The streets of the West, university campuses, public squares and assembly halls, museums and art galleries all regularly echo these days with cries, chants and echoes of “Freedom!” Palestine is free! ”
The drums are being beaten. The roads are congested. The tent occupies a quad. A keffiyeh is being brandished. The flag was held high. All for Palestine.
The poster features the words Nelson Mandela said in Pretoria, South Africa on December 4, 1997: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” And they reverberate, repeating themselves in a rhythm that sometimes causes demonstrators to jump up and down with glee.
Palestine will not be the liberal paradise they imagine.
Jewish anti-Zionists, including IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, promote the additional slogan “Jews will not be free until Palestinians are free,” creating a symbiotic relationship of intersectionality at its best. Masu.
But the unfortunate truth for them is that even if Arab Palestine one day becomes free, no one in the country will be free.
It is true that the cause of a free Palestine has captured the imagination and enthusiasm of every liberal and progressive group and organization. However, in some cases, inconsistencies may remain within the campaign, creating at least some awkwardness.
For example, how do you call for a ceasefire while shouting “Intifada!”? revolution! ” At the same time? Again, pro-Palestinian propaganda has little concern for the rationality of its claims, let alone the factual truth.
Have these protesters ever asked about the freedoms that exist in this so-called “free Palestine”? Have they ever reviewed its history? What about their social behavior? What is the ideology of the movement defending its cause?
According to a May 2 news article in the New York Times, “most of the more than 100 people arrested in the Hamilton Hall and campus sweeps…were women.” As Phyllis Chesler asked in a recent article in the American Spectator, “Why do American women support Hamas?”
To highlight the ignorance that exists, one might also look to a photo taken at Columbia University by Caitlin Ochs of Reuters. It depicts a young woman with a keffiyeh head standing among a group of students disrupting Butler Library. She wears a strapless crop top that exposes her shoulders and upper chest as well as her abdomen. I can’t help but wonder how this kind of fashion spreads not only in Gaza but also in Ramallah.
Western feminism is not the kind of freedom that flourishes in Arab Palestine. Nor is it queerism. As for whether that’s true, you should have asked Ahmad Abu Malhia, who fled Judea because he was gay and suffered discrimination, and lived in Tel Aviv until 2022. However, this was no longer possible when his decapitated body was found near Hebron in October of the same year.
At the time, it was reported that about 90 other Arabs from the Palestinian Authority who identify as LGBT were living in Israel as asylum seekers. In Israel, I repeat.
Another group calling for a free Arab Palestine is one that wants universities to divest from investments in Israel. Do they think how devastating it will be to the health, scientific, and industrial advances that they too benefit from?
One spokesperson for the UCLA protesters added another dimension. It is a system associated with both foreign wars because “the University of California is an inherently violent institution, given that it was founded on colonialism.”
Does she know that Arab Palestine itself is the result of imperialist colonialism? After all, the Arabs, who came out of Arabia in the 7th century, invaded, conquered, occupied, and conquered the Jewish and Christian communities that existed in Byzantine-occupied Judea. They also started the process of Islamization. Is that the basis of freedom?
A banner reading “Death to Israel!” was hung at the New School in New York. Death to America! Glory to Palestine! ” The Marxist rhetoric may seem a little too liberal, but it nevertheless illustrates the dangers and approach of those promoting a free Palestine, which is extremely out of touch with reality.
Nerdeen Kiswani of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime retweeted the following message: The ruling class is eager to introduce fascism at home in order to protect its own fascism abroad. ” She is unwilling to admit that a “free Palestine” means a very unfree world.
Philosophically speaking, Arab Palestine cannot be free because it is based on principles that exclude Jewish national identity and sentiments. It is premised on negativism, a negative perspective. Recalling the historic conquests and occupations that have maintained Jews as an oppressed minority, as they have been and continue to be throughout the Middle East with very few exceptions, and the injustices of it. trying to continue.
Politically, Arab Palestine is not free. Fatah and Hamas are not democratic, and certainly neither is Iran’s proxy organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not held elections for the Legislative Council since January 2006, and was last elected on January 9, 2005.
In any case, the results were rigged and Hamas changed the situation in Gaza by carrying out a coup. As Hamas becomes a more powerful force, the first bloodshed in Free Palestine will be one of internal civil war.
Socially, the current framework of the Palestinian National Council is one of human rights violations and oppression against its own population. This is economically and fiscally unsustainable politics. That policy directs all funds to terrorist activities. There are also many reports of embezzlement.
Morally, it is based on the false narrative that Jews have no national identity. As a result, Palestinianism has become an exclusionist movement that denies Jews any rights other than their status as a human religious group. It has engaged in genocidal operations and continues to violate agreements, ceasefires, and ceasefires, and will continue to do so.
Can a free Palestine really be free? The answer should be obvious.
The author is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.
