dirtying their image. Other more right-wing chuds showed up, but they hid behind the small handful of uniformed cops.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/2.jpg\")
\nThe bloc at this march was less impressive than what we have previously seen on May Day in Portland, but it was undoubtly a success. After the march, the bloc dispersed with no incidents. Some left the streets for the day, while others headed to the starting location of the next demonstration, which would be marching on the infamous ICE Field Office on Macadam Ave.
\n\nBetween the two marches, Portland State University students occupied a building for a few hours in an attempt to push forward the struggle to fight cuts, obtain better adjunct working conditions, and resist repression of student activists. The students eventually surrendered in response to an overwhelming police presence; thankfully, no one was arrested. Upon leaving the building, students announced, “Nothing is over, we will be back.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/3.jpg\")
\nThe second march of the day was called for by Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the aligned group Portland Contra las Deportaciones. FRSO, for all their faults (which include peace-policing), have been trying to push the struggle against ICE to include actual interventions resisting raids, in contrast to others’ stance in favor of only observing. They have also sought to ensure that the government of the City of Portland’s collaboration and facilitation of ICE doesn’t go unnoticed, routinely organizing home demos at the mayor’s house.
\n\nThis “All out for May Day!” march to the ICE Field Office and the ensuing siege went pretty much as expected. People gathered in Elizabeth Caruthers Park and made their way to the Field Office; after night fell, there were probably a hundered or so people surrounding the front of the Office with a bloc likely twice the size of the one that attended the earlier march. The only unexpected detail was that the feds switched from using the gated front driveway to using the rear driveway, which is supposed to be for emergencies only. As the night passed, feds from inside the building did survaillance while the the Oregon State Police and the Portland Police Bureau did their dirty work. These local and state cops cleared the driveway with brute force and made several arrests; officers punched people in the head who were already on the ground and engaged in other typical cop activity.
\n\nThis contrasted with the earlier “Workers & Migrants Unite!” march, at which we had only seen a handful of uniformed cops, with some motorcycle cops tracing the march’s perimeter at a distance of about two blocks, a couple liaison cops positioned to protect chuds or key choke points, and a few plainclothes cops tailing the march. Of the cops in plainclothes, the two that were the most identifiable were Lt. Franz Shoeing and Sgt. Ty Engstrom; they also made their way to the ICE Field Office eventually, where they were accompanied by a third cop in a white hoodie rocking what could only be described as a “copstache.”
\n\nThe differing police tactics at the two marches illustrates the “good cop” and “bad cop” methods of crowd control. At the first march, where there were more witnesses, the police left the demonstrators to police each other—a strategy that usually works, thanks to march marshals, peacekeepers, and concerned citizens. At the second march, which was rowdier, potentially more actually disruptive to the logistics of the state, but also more out of the way, the police employed violence without restraint in defense of property and their compatriots in the federal forces.
\n\nPolice violence should come as no surprise. It is more surprising that there was support for confrontation at the big-tent May Day demonstration. This should inform future actions.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/5.jpg\")
\nOn May 2, someone apparently crashed a Nissan Rogue with pipe bombs and propane tanks inside it into the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, which caters to a wealthy clientele. This destroyed the club’s first floor, inflicting millions of dollars in damages. The only casualty was the driver, who was found in the flaming wreckage of the car.
\n\nThis comes on the heels of several related individual expressions of anger and despair, including the Kimberly-Clark Warehouse arson in Ontario, California, the firebombing of the gate of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home, and the attempted attack at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Condemning such attacks, to paraphrase Emma Goldman, would be like condemning lightning: so long as tyranny and exploitation exist, there will probably be arsons and bombings and assassinations. This is almost a matter of physics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. However, to regard these attacks as a sort of memetic path to insurrection misses the point.
\n\nAn uptick in sporadic attacks does not add up to a viable revolutionary practice. People are taking action because they are desperate, but the problem is that these actions do not make it any easier for other desperate people to act, and they send the message that the inexorable consequence of taking action is defeat and capture or death. Even Luigi Mangione, who carried out the most widely resonant and discursively generative action of this kind in years, was caught. The fact that it took some days for the authorities to catch him contributed significantly to the interest he attracted.
\n\nWe need to demonstrate that it is possible to take action together, to get away with it, and to act again—to show that action can be a basis for connection and life, rather than a final rejection of hope. We need to demonstrate an affective position and ethic that others can adopt and iterate on. The fact that people are increasingly desperate makes it all the more pressing to send a message to the disaffected—especially those who recognize the limits of conventional protest and the dead ends of electoral politics—that they are not alone, that many other people have reached the same conclusions and feel the same urgency.
\n\nThe emotional atmosphere of our time has successfully intimidated many people out of acting boldly, confrontationally, and collectively. Near the end of the Biden era, participants in the fight against Cop City in Atlanta wrote that the authorities had sought to “scoop the middle frequencies” out of the movement, creating a gulf between legal public actions and illegal individual actions:
\n\n\n\n\nBut it is precisely the middle frequencies of a movement that give it its punch—making its rhythms infectious, enabling it to move people and draw them into a process of transformation. Without these frequencies, the results will be muddy and indistinct.
