Opinion: Don’t Be Fooled - ‘Free Palestine’ Is a Call for Ending Israel

There has long been a debate if anti-Zionism is the same as antisemitism. This is not a new debate, but recent events prove why it is most certainly the same.

The practice of Jew-hatred goes back millennia, and has manifested in many ways, but it has always been the same Jew-hatred our ancestors experienced. The widely accepted definition of antisemitism, as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and adopted by more than 40 United Nations member states including the U.S. Government, includes “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”

This definition is important because Jew-haters use the term “Zionism” and “Israel” interchangeably, when in reality they are referring to the Jewish people as a whole. For example: anti-Zionists justify their sentiment as “anti-colonialism,” “anti-oppression,” and “anti-racism.”

On the surface, all of those might seem like prudent social justice causes (depending on your nuanced political opinion), however they are all lies rooted in antisemitism and all with one common: hatred. More specifically: Jew-hatred.

Each of these baseless claims against Zionism and Israel is a one-to-one copy/paste from ancient antisemitic tropes that have been used generation after generation to justify and legitimize the persecution and murder of Jews. It serves as their proof for why it’s actually necessary to exterminate Israel (ie. Jews) in order to keep the world safe for all non-Jews; and, in fact, these heinous acts of atrocities must not even be questioned by their followers.

In 2017, we were collectively appalled when we witnessed neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville where white nationalists chanted, amongst other vile epithets: “The Jews will not replace us.” There was broad condemnation of what happened in Charlottesville as racist and unacceptable, and again in Poway and Pittsburgh, and that same condemnation should be applied to the Free Palestine marches.

Through some perverted twist of reality that we’ve unfortunately seen in previous iterations throughout history, Israel is being blamed for the massacre of its own civilians by the pro-Palestinian movement, cloaked under the social justice phrase of “Free Palestine.”

At rallies taking place on college campuses and in cities around the world we hear chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free!” This is not a rallying cry for a two-state solution and it is not about freeing an oppressed group to live peacefully in the world order.

Otherwise, a more appropriate slogan would be: “Free Palestine from Hamas,” a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization that has profited to the tune of billions of dollars in aid from the US, Europe, and the Gulf States while their citizens live in squalor. No, it’s about a one-state solution that is free of Jews.

The chant specifically calls to rid the land of Israel from the Jewish people. The Hamas charter explicitly states to “fight Jews and kill them” and to “obliterate” Israel “in the name of Allah.” Their mission became as clear as ever this past week when terrorists raped women and children, murdered parents in front of their children and murdered children in front of their parents, and burned and decapitated babies.

The murder spree was so indiscriminate that they killed Palestinian peace activists, Thai and Filipino workers, and Arabs. The terrorists also kidnapped and took hostage innocent babies and children, young adults at a peace concert, the handicapped, the elderly (including Holocaust survivors), and Israeli soldiers.

Don’t just take my word for it. Do your own research: search the internet for sources where “Free Palestine” is used to protest in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian State side-by-side with a Jewish State. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

And while you are researching, find one source that will even simply denounce the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas last week. Again, I’ll wait…

So when you hear the chant “Free Palestine” you are hearing people supporting these brutal and inhumane, racist, Jew-hating, murderers who have done some of the most horrific acts ever documented. “Free Palestine” might sound like a simple resistance movement. But to me it’s the same as “the Jews will not replace us.”

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Brad Bernstein lives in Carmel Valley where he works in the technology sector. He is the son of immigrants who left South Africa during apartheid. He is also a former IDF soldier who lived in Israel for 10 years.