By Joshua Hoffman, FUTURE OF JEWISH 26 April 2024
The Free Palestine Movement was founded in 2003 by Yasser Qashlaq, a Syria-born Palestinian businessman of considerable wealth.
Unsurprisingly, Qashlaq is known for his antisemitic views, having repeatedly called Jews “dregs of European garbage,” a “gang of criminal murderers,”1 and “human pieces of filth”2 that should be deported to Europe.
He has also stated that there is “no reason for coexistence” between Israelis and Palestinians, since the latter should reclaim their lands and “hunt [the Israelis] down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres.”
The slogan “Free Palestine” has since been adopted across the world by “anti-war,” “humanitarian,” “anti-racist,” and “pro-ceasefire” folks — even though this slogan so obviously implies war, genocide, racism, and the notion that Israel should cease so the Palestinians can fire. Exhibit A: October 7th.
But deterring the Palestinians and their “pro-Palestinian” friends has not been as successful as some of us would have hoped. This is in part because “Palestinian” means 100 different things to 100 different people, at scale, among a variety of languages, countries, and political persuasions.
As far as the Palestinians themselves, I will defer to Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of Hamas’ founders, who recently wrote:
“There is no ‘Palestinians.’ There are tribes — the tribe of Hamas, the tribe of Islamic Jihad, the tribe of Khalil, the tribe of Nablus — and each one has different interests. And all of them are conflicted. If they did not have Israel as the common enemy, they would kill each other. This is the reality of what is so-called Palestine.”3
Today, therefore, I am proposing a different approach to this unceasing conflict, since it so clearly has not been serving Israel, Israelis, Zionists, Jews, and our much-appreciated supporters.
I call this approach (un-inventively) the “Free Israel” movement.
The “Free Israel” movement starts with the Jews — and it is time we Jews cut through the crap. For decades, many of us have been told that being respectful, unassuming, and even quiet will make us more “acceptable” in societies where calling our population a “minority” is an overstatement.
Many of us have also coddled our Jewish kids and grandkids with a “let’s all feel good” attitude that has infected modern Judaism and spoiled at least one generation of Jews. When we raise kids to think that Judaism can be whatever they want it to be, and unaccustomed to facing adversity (i.e. the ever-present antisemitism), the Jewish People are threatened.
In the “Free Israel” movement, we must be candid: To hell with being “accepted” and “acceptable,” and to hell with raising our kids in these “safetyism” environments.4 Kids should know that antisemitism exists and persists, and they should know how to forcefully confront it in all its forms, notwithstanding on the fraudulent “love and peace” extreme Left.
Instead of pretending like antisemitism evaporated in the West after the Holocaust, we must be honest: It just morphed into something more socially defensible, like “anti-Zionism” and “anti-Israel.”
Think about it for a second — the Jewish state is literally the world’s only country with the term “anti” prefixed to it. Even the most oppressive regimes like North Korea and Iran do not compel people to be “anti-North Korea” or “anti-Iran.” If this does not help you understand why nearly all major criticisms of Israel are ultimately antisemitic, may God bless your soul.
Moving on, the “Free Israel” movement means a Jewish People who are not bullied and terrorized in the absence of grave repercussions, who are not held to absurd double standards, and who are not expected to make concessions that no other people or state would justifiably make.
As New York University professor Scott Galloway said this week:
“If I went into the NYU square with a white hood on and said, ‘lynch the Blacks’ or ‘burn the gays,’ my ID would be shut off by that night. I would never work in academia again. There would be no need for the words ‘context’ or ‘nuance.’ I wouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment or free speech.”5
The “Free Israel” movement also means a Jewish People void of “anti-Zionist” Jews who are really just today’s version of “kapos” — which is sad because, after the “kapos” helped the Nazis genocide the Jews, these “kapos” were then killed. To think today’s “anti-Zionist” Jews would be subject to a different fate is naive hubris, at best.
Let me be clear, though: The “Free Israel” movement has no problem with Jews renouncing their Judaism and Jewishness, or just being uninterested in it. To each their own.
But the “anti-Zionist” Jews starting ridiculous sentences about Israel with “As a Jew…” are just a handful of loud, over-represented, misaligned, ill-informed folks being exploited by Jew-hating, West-despising con artists to “embolden” the latter’s baseless, idiotic, and malevolent positions.
It is effectively impossible to be an “anti-Zionist Jew” — just as you never hear, say, an African American describing themselves as an “anti-Africa” African American. One plus one does not equal three. Or as comedian Michael Rapaport put it: “Jews for Palestine can’t be Jews in Palestine.”6
Over in the “Free Israel” movement, we have our priorities straight: Israel is the Jewish homeland and the only country that has the Jews’ best interests in mind. Every other country, while beneficial in different ways to different Jews, is at best a second home.
