Free Palestine... from Hamas.
What the left and right in America both get wrong about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
If there is one thing the left and right in America increasingly seem to agree on, it is a their hatred towards the Jewish people. In just the past two weeks, American Jews have suffered two horrific mass casualty attacks at the hands of Palestinian supporters who shouted, "Free Palestine," while shooting, killing, and setting fire to Jews at Jewish-centered events.
In one attack, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national, assaulted participants in a peaceful walk organized by "Run for Their Lives," a group advocating for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Armed with a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, Soliman injured thirteen people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.
In another, Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old man from Chicago, fatally shot two Israeli embassy staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum. Upon arrest, Rodriguez declared, "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza," and repeatedly shouted, "Free Palestine."
For context, I am neither Jewish nor Muslim. In fact, I am not religious at all. But it is abundantly clear that both sides in this conflict, reignited after the October 7, 2023 massacre in which Hamas fighters attacked Jewish kibbutzim and slaughtered nearly 1,200 Jewish civilians, are deeply in the wrong. They are so for very different reasons.
If you are someone who is only seeing, hearing, or supporting one side of this conflict, I would invite you to approach this discussion with an open mind. This is a heavily charged topic, and disinformation is rampant. My goal here is to examine what both sides are getting wrong, and to argue why it is essential to remain fair-minded, while keeping a clear moral compass when it comes to assigning responsibility. I am not a fan of moral relativism. In this conflict, one side does bear a greater share of the blame.
What Israel Is Getting Wrong in the War With Palestine
A nation can have the right to defend itself and still be held accountable for how it does so. That truth applies squarely to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel has pursued a war strategy that increasingly runs afoul of international legal norms, humanitarian standards, and its own long-term interests. A sober look at these missteps is not an act of hostility toward Israel. On the contrary, it is a necessary act of concern for its future security and moral standing.
First, Israel’s conduct in Gaza has increasingly violated principles of proportionality and distinction under international humanitarian law. The laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilians and require combatants to distinguish between military targets and civilian ones. Yet the sheer scale of destruction in Gaza tells a troubling story. As of spring 2025, over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of women and children. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled. Civilian infrastructure, from hospitals to universities, has been destroyed under the often thin justification of targeting Hamas fighters allegedly embedded in those areas. Even if one grants that Hamas cynically uses human shields, this does not absolve Israel of its legal obligation to minimize civilian harm.
Second, Israel’s blockade and restriction of humanitarian aid amounts to collective punishment, which is explicitly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. International organizations, including the United Nations, have repeatedly documented that Israel’s blockade policies are impeding the delivery of vital food, water, and medical supplies to a besieged population. The resulting humanitarian catastrophe is not a collateral byproduct of war, it is a policy choice being made in violation of international obligations.
Third, there is growing evidence that some elements within the Israeli government are pursuing a strategy of de facto forced displacement, particularly with rhetoric around making northern Gaza uninhabitable or pushing large segments of the population into Egypt. Forced transfer of civilians under the threat of violence or starvation is a serious breach of international law and could, in certain contexts, meet the definition of a crime against humanity.
Finally, the broader political failure of the Netanyahu government cannot be ignored. Rather than articulating a clear endgame or offering a post-war vision that separates Hamas from the Palestinian population, Israeli leadership has too often embraced maximalist rhetoric, rejected diplomatic overtures, and deepened the cycle of radicalization. This serves neither Israeli nor Palestinian civilians. It emboldens extremists on both sides.
To critique these policies is not to deny the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, nor is it to question Israel’s right to exist or defend itself. But rights come with responsibilities. A nation’s moral strength lies not in how fiercely it fights, but in how justly it does so. Israel’s current trajectory risks sacrificing both its global standing and its long-term security on the altar of short-term vengeance.
