I think it’s time to finally admit something that many of us have known for a while: the whole “Free Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now” movement is a total crock.
Not on an individual level, perhaps, as there are no doubt many within these movements who are genuinely horrified by the war in Gaza and care deeply about the fate of thousands of Palestinians caught in the middle of the horrific war between Israel and Hamas. But very much as a worldwide phenomenon that erupted on 7 October 2023, literally right in the midst of Israel suffering the worst attack on its civilians in its history. It has never been about creating a better life for the Palestinians but has been a systematic effort – and a well-funded one at that – to delegitimize Israel on the world stage. It has stoked hatred, even deadly violence, against Jews and has, in effect, worked as a “respectable” international front for Hamas, Iran, and other Jihadists.
That a great many well-intentioned (and some decidedly not well-intentioned) individuals signed onto the movement without understanding what it was does not change – and perhaps even reinforces – just how pernicious and hypocritical the whole thing has been.
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And if you want absolute, concrete proof of this, you need only look at the “Free Palestine” movement’s reaction to the 20-point peace plan, spearheaded by President Donald Trump, that would not just bring an end to this protracted, painful war but would create a genuine roadmap for peace; one that would vastly improve the lives of real Palestinians forever. The loudest “pro-Palestinian” activists either went completely silent about something that, if implemented in full, would actually create a “free Palestine”, or protested against it.
An Actual Path for Peace?
Yes, I understand: for many, the very fact that this peace plan has the name “Donald Trump” attached to it is enough to immediately dismiss it. I get the “Trump derangement syndrome” of it all, I really do. I myself am hardly immune to it. But you do not have to like or respect a single other thing about Trump to give him credit where credit is due.
Not only did Trump help craft (to whatever extent) what is effectively a methodical, step-by-step guide to a genuinely better future for the people of both Israel and Gaza, he managed to get Turkey and Qatar, Hamas’ biggest backers, on board. More than that, it is unlikely that any other US president could have gotten it this far, and if it is to have any hope of success, either Trump or someone who follows his approach will have to be steering it. Ironically – and this may help the “never Trumpers” out there come to terms with all this – it is the very things that make him so… divisive, shall we say, that make him the perfect person to deal with the Middle East.
Because, let us be clear, Trump’s peace plan is not based on the same sort of pie-in-the-sky idealism of a democratic Middle East that has defined the approach of past administrations, but on a pragmatic, even transactional, approach. It would make other Arab countries true stakeholders in the future of the Palestinian people, would largely fulfil Israel’s security needs (aside from major compromises like the release of hundreds of convicted mass murderers for dozens of hostages, of course), and would create a reality for the Palestinians of Gaza – and perhaps even those in the West Bank – based neither on unwanted Westernisation nor on self-defeating radical Islamism, antisemitism, or Israelophobia, but on true self-determination that puts the needs of the average Palestinian first.
The only ones who would truly lose in this deal are the Israeli far-right, as the plan outright rejects settlement of Gaza by Israel and/or the forced displacement of Gazans, and obviously Hamas and other Islamist Jihadi groups, who would be forced to leave or disarm.
O, Mark, Cynthia, and Javier, Where Are Thou?
Now, however great this peace plan is in theory, it is going to require something of a miracle for it to actually be implemented. Hamas, once they have had the chance to regroup, will do everything in their power to sink the whole thing before it gets anywhere near its next stage. Representatives of the terror group have literally said as much. And not surprisingly either. The next stage of the deal requires them to disarm and/or leave Gaza, and all they get for it is the chance to live another day – which is less of an incentive than you might think for a radical Islamist death cult that views a “glorious death” as the ultimate goal in life.
Theoretically, the Israeli far-right may use its sway in the current government to tank the deal too, but they are hobbled by two major factors. First, the fact that Netanyahu staked his name on the deal, and Trump and his team currently hold far more sway over him and his political future than fringe figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Second, the fact that unlike Gaza, Israel is a democracy, with elections set for sometime within the next year, and in which pretty much every poll suggests that the far-right religious-nationalist parties are effectively finished.
The peace plan is already hanging on by a thread, though, as Hamas first reneged on its promise to release all the dead hostages at once and then spent the past week reasserting themselves as being in charge of Gaza by embarking on a spree of very public executions of so-called “Israeli collaborators”. They may well also have violated the ceasefire by killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring three more – though, admittedly, Trump’s assertion that it was actually non-Hamas “rebels” responsible for the attack is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Regardless, what this all means is that if anything needs as much international support as possible, it is this fragile peace plan. Which is why the sudden silence of the likes of Javier Bardem, Guy Pearce, Mark Ruffalo, and the rest of the anti-Israel – sorry, sorry, “pro-Palestine” – movement is not just a grotesque display of hypocrisy, but an active betrayal of the people they have allegedly been fighting for. And this is to say nothing of those who have come out in outright opposition to the deal, who are finally saying the quiet part out loud (or louder) that all they have ever really wanted is the absolute dissolution of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.
Under (No) Pressure
That “Free Palestine”, as a movement, has proven itself to be a hypocritical farce that has failed to actually stand up for Palestinians when they needed them most, is not even the worst part of it. The worst part is that whether done intentionally or not – and I have little doubt that for the overwhelming majority of the followers of the movement, it absolutely was not – it gave Hamas the impetus to reject ceasefires, hold onto hostages, and prolong the war, while validating its use of terror as an effective tool in its quest to obliterate Israel.
And now, with the war hopefully at its end and actual peace more tantalisingly close than it has been in years (which is not saying much, admittedly, but baby steps), you can be sure that if and when Hamas sabotage this deal, it will be the complicity of the “Free Palestine” movement, and its deafening silence when its voice was actually needed, that will enable them to do so.
