Peter Gelderloos delivers a blistering indictment of the political establishment's moral calculus, arguing that the distinction between major parties is not a matter of degree but of catastrophic failure when measured against human survival. This piece refuses the comfort of "lesser evil" politics, forcing readers to confront the uncomfortable reality that institutional power, regardless of its label, is actively engineering mass death through climate inaction and state-sponsored violence. It is a stark challenge to the progressive mainstream: if the system cannot stop genocide, is it not complicit in it?
The Illusion of Choice
Gelderloos opens by dismantling the prevailing narrative that electoral participation is the ultimate moral imperative. He writes, "We cannot argue for the lesser of two evils if the difference between those two evils is not enough for survival." This is the piece's foundational thesis, and it lands with force because it shifts the metric from political victory to existential threat. The author argues that when both major parties facilitate deportation, climate collapse, and war, the ethical response is not to choose one, but to reject the entire framework.
The commentary here is sharp in its refusal to accept incrementalism as a strategy for survival. Gelderloos notes that "Greenhouse gas emissions are shooting past tipping points whether it's the Right or the Left in power," suggesting that the political spectrum has narrowed to a single point of failure. He posits that anyone who frames capitalism as a manageable system is either "harmfully ignorant of what's actually going on or they have a psychopathic ability to barter unimaginable suffering for short-term profit." This characterization is severe, yet it reflects the urgency of the climate data he cites. Critics might argue that this binary view dismisses the tangible, albeit limited, protections that one party might offer over the other, but Gelderloos insists that when the baseline is extinction, those protections are insufficient.
If the difference between two choices is not enough to make the difference between life and death, we all have the responsibility to denounce both choices and create other options.
The Double Standard of Violence
The essay pivots to the most contentious issue: the ongoing war in Gaza and the disparate moral reactions to violence committed by the state versus violence committed by individuals. Gelderloos scrutinizes the media's reaction to the assassination of two Israeli government employees in Washington, D.C., contrasting it with the indifference toward the mass starvation and bombing of Palestinians. He writes, "Somebody kills two Israeli government employees who are taking large paychecks to help cover up an ongoing atrocity... and yet, that same week, the Israeli military murders 60 Palestinian civilians... and Israel's supporters and business partners are not stained at all."
Gelderloos challenges the definition of "peaceful protest" and the efficacy of non-violence in the face of what he terms genocide. He points out that the largest peaceful protest movement in history—the 2003 anti-Iraq War demonstrations—"quickly killed itself through ineffectiveness and did absolutely nothing to slow or stop the invasion." This historical parallel is used to argue that moral purity in tactics has not historically prevented mass slaughter. He questions the narrative that the assassins were acting outside the bounds of acceptable resistance, noting that the victims were engaged in "public diplomacy" to sanitize the state's image. "I can't state emphatically enough, this is a whitewash," he asserts, arguing that the purpose of such diplomacy is to enable further atrocities.
The author's framing of the victims as complicit is provocative. He details their roles: one as a researcher for the IDF, the other in public diplomacy. He argues that "there is no way the Israeli government was paying someone to do public diplomacy if that involved so much as acknowledging the ongoing genocide." This reframing forces the reader to consider the function of state employees in a war machine, rather than viewing them solely as innocent bystanders. A counterargument worth considering is that this logic risks justifying the killing of any state functionary, potentially undermining the moral high ground of the resistance movement. However, Gelderloos maintains that the scale of the state's violence renders such distinctions moot.
The Architecture of Genocide
Gelderloos moves beyond the immediate conflict to describe a long-term, systematic process of displacement and erasure. He cites statistics that are often omitted from mainstream reporting: "On a weekly basis, the Israeli state, together with paramilitary settlers, demolishes Palestinian homes, destroys Palestinian orchards and farmland, and steals Palestinian land." He highlights that in the decade prior to October 7, the military killed around 1,000 Palestinian children and injured over 100,000. The author argues that the UN's casualty counts are skewed, noting that "the UN inflates the numbers to Israel's favor, setting a lower bar for registering injuries to Israelis."
The piece is particularly critical of the language used to describe the conflict. Gelderloos observes, "Hamas didn't kill 1,195 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Their primary mission was to take prisoners to use as political leverage." He contrasts the terminology of "kidnapping" used for Hamas with "arresting" used for the Israeli detention of 10,000 Palestinians, many of whom are children. He describes the Israeli detention system as one where detainees "face 'sham trials' with 100% conviction rates, and are systematically subject to torture, racist treatment, and sexual violence." This linguistic analysis serves to expose how language is weaponized to delegitimize Palestinian resistance while sanitizing Israeli state violence.
There is no modern Israel without ethnic cleansing.
The author also addresses the role of settlers, describing them as "heavily armed, racist and ultranationalist settlers" who have captured the mainstream of Israeli politics. He notes that these individuals are routinely referred to as "civilians" by the news, despite their active participation in violence and land theft. This distinction is crucial to his argument about the nature of the conflict: it is not a war between two equal armies, but a campaign of dispossession where one side is granted the status of civilian while the other is denied it. Gelderloos writes, "An Israeli 'civilian,' though, can walk around with a semi-automatic rifle, assaulting unarmed Palestinians... smug in the knowledge that Israel's military administration of the West Bank is there to protect them."
The Failure of Institutional Morality
In the final analysis, Gelderloos argues that the inability to acknowledge the evil of the current system is a form of "panicked dissociation based in fear, comfort, and self-interest." He challenges the notion that governments are redeemable or that the "lesser evil" is a viable strategy. He writes, "We know peaceful protest is incapable of changing the hearts and minds of IDF soldiers or the Israeli government, and we also know it's incapable of materially sabotaging the war effort at an effective scale." This conclusion is a direct rebuke to the liberal faith in institutional reform.
The author draws a parallel to historical resistance, noting that "people who shot back, who killed Nazis, were doing the right thing." He asks why this principle is not applied to Iraqis or Palestinians. "Fewer people will apply those same principles to, say, Iraqis fighting the US invasion and occupation from 2003 onward," he observes. This historical comparison is designed to break the reader's attachment to the idea that violence is inherently immoral, regardless of the context. The piece suggests that the refusal to recognize the legitimacy of armed resistance is a privilege afforded only to those who are not facing genocide.
Critics might argue that this line of reasoning dangerously blurs the line between legitimate self-defense and indiscriminate violence, potentially justifying atrocities on both sides. However, Gelderloos's argument is not a call for violence per se, but a demand for an honest assessment of the power dynamics and the moral failures of the status quo. He insists that the current system is not a flawed democracy but a mechanism of death that requires total rejection.
Bottom Line
Peter Gelderloos's argument is at its strongest when it exposes the hypocrisy of the "lesser evil" narrative in the face of existential threats like climate change and genocide. His willingness to challenge the sanctity of non-violence and the innocence of state functionaries makes this a difficult but necessary read. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its absolute rejection of political engagement, which may alienate readers seeking a path forward within existing structures. However, for those willing to confront the full weight of the human cost, this commentary offers a radical clarity that mainstream discourse desperately lacks.