I was five years old when the United States invaded Iraq. I have vague memories of seeing massive peace protests in big cities on the news and hearing my family bring up the war in conversation in the background. I remember a few years later, when the execution of Saddam Hussein was celebrated throughout the neighborhood as if a big football game had been won, and I remember the same celebratory attitude in 2011 that “brought Americans together” after the execution of Osama Bin Laden.

Other than these events, and the typical patriotism that’s forced upon students throughout the country, there wasn’t a lot of talk in my life about the United State’s military involvement abroad, until I went to college. For many growing up inside the imperial core, unless your family is from somewhere directly affected by Western imperialism, learning even the bare minimum about the extensive history and continuation of US and Western backed coups, sanctions and dictators, is rare.

For me, Zionism and American support for Israel was hardly questioned in my upbringing. My own synagogue and Jewish community talked about Israel as “the homeland,” even though both sides of my family can trace generation upon generation back to Eastern Europe. I was taught at a young age that anyone who dared to scrutinize Israel was “antisemitic,” and that anti-Zionist Jews were simply “self-hating Jews.” Again, it wasn’t until my early twenties, when I stumbled upon books, documentaries and podcasts about Palestine, that I was exposed to the truth of the Israeli occupation, and that what was often labeled as “terrorism” throughout my life was actually Palestinian resistance towards settler colonialism.

Like most people, I think I was always sympathetic to the idea of peace, even before my knowledge of the horrors of Western imperialism, and before becoming active in the anti-war movement. My idea of peace, though, was mostly abstraction. It seemed to me that it was a thing that could only be achieved when those in charge declared it, and once declared, could only be maintained or taken away by a few ruling bodies. I felt my only meaningful contribution towards peace was what the working class is always told it is, “vote,” and specifically, “vote blue no matter who.”

This paradigm of mine shifted in 2021, after witnessing the monumental George Floyd protests, capitalist governments to a global pandemic, and most importantly, the Democrats’ response to it all. It quickly became clear to me, and to many others, around the same time that both the Democratic and Republican parties – even those representatives who are considered to be more “progressive,” – would sooner capitulate to corporate interests than they would to the people who they are supposed to represent.

I see both parties push imperialist propaganda and get wrapped up in the fog of war against Russia and China, while the majority of us here in the US struggle to put food on the table, can’t afford to pay rent, and barely have access to proper healthcare and education. Both parties, as always, push the pro-war agenda today, as Democratic and Republican politicians work in lockstep to send billions of dollars in aid to fund Israel’s genocide.

This disillusion with “voting blue,” and with the capitalist system, led me to want to get organized in a way where I could fight for REAL peace – peace that is struggled for, won, and created by the people, not by the crumbs of the ruling class. Searching for groups who were both revolutionary and disciplined in the movement, I found the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) in 2022 at Santa Rosa’s May Day rally.

Since getting involved and becoming a member, I’ve been fortunate to organize alongside PSL and the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition organizers who have been in the struggle for Palestinian liberation for decades. Nationally and locally, the Palestinian Youth Movement, PSL, The People’s Forum, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, ANSWER, Students for Justice in Palestine, and many other organizations, have been bringing people together in historic protests in support of Palestine. For example, these groups mobilized 300,000 people to show up for Palestine on November 4t in Washington D.C., making this the largest pro-Palestine protest the US has ever seen. On the same day, San Francisco saw 50,000 people show up in solidarity. We continue to rally people to walk out of their schools and workplaces, to boycott and to shut it down for Palestine. We give our support to our siblings around the world who are going all out in the streets for Palestine.

Now is time to continue building an independent anti-war movement in the streets here in Sonoma County and across the country. As Israel wages its genocidal onslaught of terror on Gaza, funded by the US, Sonoma County members from two years old to 100 years old, from various religious and ethnic backgrounds, from labor unions and worker coalitions, are all showing up at local actions to say, “enough is enough, we demand for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege on Gaza, the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners, and a total end to our tax dollars going to aid Israel’s genocide.” We will not stop until Palestine is free.

Sarah Soss is an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and was born and raised in Sonoma County.