\n\nIf activists cannot re-assert their right to gather publicly for “mid-range” activities, nocturnal sabotage and civic actions will drift further and further apart, becoming mutually unintelligible and incapable of reaching those outside the movement. Regardless of individual preferences, everyone must recognize the importance of participatory, confrontational activity.
\n\n \n
One of the ways we can attempt to reach the disaffected is by going to the beacons intended to draw them in, such as big May Day marches or even “No Kings!” marches. However, this may not succeed in situations where the mechanisms of political capture are already effectively implemented—for example, you’re not going to have an easy time getting proletarians to see things your way at a Trump rally. Likewise, passing out handbills at gas stations, where so many people are being forced to think about economics and geopolitics right now whether they wish to or not, would probably be more effective than trying to court people at a Democrat campaign event.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/6.jpg\")
\nAll in all, it was a great May Day, and it’s only the beginning of something, as many of us are stretching our legs and testing the waters again after a downturn in anarchist activity. Let us heed the advice of Alfredo Bonanno, with whom many anarchists may have unknowningly shared the streets on various May Days, and not abandon intermediate struggles that could mutate in an insurrectionary direction. “Dynamite can explode in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it.” Let us not leave those who are compelled to take a next step in struggle out in the cold without effective techniques or insurgent horizons. Let us demonstrate that there is something effective that we can do together.
\n\nLet’s fight for social revolution, in earnest.
\n\nCheers to comrades who took to the streets the world over.
\n\nDown with capitalism and the state.
\n\nDown with borders, prisons, and police.
\n\nAway with any future that still includes exploitation, domination, and class society.
\n\nHurrah for anarchy!
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/03/7.jpg\")
\nWhat shared principles could serve as the foundation for a powerful movement against the persecution of immigrants? We suggest ten baselines for collective struggle.
\n\nThis text emerges out of discussion and organizing among partisans of color and others impacted by the violence of the border, synthesizing lessons from the past twenty years of resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These perspectives are informed by our experiences as people directly targeted by immigration, policing, and white supremacy and as aspiring revolutionaries involved in movements from Los Angeles and Chicago to the Twin Cities and the southern borderlands. Here, we attempt to articulate common principles for our movement, in hopes of working together effectively to create a future beyond borders, policing, and racial violence.
\n\nYou can download this text as handbill here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/29/ice-melts-in-the-spring_front.jpg\")
Download, print, and share PDFs.
\n1. We are in a fight with the federal government. This means taking risks, and the law will not always be on our side. Stopping ICE will require more than legal observing, reform, and other strategies that play within the rules of the existing order. We can only stop ICE through mass resistance that interrupts, prevents, and deters deportation operations. We should evaluate tactics and strategies according to how much they enable people to engage in this kind of resistance. For example, the mass distribution of whistles and other tools that equip people to intervene against ICE and police operations is a step towards the kind of resistance we need.
\n\n2. We do not police the actions of other protesters. No one way works. It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down. The mass resistance we need cannot be directed by any one group or limited to any one strategy. It will require many different approaches and experiments, filling different roles in the struggle towards abolishing ICE. We should seek to make our efforts complementary and collaborative rather than trying to control or denounce each other.
\n\n3. No one person or organization can speak for all immigrants or organizers. Anyone claiming to should be viewed with suspicion. No community is a monolith. Immigrant organizers themselves differ on what strategies are best, what the movement’s ultimate goals should be, and what tactics they support. We should not unthinkingly defer to any one organizer or group, but develop our own analyses, articulate our own proposals, and respectfully talk through our disagreements.
\n\n4. We keep us safe by fighting together. Though some will tell us to defer to the most cautious and “respectable” elements in this movement, we should follow the lead of those who demonstrate the most effective tactics. Immigrants have long been at the forefront of resisting the deportation machine: besieging ICE facilities, blockading highways and airports, organizing resistance from inside detention centers, taking the streets, and chasing ICE out of neighborhoods. Many immigrants believe that the greatest chance of safety and collective power is to be found in direct resistance.
\n\n5. There are no good pol/ICE; there are no bad immigrants and no bad protesters. All immigrants deserve the same access to a life with dignity and community that citizens do. All protesters who face attacks from the government and stand strong without turning on the movement deserve our support. The regime wants to divide us according to false dichotomies—respectable/criminal, documented/undocumented, upper class/lower class, guilty/innocent, civil/uncivil, violent/non-violent. This is a strategy to turn us against each other so they can defeat us. We want to de-escalate all conflict that isn’t with the enemy. We stand in solidarity with all who are disrupting ICE and resisting the criminalization of immigrants.
\n\n6. Turn to each other, not politicians. This violence did not begin with Trump. Entrenched politicians of all stripes have perpetuated it for decades. Across the country, local politicians claim to oppose ICE while sending police to suppress the resistance or making backroom deals with the regime. Politicians will not save us. At best, they are powerless; at worst, they are complicit. We must build the collective power and resources we will need to defend our communities ourselves.
\n\n7. Stop waiting for permission. We all have a responsibility to take the initiative in the fight against ICE. Our oppressors win by convincing us that we lack the power to act immediately for liberation—that we must wait for permission or guidance from authorities, leaders, or specialists. A culture of resistance emerges from the recognition that all of us have the ability to imagine different realities, the power to act to bring about those realities, and the responsibility to do so. The density of many different autonomous projects is what has made the resistance against ICE effective.
