Is “Free Palestine” Immoral Or “Counterproductive”?

In political and ideological debates, few words carry as much quiet weight as “counterproductive.” It is a term that cloaks deep moral issues in the language of strategy, substituting ethical clarity with tactical calculus.

Recent uses of the word by political figures and organizations—such as Cenk Uygur’s response to the murder of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., and J Street’s condemnation of the student takeover of Columbia University’s Butler Library—highlight the way moral outrage is increasingly filtered through the lens of utility.

Alt-left commentator Cenk Uygur comments about the murder of a young couple from Israel on the streets of Washington, DC by a man yelling “Free Palestine”

The Language of Outcomes

When Cenk Uygur called the murder of the diplomats “counterproductive” and “stupid,” he minimized his “obviously immoral” charge. He reframed the cold-blooded murder of two young Israelis at a Jewish event through a critique that the violence would “harm the Palestinian cause.” Similarly, J Street’s reaction to the Butler Library takeover focused not on the pain caused to students studying for finals but on the effectiveness of the mass action.

J Street commentary on violent takeover of Columbia University library during study week

Both statements imply a worldview where the ends can justify the means IF the means produce desired outcomes. Violence and disruptions aren’t inherently wrong, full stop; they’re wrong if they don’t work.

This mode of thinking belongs to a form of strategic utilitarianism—actions are weighed not on whether they are ethically sound, but whether they are instrumentally successful. Murder isn’t condemned for its cruelty or injustice, but for its inefficiency. Protest isn’t wrong because it defies norms, but because it alienates potential allies or invites political backlash as in: it “provide[s] the Trump Administration with ammunition…” and “it allows people to frame the whole peace movement as violent.”

The Profound Delusion

How is the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people and mass rape of women and butchering of babies a “peace movement?” a sane person would ask. How is the killing of a young couple in Washington – thousands of miles from Gaza – an issue of “framing” for the masses (read “potential allies”)?

The idea that victims’ deaths were simply “counterproductive” is chilling. It suggests they were not wronged, but miscalculated. Their humanity becomes a variable in someone else’s flawed strategy. The moral frame disappears; only the tactical one remains.

There is a profound gap between calculated language and moral reality. For the political commentators, everything is a chessboard; for the people on the ground, it is their lives.

Question If The Entire Movement Is Unjustified And Immoral

Uygur and J Street – different parts of the socialists-jihadi alliance – use of “counterproductive” is an attempt to separate the actions of the violent offenders in the United States from the Hamas-led war in Israel. It seeks to sanitize the Gazan war to “Free Palestine” as a noble goal, while the tactics of some people – including possibly the October 7 massacre itself – are flawed.

Lost on those absorbing this insidious narrative of “Free Palestine” is that the movement is immoral. The chants of an “ongoing Nakba” are not cries for peace but a desire of SAPs and their supporters to destroy Israel and ethnically cleanse the Jewish Promised Land of Jews, marketed under the banner of human rights. Yes, local Arabs deserve self-determination which can be achieved in multiple ways. No, they don’t have an “inalienable right” to their own country nor to move into houses where grandparents once lived.

The only way of achieving their stated desired goal of ending Israel is via violence, both there and here. The murder of two Israelis outside a Jewish event in America’s capital city isn’t “counterproductive” but an unspoken essential component of the global jihad. It is the definition of “by any means necessary.”

Conclusion

Language shapes how we see the world. When murder is called “counterproductive” – whether of two Israelis in Washington or 1,200 people in Israel – the victims’ moral worth is sidelined in favor of strategic impact. Worse, the soft wording obfuscates not only the evil of the immediate killings but that the entire “Free Palestine” mission is about the mass murder of Jews.

The issue isn’t optics. There is a reason the hordes are yelling “we are all Hamas,” “gas the Jews” and “Heil Hitler,” and it isn’t coexistence. The alt-left’s shielding of violent antisemites has made them complicit in both the violence against Jews and the ongoing trauma the Jewish community is enduring.