What Hamas and Palestinian Leadership Are Getting Wrong in This War
Moral clarity demands that both sides of this war be judged by the same standards. Just as it is vital to hold Israel accountable for its violations of humanitarian law, it is equally necessary to confront the grievous wrongs committed by Hamas and the failures of Palestinian leadership. Too often, critics of Israel turn a blind eye to these realities, undercutting their own credibility and doing no favors to the cause of Palestinian liberation.
First and foremost, Hamas’s deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians is a war crime of the highest order. The October 7 attacks were not military strikes against legitimate targets, they were calculated acts of mass murder, rape, and hostage-taking. These atrocities shattered the lives of ordinary Israelis and fueled the cycle of hatred that has followed. No resistance movement, however justified its grievances, can claim moral legitimacy when it embraces terrorism. The actions of Hamas on that day permanently stained the Palestinian cause in the eyes of much of the world.
Second, Hamas’s practice of embedding military assets within civilian infrastructure cynically exploits the very population it claims to defend. Storing rockets in schools and mosques, operating command centers under hospitals, and using civilian apartment blocks as cover are well-documented tactics. These actions not only violate the laws of war but directly endanger Palestinian civilians. The resulting civilian casualties, tragic as they are, become a propaganda tool for Hamas rather than a cause for military restraint. This is a form of political violence against their own people.
Third, the broader Palestinian leadership, both in Gaza and in the West Bank, remains fragmented, corrupt, and strategically incoherent. Fatah’s failure to reform or provide effective governance in the West Bank has left many Palestinians disillusioned and powerless. In Gaza, Hamas rules as an authoritarian force, stifling dissent, abusing human rights, and prioritizing its military ambitions over the welfare of its citizens. The inability of Palestinian leadership to present a united, credible political alternative to both Hamas’s extremism and Israel’s occupation is a profound failure of vision.
Finally, some elements of the global pro-Palestinian movement must confront their own rhetorical excesses and moral blind spots. Slogans like “From the river to the sea” are interpreted by many as calls for the elimination of Israel, not peaceful coexistence. Rhetoric that glorifies Hamas or justifies the October 7 attacks alienates potential allies and deepens polarization. Advocacy for Palestinian rights must be rooted in a principled commitment to nonviolence, human rights, and mutual recognition.
In Short, Hamas is not a liberation movement, it is an armed faction pursuing power through terror. Its actions have done catastrophic harm not only to Israeli civilians but to the Palestinian cause itself. A genuine path to justice requires Palestinians to reject this model of resistance and build a leadership rooted in democratic legitimacy and respect for international law.
The Forgotten Exodus: How Jews Were Driven Out of Muslim Lands
Much of today’s rhetoric around Israel and Palestine erases a parallel history that few in the West are taught. For all the focus on Palestinian displacement, there is comparatively little discussion of the fact that Jews were systematically pushed out of the broader Middle East and North Africa over the last century. This ethnic cleansing, yes, that is what it was, unfolded largely at the hands of nationalist and Islamist movements across a wide arc of Muslim-majority countries. It is not some ancient history. It is the living memory of millions of Jewish families now concentrated in Israel.
At the turn of the twentieth century, close to one million Jews lived in Arab lands stretching from Morocco to Iraq, with thriving communities that predated Islam itself. Baghdad, once called the "City of Peace," was a center of Jewish scholarship. Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Tunis, Tripoli, all were home to vibrant Jewish populations. These communities survived centuries of second-class status under dhimmi laws, but their final destruction came with the rise of modern Arab nationalism and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The 1948 Arab-Israeli war unleashed a wave of persecution across the region. Pogroms, confiscations, expulsions, and state-sanctioned violence drove Jews out of countries where they had lived for centuries. Consider the numbers:
Iraq: 135,000 Jews in 1948, fewer than 10 remain today
Egypt: 75,000 Jews in 1948, less than 10 today
Libya: 38,000 Jews in 1948, zero today
Syria: 30,000 Jews in 1948, almost none today
Yemen: 55,000 Jews in 1948, only a handful remain
Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria: once home to hundreds of thousands of Jews, now reduced to tiny remnants
In total, more than 850,000 Jews fled or were expelled from Arab and Muslim lands between 1948 and the 1970s. Most of these refugees were stateless, stripped of property, and forced to rebuild in Israel or the West. Today, almost half of Israel’s Jewish population descends from these communities, which were families who sought refuge not from Europe, but from Arab persecution.