\n\n8. Build trust to defeat fear. A genuinely popular movement will require rapidly building new relationships and trust on the basis of shared values or shared experience taking action together. Taking small risks together today can prepare us to take bigger risks together tomorrow. There are many forms of action that do not require high levels of preexisting trust—for example, mass Signal chats enable rapid response work more effectively when they are open to everyone who needs to coordinate. Work with people you know and trust on projects that involve greater risk or sensitive information. Sometimes, moving at the speed of trust means moving at the speed you can chase off an ICE van.
\n\n9. Leave no one behind. We should not settle for empty promises or minor reforms intended to placate us. We don’t want to push ICE off our streets only to have local cops do their dirty work for them. We refuse deals that would make us choose between the freedoms of different communities, trading minor gains for some people for increased policing or misery for others. The unity of our resistance in the streets and our neighborhoods has taught us that none of us are free until all of us are free.
\n\n10. Be a good neighbor. We must overcome decades of division and exclusion that have turned us against each other, instilling fear of those who look different, speak different languages, practice different traditions, or have less wealth or property. Excluding people endangers them and weakens our communities. Let us build bridges across all lines of division, fostering a culture of neighborly love based on collective care and abundance. We need communities built on respect, understanding, and celebrating our differences—neighborhoods where people can root into relationships to each other without fear of being displaced at the whim of a landlord, corporation, or government.
\n\nOur lives and liberation depend on it.
\n\nYou can find more coverage of the fight against ICE here.
\n\nWhat do we want for May Day? In short, to take another step towards freedom from all forms of oppression—towards what we call anarchy, by which we mean egalitarian relationships based in self-determination, solidarity, and mutual aid. Anarchists have been central to May Day since its origins as a labor holiday in 1886, when police in Chicago attempted to suppress anarchist labor organizers who were fighting for right to the eight-hour workday. Today, as intensifying authoritarianism propels more and more people into action, we have a window of opportunity to make real change. Towards that end, we present some starting points and a handbill to promote them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/what-we-want-for-may-day-2026-2up-preview.png\")
Click the image to download and print the PDF.
\nThis year, inspired in part by the massive general strike in the Twin Cities on January 23 in response to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement terror campaign, many people around the country are calling for a general strike on May Day. Fully one in four adults in Minnesota participated in the January 23 general strike in some way. We probably won’t see anything approaching that scale in most of the country on May Day, but nonetheless, it is a step towards building the collective capacity to use economic leverage against capitalists and despots.
\n\nVarious liberal organizations are calling for strikes and boycotts. To carry off a real general strike, however, will take more than a voluntary pause in working and consuming. Much has changed in the economy since the powerful strikes of the early 20th century that won the rights workers are now losing. The shift of the majority of workers from industrial production jobs into the service industry and the introduction of automation have made it much more difficult to paralyze the economy simply by walking out of our workplaces.
\n\nA few years ago, we published a detailed analysis of the last two general strikes that occurred in Oakland, California (in 1946 and 2011), exploring how labor and labor struggles have changed over the past century and how this ought to inform our efforts to update the strike and other forms of resistance for the 21st century.
\n\nWe summarized our findings thus:
\n\n\n\n\nWhat would a modern-day general strike look like? It would involve a broad range of precarious workers, unemployed people, and other rebels taking disruptive action to shut down the economy from outside. However the strike might begin, it would have to proliferate horizontally, spreading beyond any single demographic as a contagious rebellion exceeding the control of any organization. It would entail targeting the choke points of the economy—physical locations like ports, highways, and distribution centers as well as online venues and other forms of infrastructure, not to mention the workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and prisons in which most of us spend most of our lives. It would necessitate defying politicians, union representatives, community leaders, and everyone who defends their legitimacy. It would be controversial. To persist, it would require seizing and redistributing resources. Many of these actions would take place within workplaces, but to center the agency of official unions or other organizations that have legal standing under capitalism would be to ensure defeat in advance.
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/1.jpg\")
Demonstrators in Chicago display a banner during the “No Kings” protest on March 28, 2026.
\nTemporarily shutting down the economy is only one step on the road towards a better world. We also have to identify the changes that we want to make and move towards them proactively.
\n\nAt a time when “Abolish ICE” has become a viable political proposal, there is now a risk that people will be drawn into passive electoral programs, mistaking them for radical social change. Why is this dangerous?
\n\nThe uprising of 2020—the most powerful social movement in living memory—began when people took direct action to impose consequences on the Minneapolis police for murdering George Floyd. In response to the burning of the Third Precinct, millions of people around the country leaped into action. The movement only reached a plateau when reformists regained control, proposing to defund the police through municipal initiatives rather than grassroots action. By the time it became clear that local and state governments were never going to do any such thing, the movement had lost its momentum.
\n\nThe lesson is clear: we have to become capable of making the changes we desire directly. Governments will only grant us what they know we can accomplish for ourselves.
\n\nThe best way to distinguish our proposals from those of electoral reformists is to organize actions via which people can immediately achieve concrete effects. These actions should transform the participants’ relationship to their own agency, enabling them to develop a stronger sense of their power and a clearer understanding of the advantages of grassroots horizontal organizing.