Related articles:

Genocidal Jihadists Come For ‘Soft Targets’ (September 2024)

When Enemies Of The Jews Use “Any Means Necessary” (May 2024)

The Normalization Deformity: No To Zionism and Peace; Yes To Massacres and Terrorism In a Global Intifada (January 2024)

The “N-word” And “Free Palestine”

Facebook’s parent company Meta announced that it will permit the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” on its platform despite protests from groups that it is a call for the mass genocide of Israeli Jews. Meta’s Oversight Board sided with pro-Palestinian groups which argued that it is simply an expression for equal rights for all Arabs in the region.

The decision stemmed from three situations in which the phrase was used on the platform, and concluded that “the three pieces of content contain contextual signs of solidarity with Palestinians – but no language calling for violence or exclusion. They also do not glorify or even refer to Hamas, an organization designated as dangerous by Meta,” suggesting that only when the phrase is used connecting to calls for violence will the language be banned from the platform. Or stated differently, the expression itself is benign, and it is only the calls for violence that will cause censorship, as “the phrase’s use by this terrorist group [Hamas] with explicit violent eliminationist intent and actions, does not make the phrase inherently hateful or violent – considering the variety of people using the phrase in different ways,” the board said.

In short, Meta decided to side with pro-Palestinians over Zionists and Jews who view the phrase as an open call for the genocide of Jews.

It is interesting to compare that phrase to the “N-word” which is also used a wide variety of contexts.

Many Black musicians use the word in their songs. The Black comedian Dave Chappelle uses the N-word repeatedly in his shows, both for Black people or White people. These artists are seemingly given a pass as they themselves use the derogatory term. Chappelle mocked such sensitivity openly and defiantly.

Yet the NAACP voted to ban the word in 2007 and issued a follow-up statement in 2014 which clarified the reasons to block the term, including by artists:

“the stigma of this word embodies and invokes painful memories and inhumane ill-will; and countless individuals including NAACP freedom fighters, have lost their lives due to the beliefs perpetuated by the use of this word.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shall not condone, award, or engage any person that uses the N-word in any capacity, or in any artistic endeavor that does not allude to the historical context of the word, or that does not highlight the prejudicial nature of the word; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People implement the following actions to reinforce its ban on the use of the N-word issued in 2007 and bolster education and awareness about the offensiveness of the word across racial and generational lines: Make the ban reinforcement a top civil rights priority for all units; and urge every youth unit in consultation with their corresponding adult branch develop a plan of action for implementation. Plan must include internal branch affirmation, public awareness, community outreach and a reporting process. In places where no active youth unit exists, the adult unit would be held to the same said requirement.”

While the corresponding derogatory term for Jews, the K-word, might be a better comparable to the N-word for Black people, it is not the antisemitic phrase that has often accompanied the slaughter of Jews.

“Free Palestine” is shouted at Jews on streets, painted on their synagogues and while they dine in restaurants. It is the placard hoisted at rallies in front of Jewish institutions and Hillels on college campuses. It is a taunt and threat, accompanied by the slogan “by any means necessary,” including burning Jews alive, as Palestinians brutality did en masse on October 7, 2023, to wild Arab support.

On October 26, 2023, not long after the barbaric attack on Israel, the Anti Defamation League (ADL), issued a statement that clearly tied the “Free Palestine” phrase to antisemitism:

‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is an antisemitic slogan commonly featured in anti-Israel campaigns and chanted at demonstrations.

This rallying cry has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel’s destruction through violent means. It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state. It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.

Usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish and pro-Israel community feel unsafe and ostracized. It is important to note that demanding justice for Palestinians, or calling for a Palestinian state, should not mean, as this hateful phrase posits, denying the right of the State of Israel to exist.”