Yet this history is all but ignored in most conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When slogans like “From the river to the sea” are chanted in the streets of Western cities, they paint a picture of a singular injustice against Palestinians. What they fail to acknowledge is that the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Muslim world already happened, in plain sight, and that Israel today serves as a last refuge for a people with nowhere else to go.
There are only about 15 million Jews in the world, a number dwarfed by the population of any major Muslim country. Roughly seven million now live in Israel, not because of some colonial impulse, but because history taught them there is no safe diaspora. Calls to erase the Jewish state are not theoretical to these families. They are reminders of the violence that drove them from Baghdad, from Cairo, from Damascus, from Tripoli. To pretend otherwise is to willfully erase a central truth of this conflict.
Is There a Palestinian Equivalency? Examining the Record of Muslim Displacement by Jews
A central question in any honest reckoning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is whether both sides have engaged in comparable patterns of ethnic cleansing. Many activists frame the issue as a tit-for-tat cycle of dispossession. Yet the historical record does not support a claim of equivalency when it comes to Muslims being expelled en masse from Jewish-majority lands. The displacement of Palestinians is real, tragic, and well documented. But the idea that Jews have driven Muslims out of a broader Middle Eastern homeland, in the way Jews were expelled from Muslim lands, simply does not hold up to scrutiny.
First, it must be stated clearly: there were no significant Jewish-majority states in the Middle East until the founding of Israel in 1948. For centuries, Jews were a small minority under Muslim rule. They had neither the political power nor the military means to expel anyone. The idea of Jews as colonizers of the Muslim world is an inversion of the actual history, in which Jewish communities often lived under restrictive, second-class status (dhimmi) in Muslim-majority societies.
In the case of Israel itself, the 1948 war and subsequent Palestinian refugee crisis are undeniable facts. An estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the fighting that accompanied the creation of the Israeli state. Some left out of fear, some were pushed out by Israeli forces, and others were urged to evacuate by Arab leaders promising a swift military victory. The historical debate over exactly how much of this displacement was planned versus incidental continues to this day.
However, this event, tragic as it was, is geographically narrow. It pertains to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, not to some broader campaign of Jewish-led Muslim expulsions across the Arab world. By contrast, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands spanned dozens of countries and was driven by state-level policies of persecution, confiscation, and forced expulsion.
Furthermore, Muslims remain a growing and vibrant population within Israel today. Roughly two million Arab citizens of Israel (nearly 20 percent of the population) live within the state, with citizenship rights, representation in the Knesset, and full religious freedoms. While discrimination and inequality exist — as in many societies — there has been no Israeli policy of driving Muslims out of Israel. In fact, the Muslim population of Israel has grown consistently since 1948.
In short, there is no moral equivalency between the forced expulsion of Jews from the Muslim world — which reduced ancient Jewish communities to near zero — and the Palestinian refugee tragedy, which, while real, has not been mirrored by a broader campaign of Jewish-led Muslim displacement across the region. Nor is there an effort today to push Israel’s Muslim citizens into exile.
This is not to excuse or minimize Palestinian suffering. It is simply to correct the record. The slogan “From the river to the sea” implies that Jews are foreigners in the land of Israel, that they should return to the lands they supposedly came from. Yet those lands, from Baghdad to Cairo to Damascus, have already made their position clear: Jews are not welcome there. The idea that a Jewish population could simply dissolve itself back into a Middle East from which it was violently expelled is a dangerous fantasy. It ignores history and fuels the very zero-sum thinking that prolongs this conflict.
