October 7, 2023 was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. That day, Israel was the least safe place in the world to be a Jew.
Over 1,200 Israelis (mostly civilians) were massacred by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Israeli communities in southern Israel. They slaughtered people in the most harrowing ways – raping, torturing, burning alive, and mutilating women, children, and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 240 people, mostly civilians. In doing so, Hamas ignited a war.
Outside Israel, anti-Israel protests erupted before the first Israeli bomb hit the ground in Gaza. The usual rhetoric and iconography was there; a good chunk of it is antisemitic. But I’m not interested right now in distinctions (if any exist) between anti-Israelism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism.
Supporting terrorism
What struck me more this time were the people in the hearts of Western cities, on social media, and on the campuses of some of the world’s finest learning institutions who express outright support for Hamas’s jihadi terror.
Some exhibit a form of Jew-hate and Israel-hate that is prevalent in much of the Muslim world. Others fail to consider Hamas a terrorist organization – an excess of their progressive ideology that sees Israel as an apartheid, colonialist state; therefore, they absolve Hamas of wrongdoing. Many others are just ignorant. There are, of course, informed people as well who are demonstrating for a stop to the violence and for a Palestinian state, a legitimate cause. But they are standing shoulder to shoulder with jihadists.
When approached by the media at a protest, one Canadian woman said, “Hamas is not a terrorist group […] They are a resistance. Every single thing they have done is justified.” So raping and slaughtering people in front of their families is justified as a legitimate expression of the pursuit of Palestinian self-determination.
This rhetoric is ubiquitous in anti-Israel circles. It is not uncommon to see placards that read, “Resistance by any means necessary.”
Mere days after the massacre, National Students for Justice in Palestine released a series of terror-glorifying statements. One said the massacre was “a historic victory for the Palestinian resistance.” The organization also projected a few statements onto the wall of a library at George Washington University; one read, “Glory to our martyrs.”
This is the language of violent jihad. It has lodged itself into the minds of many who consider themselves progressive. It is not just radical Muslims – the kind you would find in an ISIS enclave in Iraq – who are on the streets of the West calling for genocide. It is also Western progressives, who claim and believe they are protesting for a progressive cause. Through anti-Israel protests, jihad has infiltrated the scene.
Some are confused about whether Hamas is a jihadi organization. But just read its founding charter. It’s not interested in peace talks: According to the charter, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
One of Hamas’s splinter groups that participated in the massacre is literally called “Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” When they say jihad, they don’t mean inner spiritual struggle. They mean jihadi terrorism, as they have shown.
Western progressives get it wrong
That many Western progressives have got the moral calculus surrounding Hamas wrong is not new.
Judith Butler (Jewish), an influential thinker in the fields of gender theory and political philosophy, recently strongly condemned Hamas, to her credit.
Yet she is also on record some years ago saying, “[...] understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.”
Again, this gives insight into their line of thinking: Though Hamas is committing atrocious acts of terrorism against civilians, it can find sympathy within some progressive circles, where some see it as a resistance of the oppressed against their oppressors; never mind the intentional slaughter of innocents.
Of course, many extreme anti-Israel protesters have a particular focus on the Jews. Just a few days after the massacre, for example, a crowd of about 1,000 people chanted “Gas the Jews” and “Allahu Akbar” outside the Opera House in Sydney.
But the ambitions of jihadists go beyond Israel and antisemitism. The jihadist world view is one of universal extremism, intolerance, and violence. Just ask the women of Afghanistan how they feel about the Taliban coming back to power.
One anecdotal experiment shows a man at UC Berkeley asking students if they would donate to the Taliban. “We want to use the money to train our fighters to strike back against American interests abroad and in the homeland,” he told them.
Somehow, many agreed to donate. It’s paradoxical and extremely worrying that on the campus of one of the most liberal institutions in America, there are students who are happy to support one of the most illiberal organizations in the world.
One can presume that these students are not radicalized Islamists and have never considered joining the Islamic State or Boko Haram. Their willingness to support a jihadi group stems from their progressive ideology and opposition to “imperialist America” and alleged US oppression of victimized minorities.
We need to acknowledge the credibility of many aspects of the progressive movement that address genuine issues of systemic discrimination. But the support for Hamas and jihad in some progressive circles underscores a dangerous trend that extends beyond a handful of anecdotes and beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and antisemitism into a broader anti-Western context.
A genuine solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is necessary, emphasizing security and autonomy for both sides, but terror is not the way forward.
The writer is a professional technical writer in the hi-tech industry and a part-time independent journalist with a focus on extremism, disinformation, and Middle East history and politics.