The Jewish victims of attack do not ask for “context” when people use the “Free Palestine” phrase; they know that more Jews “lost their lives due to the beliefs perpetuated by the use of this word” than any time since the Holocaust.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on HR 883 in April 2024 to label the phrase as antisemitic by a wide 377 to 44 margin. It specifically stated that “the slogan, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, is outrightly antisemitic and must be strongly condemned;” and “this slogan perpetuates hatred against the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” Notable anti-Israel squad members Bowman, Bush, Dingell, Barbara Lee, AOC, Omar, Pocan, Schakowsky, Tlaib, Velazquez and Waters voted against the resolution.

Society has so internalized the Black community’s objection to a hateful word that it cannot be uttered nor written. Yet calling for the genocide of Jews has been given a passing grade at universities, and a green light on social media.

ACTION ITEM

Contact ADL and your member of Congress to pressure the group to demand Meta change its policy regarding the genocidal phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” Mark the phrase with the same opprobrium as the N-word.

Related articles:

Bewildered (May 2024)

The Hangman’s Noose For Jews, Held Aloft And Chanted On College Campuses (April 2024)

University Presidents’ Congressional Hearing On Antisemitism Prioritized Muslim Community (January 2024)

The Scale And Barbarity Of The Hamas Massacre (October 2023)

Heinrich Himmler’s Heirs, “Freedom Loving Arabs” (November 2021)

Excerpt of Hamas Charter to Share with Your Elected Officials (May 2021)

Palestineism is Toxic Racism (August 2019)

“Free Israel” and the New Pro-Zionist Placards (December 2018)

Racist Calls of Apes and Pigs? Forget Rosanne. Let’s Talk Islam (June 2018)

US Gives $50 Million To Anti-Israel Group Masquerading As Climate Activists

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) shared some disturbing findings on May 21, 2024, that a “$50 million grant was awarded from the EPA through the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to “Climate Justice Alliance,” a group that engages in pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic activities.”

Sen. Capito was not exaggerating. All over the CJA website are calls to defund Israel, the greenest country in the Middle East. Israel:

  • burns less fossil fuels than the other countries in the region
  • was the first to have a wind farm in the region
  • was the first to have a permanent bike sharing program
  • surpasses even the European Union in recycling plastic
  • was one of only two countries in the world to have more trees entering the 21st century than it did at the start of the 20th century, due to an extensive forestation program
  • brought the world drip irrigation, feeding millions of people in Africa

No matter. CJA leads its website – for an organization that is supposed to handle climate issues in minority neighborhoods in the United States – with a call to “Free Palestine.”

Home page of Climate Justice Alliance

The site has an article with video which sought to tie environmental matters in poor US towns with an “anti-colonial framework” and the “liberation of Palestine.”

In addition to the disgraceful pushing of anti-Israel rhetoric, the CJA funnels money specifically designated for the American environment to left-wing pro-Hamas organizations. The CJA is literally stealing money under the banner of “climate justice” for minorities in America, and pushing destroy Israel propaganda. The group takes the $50 million award and funnels it “to help allies in other movements,” as published on their site.

And CJA has lots of radical members who are part of the socialist-jihadi unholy alliance to destroy Israel and the United States.

One of them is the Movement Generation out of Oakland, CA. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 brutal massacre of 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, the group posted that it “honors unconditionally, Palestinian’s right to decolonization and self determination.” It posts to Instagram a commitment to resist Zionism as long as it exists.

Other member groups posted much of the same in the following days, calling for an eradication of Israel and its replacement with a new state of Palestine.

Far-left groups are taking tax-payer dollars meant to help the US environment and repurposing it for a genocidal war against America’s ally, Israel. It’s not just robbing from every American tax-payer and supporting a terrorist group, but depriving impacted communities from actually getting the environmental assistance they need.

Related articles:

Going Green With Embassies in Jerusalem (December 2020)

Palestinians Deliberately Aggravate Climate Change (July 2018)

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East (March 2015)

Related music videos:

Israel, Mother Nature’s Son (music by The Beatles)

Israel is over the Rainbow (music by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole)