While it is said that only two things are certain in life - death and taxes – there is something else that has existed for virtually all of human history and continues to pop up in every generation: antisemitism. Truthfully, as someone who’s experienced it firsthand from “pro-Palestinian” groups in the United States, as well as from Palestinian terrorists this month in Israel, it won’t go away. But we can take action to limit its impact in the Western world before it’s too late.
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My journey with the Free Palestine movement began back at the University of Southern California (USC) in 2010. Just as they do today, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) campus group held an Israel Apartheid Week where they protested Jewish student events and put on borderline antisemitic programming that demonized both Jews and Israelis.
If that wasn’t enough, they also constructed a mock “apartheid wall” (intended to replicate the West Bank security barrier of which less than 5% is actually concrete) and decorated it with slanderous claims about Israel and Jewish history that are demonstrably false, yet difficult for the average student to fact-check without a depth of knowledge about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Much like on other campuses, if Jewish or pro-Israel students interacted with the pro-Palestinian groups about their claims, we were met with cursing, screaming and, in some cases, even physical assault from the pro-Palestinian activists. During my time at USC, Jewish students and community members were harassed and bullied so severely that the SJP chapter on campus received a two-year suspension.
Yet this campus phenomenon has only gotten worse since then – including at USC, which has had more than its fair share of scandals since I graduated. In 2020, the student government vice president, Rose Ritch, was forced to resign because she was a “Zionist.” In 2021, a student leader in Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Yasmeen Mashayekh, proudly tweeted: “I want to kill every m*****f***ing Zionist.” Even after pressure from donors and international media, the university refused to disclose if they took action to hold Mashayekh accountable. Mashayekh, in response, doubled down on defending support for violence as “resistance.”
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Tulane University- Jewish student attacked by pro-Palestinian supporters
(Photo: StopAntisemitism)
Across the world over the past three months, we’ve seen the exact same toxic rhetoric used to justify the barbaric terrorism that Hamas inflicted upon Israeli civilians on October 7.
The fact is that 1,200 people – including numerous babies and children – were murdered by terrorists, with many of them being tortured, raped, beheaded and burned alive. Over 230 were taken as hostages, among them women and children and the elderly. Simultaneously, thousands of rockets were fired at civilian populations throughout the country.
These crimes against humanity were documented by the terrorists themselves and shared across social media. In response, thousands of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza reacted by cheering and celebrating in the streets. In Gaza, crowds uproariously cheered when Hamas terrorists paraded the dead bodies of Israelis through the streets.
Abroad, before the Israeli casualties had even been counted, the Free Palestine movement began defending Hamas around the world, organizing rallies and claiming that the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas was in the right because the (unprovoked) attack was “resistance.”
Since October 7, pro-Palestinian activists have been filmed all over the world justifying Hamas’ Nazi-style atrocities, or in some cases denying it happened in the first place – even when Hamas themselves released video evidence and boasted about executing and kidnapping children.
In the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, Australia and the Arab world, violent riots and antisemitic violence broke out as part of the demonstrations for Palestinians.
In Australia, protesters chanted “gas the Jews.” In London, they assaulted an Iranian activist for waving an Israeli flag. In Germany, Jewish homes were “labeled” with a Star of David. In France, there have been relentless terror threats, and the Palestinian rioters were so violent that the country banned demonstrations. The Louvre was evacuated, the Palace of Versailles was evacuated seven times in eight days due to bomb threats, and at least one man was murdered by two Islamic terrorists at a school.
Across virtually all demonstrations, protesters called for the destruction of the state of Israel in its entirety and chanted for “intifada,” referring in this case to the violent terrorist uprisings that targeted Israeli civilians from 1987–1993, and in the early 2000s.
On campuses, Jewish students have been continuously harassed and targeted even at memorial events for murdered friends and family, including at Brooklyn College where the Free Palestine protesters chanted “it’s justified” while waving Palestinian flags.
Even the civilian hostages that Hamas is holding in Gaza are targets for these activists. Videos surfaced across social media of people on multiple campuses and in multiple countries ripping down flyers calling for the return home of Israeli hostages.
I would ask how such ugly behavior could possibly help Palestinians, but the answer isn’t actually a concern to these activists. Just like Hamas, the Free Palestine activists don’t actually want to help Palestinians. They want to use Palestinians for their extremist, violent agenda. Palestinians are only the excuse. The truth is that if your response to the October 7 attacks is to justify Hamas and to go protest outside local Jewish institutions, you’re not pro-Palestinian, you’re just antisemitic.
What Hamas has unleashed on the people of Gaza should be unforgivable to any supporter of Palestinians – or, frankly, humanity. The depravity of Hamas has gotten to the point where the only rational or moral response is the elimination of the Iranian-backed terror group.
As an American Israeli, seeing the shameful response to the heinous Hamas terror attacks on October 7 is devastating, but not surprising. This is the exact same behavior that school administrations have refused to crack down on for decades, and it will only get worse from here if we don’t take the threat, especially the security threat, seriously.
Make no mistake, the threat of extremism by Hamas and its supporters in the Free Palestine movement isn’t just against Jews. These attacks were not about a political or territorial dispute – if they were, they wouldn’t have taken hostages back to Gaza, or targeted civilians, or engaged in the savagery and torture which they filmed themselves.
Hamas acts the way it does with the backing of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that openly seeks to eliminate not only Israel, but also the United States. For them, this is the ultimate goal, and Israel is only the beginning.
Antisemitism is no longer a problem of hatred or bigotry alone, it’s a national security risk, and beyond Israel, it’s high time the West takes decisive action to stop it in its tracks, before it’s too late.
- Emily Schrader is an American Israeli journalist and expert in Iran affairs and online hate speech