'Pro-Palestine' is not a cause. It's a cult.

“Activism” has turned into a witch hunt: less about progress, more about punishment. It’s intimidation dressed up as moral conviction, like demanding nonviolence with a Molotov cocktail in hand.

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This is a guest essay written by Lucy Tabrizi, who writes about politics, philosophy, religion, ethics, and history.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Recently, a “pro-Palestine” activist stormed into my Substack and called me a literal Nazi — not just Nazi-adjacent, but full-blown, goose-stepping, history-book Nazi.

For the record, I’m not a Nazi. I have family who fled the real ones. And I’ve spent enough time studying antisemitism to know how it mutates into increasingly deranged forms. I’ve thought about it far more than those flinging the word “Nazi” around like confetti, using it as a lazy stand-in for anything they disagree with.

The irony? This guy was championing a movement rooted in actual Nazi ideology — via former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini: Palestinian nationalist, proud Nazi collaborator, personal guest of Hitler, and casual tourist of Holocaust-era concentration camps. But that’s a deeply inconvenient history lesson, so let’s just pretend it never happened.

Anyway, this charming individual unleashed a tsunami of expletives and frothy rage. I pointed out he wasn’t here for a conversation — just a tantrum. I tried to engage, but once I sifted through the unfiltered bile, there wasn’t much left to work with. When he bragged about not reading a word I’d written and doubled down on the vitriol, I hit “Block” and left him to shout into the void.

Sadly, this wasn’t my first rodeo with a “pro-Palestine” activist. My last essay clearly struck a nerve; my inbox and comment sections lit up like a protest rally. Yes, the title was provocative: “If Israel disappeared tomorrow, ‘Palestine’ still wouldn’t exist.” It was also accurate. The backlash played out like a live reenactment of the article itself — performance art curated by irony.

I’m sure there are reasonable voices within the movement. There must be, right? Statistically?

So far, I’ve only encountered those fuelled by an endless reservoir of rage — like a renewable energy source, if only it could be channelled into something useful. Moral absolutism isn’t unique to the Palestinian cause, but nowhere else does it explode quite as intensely or as unhinged as it does here.

I grew up valuing secularism, reason, and mutual respect, thanks in part to thinkers like Sam Harris. I strive to approach disagreement in good faith and admit when I’m wrong, or at least try. But lately, honest conversation feels like a relic from a lost civilisation. What happened to disagreeing like adults? To dialogue instead of outrage theatre? To assuming good intentions, even when views collide?

These days, I have better luck reasoning with my toddler mid-meltdown over the wrong-coloured cup than with a grown man imploding in my comments section.

No other topic sends people into a tailspin quite like this — losing all grip on reality like they’ve joined a doomsday cult. Suddenly, they’re butchering international law over lunch, ambushing baristas for political purity, and blocking cousins for posting anything vaguely sympathetic to Jews.

This isn’t activism; it’s mass hysteria teetering on the brink of collective delusion.

Question their behaviour, even out of genuine concern, and they duck behind the smuggest shield: “Oh, so opposing genocide is angry now?” It’s the ultimate moral force field — giving them free rein to lash out like caffeinated toddlers, convinced their emotional meltdowns are a sign of moral enlightenment.

They claim their outrage stems from the “thousands of videos” proving Israel’s so-called genocide, without stopping to consider that provoking that exact reaction is the entire point. Hamas’ strategy is hardly subtle: Flood social media with selectively edited, often recycled footage (including clips from unrelated conflicts) designed to inflame. All while their sponsor, Iran, continues its decades-long mission to delegitimise Israel on the global stage.

Under the banner of social justice, impressionable young minds, eager to virtue signal, are swept up in outrage, blind to the fact that they’re marching to someone else’s drum. They champion causes led by people who would gladly strip them of the very rights they claim to defend.

This isn’t new. It’s straight out of the propaganda playbook that fuelled the Iranian Revolution — and before that, the Nazi media machine that paved the way for World War II.

Put aside the viral videos, and the curious way algorithms filter out every other conflict. Ask yourself: What does screaming at strangers online actually accomplish? How does this brand of “activism” help Palestinians or bring peace? Let’s say I join the chorus of hatred against the Jewish state; what’s been achieved?

Are we really meant to believe Palestinians are suffering because the world isn’t outraged enough? I’ve never seen this level of blind fury — and I’ve been in animal rights circles where people watch slaughterhouse footage daily. And for what? Murderous theatrics like this only harden Israel’s resolve, proving exactly why a Jewish state exists in the first place.

