New Jersey, February 14—Students throughout New Jersey coordinated a student walk out in protest of the genocide in Gaza. From West Orange to Teaneck, workers and students are exposing a hub of racist Zionists and the true intentions of City Council members—to squelch anti-imperialist, antiracist rebellion and realize their dreams of Mayoral and Senator elections. Progressive Labor Party members were in attendance at these walkouts, with signs and CHALLENGE in hand to encourage our collective revolutionary potential.
In Teaneck, one PL’er held up a sign that read, “THE PRIORITIES OF US IMPERIALISM: 27,947 KILLED IN GAZA IS ACCEPTABLE! A 20 PERCENT DROP IN RED SEA TRAFFIC IS NOT.” 

Many workers and students at the march complimented the sign. When they did, the comrade would say, “If you like my sign, you’ll also like this paper” and hand them a CHALLENGE. A former Teaneck High School student said, "Yes,I'll take one—I am a communist!" And she proceeded to use the front cover as her sign while marching.

In West Orange, students chanted as they marched from the school grounds “ FROM PALESTINE TO MEXICO, THE WAR MACHINE HAS GOT TO GO!” Another PLer was able to share a chant with the students, “BIDEN BIDEN COME NOVEMBER, ALL THE VOTERS WILL REMEMBER.” Self critically, it would be stronger to alter this chant to say WORKERS instead of VOTERS but this was an opportunity to open up a conversation with students about Biden being a liberal President and sanctioning aid to Israel despite their mass murdering and bomb dropping. “I’m not going to vote for Biden in November.” One 17 year old Black student shared to the crowd. Another Indian student commented, “Biden is okay funding Israel because he doesn’t want to be at war with the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.” Stunned, I told him yes, many of my friends would and I say that Israel is an acting watchdog for the U.S. in the Middle East. 

We were able to share CHALLENGE and exchange contact information with this student and his older sister, who is a student at Rutgers. More work in exposing these students to a third option — building under the banner of PLP with revolutionary communism is being planned through an upcoming forum. With capitalism, there will always be a path to imperialist wars including World War 3, Biden and ALL the International Bosses will pull out all genocidal stops to gain power or to hold onto power.