The Armistice Lines: Where the Border Disputes Really Began (In Recent History)
To understand the territorial disputes at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must start not with 1967, but with 1949. That is the year of the Armistice Agreements — the fragile framework that established what many today call the "1967 borders," though the term itself is a misnomer. In truth, these were never internationally recognized borders. They were ceasefire lines, drawn in the aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli war.
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, five Arab armies invaded, seeking to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. The resulting war ended in 1949 with separate armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The most important outcome was the creation of the so-called Green Line, a demarcation that separated Israeli-controlled territory from Arab-held territory, primarily the West Bank (under Jordanian control) and Gaza Strip (under Egyptian control).
The agreements explicitly stated that these lines were not final borders. Article II of the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, for instance, said that the demarcation line was "without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines." In other words, it was a ceasefire line, not a recognized border.
The core disputes over borders today stem from this ambiguity. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. The international consensus, reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 242, called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the war, in exchange for peace. Yet the resolution’s language was carefully crafted — it did not demand withdrawal from “all the territories,” leaving room for negotiation.
Since then, three major disputes over borders remain unresolved:
The West Bank (including East Jerusalem):
Palestinians and much of the international community view the West Bank as the heart of a future Palestinian state. Israel disputes this, citing historical, religious, and security claims, and has built extensive settlements there. The precise delineation of Israeli and Palestinian territories within the West Bank remains a central point of contention.Gaza Strip:
Though Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005, it maintains control over Gaza’s airspace, maritime access, and much of its land crossings. Palestinians argue that Gaza remains under de facto occupation, while Israel asserts that it has no formal control over Gaza’s governance.East Jerusalem:
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after 1967, declaring a unified capital. No country, including the United States until recent years, formally recognized this annexation. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The status of the city remains one of the thorniest issues in any peace negotiation.
At its core, the border question is about whether the Green Line of 1949 should serve as the basis for a two-state solution, with mutually agreed land swaps, or whether Israel will retain substantial portions of the territory it seized in 1967. The ambiguity built into the Armistice Agreements means that there has never been a universally recognized border between Israel and Palestine. This legal and political vacuum continues to fuel the conflict.
The 1949 Armistice Lines were not intended to be permanent, yet they have become the de facto reference point for nearly every subsequent peace effort. Until the core questions of sovereignty, security, and mutual recognition are addressed, those lines will remain not borders, but battle lines in a war of narratives.
The Last Decade of Ceasefires: A Timeline of Fragile Truces Between Israel and Hamas
For over a decade, ceasefires between Israel and Hamas have been temporary bandages on a deep and festering wound. These agreements, while often trumpeted by international mediators as breakthroughs, have repeatedly collapsed under the weight of mutual distrust, political calculation, and the ever-present temptation for either side to test the limits of the other. It is critical to understand these ceasefires not as true peace accords, but as precarious pauses in a conflict neither party has been willing, or able, to truly resolve.
🔸 2014 – Operation Protective Edge Ceasefire
In August 2014, after fifty brutal days of conflict, a ceasefire was brokered by Egypt. The agreement was open-ended, designed to halt the bloodshed, ease the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and expand Gaza’s fishing zone. Yet violations soon followed. Rocket fire from Gaza, and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, continued sporadically, slowly eroding the ceasefire’s credibility.
🔸 2018 – Escalations and Temporary Ceasefires
Throughout 2018, Egypt and the United Nations mediated multiple brief truces. The goal was to de-escalate frequent flare-ups and allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza. However, none of these ceasefires fully held. Rockets and mortar fire from Gaza, met by Israeli retaliatory strikes, created a cycle of violence that undermined each attempted pause.
🔸 2021 – Operation Guardian of the Walls Ceasefire
On May 21, 2021, Egypt again brokered a ceasefire after eleven days of heavy fighting. Both sides agreed to a mutual cessation of hostilities. Compared to past truces, this ceasefire was relatively stable, holding for an extended period despite underlying tensions. Yet smaller flare-ups and provocations persisted along the border.
