NELA Alliance for Democracy hosted a Panel Discussion with Frieda Afary, Lisbeth Moya Gonzalez, and Tanya Vyhovsky on June 21st, 2026

The U.S. and Israel have been involved in a destructive imperialist war against Iran while Israel continues to bomb Lebanese civilians, massacres the Palestinian people in Gaza and brutalizes/forces them out of their ancestral homes in the West Bank. Whether the latest negotiations between the U.S. and Iran result in a “peace deal” remains highly questionable, given that both sides are brutal authoritarian powers, and Israel is not willing to stop bombing Lebanon.

In January, the U.S. invaded Venezuela, abducted its dictator, Maduro and kept Maduro’s regime intact under its own control. The U.S. is now planning to invade Cuba, another authoritarian regime, after years of having harmed the Cuban people with sanctions. The Trump administration is in alliance with Putin’s government in Russia to force the people of Ukraine to give in to Russia’s brutal five-year-long imperialist invasion. Trump and China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jin Ping are also negotiating over the fate of Taiwan, an independent country which China wants to annex.

How can anti-war activists take a principled stance against all these super-power machinations, side with struggles for justice in each country and offer a vision of international solidarity and human rights against the rise of fascism?

Speakers: Frieda Afary, Iranian American Librarian and Writer Lisbeth Moya Gonzalez, Cuban dissident journalist, and Tanya Vyhovsky, Vermont State Senator, Ukrainian American Clinical Social Worker

---

---