\n\nEngineering consists of breaking down a big goal into a series of achievable concrete tasks. We would do well to work out what the steps are to doing away with autocracy once and for all, and propose things that people can do right now to take a step towards this. At the same time, we should also spell out the subsequent steps in the process, the ones that we are aiming to build capacity to undertake, so that reformists are not able to usurp momentum for social change.
\n\nThe movement against ICE in the Twin Cities demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach. Once a large number of people understood that they could make a difference by forming rapid response networks and engaging in other forms of direct action, the power dynamics in the Twin Cities shifted and the Trump regime was forced to dial down its assault. Once again, the movement went no further only because it was not clear to enough people what the next step in the process might be. We need to promote a wide array of reproducible grassroots tactics that can be taken up far outside radical circles—ideally, tactics that aren’t especially difficult or costly to try out in relation to what one can achieve by using them—and popularize a clear roadmap to social change that does not rely on parties or politicians.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/6.jpg\")
Anarchists march through downtown Seattle on May Day 2012, en route to smash up the same Niketown outlet famously damaged by demonstrators against the 1999 World Trade Organization summit.
\nA few starting points.
\n\nEnd the targeting of immigrants. All who have been imprisoned or deported must be free to rejoin their loved ones. Block ICE everywhere they try to terrorize communities.
\n\nVolunteers in Chicago and the Twin Cities have demonstrated how to organize rapid response networks to resist ICE operations. The next step is to discuss what kind of collective action could serve to shut down the detention centers and free those held captive there.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/2.jpg\")
Demonstrators participate in a protest initiated by Jewish groups against ICE detention camps in Boston on July 2, 2019.
\nEveryone imprisoned for resisting the Trump regime must go free. That includes the brave fighters from the Twin Cities and Los Angeles, the Prairieland defendants, and those captured for resisting the rise of fascism before Trump took office.
\n\nTo support defendants and prisoners today, you can host a fundraiser event or a noise demonstration outside a jail or prison. To bring them home tomorrow, look for means of pressure via which to put politicians and capitalists in a position in which it is better for them to call for amnesty for all.
\n\nGet US troops and weapons out of the Middle East and Latin America. End military support to the Israeli government. Find leverage points to respond to threats to murder civilians, seize Greenland, or use nuclear weapons. Take direct action to shut down the arms companies responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
\n\nHow can ordinary people exert leverage on the foreign policy of an authoritarian government? The blockades and university occupations with which demonstrators have pressured Boeing, Raytheon, and other pillars of the military-industrial complex offer one starting point.
\n\nAbolish ICE and DHS. These institutions exist to oppress us. Those who have joined or remained in these agencies under Trump have shown their true colors. Any politician who continues to support them is paving the way for totalitarianism.
\n\nDisrupt ICE and Department of Homeland Security recruiting events. Stigmatize serving federal agencies as a mercenary inflicting violence on communities. Organize demonstrations exerting pressure on vulnerable Democrat politicians not to fund DHS under any conditions, regardless of whether Republicans agree to reforms.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/4.jpg\")
A sign displayed during protests against the Portland ICE facility at the end of January 2026. Photograph by Alissa Azar.
\nOligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg want to use AI to eliminate jobs, carry out mass surveillance, and massacre entire populations. Block Flock cameras, data centers, and data harvesting.
\n\nPeople around the country are mapping and disabling Flock surveillance cameras and mobilizing to oppose the construction of data centers. Above all, we should spread the understanding that tech moguls are fundamentally aligned with an autocratic political agenda.
\n\nWages have flattened while inflation skyrockets. People can barely afford food, rent, and healthcare while billionaires rack up record profits. Fight back through strikes and acts of mass refusal.
\n\nThe political crisis in the United States today is the consequence of economic processes that have been underway for generations. The rise of fascism is not a fluke brought about by the demagoguery of a single individual, but the logical outcome of profit-driven capitalism. We must develop the capacity to strike, blockade, and shut down the economy as a step towards completely reinventing our economic relationships and redistributing resources on an egalitarian basis.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/5.jpg\")
Demonstrators in New York City march in solidarity with those in the Twin Cities resisting ICE on January 23, 2026.
\nCultivate mutual aid projects, community education projects, and other social infrastructure outside the state that cannot be gutted by government cuts or threatened by crackdowns on schools and non-profit organizations.
\n\nEvery community can organize regular Really Really Free Markets and other forms of mutual aid infrastructure through which people can interchange resources and meet their needs collectively. These should be a step towards creating communities that are able to take action together on a massive scale.
\n\nNo political party will do these things for us. We have become able to accomplish them ourselves. We can’t win the lives we deserve through elections, neither the midterms nor in 2028. We reject the false promises of a return to the Biden years—the very years that brought Trump back to power. We are fighting for dignity, freedom, and well-being for all. A life worth living!
\n\nDemocrats’ attempts to preserve an unbearable status quo were what got us into this mess in the first place. Nothing less than profound change will get us out of it.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/27/3.jpg\")
Demonstrators employ a parade float to protect demonstrators from police violence in Paris on May Day 2019.