🔸 2023 – November Ceasefire
A temporary ceasefire began on November 24, 2023, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. The primary purpose was to facilitate hostage exchanges and the flow of humanitarian aid. But the ceasefire quickly crumbled. On December 1, Hamas launched rockets, citing Israeli violations, and Israel resumed airstrikes in response. Both sides blamed the other for collapsing the fragile truce.
🔸 2025 – January to March Ceasefire
A more ambitious ceasefire began on January 19, 2025, as part of a three-phase plan involving phased hostage-prisoner exchanges, Israeli withdrawal, and reconstruction. Despite initial hopes, mutual violations quickly emerged. Hamas delayed hostage releases and staged inflammatory handovers. Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreement and resumed airstrikes on March 18, citing Hamas’s refusal to move into the next phase of negotiations.
Building a Democracy: What Israel Has Created, and What Palestine Has Not
For all the criticism Israel receives, one simple fact is too often ignored: The Jews of Israel have, in a hostile region, built the Middle East’s only functioning liberal democracy. It is not a perfect democracy, no state is, but it is one where women have full legal equality, where LGBTQ+ people have rights and protections, where freedom of religion is upheld, and where the rule of law operates. This is a culture that values dissent, innovation, and legal accountability. And it is worth comparing honestly to the governing norms that exist in Palestinian-controlled territories.
Start with the democratic framework. Israel has free and competitive elections, a fiercely independent press, and a judiciary that regularly checks the power of its own leaders. Even unpopular figures, including sitting prime ministers, have been investigated and prosecuted. Israel’s parliament includes Arab parties and Arab lawmakers. Muslim citizens of Israel enjoy voting rights, religious freedom, and access to education. Women serve as Supreme Court justices, military officers, and CEOs. Gay pride parades are held openly in Tel Aviv, a city often ranked among the most LGBTQ+ friendly in the world. In short, Israel is a democracy with civil liberties, and it functions as such.
On the economic front, the achievements are staggering. Israel has produced more than 100 "unicorn" companies, private firms valued at over one billion dollars. The country leads the world in venture capital investment per capita, and has thriving sectors in cybersecurity, medical technology, artificial intelligence, and clean energy. Tel Aviv is ranked among the world’s top startup hubs. Israeli innovations are used globally, from life-saving cancer treatments to the Waze navigation app. For a country of just over nine million people, surrounded by hostile actors, this is an extraordinary record of intellectual and economic vitality.
And what of Palestinian territories? There are zero billion-dollar companies operating in the West Bank or Gaza. Not one. This is not a failure of the Palestinian people, who are industrious and capable. It is a failure of governance and culture. In Gaza, Hamas has created a closed, militarized society where economic innovation is impossible. The region is dominated by black market smuggling and armed factions, not legal commerce. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is rife with corruption and nepotism. The rule of law is weak. Property rights are insecure. Foreign investment is deterred by both political instability and systemic graft. Under such conditions, it is no surprise that Palestinian territories have produced no major global companies, let alone billion-dollar unicorns.
In the Palestinian territories, both Hamas-ruled Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, democracy is absent in any meaningful sense. Gaza has had no elections since 2006; Hamas governs it as an authoritarian militia. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is notorious for corruption and repression. Mahmoud Abbas now serves his eighteenth year of a four-year term, ruling by decree. There is no independent judiciary, no real protection for dissent, and a pervasive climate of political intimidation.
The treatment of women in these territories is deeply concerning. Domestic violence is rampant, and when women accuse men of abuse, they are often ignored or blamed. There is little legal recourse, and enforcement of protections is minimal at best. Honor killings still occur, and perpetrators are frequently given lenient sentences. The lack of accountability creates a culture of impunity for male violence.
