America the brave. The sweet land of liberty. With justice for all. That’s what they say as we boast of our superior military and vaunt our patriotic values. That’s what they say on the 4th of July as we gather at lake houses, dressed in red, white, and blue. America first. That’s what our leaders proclaim. After all, are we not all the sons and daughters of the fathers of liberty?
Liberty for all. A three-word phrase—so simple, yet so ambiguous. It speaks in absolute terms, as does our Constitution: Not for some. For all. In truth, the phrase “for all” should be redundant. If one believes in liberty, they must believe in it for everyone. To deny it to some is to favor privilege, and privilege is the very opposite of liberty.
Liberty is a double-edged sword. If we truly believe in it, does it stop at our borders? It cannot, because liberty, by its nature, must be universal. To restrict it only to our own people is once again an endorsement of privilege. If liberty is to mean anything, it must apply to all people everywhere. Anything less is hypocrisy.
Because of this, the United States has a moral obligation to stand with the oppressed. In one thousand instances of oppression, we must side with the oppressed one thousand times. Anything less is not liberty—it is privilege masquerading as principle.
So I ask: Who should the United States stand with in the Middle East? The Israelis—who, since October 7th, 2023, have suffered one thousand deaths, yet retain access to food, command one of the world’s strongest militaries, and enjoy recognition as a state? Or the Palestinians—who are being killed for seeking food, whose hospitals have been bombed to near extinction, who have been denied education and basic movement for decades, and who have seen over forty thousand deaths since October 7th?
If we claim to believe in liberty, our choice is clear: we must stand with the oppressed. Yet our ties to Israel bind us still.
We stood by far too long during World War II, watching the Jewish people slaughtered by the Nazis, intervening only after five million had perished. We were complacent during the Rwandan genocide, as one million Tutsi were massacred. We once sided with white South Africans who owned over 85 percent of their nation’s land and wealth despite being only 15 percent of its population.
History is written by the victors, but oppressors are never victors.
Today, the United States has the chance to prove it believes in liberty—to show that we have learned from the past, that we are willing to stand on the right side of history. Yet we remain unwilling even to recognize Palestine’s existence.
So I ask again: How much blood must be spilled before America realizes that liberty cannot exist unless it exists for all?
For What it's Worth 
Leave a comment