SELFISH SOLIDARITY

“PRO-PALESTINIAN” ACTIVISTS OOZE SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. ... BELOW THE SURFACE, IT’S ALL SELF-INTEREST.

Social justice cosplay. Now in Technicolor.

The “pro-Palestinian” movement has found a large and fervent following among young Canadians, Americans, Dutch, Aussies and other Western audiences. In my last post, I explained some of the reasons why these young activists — while often profoundly ignorant on the issues they take up — are nevertheless fanatically wedded to them. (Laziness, ignorance and a need for belonging are key.)

But even the most receptive and forthcoming audience still needs a P.T. Barnum to take their money.

Clearly not everyone in the “pro-Palestinian” movement is lazy and ignorant. There must be some masterminds behind this global mass movement. Some Barnum has to set up a ticket office. Some Jim Jones needs to mix the Kool-Aid.

The conundrum here is that the Barnums and Joneses are no more committed to actually freeing Palestine than the ignorant masses barging their way into the circus or guzzling the Kool-Aid. Everyone seems to be “pro-Palestinian” but no one’s main objective seems to be actually helping Palestinians.

Given that every action of these self-declared “pro-Palestinians” undermines the objective they claim to seek, the question to ask is: What are their actual motivations?

Whenever something seems inexplicable and irrational — like progressive people and movements flocking to join forces with the most regressive, violent, authoritarian, misogynistic, homophobic forces on earth — a good question to start with is this: Who benefits?

Palestine is a proxy, a vehicle, a smokescreen, a wedge and a tool for a vast range of issues.

Palestinianism attaches itself to healthy political and cultural organisms like trade unions, liberal churches, centrist and leftist political parties, equal rights movements and social justice causes. Palestinianism is fundamentally at odds with many or most of these ideologies.

Why have these healthy hosts granted this ideological cancer such an enthusiastic welcome?

I am not addressing here Palestinianism in the Middle East. I am talking about “pro-Palestinian” activists in the West. (I am also not addressing the role of dirty Mideast oil money in fomenting anti-Western and anti-Israel activism in the West. More on that later.) Nevertheless, the same motives that make Palestinianism delicious for Arab and Muslim tyrants make it similarly snacky for Western activists.

“Palestine” is a rallying cry for despots and tyrants across the Middle East and North Africa who need to distract their oppressed peoples and rally them behind a common enemy. A similar phenom is happening here.

The left is a disparate, diffuse crowd. To get all these feminists, queers, blue collar hardhats, academics, lazy teen gamers, DEI advocates, fundamentalist Islamists, anti-war pacifists and all the rest on the same page requires some fancy finagling. Nothing unifies like a common enemy.

Some of the nonsensical slogans I shared in my previous post, (“From Ferguson to Palestine, occupation is a crime”; “Decolonization everywhere or nowhere”; “Justice for Palestine is racial justice”) are examples of a Goebbelsy strategy in which the most ridiculous statements will be believed if reiterated enough.

In this scenario, the ignorance I spoke of Saturday is not a disadvantage. It is a prerequisite. If people knew anything about Israel and Palestine, they would know the slogans are gibberish. Luckily for the Barnums, most people are too clueless to get that.

The circus-masters of the Palestinian movement prey on the ignorant masses for their own self-interest. But what are their interests?

For “pro-Palestinian” politicians, the advantages are obvious — at least in the short term. In Europe and North America, Muslim voters are increasing dramatically in numbers and proportions. Jewish voters, already small in number, are declining almost everywhere. Leftists and centrists are going after Muslim voters by sucking up to Palestine. The chickens will come home to roost when these new voters decide to get involved in the parties and start voting on resolutions around gay rights, women’s equality and a few other issues central to progressive activists. It will be interesting to see how the parties assimilate those rank-and-file newbies.

Likewise for liberal Christians. “Mainline” denominations like Canada’s United Church have been hemorrhaging congregants for decades. (Notably to evangelical churches that, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, tend to be pro-Israel.) By dumping Palestine! in the slop bucket, maybe they hope they can draw back some of the strayed flock.

Similarly: trade unions. Union membership in North America has plummeted in the past two generations. Unions struggle to find relevance in an environment where collective bargaining is losing steam and labor actions tend to evoke popular rage rather than solidarity. Unions seem to have looked around and jumped on what’s popular.

For grassroots activist groups and social justice organizations, Palestine is an entrée to mobilize larger audiences by tapping into the highly motivated (read: fanatical) activist base of the Palestinian movement.

For NGOs like Amnesty International and the Red Cross, bleeding Palestinians are a fundraising godsend. Amnesty even redefined the definition of “genocide” to gin up the revenue. I know from working for an animal rescue organization that sad-eyed dogs are magnets for donations. “Human rights” organizations have realized the same thing, only with human catastrophe. The main difference, though, is that we actually use the money to save the lives of animals. These NGOs use the money to stoke division and hatred that ensures the conflict is not resolved but exacerbated. That’s great for fundraising if not for Palestinians.

Getting heard in the marketplace of ideas is hard — especially when “Palestine!” is sucking up all the oxygen. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Hitch your wagon to a rising star, no matter how far off course that drags your wagon.

Why set up your own paltry protest against, say, climate inaction when there is a massive hatefest against Israel already in progress across town? Slap a watermelon on your sign, claim that your cause is Palestine’s cause and — abracadabra — insta-crowd.

Just as my last post offered just a couple of reasons why so many people are jumping on the Palestinian bandwagon, here I have explored only a couple of probably a million reasons dissimilar individuals and groups are rebranding their cause with the Palestinian colors.

The thing all of these examples have in common is that Palestinians are an afterthought — if that. Whether it is activists clambering to join a screamfest against Israel or organizations desperate not to miss the Palestine train, it is overwhelmingly self-interest driving these forces.

Palestinians, somehow, get lost in the shuffle.

It seems freeing Palestine is less an end than a means for a great many of the people and organizations that have jumped on the bandwagon.

They chant “Free Palestine” but they seem less concerned with what they can do for Palestine than what Palestine can do for them.

They chant “From the river to the sea” but the subtext seems to be “What’s in it for me?”

Once you understand this situation, the apparent dissonance in the “pro-Palestinian” movement makes a lot more sense.

Those who call themselves “pro-Palestinians” do nothing to resolve the statelessness or violence facing Palestinians — they exacerbate and encourage these horrors by fomenting polarization and discouraging Palestinians from doing the one thing that will lead to peace and Palestinian self-determination: agreeing to coexist with their neighbors.

Once you understand that what’s best for Palestinians is not what’s best for the “pro-Palestinian” movement, it all begins to make a lot more sense.

Using Palestinian suffering as a wedge for selfish ends — whether it’s young people making themselves feel relevant by shitposting about Israel or social justice groups using Palestinian suffering to recruit mobs and get donations — means that resolving the Palestinian problem is not the goal.

Perpetuating it is.

Like Middle Eastern tyrants who would have been strung up by the feet if they did not have an external enemy to deflect the rage of their oppressed populations, Western activist groups can’t afford to lose the usefulness that Palestinianism provides their movements.

Resolving that conflict would eliminate the unifying cause, the common enemy, their reason for being and the most valuable recruitment and fundraising tool they have.

That’s who benefits.

And, as usual, it sure as hell isn’t Palestinians.

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