LGBTQ+ Palestinians face extreme persecution. In Gaza, homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment or worse, and very often death. Public expression of gay identity is impossible. In the West Bank, gay Palestinians often flee to Israel to seek safety. There is no serious public debate about gay rights, because to raise the issue is to risk violence or ostracism.
Freedom of religion? It is virtually nonexistent. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, non-Muslim minorities face harassment, threats, and in many cases outright expulsion. The small Christian community in Gaza, once numbering over 3,000, has dwindled to fewer than 1,000 under Hamas rule. Christian schools and churches are under constant pressure, and open proselytizing is forbidden. In 2007, Rami Ayyad, the owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Islamist extremists after receiving repeated death threats. His killers were never held accountable.
The story is much the same for non-Sunni Muslims and secular Palestinians. Shiite Muslims, Bahá'ís, and atheists are targeted both by official policy and mob violence. Accusations of apostasy can lead to imprisonment or worse. Even among Sunni Muslims, those who dissent from Hamas’s hardline interpretation of Islam face persecution. Journalists and academics who challenge religious orthodoxy risk arrest or forced exile.
In the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, the situation is somewhat less violent but still oppressive. Conversion from Islam to another faith is socially taboo and legally fraught. The prevailing ideology across both territories is rigid and intolerant. There is no open marketplace of religious ideas, no protection for minority faiths, and no real freedom to believe or not believe. A healthy democracy cannot exist where freedom of conscience is denied, and yet in Gaza and the West Bank today, that denial is the norm.
Why does this matter? Because democratic norms are not just window dressing. They shape the daily lives of citizens. A society that respects women’s rights, protects minorities, and operates under the rule of law tends to be more stable, prosperous, and humane. A society that represses half its population, persecutes gays, and tolerates corruption and violence becomes brittle, authoritarian, and prone to extremism.
None of this excuses any specific Israeli policy. Criticism of Israel’s government is both valid and necessary. But it is dishonest to pretend that there is moral equivalency between Israel’s democratic culture and the authoritarian, repressive norms that dominate Palestinian governance today. This gap in values is one of the great unspoken obstacles to peace. A viable Palestinian state cannot be built on foundations of corruption, misogyny, and intolerance. Until those norms change, the dream of a just and lasting peace will remain out of reach in my humble opinion.
What Does “From the River to the Sea” Really Mean, and are there still Zionist?
Few slogans are as misunderstood or deceptively sanitized in Western discourse as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” For activists chanting it on college campuses, it is often framed as a call for Palestinian freedom. But history and context tell a very different story.
The phrase refers to the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which is the entire land of modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. In other words, to be “free” in this context would mean the eradication of the Jewish state. There is no partition in this vision, no two-state solution. It is a call for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel.
This was not some fringe slogan. It was core to the original 1988 Hamas Charter, which explicitly called for the destruction of Israel and for jihad to reclaim all the land. The original charter openly stated:
"Israel will rise and remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors."
More recently, Hamas updated its public charter in 2017 to tone down some language in response to international criticism. The new document claims the conflict is with “Zionists” rather than Jews as a whole, and it no longer explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel in those exact words. But Hamas leaders and its armed wing continue to make clear in speeches and actions that the goal remains the same. The phrase “From the river to the sea” is still used by Hamas supporters and affiliates as a shorthand for eliminating Israel.
Now, some will argue, “But do any Zionists want to eliminate Palestine?” Here is the critical difference. There is no significant Zionist movement today, in government or mainstream Israeli politics, that calls for the total annihilation of Palestinians or the complete erasure of their presence. There are fringe extremist settlers who hold maximalist views and who advocate expelling Palestinians, and there are radical elements within Israel’s far-right who flirt with this rhetoric. These groups are dangerous and must be opposed. But they are a fringe. The dominant Zionist position, even among many on the Israeli right, supports maintaining Israel as a Jewish state while debating how to handle the territories.