Hence why I have been encouraging more Jews to apply for Israeli citizenship (which is automatic for every Jew, anywhere, as long as they do not have a criminal record and/or pose a public health threat).
Many countries allow dual citizenship with Israel, and for most Jews, there are no real legal or financial implications to being a dual citizen. In addition, there is no requisite amount of time that you must live in Israel in order to become a dual citizen.
I know French Jews, for example, who applied for their Israeli citizenship from France, flew to Israel to pick up their Israeli ID card, and then went back to living in France. No harm, no foul.
Moreover, when you become an Israeli citizen, you can immediately vote in Israeli elections without any preconditions. This is especially beneficial for Jews who are critical of the Israeli government. Voting is the ultimate way to shape the Israeli government that you want to see, is it not?
I meant, “especially from America.’
I don’t like that just as I don’t like all the anti-America, anti-Israel Muslim putative refugees getting a free pass to come here and shape our education system and laws. And there are a lot of fake Jews, as well as a noisy few real ones, who have made a career of defaming Israel. These people should not be allowed to make aliya, nor should those who agree with them but are quiet about it.
For the same reason, only a native born American can run for president. And, according to polls taken, most Jews who make aliya especially from Israel aren’t doing it out of self-interest but rather in the spirit of JFK’s adage, “ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country.”
The last thing Israel needs is more American stooges clogging up the streets with their unpatriotic protests and those who come should be very carefully vetted, especially since we are not at the point where Jews are being systematically massacred on the basis of ancestry alone (though this becoming so personal for me was accelerated by my realization that all of the times I had been singled out and attacked were, for want of a better word, “racially” motivated and not on account of being “white” either.)
Hey, how’s that for wokeness. Move over gender fluidity. Being Jewish is the only “race” anybody can join. 😀
My progressive friends can’t wrap their brains around the fact that my prioritizing Israel has absolutely nothing to do with personal belief, aesthetics, or life-style choice.
I’m a second generation shoah survivor solidarity activist who hates to leave the neighborhood even for a short time. The watch-word is “Never Again.”
Write that 100 times on the blackboard.
But, the good news is that these leftists will never move to Israel even if they are obsessed with it because targeting Israel is just a means to a goal.
They are communists who don’t know it organized by communists who do and funded by corporate globalists who think they can use them for their own ends.
@Adam, you are correct getting paperwork to make Aliyah can be difficult. A Rabbi can issue a letter attesting to your Jewish Origins with a witness or two, if one does not have the historical records.
That is how many people prove their Jewish origins. It is a hassle and Israel is bureaucratic.
Madeline, You are so correct about the Jewish left. I should put that Kapo Shummer at the top of the list. Soros, of course, is in the lowest circle of Hell
— the Jewish state is literally the world’s only country with the term “anti” prefixed to it.
Point well taken.
Great article!
@Madeline
You are right. The enemy is within. Jewish history tells us about two Temples destroyed because Jews were fighting against each other.
Lefties are enemies in Israel, in the US, and everywhere else. They are globalists’ puppets and will not stop fighting until the fall of Israel.
@Quigley. My, aren’t you emotional. Emotion does not an answer deserve.
Quote
Getting free of the Jewish self haters, the Israeli Left – it is what is needed. But it is a tall order. May God guide this.
I fear you don’t know the word Left
I fear even more that you have no understanding at all of the Israeli left
You might explain these terms
I fear you have little understanding of anything.
But you hear stirring words. And you are emotionally moved.
But emotion does not a strategy make
Everything isn’t that simple. Getting Israeli citizenship can be difficult unoless you have the necessary documents, such as a record of a Bar-Matzvah, or a record of circumcision or a phtrograph of a parents grave in a Jewish cemetary, preferably with Hebrew letters. Many Jews from secular families don’t have this documentation, and their path to citizenship canbe difficult and complicated.
If you don’t have the required documentation, the Israeli government and/or the Jewish agency may subject you to a questionaire to find out how much you know about Judaism. The JA will also demand that you provide proof of all of your academic degrees, and your record of employment. Preferably accompanied by letters of recommenation from past employers.
I know all this because I have been in the process of applying for aliyah and citizenship for yours. But I have found the prospects daunting, and I therefore have never completed it.
This gentleman is not telling the truth when he claims that you can just fill out a an application for Israeli citizenship in your own country, fly to Israel to pick up your ID card, and then fly back to your diaspora home. He seems well intentioned. But lying to people about what is required before you can obtain Israeli citizenship is unethical.
Getting free of the Jewish self haters, the Israeli Left – it is what is needed. But it is a tall order. May God guide this.
My comment: