There is no 'progressive' case for the Palestinians.

Until there is, "Palestine" just poisons the movement.

photo by Tristan Sosteric

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This is a guest essay written by Pat Johnson of Pat’s Substack.

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

Share this essay using the link: https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/no-progressive-case-for-the-palestinians

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Activists who make up the rampaging overseas Palestinian movement — like the pup-tents-for-Palestine activists on campuses everywhere and the millions chanting “Free Palestine” — need to be drummed out of the progressive movement.

They are not progressive.

There is no rational explanation for why Palestine has become a top — no, the top — progressive cause. Palestinianism, as it is constituted in “Palestine” and around the world, is arguably the most unprogressive movement on the planet.

There is simply no progressive case for Palestine.

There are those who argue that you cannot be a feminist or an activist unless you blindly support “Palestine” (which ranks 160th out of 170 countries on women’s rights) and denounce Israel (which ranks number 27).¹

These rankings would be irrelevant to my case if these folks advocated for women’s equality in “Palestine.” They do not. Instead they attack Israel like a piñata, but that does precisely nothing to alleviate the catastrophic situation of Palestinian women.

Not only do “pro-Palestinian” fauxgressives not advance the well-being of Palestinians, they actively subvert every progressive value.

Everything progressives claim to endorse is betrayed and spat upon by Palestinianism. The Palestinian nationalist movement is a national liberation movement, yes. But it is not a movement for the liberation of people. All evidence is that Palestinians in an independent Palestine would be no more free — indeed, probably less free — than they are now.

And rarely do progressive activists express concern about this little problem or seek to alter the course of the totalitarian, extremist Palestinian movement they have ridiculously signed on to.

Palestinianism is overwhelmingly violent, misogynistic, homophobic, and antidemocratic.

(The fauxgressive Palestinian narrative blames all of these problems — even domestic violence — on Israel’s “occupation,” of course. The larger conflict is a factor, obviously. But if we lay all the blame on Israel and then “Palestine” becomes independent under a violent, misogynistic, homophobic, and antidemocratic tyranny, who are we going to blame? Not ourselves, of course.)

You simply cannot call yourself progressive and “pro-Palestinian” — unless you condemn the very nature of the movement and demand it cleanse itself of the poison that permeates its every aspect.

Of course, most “progressives” disagree with me. Which, every now and then, makes me wonder: Could I be wrong?

There must be a progressive case for “Palestine.” I mean, progressive movements — trade unions, socialist and liberal political parties, liberal churches, gay rights groups, feminists like the Women’s March — are all marching in lockstep with the idea that you cannot be a progressive if you do not reflexively endorse Palestinianism. There simply has to be a reason most progressives have swallowed this argument.

I went to the likeliest place to find such a case, the book that purports to make precisely this argument.

In 2021, Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick published “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics.” I read this when it first came out and did not find what it promised to deliver: a progressive case for Palestinianism. I reread it again just now because, I thought, I must have missed something. I did not. The book does not make a progressive case for Palestinianism — because there is not one.

Here is what the book does offer: a warmed-over, propagandistic, pre-chewed extended pamphlet rehashing the tired tropes of anti-Israel extremism for the uncritical reader. It declares numerous times that you can’t be progressive and not support Palestinianism, but it never explains why. Because it cannot.

Here is what the authors get exactly backward: They contend that progressives should be uncritically endorsing Palestinianism but we are not. The reality is progressives overwhelmingly do uncritically endorse Palestinianism, but we should not.

Unable to make a progressive case for Palestinianism, they give us yet another repetitive polemic about how bad Israel is and how the saintly, poor Palestinians only want peace but are put upon by a big bad world (who, they do not mention, drown Palestinians in foreign aid and almost unanimously endorse at the United Nations and elsewhere every Palestinian demand no matter how extreme).

Presumably an editor or publisher told the authors that it is not really a premise for a book, so Hill and Plitnick invented a conspiracy to justify readers devoting a few hours to them instead of, say, Stephen King.

In the authors’ screamy little nursery, Palestinians have no friends in the world, least of all among self-described progressives, who betray our progressive values by refusing to drink the Palestinian Kool-Aid.

When it comes to Palestinians, the authors declare, “rather than outrage, progressives offer little more than silence or apparent indifference.”²

Now, admittedly, this was written a couple of years before the current war, when literally millions of useful idiots around the world are chanting: “From the river to the sea.”

But “Palestine” — for at least a quarter-century — has been the foremost progressive foreign policy priority, eclipsing every other issue on the planet.

Where have these authors been? How can writers who are among the top echelon of overseas voices for “Palestine” look at the state of activism and interpret wall-to-wall outrage as “silence and apparent indifference”?

They suffer a bizarre, paranoid delusion in which progressives are overwhelmingly anti-Palestinian or, at least, not sufficiently pro-Palestinian — as if the earsplitting, maniacal, frenzied mobs that make up most of the “progressive” Palestinian movement are not giving it their all.

Progressives, in the dreamscape of the authors, support every good cause except “Palestine.”

“We must no longer render Palestine exceptional,” they declare.

They see the oppression of Palestinians happening with “little resistance from progressive voices.” Progressives, they insist, are “notably silent about the plight of Palestinians.”

This is so at variance with every scrap of evidence that it borders on a socio-psychological condition.

They say that American progressives must “be willing to place appropriate pressure on the Israeli government — something we do without hesitation to the Palestinians — to act and in accordance with international law and basic human rights norms.”

What bizarro world do these two live in? When do progressives ever put pressure on Palestinians to behave in ways that reflect international law, human rights, or progressive values? And when do they ever take the rhetorical boot heel off the throat of Israel’s government?

“If we are to adopt a progressive political outlook — one rooted in antiracist, anti-imperialist, humanistic, and intersectional values — we must begin to prioritize the freedom, dignity, and self-determination of Palestinians,” they say.

Here, finally, is something the authors get right. Except that the Palestinianism they and other “pro-Palestinians” endorse does the opposite of “prioritize the freedom, dignity, and self-determination of Palestinians.”

If we are to adopt a progressive political outlook in reality, we need to denounce Palestinianism as it currently exists and create a movement that would actually free Palestinians — including women, queers, minorities, and those who do not conform to the social, political, and theological orthodoxy. That progressive Palestinian movement currently does not exist.

And until it does, there is no progressive case for Palestinianism.

Worse, those who claim to be progressive and “pro-Palestinian” so egregiously betray the things that are actually progressive that they have no place in our movements, our unions, our Pride parades, our progressive political parties, or anywhere else genuine progressives congregate.

We need to purge these people from our progressive movements. And then nurture a truly progressive case for “Palestine,” a movement that seeks compromise and coexistence, the only things that will ever bring peace and Palestinian self-determination.

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1. “Women and Peace Security Index 2021/22.” Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

2. Hill, Marc Lamont, and Plitnick, Mitchell. “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics.” The New Press, 2021.