By contrast, the destruction of Israel is not a fringe position in Hamas. It is central to its identity. It remains mainstream within Hamas, and it is present in much of the political culture of Palestinian resistance groups today.
Polling consistently shows that a substantial portion of the Palestinian population supports Hamas. For example, a 2024 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 57 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank supported Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 attacks. Similar polling over the past decade shows that Hamas maintains a solid political base, often polling above 65% of support, and outperforming the Palestinian Authority in public trust.
In short, support for Hamas is not limited to a small extremist faction, nor is its agenda of eliminating Israel a marginal view within the territories. This reality makes the chant “From the river to the sea” all the more dangerous, because for many who use it, it is not a vague call for freedom, it is a call for violent erasure of Israel, a goal that remains deeply rooted in both Hamas’s ideology and significant portions of Palestinian political culture.
The related slogan, “Globalize the Intifada,” is also not as innocent as some Western activists imagine. The first and second intifadas were not merely protests. They were violent uprisings that included suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians. To call for “globalizing” such a movement is to encourage spreading violent uprising worldwide, not just peaceful protest. It is a call for internationalizing a violent struggle, under the banner of armed resistance.
One side chants for the destruction of the other, rooted in its founding documents and reinforced by its leadership and culture. The other side, while flawed and with its own extremists, does not hold this genocidal aim as a core policy or rallying cry. That is not moral equivalence. It is a stark moral difference.
Is Israel an Apartheid State? Is it Committing Genocide?
One of the most frequent accusations in today’s discourse is that Israel is an “apartheid state” or is committing “genocide” against Palestinians. These are emotionally powerful words. But words matter. To maintain intellectual integrity, we should ask whether these labels are accurate descriptions of what is actually happening.
Start with the charge of apartheid. The word originates from South Africa’s system of state-enforced racial segregation, where blacks were denied citizenship, could not vote, were forcibly separated from whites in every aspect of life, and had no legal equality. Is this the case inside Israel’s borders today? No. Roughly 21 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims or Christians, and they are full citizens of the state. They vote in national elections. They hold seats in Israel’s parliament (the Knesset). They serve as judges, including on the Supreme Court. They attend universities, own businesses, and participate in civic life. One may criticize inequalities and discrimination within Israeli society, as exists in many democracies, but this is not apartheid in the historical sense of the term.
Now, the West Bank is another matter, and here the picture becomes more complex. Palestinians in the West Bank are not Israeli citizens, and Israel’s military occupation imposes harsh restrictions on their movement and daily life. There are Israeli settlements in the West Bank where Israeli settlers live under Israeli civil law while Palestinians live under military law. These policies are rightly criticized and must be challenged if there is ever to be peace. But even here, using the word “apartheid” obscures more than it clarifies. Israel has never formally annexed the West Bank, nor declared that Palestinians there will be permanent non-citizens. The political debate inside Israel remains sharply divided on what the ultimate status of these territories should be.
As for the claim that Israel is committing genocide, the evidence simply does not support this accusation, despite the fact Israel has been accused of this by internationa organizations such as Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Genocide means the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. If Israel’s goal were genocide, the Muslim population under Israeli rule would not be growing, yet it is. The Arab Muslim population inside Israel’s borders has grown steadily since 1948 and continues to rise. The Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza has also grown year over year, according to data from both Palestinian and international sources.
Israel does conduct military operations in Gaza, and these operations cause unacceptable civilian casualties, which deserve strong criticism. But these are the actions of a state engaged in war with an enemy that hides among civilians, not a campaign of systematic extermination. If genocide were Israel’s intent, the demographic trends would look very different.
In short, these labels, apartheid, genocide, are deployed not to advance understanding, but to inflame emotion. They serve to delegitimize Israel’s very existence, not to improve the lives of Palestinians. That is why it is so important to push back on them. Criticizing Israeli policies is legitimate. Opposing settlement expansion, defending Palestinian rights, are all worthy causes. But to adopt the language of apartheid and genocide is not only false, it poisons the discourse and pushes peace further out of reach.