Unfortunately for Palestinians, their loudest Western advocates are doing them more harm than good by defining the movement as a spectacle of performative outrage and extremist rhetoric. As Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a longtime Palestinian activist and Gaza native, recently put it: “Pro-Palestine” activism has become a “humiliating failure and decline.”

And yet the same activists driving this backlash demand total allegiance, while claiming to be a silenced, oppressed minority. It’s a bizarre underdog narrative, comically out of sync with reality, given that nearly every major institution is in their corner: academia, Hollywood, the United Nations, major NGOs, even corporations falling over themselves to show support.

Still, they cosplay as rebels. How do we break it to these bubble-wrapped revolutionaries that there’s nothing brave or rebellious about parroting what’s already being blasted by most major influencers, institutions, and activist groups?

These are the same people who accuse anyone off-script of being on the payroll of AIPAC¹ — like defending Israel is some kind of lucrative side hustle. In reality, it’s the opposite. These days, even a hint of sympathy for Israel is a career liability and a one-way ticket to social Siberia.

Meanwhile, it’s open season on Jews: businesses vandalised, communities harassed, even assaults in broad daylight. And the same activists who claim to fight oppression don’t even blink. Apparently, when the target is Jewish, even domestic terrorism is met with silence — or worse, justification.

But suggest deporting a few non-citizen, pro-terrorist “activists” who incite this hatred? Suddenly, the outrage mob morphs into a choir of free speech absolutists, clutching the First Amendment² like they just discovered constitutional law.

Spare me the theatrics.

These moral gymnasts claim antisemitism is being weaponised to silence criticism of Israel — somehow missing that it’s literally the most condemned country on Earth. Still, they treat people like me as if we’re on the payroll of some well-funded Zionist lobby.

If only. I’d love to get paid for sharing unpopular opinions, but so far? Not a cent, just lost opportunities, strained friendships, and comments sections full of unsolicited internet wisdom and rage-fuelled pile-ons.

Relax, I’m not playing the victim. Getting sniped at online doesn’t compare to life in a war zone. I’m just highlighting the absurdity.

The arrogance of assuming anyone who disagrees must be on someone’s payroll. Whatever happened to humility? We’ve raised a generation so drunk on moral certainty that dissent isn’t just unwelcome; it’s automatically suspicious.

Modern “activism” has morphed into a digital witch hunt: less about progress, more about punishment. I’ve had commenters openly admit they’re not even trying to change my mind. So what’s the point? Forcing compliance through sheer volume of keyboard beatings isn’t activism; it’s intimidation dressed up as moral conviction.

This movement still cloaks itself in the language of compassion, but the mask slipped long ago. It’s just hoping no one noticed. The irony is surreal: Activists preach peace and human rights, then in the same breath, call for intifada (violent uprising) or the eradication of a nation. It’s like demanding nonviolence with a Molotov cocktail in hand.

photo: Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona/Unsplash

The most obvious path to ending the war — Hamas surrendering — is the one thing the loudest activists never mention. Their silence speaks volumes. For them, “peace” isn’t about coexistence; it’s about Israel’s disappearance, with the “resistance” marching toward another dissent-crushing theocratic state, like the Islamic Republic of Iran, regardless of the cost in Palestinian lives.

A different kind of damage is spreading elsewhere: a quiet, creeping fear. No, we’re not (yet) in Soviet Russia, but we’re heading in a dangerously similar direction. People are self-censoring, afraid that even their private thoughts could be weaponised — sometimes by the same friends who once liked their vacation photos.

The moral panics of the past haven’t vanished; they’ve just been turbocharged into digital dogma. Online mobs lie in wait, ready to pounce on anyone who steps out of line, turning “thinking for yourself” into a potentially viral offence.

We were promised that unlimited information, delivered at our fingertips, would make us wiser. Instead, algorithms have made us more divided, more reactive, and more allergic to nuance than ever. Worse, these digital echo chambers have become playgrounds for bad actors to spread propaganda and manipulate public opinion with alarming ease.

I saw the same hysteria during the George Floyd³ protests. Fresh out of childbirth and in the middle of lockdown, I was flooded with messages demanding to know why I hadn’t posted a black square. I’m not one to jump on bandwagons — especially during a major life shift. But in today’s culture of instant outrage, hesitation is seen as betrayal.

My silence was quickly branded as racism, because apparently, recovering from childbirth isn’t a valid excuse for missing the mandatory virtue signal. Even stepping back from social media drew sneering comments like, “Must be nice to have the privilege to take a break.” All this, coming from movements largely driven by some of the most pampered, college-educated elites in modern history.

Looking back, the Black Lives Matter riots feel like a rehearsal, a test run for the full-blown ideological purge we’re seeing with the Palestinian cause. Same moral absolutism. Same public shaming. Same demand for blind loyalty. Only now, the outrage machine has been fine-tuned for maximum destruction.

Unfortunately, this wave of collective madness isn’t coming from the fringes; it’s rooted deep within the heart of these movements. Convinced they’re the enlightened ones, they miss the irony of becoming the loudest zealots in the room — second only, perhaps, to the jihadists they refuse to denounce.

Their outrage isn’t driven by the scale of suffering; it’s driven by the narrative. That’s why far deadlier crises in Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and China barely register. But mention Gaza and suddenly every activist, rights group, and media outlet snaps to attention, as if it’s the only crisis that’s ever mattered. Some atrocities, it seems, are just more fashionable than others.

When outrage becomes a trend, it stops being principled and becomes dangerous. In a culture where outrage is rewarded with clicks, clout, and airtime, there’s no incentive to pause or reflect. And history has shown — especially when the mob turns on Jews — that righteous fury rarely gets it right. Moral fervour doesn’t sharpen clarity; it crushes it.

I’ve seen people unironically call Gaza “the worst genocide in history,” “the most severe famine ever,” and even compare it to the Holocaust. The suffering is real, but the hyperbole is staggering. Are they really this historically illiterate, or do they just not care that far worse atrocities are unfolding in places they couldn’t even find on a map?

By any objective measure, even if every accusation against Israel were true, it still wouldn’t crack the top tier of regimes that have starved, brutalised, and massacred millions. Yet the self-appointed saviours of “the oppressed” have zeroed in on the one conflict trending in their feeds and protest rallies.

But sure, it has nothing to do with it being the Jewish state. Total coincidence.

These same activists twist themselves into knots to blame Jews — sorry, “Zionists” — for nearly every global crisis. At this point, they’re a hair’s breadth from quoting the Ayatollah and blaming Zionists for Mercury in retrograde or crop failures in Bolivia.

Treating an entire group as the root of all evil isn’t radical; it’s recycled bigotry. The same tired hatred used for centuries to justify violence, whether over religion, race, or wealth.

Jews have been history’s go-to scapegoat for generations, and “Zionist” is just today’s socially acceptable stand-in. But the accusations are the same: baby killers, plague spreaders, media manipulators, economy riggers, puppet masters — all straight out of the classic antisemitic playbook.

I get it, inconvenient truths don’t go viral. Humanity doesn’t need a grand villain to commit atrocities. We’ve always been perfectly capable of that on our own — no Jews, no “Zionists” required.

Take, for example, Sudan: a brutal civil war, possibly a genocide, with estimates putting the death toll at 150,000. But because it has nothing to do with Israel, coverage is scarce, and outrage even scarcer.

Meanwhile, the same activists shrieking that “Zionism is the root of all evil” are fuelling the very suffering they claim to oppose. Their outrage is laser-focused on Israel — playing straight into Hamas’ PR strategy. It’s a gift to a group that hides behind civilians and has no intention of ending the war.

Nothing protects corrupt regimes like a mob of furious Westerners cheering them on. And how do we know these so-called “progressives” aren’t driven by concern for Palestinians, but by hatred for Israel and blind loyalty to Hamas? Simple: The moment Palestinians in Gaza protest Hamas, those activists fall silent.

As Gazan dissident Hamza Howidy put it: “You know what would help the Palestinians in Gaza? Condemning Hamas’ atrocities.”

photo: Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona/Unsplash

The double standard is clear. On October 7th, the world saw the horror of ideological extremism at its rawest: families burned alive, children mutilated, bodies tossed onto trucks like trash — while crowds in Gaza jeered and spat on them. The natural response? Grief. Fury. Disbelief.

Israelis (and Jews everywhere) weren’t even given a single day to mourn. Any expression of rage was instantly reframed as Zionist aggression. Protests erupted almost immediately. The abducted and murdered were labelled “occupiers” who had it coming, and many openly celebrated the massacre as a moral victory.

To the “It didn’t start on October 7th” crowd — you’re right. Arab massacres of Jews long predate Israel’s founding and helped justify its existence. That doesn’t make Israel immune to criticism, and yes, it often hits back harder, but let’s not pretend its responses are generally unprovoked or driven by blind malice.

Many still reduce the conflict to a crude body count, as if morality is just math. But context matters — motive, method, and intent change everything. There’s a world of difference between civilians caught in a war their own leaders won’t end, and those deliberately hunted down and butchered with glee.

If an IDF soldier were proven to have deliberately targeted civilians, I’d condemn it without hesitation. Every military has its monsters. But only in Israel’s case are isolated incidents treated as proof that the entire nation is evil and has no right to exist.

Hamas, by contrast, targets civilians as policy. It’s not a glitch; it’s the system. Terrorists livestream massacres and are hailed as heroes. Streets bear their names. Children idolise them like genocidal action figures, while textbooks glorify martyrdom, turning education into indoctrination.

And in the West? Instead of recognising the tragedy of a radicalised population, they cheer it on, urging more “resistance,” which means more fighting, more dying. The barbarity is ignored, while every accusation against Israel — true or not — spreads faster than a conspiracy theory at a flat-earth convention. By the time the misinformation is corrected, the damage is done.

Remember Algorithm Science 101: It rewards lies with reach, while truth is left playing catch up (if it’s seen at all), and grifters exploit this to build entire careers on weaponised misinformation.

But the distortion doesn’t end online. Even a year on, October 7th wasn’t marked by mourning, just more protests. Loud, angry spectacles that place every ounce of blame on Israel, as if the massacre of Jews demands justification instead of condemnation.

Blaming Jews for violence committed against them is one of the oldest antisemitic tricks in the book. But sure, this time’s different. Just a coincidence.

These activists wouldn’t dream of justifying the violence of October 7th against any other group, including actual settler colonial powers like Morocco in Western Sahara, Turkey in Northern Cyprus, or China in Tibet. Yet none provoke the same obsessive rage. It’s as if these activists are projecting their own guilty consciences onto the Jews, which, fittingly, is another classic feature of antisemitism.

Take the tearing down of posters — photos of kidnapped children, not soldiers — with hatred burning in the eyes of those doing it. That’s not activism. It’s not justice. It’s raw, fanatical antisemitism.

Why the fury? Because those hostages shatter the tidy narrative of innocent Palestinian victimhood versus relentless Israeli evil. And for that, there’s no forgiveness.

In the hearts and minds of these activists, it was never about the Palestinians. They’re just a convenient vessel for projecting rabid hatred at Israel — and, by extension, Jews. “Coloniser” may be the buzzword of the moment, but it’s simply the latest excuse in a long tradition of justifying violence against them.

This rebranding ignores centuries of history, including Islamic imperial conquests and the tolerance, if not encouragement, of antisemitic violence, as long as Jews didn’t fight back. Now, with Iran and its network of proxies, many designed specifically to target the Jewish state, the threat is existential. And nothing enrages the world more than Jews who refuse to stay silent — or worse, refuse to die politely.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the fervour of the “pro-Palestine” movement. It isn’t activism; it’s a rage-fuelled crusade, driven by historical amnesia and hatred dressed up as virtue.

In many “pro-Palestine” circles (especially on college campuses, often backed by Qatar, Iran, and other fine champions of human rights), the illusion of activism has worn thin. What remains devolves into civil unrest: vandalism, intimidation, and mob-style harassment, all cheered as long as the target is Israel — or anyone remotely connected to it.

If they actually cared about Palestinians, rather than indulging in mob theatrics, they’d demand Hamas return the hostages, stop using children as human shields, and, just once, build a bomb shelter instead of a tunnel under a kindergarten. They’d protest weapons in hospitals and terrorists hiding under schools. They’d demand Hamas get out, just like thousands of Gazans just did, at great personal risk.

Meanwhile, Western activists, who face virtually zero risk, could criticise Israeli policies and hold Hamas accountable. But they don’t. For them, it’s a zero-sum game: Israel is evil, Hamas gets a free pass, and any Palestinian who dares challenge this narrative is thrown under the bus by the very people claiming to speak for them.

Every angry, baseless comment only proves the point.

It’s time to stop indulging this moral tantrum. Whether from student protestors, Western media, armchair activists, or that random Facebook post from someone who just “discovered” the conflict. It helps no one — least of all the Palestinians. All it does is fuel more violence, more death, and push peace further out of reach.

We owe these outrage merchants nothing. Not our respect, not our silence, and certainly not our legitimacy.

What we should owe is support for those being drowned out — the Palestinians (and Israelis) rejecting extremism, risking their lives to pursue peace, and their allies standing with them.

Anyone who claims to care about human rights should prioritise these voices, not the ones on an endless Israel-bashing crusade that only fuels outrage and deepens the conflict.

It’s time to amplify the voices that actually seek peace, not the ones who thrive on the chaos.

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1. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group

2. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects fundamental freedoms, including religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.

3. George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020.