Ballots Won’t Stop Bombs

The Cowardice of Electoral Propaganda in a Time of Genocide

Yvonne Ridley’s latest article, “Marching may not save Gaza, but voting can,” is a liberal fantasy wrapped in genocide apologia. It's not just insulting—it's dangerous. In the face of mass extermination, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonial annihilation, the author dares to suggest that the solution is casting ballots in the very systems upholding that genocide.

Let’s get one thing straight: you can’t vote away a genocide orchestrated by the same governments you’re told to empower at the polls. U.S. and U.K. regimes aren’t just bystanders—they’re co-architects. Funding it. Arming it. Justifying it. And weaponizing “democracy” as a moral shield while their partners in apartheid flatten Gaza into dust.

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Voting ≠ Resistance. Voting = Maintenance.

This entire piece reads like a desperate attempt to redirect real rage into harmless rituals. It acknowledges the horror—babies amputated without anesthesia, humanitarian aid blocked, entire families incinerated—and then says: “Use your power… at the polls.”

It’s the equivalent of watching a house burn down with people trapped inside and telling bystanders, “Next time, vote for a different fire department.”

The system she wants you to vote in?

• Enables Israel’s genocide with billions in military aid.

• Criminalizes protest and solidarity.

• Smears anti-Zionists as antisemitic.

• Redlines every meaningful path to liberation.

Voting will not save Gaza. It never could.

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Liberal Guilt Alchemy: Turning Blood Into Ballots

Ridley thanks Palestinians for “opening our eyes,” as if Palestinians exist to be some moral lens for Westerners to self-actualize. She centers settler feelings—again. Your vote matters. You have the power. As if this is about the emotional awakening of white liberals, not the survival of an entire people.

This isn’t about Palestinians.
This is about pacifying Western discomfort.
It’s damage control in prose.

She writes, “The right thing isn’t bringing about the fall of Israel…” Why not? What else would you call the necessary dismantling of a settler-colonial, apartheid, genocidal regime? You want to stop genocide, but protect the state doing it?

This is liberal Zionism’s endgame:
Condemn the violence just enough to look human, but never enough to actually disrupt the system that enables it.

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The Real Threat Isn’t Votes—It’s Disruption

Politicians aren’t afraid of the ballot box. They’re afraid of global uprisings. Of divestment campaigns. Of workers shutting down arms shipments. Of students occupying universities. Of entire cities grinding to a halt because genocide is no longer tolerable. That is power.

You know what scares genocidal regimes?

Not your fucking ballot.

What scares them is refusal. Disruption. Boycotts. Sabotage. Leaks. Walkouts. Coordinated mass action that hits profits, reputation, infrastructure. That’s why the state is criminalizing protest—not voting.

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This Isn’t Harmless Optimism. It’s Genocide Whitewash.

This article isn’t just naïve—it’s violent. It neutralizes resistance in the name of civic politeness. It turns collective grief into ballots for the same death machines. It tries to keep you in line while Gaza is erased.

We are not here to play nice in the theater of liberal democracy. We are here to dismantle systems that fund and fuel genocide.

So no—voting won’t save Gaza.
But Gaza will outlive every empire that tried to destroy it.
And it won’t be because anyone colored in a circle on a ballot.