Who Bears More Moral Responsibility? A Final Look
When approaching a conflict as emotionally charged as Israel and Palestine, it is tempting to retreat into either side’s narrative. But history, facts, and moral clarity should still matter.
The Jewish people are, by any measure, among the most persecuted people in human history. Within living memory, they suffered the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were systematically exterminated by the Nazi regime. Many Holocaust survivors are still alive today, including among the very communities that were attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023. For a people with this trauma to now face calls for their extermination from groups like Hamas, and to face chants of "From the river to the sea," which openly envisions a Jew-free region, is not merely political rhetoric. It is existential.
Israel, for all of its flaws and policies worth criticizing, remains a democratic state with laws, checks and balances, and protections for minorities and dissent. Hamas, in contrast, is a totalitarian terrorist organization that explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and targets civilians as a core strategy. The Palestinian Authority is riddled with corruption and repression, offering little hope of genuine democratic reform.
There is no need to pretend that both sides are equally guilty. One side may commit excesses in war, but the other side glorifies atrocities as a strategy. Below is a simple moral comparison to clarify the issue:
While Israel’s actions can and should be scrutinized, its fundamental system is one that strives toward law and human rights. Hamas and many in Palestinian leadership embrace a death cult ideology that glorifies violence against Jews and offers no vision of peaceful coexistence. One side may at times fail to live up to democratic ideals. The other rejects those ideals entirely.
This is why I cannot accept the false equivalence so often pushed in Western discourse today, especially by those on the left. There is a moral imbalance here, and it matters. To pretend otherwise is not principled neutrality, it is moral cowardice.
Sources
Rami Ayyad murder (Gaza)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7033492.stmDecline of Christian population in Gaza
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-gaza-christians-idUSKBN1E51NOAttacks on Gaza Christian institutions (YMCA)
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde21/005/2008/en/US State Department 2023 International Religious Freedom Report - Palestine
https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-report-on-international-religious-freedom/state-of-palestine/Christian emigration from Bethlehem
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9757/christians-bethlehem
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-christians-of-bethlehem-1482363781Persecution of Palestinian atheists
https://humanists.international/global-report/Hamas original 1988 charter (official translation)
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.aspHamas 2017 revised charter
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-new-charter-full-textPalestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, December 2023 polling (Hamas support, October 7 attacks)
https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/923Anti-Defamation League (ADL) - Record levels of antisemitism in US, 2024
https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/antisemitic-incidents-reach-historic-highs-2024FBI hate crime statistics - 2024 report
https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/hate-crime-statisticsAP News: Mohamed Sabry Soliman attack (Colorado)
https://apnews.com/article/e0deeb2c2a084ecada9f01d6319e7e6aWashington Post: Analysis of Colorado antisemitic attack
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/02/colorado-terrorism-hostages-antisemitism-hamas/Time Magazine: Colorado attack suspect profile
https://time.com/7290425/colorado-attack-suspect/AP News: Elias Rodriguez shooting (Washington DC)
https://apnews.com/article/10307b3b1a2a337e76730736b12ebbcbTimeline of Gaza ceasefires (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_ceasefiresIsrael’s unicorn companies, Startup Nation Central database
https://www.startupnationcentral.org/insights/israel-reaches-100-unicorns/Israel venture capital per capita (OECD)
https://data.oecd.org/entrepreneur/venture-capital.htmFreedom House 2024: Israel political rights and civil liberties score
https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2024Human Rights Watch: LGBTQ rights in Gaza and West Bank
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/27/palestinian-authorities-target-lgbt-activistsUN Women: Palestinian gender-based violence statistics
https://palestine.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2022/11/press-release-16-days-of-activism-against-gbvUS State Department Human Rights Reports: Palestine, 2023
https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/state-of-palestine/