This is Not a Human Rights Agenda
Activists from Students for Justice in Palestine rally on Columbia University’s campus on October 12, 2023. Photo by Elisha Baker.
By now, most readers who keep up with the news know what happened in Israel on October 7th: Palestinian terrorists—operatives of the internationally recognized terror group Hamas—carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hundreds of terrorists paraglided over the Gaza border to turn a music festival for peace during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot into a Hamas shooting range and, in the end, a 260-body mass grave. At the same time, armed Hamas terrorists roamed the streets of Israeli towns and Kibbutzim located near the Gaza border—including Sderot, Nachal Oz, Kfar Aza, Be’eri, Gederim, and more.
Gruesome videos show the gunmen murdering any civilian in sight, kidnapping entire families from their homes and killing them, celebrating over dead bodies, torturing children and elderly, desecrating bodies on the street, and parading hostages—dead or alive—through the streets of Gaza as onlookers shout “Allahu Akbar” and stomp and spit on the captives. These videos only captured the beginning; in the wake of the attack, Israeli authorities have found more desecrated bodies, including 40 babies, many of whom were burned and beheaded. It is a truly horrifying scene that should make anyone with a basic sense of empathy sick to their stomach.
At the time of this article’s publication, more than 1300 Israelis have been confirmed dead, more than 3000 injured, and an estimated 150 are being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Yet, in the aftermath of the attacks, activists for the Palestinian movement, including students at Columbia University, have celebrated in the streets, on campus, and on social media what they view as a successful resistance operation in Israel.
These activists have organized rallies in which they blame Israel for the massacre and justify it using the ideology of decolonization theory, which espouses addressing and reversing the effects of colonialism in the name of liberation. The moral problems with this ideology as a whole begin when we examine decolonization in action. Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, a notable post-colonialist writer, considered colonialism a “naked violence,” one which “only gives in when confronted with greater violence.” In other words, according to this leading decolonization theorist, tangible decolonization is justified mass murder.
Applying decolonization theory to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is morally problematic and practices revisionist history. From a historical standpoint, it considers Israel to be a mere product of European colonialism, thus delegitimizing its creation as a safe haven for the Jewish people. As well, the very idea of Jews as colonizers completely ignores deep-rooted Jewish history in the land, which undermines a key element of Jewish peoplehood and identity. A nation cannot “colonize” its own historic homeland. Instead, this logic criminalizes the establishment of the State of Israel and implies all Israeli people are guilty by association. Decolonization theorists necessarily embrace the notion that murdered Israelis—including babies and the elderly—are not innocent civilians. As a result, all Israelis are fair targets in the battle for a complete Palestinian decolonization of Israel.
Even if one does hold this theory to be true, it still raises questions about how many generations can be held accountable for perceived injustices of the past. For example, would these people justify Muslims whose ancestors lived in Golden Age Islamic Sicily returning to kill everyone and turn the churches back into mosques? The thought is absurd. How can it be that the self-proclaimed champions of freedom celebrate denying human beings’ basic right to live in the name of resistance?
The irony in this worldview is even more apparent when you look at the rhetoric of freedom and human rights that pro-Palestine activists use. Surely it is reasonable to believe that those who believe in human rights would be appalled at the sight of beheaded babies, mutilated bodies, and terrified abducted families. But no. Their obsession with decolonization has apparently desensitized them to horrific violence. It has become painfully clear that painting Israel as a “settler-colonialist” project is not just a rhetorical device aimed at delegitimizing its creation in theory; it creates a free pass for violence in the name of reversing the effects of that “settler-colonialism.”
In the same vein, following the Hamas attacks, advocates for the Palestinian movement, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Columbia University, proudly announced their “solidarity with Palestinian resistance,” calling the attacks “an unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians of Gaza.” Columbia Professor Joseph Massad did not mince words when he rejoiced in “jubilation and awe” at the “success of the incursions.” Some protests have been even more explicit in their Jew hatred, including a Palestinian activist in Times Square displaying a Nazi Swastika, and thousands of Palestinian protesters in Sydney chanting “Gas the Jews!” outside an opera house.
As all of these separate displays of Palestinian activism took place, National SJP also cried “glory to our martyrs.” Are their “martyrs” those members of Hamas who died while murdering civilians in their own homes? This would not be SJP’s only alignment with Hamas, as SJP published a national, unified “Day of Action” toolkit, in which they call the Hamas attacks “a historic win for Palestinian resistance” and encourage “the Palestinian student movement” as a whole to “join the call for mass mobilization.” The broader call to mobilize came directly from Hamas, who called for “Day of Rage” to spread Jihad across the world.
The celebration of Hamas violence and amplification of Hamas’s call to action should make clear just how disingenuous it is that the “Palestinian student movement” continues to operate under the guise of freedom. Next time you hear the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” recognize that this “freedom” depends on the fulfillment of a barbaric “decolonization” that will not end until Israel is eradicated. In the words of a prominent Hamas “martyr,” Imam Hassan al-Banna, quoted in the original Hamas charter of 1988, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Let not the catchy language of freedom and resistance mask this antisemitic fantasy. It is time to take a hard look at a movement that celebrates the brutal killings of unarmed daughters, sons, parents, and grandparents in cold blood. Using decolonization theory, Palestinian activists attempt to justify the murders of innocent civilians by falsely incriminating them in a historical conspiracy.
This is not a human rights agenda.
Elisha Baker dedicates this column to the victims of this horrible massacre and to his friends bravely fighting against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists in defense of Israel’s borders.