The humiliating failure & decline of "pro-Palestine activism [View all]

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

For over a year, I warned time and again about the dangers of the neo “pro-Palestine” movement, which, in the aftermath of October 7, has devolved in alarmingly extreme and detrimental ways. I was hounded even by friends and allies, who kept asking why I “felt it was my job to demonize the pro-Palestine movement.” It was shocking how so many journalists, activists, academics, advocates, and observers didn’t see the obvious, the five-alarm fire that was threatening the very future of Palestinian advocacy in the diaspora. The rot and decay within this so-called movement was unlike anything I had ever seen before – and I used to be involved in it ten years ago.

After 10/7, the “movement” refused to acknowledge the criminality of hostage-taking & killing innocent Israeli civilians, condemn Hamas’s actions including against Gazans, call for the terror group to step down, or engage in pragmatic activism and targeted demands for specific outcomes that actually help Palestinians. Now, the “activists” are tone-deaf to the disaster that Gazans face after Hamas’s shameful and embarrassing display of barbarism with the Bibas & Lifshitz bodies’ return fiasco, doubling and tripling down on their fascism, evil rhetoric, lack of basic intelligence, and demonstratively ineffective speech and language that further demonize Palestinians.

I said that student activism was worthless and futile, calls for supporting the “resistance” amounted to endorsing terrorism, real antisemitism was actually growing out of control, and the interests of Palestinians were being harmed. I pleaded with the so-called “allies” of Palestine to correct the horrendous digressions of their partners but was regularly told, “Oh, we can’t tell Palestinians how to resist.” There was plenty of space for authentic pro-Palestine activism, but that required a focus on a radically different outcome that doesn’t entail Hamas, sloganeering, hatred, ignorance, stupidity, or letting ill-informed young people destroy an entire movement. Accepting Israel’s right to safety, embracing the concept of two nations, rejecting violence, and calling for Palestinian rights, while displaying a capacity for empathy, accountability, and agency would have won over vital new partners for peace and justice, especially in Israel.

Rashid Khalidi, Rashida Tlaib, CAIR, Mehdi Hasan, Marc Lamont Hill, and a whole host of intellectuals and journalists sat back and let the movement be taken over by fascists, imbeciles, far-left and far-right personalities, Islamists, and a cocktail of losers who have no business speaking about Palestine, especially the Intifadists and Hamasniks – and don’t you dare tell me these groups are just the minority in the Western diaspora-based movement, for they are an absolutely massive element of what remains of the “pro-Palestine movement.”

Well, congratulations, for Palestine is in ruins, Gaza’s destroyed, none of you have said a word about Hamas, and this movement will forever be looked at as the pinnacle of embarrassment, failure, and wasted opportunities – all while the people of Gaza suffer horrendously, especially for what’s coming next.

And for the record, and to be crystal clear, I want nothing more than to see a rejuvenated, successful, effective, prosperous pro-Palestine movement that can actually do something and leverage Western privilege to be a helping hand for the Palestinian people in the land. But for now, it’s time to get back to the drawing board and start from scratch.

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