\nFor many years, we have joined others around the world in observing April 15 as worldwide Steal Something from Work Day. Last year, we prophesied that the arrival of a new cast of kleptocrats at the head of the federal government of the United States would only intensify the factors that give rise to workplace theft. In fact, the first fifteen months of the second Trump administration have seen workers around the country rapidly radicalizing and escalating their efforts to counter the ongoing plunder of our society. In 2026, when Large Language Models are pillaging the intellectual heritage of humanity in order to steal everyone’s jobs while underpaid workers are burning down warehouses and carrying out direct attacks on employers, Steal Something from Work Day is the moderate option.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/15/1.jpg\")
Jason Scott of Internet Archive speaking at the 2015 Game Developers Conference. “Steal from work,” he advised a crowd of game industry professionals. “Workplace theft is the future of game history.”
\nThis year, we present two accounts from nurses who steal for the common good. In honor of the fight that people in the Twin Cities have put up against the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement occupation of their communities, we share testimony from a nurse in Minnesota who reappropriates medical supplies from the workplace to equip those who are confronting ICE in the street.
\n\nTo learn more about other ways that nurses have helped to rescue people from the clutches of ICE, you could read this.
\n\nEveryone assumes that nurses are “good.” We get treated like God’s little soldiers. Nurses often feel a sense of moral high ground. People who aren’t nurses adopt this tone when they are talking about us, too.
\n\nThis shouldn’t be the point. Often, people who see themselves as “good” do a great deal of harm in the world, while people who are behaving badly actually help people. No one should be so focused on proving that they are “good” that they miss a chance to help someone.
\n\nThere are four general categories of workplace theft at the hospital:
\n\nIf you’re a patient in a hospital and a nurse is caring for you, chances are, some element of the care they are providing you is reaching you in defiance of the system that exists to exploit both nurses and patients. When it comes to being good, don’t be afraid to be bad.
\n\nWhen Metro Surge came to Minneapolis, it felt like a hammer falling—a hammer that had been hanging over us since election day. As January got underway, we could feel the pressure rising in the administration’s increasingly violent rhetoric—while the temperature continued to drop, setting the stage for one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent memory. Still, none of us anticipated what was to come just a few days after the new year.
\n\nIn response to the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who was also a nurse, so many of us felt compelled to do something. This is one of the stories about what people did.
\n\nIf you were to ask me why I became I nurse, I would say because I want to help people. I know what it’s like to be in pain, to feel that nobody is around to help you, that all of your time and resources are going to something you cannot control, all while watching the oligarchic government and hospital CEOs slowly chip away at your life savings.
\n\nOn average, big hospital chain systems pay their CEOs between one and seven million dollars a year—while nurses are doing the real work at the bedside, risking our lives for a barely living wage. (Don’t get me started on the insurance CEOs who make between $20-30 million a year.) Manufacturing a one-liter bag of normal saline costs two dollars on average. Yet hospitals on occupied Turtle Island sell the bags at upwards of $700. Individuals who need to stay in the hospital incur costs for the room, with nursing staff and doctors adding another $2600 to $3000 a day to this cost.
\n\nAs of 2023, some 80% of the nursing workforce reported workplace violence impacting their ability to do their job. Does nobody see the correlation between this violence, the widening wealth gap, our patients’ inability to afford the care they need to survive, and the ever-growing greed of the few who want everything all to themselves? There are no beds to spare at the hospital and patients sleep in the hallways and ambulance bay, yet both rural and inner-city hospitals continue to close for lack of resources.
\n\nIn 2020, the city of Saint Paul closed St. Joes, the oldest hospital in the state of Minnesota. The community lost 253 beds at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst pandemic in modern history. In 2023, Fairview filed to sell the medical complex system that sits on both sides of the Mississippi to Stanford Health, seeking to merge the healthcare companies; if Fairview didn’t get someone to pay them out, they would have to file for bankruptcy. The CEO of Fairview, James Hereford, makes $4.3 million a year, which makes him one of the highest-earning healthcare CEOs in the Midwest. Yet the people who rely on the medical and Medicare system are the ones who are blamed.
\n\nThe “trickle-down system” is bleeding backwards, against gravity, up the pyramid to the top where the wealthy few are positioned. How can you claim to be a nonprofit company while the people at the top of the pyramid are making several millions of dollars in a year—and then nonetheless claim that the company is unable to stay afloat without a buyout?
\n\nRemember, nobody questions a nurse that looks busy.
\n\nSupply liberation and time exploitation should never come before bedside patient care. Ensure that your efforts to hold both identities as a nurse and a comrade don’t conflict with the ethical reasons you chose both sides of this work. Your goal is to decrease harm and pain: you are exploiting an unfair healthcare system while working directly with people who are in pain, many of whom understand that the system is exploiting them, too.
\n\nI liberate out of love, I expropriate in the name of harm reduction, I “steal” in the name of all of the people killed by the state of so-called Minnesota. I take in hope that these medical items can help to save or ease the lives of community members, so we don’t have to experience once again the trauma we experienced when we lost Alex, Nicole, Amir Locke, Winston Boogie Smith, Philando Castile, George Floyd, and too many others. Death at the hands of the state is so pervasive and the price of medical supplies is just too damn high.
