What #FreePalestine Really Means
Despite accusations of anti-Semitism, this is about decolonizing the hearts and minds of people around the world
Nowhere in any of my posts, those of my Black friends and colleagues, or my Palestinian friends will you find anti-Semitism. In fact, as anti-racists, anti-fascists, and abolitionists, you’ll find the exact opposite. Our large community does more to combat anti-Semitism than most people who routinely attack us. That’s why our community is as powerful as it is.
People know us for a reason and being attacked with false accusations is nothing new. We’ve been labeled anti-White, anti-cop, and anti-American. This is expected when we speak out against injustice and oppression of non-white communities. Racists and bigots will execute the most blatant mental gymnastics to try and prove we are what we are not. Just ask any white person who does this work. They’re called race traitors. For us, it’s quite comical.
But to be accused of anti-Semitism just for demanding an end to the occupation of Palestine is a little more serious. Calls for a two-state solution based on decades-old preexisting boundaries are nothing of the sort. Demanding an end to the same thing that the United States and other colonial powers did to Indigenous people here on Turtle Island is the farthest thing from racism.
It’s the exact opposite.
Nevertheless, the false accusations that come from people who know little to nothing about the situation and turn a blind eye to the abhorrent history of Western countries are sad. As someone who tracks extremists and confronts hate groups head-on, their lack of knowledge shows when they echo unsubstantiated claims about protesters spouting anti-Semitic language. A claim they make loudly without evidence. Worth noting is that far-right extremists do the same thing.
In addition, the same people who make such accusations often use anti-Black rhetoric because it’s ingrained into them by their parents and news media that often demonizes non-white people (even in death). We’ve seen it countless times when an unarmed Black person is killed by police and the “news” and society at large want to immediately talk about their criminal records instead of the oppressive by-design nature of policing in general.
Many White people experienced this during the protests in the summer of 2020 and yet, here they are doing the same thing to silence dissent with charges of racism towards Jewish people because many people in the media are telling them that’s what it is. Those who parrot what the “news” and politicians say are willfully ignoring how much they lied to justify the annihilation and erasure of an entire population of people. They lie about war because war is profitable.
The Media Lies Constantly
They lie to justify the brutal murders of innocent civilians by police here at home and our military overseas. They lie to justify the murders of women and children by bombs dropped from drones all over the Middle East. They provided but a few blurbs about the United States killing over a million innocent people in Iraq for no reason. They lied to justify invading Iraq in the first place.
They lied about Cuba as the CIA perpetrated terrorist attacks that have to this day killed scores of innocent Cubans. They lied to justify the inhumane sanctions against the Cuban people with the goal of starving them - forcing them to overthrow a government Western powers don’t like. They’ll tell you Cubans are starving because of the current government while overlooking more people per capita are starving in the US.
They lie to convince you that their enemies are your enemies. Yet, they are not.
In journalism school, they tell you that human rights are political instead of non-negotiable. What they fail to recognize is holding truth to power means putting human rights above all else. But the problematic nature of this is how apartheid endured in South Africa. The same could be said about slavery and the near eradication of Indigenous people in the Americas. The notion that Western journalism holds these biases to be true has been evidenced by centuries of proof.
Because of this, for example, they say I’m biased because I put the plight of oppressed people first. They say I’m polarizing for the same reason. They also treat me like a pariah for confronting hate in our communities first before calling out others (something white people should be worried about instead of attacking us with flawed logic and wilful ignorance). But calling a racist what he is instead of a “far-right activist” - like our media tends to do - is crucial.
Yes, the truth stings. But it’s absolutely necessary.
Once again, we find ourselves having our voices suppressed by bigoted white people who own social media platforms. The same people who openly allow hate speech to spread unabated and allowed foreign adversaries to manipulate the country into voting for a wannabe dictator in former president Donald Trump. They did so for a profit. No one talks about the hundreds of millions of dollars they put in their pocket from the revenue generated by ads on their platforms.
And yet, the manipulated continue to be influenced by the same people controlling what we see and hear. At no point do so-called liberals call into question taking sides with a far-right neo-fascist government that’s annihilating and erasing entire populations of people. At no point do they stop to see the similarities between Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump. They refuse to analyze how the Israeli defense minister once went to prison for hate crimes. Yes, hate crimes.
It’s Not Anti-Semitism
Is there hope for the tens of millions of people who have been buying into the far-right narrative that exposes how anti-Semites hate Muslims more than they do Jewish people? Can they not see how an anti-Semite like Elon Musk has taken sides against Islam? The same goes for all extremist groups in the US. It seems that the answers to both of those questions are an unequivocal NO. They instead look away because, like Trumpers, they refuse to admit they are wrong or that they’ve been played by political media narratives.
Anti-semitism is often referred to as “the stain that doesn’t wash off”. But using it in such a loose fashion can diminish its meaning. Will Elon Musk be considered anti-Semitic after this? What about one of the worst anti-Semites in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green? She’s taken sides against Muslims too. Do you not see the contradictions here?
After the summer of 2020, I genuinely hoped that white America woke up. Clearly, it did not. The racial reckoning that supposedly occurred, did not. Meanwhile, hate crimes against Black people remain the highest in decades and the same people claiming they know what anti-Semitism is ignore it. This speaks to the anti-Blackness that is so pervasive in US society. Their unwillingness to learn what’s happening to Palestinians speaks to the erasure in their minds of Indigenous people in the Americas because it’s exactly the same.
Who do you think wrote the playbook?
In a democratic society, free speech is crucial. That liberals and conservatives alike are creating a culture war over what’s right and what isn’t while using false accusations against those who think along the lines of human rights first to silence us, speaks volumes. My work and that of most in my field have receipts that show how we tackle anti-Semitism. Those who would accuse us have historically remained silent in the face of oppression because it protects them.
It protects their status.
At the end of the day, that’s what it’s truly about; maintaining the racial hierarchy created by the racists and bigots that founded the United States. Any loss of human life is unacceptable. Especially in wars created by warmongering provocateurs in government. They all profit from it. That the United States is using the right to “self-defense” to justify mass genocide is appalling. They are doing so in our names with our tax dollars - just like they have done in the past.
And that is what this is about. Free Palestine.
I am a freelance writer, journalist, and publisher of The Antagonist Magazine and a regular contributor at Latino Rebels and Unicorn Riot. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads.