June 2, 2025
Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre, chants like “Globalize the Intifada” have echoed across college campuses and at anti-Israel rallies. Advocacy for Palestinian rights is not only protected—it is important, and a vital part of democratic discourse and global human rights work. But there is a critical difference between legitimate advocacy and rhetoric that can incite violence.
Antisemitism comes from the left and the right—from the massacre inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh incited by far-right white supremacist rhetoric to the fatal shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., incited by far-left pro-Palestinian activism. As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, it is becoming painfully clear that in too many cases, Jew-hatred is masquerading as activism.
To advance the cause of peace, safety, freedom, and human dignity for all, everyone of conscience must take a stand against rhetoric that demonizes whole groups of people and lends legitimacy to violence as a form of political protest. It does no service to the principle of freedom of speech when we fail to condemn permissible speech as morally repugnant.
The fatal shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado at a peaceful pro-Israel rally for the hostages, and commentary glorifying the killings that have appeared online since are a tragic reminder of how demonizing language, when unchecked, creates an atmosphere ripe for hate and sometimes violence. Increasingly, Jewish homes, synagogues, and cultural centers have been targeted—often defaced with slogans that originated in the pro-Palestinian protest movement but have since been weaponized.
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We’ve seen “Globalize the Intifada” scrawled on walls of Jewish institutions, kosher restaurants vandalized with “Free Gaza,” and disturbing reports that the alleged shooter outside the Capital Jewish Museum invoked pro-Palestinian slogans in the act. These are not isolated incidents—they reflect a troubling blurring of lines between advocacy and incitement.
Words matter. When violence is normalized as a form of political expression, certain individuals absorb the protest slogans as a call to hate and violence. While it is important to advocate for Palestinian rights, there are ways to do it without endangering Jews. As Israel is increasingly demonized, it is imperative to examine the rhetoric being used—and to understand how, in certain contexts, it can escalate into real-world danger for Jews everywhere.
Globalize the Intifada
“Globalize the Intifada,” which uses the Arabic word intifada, meaning “uprising” or “shaking off,” feeds a discourse that promotes aggressive action against both Israelis and Jews around the globe. The most prominent expressions of intifada have been through violence, so this phrase is often understood by those saying and hearing it as encouraging violence against Israelis, Jews, and institutions supporting Israel.
The phrase, which calls for aggressive resistance against Israel and those who support Israel, appeared in numerous high-profile demonstrations, including in New York City's Times Square, and on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn near Crown Heights, a neighborhood with a significant Hasidic Jewish population and home to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The November 2024 violent "Jew hunt" on Israeli and Jewish soccer fans in Amsterdam was another dangerous example of how calls to “Globalize the Intifada” are seen as justifying physical harm to Israelis and Jews.
Because the Jewish people worldwide—both inside and outside of Israel—are deeply connected, “Globalize the Intifada” actualizes a very real concern that Jews and their allies in the Diaspora are held responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, a country of which they are not citizens, in which they do not have a vote, and with which they might deeply disagree. Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel is blatant antisemitism.
There is Only One Solution, Intifada Revolution
The phrase “There is only one solution, Intifada revolution” has gained traction in certain anti-Israel activist circles, often framed as a call for Palestinian resistance. While ‘intifada’ means “uprising” or “shaking off, and can refer to non-violent resistance, the term has become most closely associated with campaigns of violence: particularly the suicide bombings and attacks targeting Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
When paired with the word ‘revolution,’ the phrase is often used to glorify violent struggle. In the context of protests outside Jewish institutions, the slogan goes beyond aggressive activism against Israel, and bleeds into antisemitic incitement, especially when used as a tool to harass Jews as people or outside synagogues.
Similar to the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” this term can be interpreted as a call to extend violent uprisings against Jews worldwide, rather than peaceful advocacy for Palestinian rights.
Resistance By Any Means Necessary
Some proponents of Palestinian rights believe that Hamas terrorists who murdered over 1,200 people and took over 250 people hostage on October 7 carried out nothing more than a necessary act of resistance against Israel, which they falsely label as a colonizing force. They grossly justify it by saying violence is necessary because imperialism and colonialism bring violence. They preach “resistance by any means necessary.”
Arguing that Hamas terrorists have the right to kidnap, rape, and slaughter Israeli civilians—men, women, children, infants and elderly—and put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way when Israel fights back, amounts to an endorsement of terrorism.