\n\nTime theft is complicated when you’re a nurse. You work for the healthcare company, but you care for the patients; if you forget that and no longer see those you care for as human, you become part of the problem. The healthcare system is not human, and in any case, you will hurt your workplace very little by stealing things. But if you engage in time theft carelessly, you can strain the care that someone else is dependent on you for.
\n\nYou can take a longer break than your allotted time IF
\n\nYou can clock out a little late so that you can take the time to care for yourself between caring for patients and not have to rush your charting.
\n\nIf the hospital pays for your continuing education credits, you can use these to learn things that you can pass on to others in a community setting, such as diabetes education, CPR, and wound care. Rephrase the education you receive as a nurse when you present it as public-health community education: you’re not giving medical advice, but simply explaining how a body process or disease works.
\n\nIn the waning phase of Donald Trump’s reign, opportunities will open up for profound social change. Here, we explore the nature of the difficulties besetting his administration and propose a few starting places for those who aim to do more than simply replace him with another politician.
\n\nIn less than a year and a half, Trump has completely used up the advantages with which he began his second term. He has passed from appearing unstoppable to flailing pathetically. Obsessed with presenting an image of strength, Trump is indeed—as Shakespeare put it—a poor player whose hour upon the stage will soon reach its end. The stream of falsehoods and threats issuing from his administration can be seen for what it is: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
\n\nThe fiasco in Iran is already Trump’s second quagmire this year. He began 2026 with a more or less successful stunt in Venezuela—but only four days later, the murder of Renee Good supplanted it in the headlines. For almost three weeks, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement mercenaries brutalized and murdered people in the Twin Cities, the entire Trump administration brazenly lied in contradiction of widely circulating video evidence. Having created a situation in which they could not risk looking weak, Trump’s cronies attempted to dictate reality by fiat as more as more residents of the Twin Cities joined the resistance to the ICE occupation. Finally, facing plunging polling numbers and the prospect of recurring general strikes, the Trump administration was forced to change course, firing Border Patrol “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino and trying to get Trump’s signature policy (“the largest deportation operation in American history”) out of the news.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-1-original.png\")
The mercenaries who serve the Trump regime have squandered any claim to moral authority.
\nBovino’s departure set the stage for the departures of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. The fact that Trump had begun his second term determined to avoid the continuous turnover of personnel that characterized his first underscores what a defeat this is for him. As his henchmen leave in disgrace, not only does that undermine the loyalty of his remaining underlings—who can see their own future in the ignoble fates of their colleagues—it also undercuts the narratives with which the departed lackeys sought to justify the administration’s deeds. Firing Greg Bovino and Kristi Noem is tantamount to admitting that the ICE operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota were simply ham-fisted attempts to terrorize the population of the United States into submission.
\n\nIn invading Iran a month after firing Bovino, Trump sought to repair his image by repeating his apparent success in Venezuela. Instead, as in Minnesota, he stumbled into a debacle from which he has yet to extricate himself.
\n\nEveryone associated with the Trump regime is known now for continuous, pathological lying.
\nAfter continuously changing his talking points about the goal of the offensive throughout March, Trump sought to bring the conflict to a conclusion at the beginning of April by threatening massive attacks on civilian infrastructure—technically, a war crime. On April 6, Trump was still insisting that Iran’s ten-point proposal for a ceasefire was “not good enough.” The following morning, he declared “A whole civilization will die tonight,” terrifying many people into believing that he was threatening to use nuclear bombs—and perhaps unwittingly repeating the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi, who told Croesus that if he went to war, “a great empire would fall,” not specifying that it was Croesus’s empire.
\n\nAn hour and a half before his own self-imposed deadline, Trump announced that, in dialogue with the Prime Minister of Pakistan—not with any representative of the Iranian government—he had arrived at a ceasefire, calling the ten-point proposal he had previously rejected a “workable basis” for negotiations.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-2-original.png\")
From Minnesota to Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, they have nothing to offer but death and destruction for the enrichment of a few tycoons.
\nThe Prime Minister of Pakistan affirmed that the United States, Iran, and all of their respective allies had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon.” Yet the next day, the Israeli military was still attacking Lebanon, and in response, Iran continued to close the Strait of Hormuz.
\n\nIt’s hard to imagine a worse outcome for Trump. He has achieved none of his express objectives in Iran, neither regime change nor suppressing Iran’s nuclear program. He no longer appears to be a credible negotiating partner. Both his threat to target civilian infrastructure and his claim to have negotiated a ceasefire have been revealed to be hollow. Neither the Iranian nor Israeli governments are adhering to the agreements he claims to have arranged. He is forced into tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the pressure on the global economy continues unabated.
\n\nIt remains unclear whether Trump was ever seriously considering a massive strike on civilian infrastructure—or even a nuclear strike—or if he was simply making empty threats for its own sake. Regardless, having to spend a day wondering if he would deploy nuclear weapons drove home for millions of people how dangerous it is to live under a senile autocrat—and at the same time, it did not make Trump any more frightening to his enemies. He appears at once volatile and weak.
