In Los Angeles 1992, the Rodney King riots erupted because a population with some agency and access to resources (even if marginalized) still had the ability to resist—through protests, riots, and legal action. The police didn’t have absolute control over movement, supplies, and survival of the people.
In Gaza, the people are under constant military surveillance, occupation, and blockade. There is no free flow of arms, reinforcements, or supplies. Any large-scale uprising would be met with overwhelming force—airstrikes, mass arrests, and further restrictions on humanitarian aid. The stakes are existential: fight and be annihilated, or survive another day.
In LA, law enforcement, even at its most brutal, does not operate with total impunity—there are still limits, lawsuits, media scrutiny, and federal oversight.
In Gaza, Israel exerts near-total control over movement, economy, and even access to basic survival needs. There is no independent judicial oversight protecting Palestinian lives in the way there is (even imperfectly) in the US legal system. The state decides who eats, who moves, who lives, and who dies.
Riots happen when people believe they have something to gain. The anger in LA was fueled by the sense that the system could change if enough pressure was applied.
In Gaza, people have lived through decades of collective punishment, failed uprisings, and broken promises. When every past revolt has led to worse living conditions, the psychological weight of oppression becomes paralyzing rather than mobilizing.
The Rodney King riots were seen as righteous anger against injustice, covered widely in US and global media.
Gaza, on the other hand, is framed through media bias and geopolitical interests, where Palestinian resistance is labeled as "terrorism" while Israeli aggression is called "self-defense." The result? The world allows mass death in Gaza without the same outcry that follows even a single injustice in the West.
Gazans don’t “run like lambs” out of fear alone—they are starved, blockaded, and bombed into submission with no clear path to victory. The moment the world stops excusing mass murder, and Palestinians are given equal humanity, resistance will look very different.
If LA in 1992 had been locked in a 75-year open-air prison, would there have been riots at all?