Protesters affiliated with Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine (WOL), openly support Palestinian resistance “in all its forms. By any means necessary. With no exceptions.” Since October 7, WOL has choreographed and scripted large anti-Israel rallies across New York City, calling for people to “flood” a given location, echoing Hamas’ naming of the October 7 massacre on Israel, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, and inciting violence.
And following the Capital Jewish Museum murder, social media influencers have celebrated the shooter as an exemplar who modeled for others how to “resist colonial imperialism by any means necessary, including armed struggle.”
Israel is the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people. The State of Israel was created by the adoption of Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. The Palestinians and Arab nations did not accept it. Israel has been defending itself ever since, and doing so within the parameters of international law, not by any means necessary.
From the River to the Sea
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” has become prevalent in pro-Palestinian public discourse, including online and on social media, particularly in the context of protests opposing Israel’s defensive operation against Hamas in Gaza. While some who use the phrase intend to call for Palestinian rights in a two-state arrangement, in many cases it also feeds discourse that calls for the erasure of Israel.
The phrase became the signature slogan of the Palestine Liberation Organization to call for the replacement of the State of Israel with a State of Palestine in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including the expulsion of Jews who entered the land after 1947.
The call soon after became a rallying cry for Hamas, the group responsible for the October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israeli civilians.
The slogan is particularly problematic when it is paired with symbols of terrorist organizations or calls for the exclusion of Jews or “Zionists,” as a proxy for Jews, from social groups, political institutions, professional settings, or the territory of the state of Israel itself.
Not all who use the phrase “From the River to the Sea” use it with harmful intent. It is not antisemitic to call to establish a Palestinian state in addition to the State of Israel. In fact, it is vital. It is not antisemitic to call for all people of Palestinian heritage to have their rights, culture, and freedoms honored. That is a call for basic human rights.
However, it is antisemitic to call for a Palestinian state instead of the State of Israel, thereby calling for the destruction of Israel. antisemitic to endorse the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the land of Israel or the harassment of Jews in any other part of the world. It is also antisemitic to call for the only Jewish and democratic state to be wiped off the map.
Free Palestine
While being detained, the murder suspect in the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., an antisemitic attack, waved a red keffiyeh and began chanting “Free! Free Palestine!” Similarly, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the 45-year-old suspect behind the Boulder, Colorado, arson attack on a peaceful pro-Israel rally that was urging for the release of hostages held by Hamas, also yelled "Free Palestine," according to the FBI.
From the Academy Awards red carpet to online comment sections, “Free Palestine” is a slogan commonly used by those advocating for Palestinian rights. In many contexts, it is intended as a call for justice, self-determination, and an end to occupation. However, the phrase is also used to call for the elimination of Israel and has been increasingly used to target, harass, and intimidate Jews—especially when weaponized in ways that go beyond criticism of Israeli policy and into explicit or implicit antisemitism.
Across the United States, Jewish institutions have been vandalized with the slogan “Free Palestine,” including synagogues, community centers, and kosher businesses. Jewish ritual objects have been defaced, and even simple holiday greetings posted online by Jews often provoke hostile replies invoking the same phrase. In these moments, “Free Palestine” ceases to be a call for a Palestinian state alongside Israel and instead holds Jews responsible for the acts of the State of Israel.
The phrase is not problematic when it is used as a call for justice, equality, and Palestinian self-determination and statehood. But when the phrase calls for the elimination of the State of Israel, and weaponized to harass Jews or justify murder, it crosses the line into political extremism and antisemitism.
Settler Colonialism
The term “settler colonialism” refers to a system of oppression in which one nation displaces and dispossesses a native or pre-existing population. A hot-button term in far-left circles, it has been added to the discourse around the Middle East conflict to delegitimize Jewish belonging in Israel and accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing.
But the term used in this context is categorically false, as it implies the intention to replace or even eliminate an indigenous people. Jews themselves are native and indigenous to the Land of Israel. Historical and archaeological evidence have proven a continuous Jewish presence in the land, dating back millennia.
Moreover, the Zionist movement – the effort to establish a Jewish state – did not erase the Arab population living in the region. Zionists accepted the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, which divided British Mandatory Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
When the “settler colonialist” label is used to say Jews do not have the right to national self-determination, that is antisemitism. Labeling the entirety of the State of Israel as a colonialist endeavor is also used to justify terrorist violence against Israelis. Furthermore, it implies that those who support Israel’s right to exist are promoting evil. This puts Jews at risk.