\n\nWhatever happens next in Iran, the back-to-back defeats in Minnesota and the Middle East mark another turning point for the Trump regime.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-3-original.png\")
\nWhen Trump won the 2024 election, many of the debates about how to respond hinged on the question of whether he and his colleagues were evil geniuses or witless beneficiaries of historical forces. Much of the paralysis engendered by his return to power centered around this question. Liberals warned that any kind of resistance would play into Trump’s hands, enabling him to declare martial law; centrists cynically took advantage of the situation to argue that the Democratic Party should adopt far-right positions on immigration. Scarcely seventeen months later, it’s almost impossible to remember, let alone comprehend, the extent to which his adversaries talked themselves into giving up without a fight.
\n\nThe question has since been answered conclusively. Trump has one trick—pandering to what is basest in the most cowardly and hateful elements of society—which he repeats with inhuman consistency. In a social order that is itself debased, rewarding rapacious self-interest while punishing generosity and thoughtfulness, this strategy has gotten him far. But now he is hitting one wall after another.
\n\nAssembling a government on the basis of this strategy produced agencies filled with incompetent buffoons focused chiefly on cultivating a public image and competing for Trump’s favor. Conducting state policy on this basis has turned the majority of the population against ICE and even driven people back into the arms of the Democratic Party, one of the only institutions as unpopular as Trump.
\n\nOne of the most characteristic gestures of the Trump era is willful dishonesty as a form of intentional transgression signifying strength. When Donald Trump proclaims easily-debunked falsehoods, his followers interpret this as an expression of boldness; they can demonstrate the intensity of their loyalty by proclaiming their belief in these falsehoods, just as Stalin’s henchmen did. But one cannot make military decisions on the basis of falsehoods—sooner or later, there will be consequences.
\n\nMost of Trump’s strength is comprised of the fear that he has inspired in people. His initial rapid successes, like Hitler’s blitzkrieg attacks of 1939–1941, were due to the weakness of his adversaries—politicians, executives, and administrators who, like Trump himself, are driven only by avarice and entitlement. Only after he and the mercenaries who serve him came up against real resistance did it become possible to gauge their true strength. As Mikhail Bakunin put it in a letter to Maria Reichel, “It is only in combat that we see what a person can do.”
\n\nOr cannot do.
\n\nThe chief imperative driving the Trump administration’s decisions is the need to project strength. They have staked everything on building hard power rather than soft power, on intimidation rather than persuasion. Now that they have consumed most of their political capital, the field is opening up for others.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/2.jpg\")
A demonstrator endures chemical agents in Minneapolis to stand up for what is best in humanity.
\nAfter living through the Prague Spring, Milan Kundera wrote that the ideal form of government is a crumbling dictatorship.1
\n\nAll forms of government are based in hierarchy and violence. Political and economic inequality reinforce each other: the more wealth is concentrated in a few hands, the more vertical the political structures become, and vice versa. Yet this remains largely invisible so long as people perceive the governments that rule them as legitimate, or at least inevitable. Suffering alone does not make people desire change; people desire on the basis of what they are able to imagine. Only when a discredited regime begins to collapse—creating a tension between what people see around them and what they are able to imagine—do large numbers of people begin to ask questions about how they might wish to change the structure of the society.
\n\nToday, these questions are more urgent than ever, as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widens and politicians cut away the safety nets and concessions that once offset the impact of capitalism on communities and ecosystems.
\n\nRight now, Trump is historically unpopular, with little prospect of his standing with the public improving. Yet he still has nearly three years in office ahead of him. For millions of people, Trump’s rise to power and the uselessness of the institutions that were supposed to control him are calling into question the entire political system. We can see this rage and radicalization emerging, however confusedly, among the rank-and-file participants in the massive demonstrations that have taken place over the past year.
\n\nThis is an unprecedented opportunity for anarchists, abolitionists, and others who have concrete proposals to bring about structural social change. Right now, when no institutional forces are able to propose a solution to the problem, we should be making common cause across lines of difference, demonstrating the power of solidarity and the effectiveness of direct action, sharing what we have learned in the course of our efforts to resist the administration, and spelling out our vision of a better world.
\n\nThis window of opportunity will not last long. The closer we draw to the 2026 midterm elections, the more people will be focused on electoral politics, including many of those who are currently participating in grassroots initiatives. We might be in a stronger position to address people at this moment than we ever will be again in the course of the Trump era.
\n\nOften, the moment of greatest danger—for example, when fascists or ICE agents are murdering people in Charlottesville or Minneapolis—turns out to have been, in retrospect, the moment of greatest possibility. By the time the terror has subsided and we recognize the potential of the situation, the moment is already passing.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/3.jpg\")
Federal mercenaries gratuitously assaulting people in Portland. No amount of brute force will suffice to subdue an increasingly desperate population.
\nWe should remember this, because as Trump’s position weakens, he and his supporters will attempt more and more terrifying and outlandish schemes to maintain their grip on power. He and his adherents still have enough time to inflict a tremendous amount of suffering, both in the US and overseas. We should prepare for much more aggressive rounds of repression. Likewise, we have already seen that Trump will not leave office willingly.
\n\nIn all likelihood, the outcome of the mid-term elections will be determined by what happens in the months ahead—not by how successfully politicians campaign, but rather, by the extent to which grassroots resistance makes it impossible for the ruling class to imagine that Trump could continue to advance their interests and the extent to which elements of the ruling class are able to regroup around other institutional forces, such as the Democratic Party.
\n\nAs we plan for May Day and the summer, we should take a longer view. How will the tactics that we demonstrate during these events help to familiarize large numbers of people with the sort of tactics that they will need to employ alongside us to thwart Trump’s second attempt to carry out a coup? How will the narratives that we popularize position us to keep fighting against all the other proponents of capitalism and oppression after Trump is gone?
\n\nWe should hurry to lay bare all the connections between fascists, billionaires, militarists, Zionists and Christian nationalists, cryptocurrency hucksters, tech moguls, corporate and social media platforms, federal agencies like ICE and the police and sheriffs that abet them, and the centrists and Democrats who paved the way for the tragedies of the second Trump era by suppressing grassroots resistance at the conclusion of the first. We should establish red lines within the opposition to Trump, making it unthinkable to promote or excuse any of these forces, showing how toxic the compromises with them have proved.
\n\nHere are some concrete goals that our movements could adopt:
\n\nShut down all milquetoast proposals to make superficial reforms to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, arguing instead for all-out resistance with the long-term goal of abolishing them. Those who have joined or remained in those agencies under Trump have shown their hatred for the rest of the population, making it clear that these institutions exist for the express purpose of serving autocrats. Those who have been imprisoned or deported must be permitted to rejoin their loved ones.
\nConnect the fight against ICE to the abolitionist movements against police and prisons. If Democrat politicians had not put so much effort into suppressing these movements between 2021 and 2024, social movements would have been much better prepared for the second Trump era, and the regime would have had fewer weapons at its disposal with which to impose control.
\nOrganize to free prisoners and compel prosecutors to drop charges against defendants in all cases resulting from resistance to ICE and the Trump regime in general. We can build on the refusals of grand juries to indict and juries to convict those accused of resisting ICE. As it becomes apparent to more people that the law is a political instrument serving those who hold power rather than a neutral institution, many people will seek ways of addressing injustice that do not concentrate power in the hands of a Supreme Court comprised of extreme-right reactionaries.
\nConnect the fight against Donald Trump to the fight against Flock cameras and data centers and—more generally—to the resistance to profiteering techno-fascists like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
\nChannel anti-war organizing towards targeting arms companies responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
\nShow that the ways that racism, misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry facilitate the cutthroat practices via which billionaires are impoverishing our communities.
\nBuild mutual aid projects, grassroots education projects, and other forms of social infrastructure outside the state that cannot be gutted by government austerity measures or threatened by crackdowns on academic institutions and non-profit organizations.
\nThe collapse of radical social movements at the end of 2020 is a cautionary tale. We must come out of the second Trump era stronger than we entered it. This is especially important because the real battles are only just getting underway. A wave of fascist political victories is looming in Europe, though if Trump is defeated soundly enough that may sap their momentum. Artificial Intelligence is only just beginning to drive massive numbers of people into unemployment while intensifying state surveillance and militarism.
\n\nAs we have argued before, in the 21st century, when the state can do little to mitigate the impact of capitalism, state power is a hot potato that burns whoever holds it. The same conditions that are elevating far-right parties to power around the world are also rendering it difficult for them to hold onto control. But that goes for whoever will succeed Trump, as well: if Trump is driven from office, his base will split into Zionist and neo-Nazi factions, each more virulent than the last generation of Republicans, while whatever administration succeeds him will also provoke anger and disillusionment—likely mobilizing a new wave of momentum from the far right. If what happened under the Biden administration recurs, the backlash next time will be more horrific than anything we can imagine. This is why we must address the problems that capitalism is creating at the root, not simply protest its most noxious figureheads.
\n\nWe must make sure that it is easy for everyone to distinguish our grassroots projects from any government that holds power, and continue to expand and deepen them regardless of whether there is an incompetent demagogue propelling people into the streets. As we have learned over and over—sometimes through courage, sometimes through cowardice—it is safer in the front.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/1.jpg\")
A demonstrator returns a tear gas canister to the murderers who shot it during the demonstrations in Minneapolis in May 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd.
\nIn this text, when we speak about stupidity, we do not mean a lack of natural aptitude, but rather the question of whether one chooses to make use of one’s aptitudes or to actively suppress them. By now, it should be apparent to all that the people who paved the way for Trump’s rise—many of whom are strangely obsessed with the idea that they possess natural aptitudes that others do not—have been willfully, obstinately refusing to see what is right in front of their faces. Stupidity, in this sense, is not an intellectual condition, but a moral failing.
\n\nNo one puts this more clearly than the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who witnessed the rise of the Nazis:
\n\n\n\n\nStupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
\n\nYet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what “the people” really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly.
\n\n-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “On Stupidity” in Letters and Papers from Prison
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![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/4.jpg\")
Those who choose to serve tyrants may be able to suppress everything wise and beautiful in themselves, but they will not succeed in destroying wisdom and beauty.
\nThe header photograph was taken by Mark Graves on Sunday, February 1, 2026, at Portland’s ICE facility. It was the second day in a row that federal agents attacked demonstrators with chemical agents.
\n\n“In Prague we used to say cynically that the ideal political regime was a decomposing dictatorship, where the machine of oppression functions more and more imperfectly, but by its mere existence maintains the nation’s spirit in maximum creative tension.” ↩
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