Mirna Fahmy – Diplomatic Inside

Protests supporting Palestine sweeping in the streets and across universities in the west have incited conflicts, struggles, and political turmoil.

Israeli aggression on Hamas in Gaza, seeking vengeance on the intrusion that took place on October 7, known as the “October 7 attack,” has rolled out many protests around the world. In the first ten days of the war, many protestors marched out in the streets of many western countries, calling for a ceasefire and the termination of the Israeli occupation.

The videos of Hamas’s massacre of over 1000 Israelis, captivating over 250 hostages, and abusing women inflamed the Israelis’ outrage that it won’t get out of Gaza unless it eradicates all of Hamas and rescues all the hostages. By this attack, the existence of Hamas and its tunnels in Gaza will pose a threat to Israel’s security regularly, as it might consequently occur. The attack is labelled by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the “worst since the Holocaust.”

Western leaders have vowed their support to Israel to eliminate Hamas, the Islamist group, supplying the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) with military weapons and armies to indulge in with their ultimate power.

Protestors who referred to themselves as “Pro-Palestinians” have swept the streets wearing the Palestinian scarf (Keffiyeh) and waving the Palestinian flags in the streets of many western countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and many big EU countries. There were also pro-Israeli denominations supporting Israel in many of these countries, but they were outnumbered by the pro-Palestinians, who turned the war into a genocidal issue.

Though the world has witnessed many wars, killings of ethnicities, and forced immigration in many different parts of the world, like Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has raised a sheer number of voices in the last decade. It is as if the aphorism “no Jews, no News”, is advert. People only seem to pay attention when Jews are involved. 

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) records approximately 4,200 demonstration events related to the current conflict in almost 100 countries and territories, accounting for 38% of all demonstration events reported globally.

In the series of these protesting events, students at top-notch universities such as Columbia and Harvard in the US and other EU countries have continued the wave of escalating hostility and rage from many political leaders in the west. These blares have blocked main roads, railways, and airports and shattered people’s commutes to work. This has instigated the police to use force to evacuate them and arrest them.

The flags of the countries have been burned and replaced with the Palestinian flag, which led to the fury of many people, including Elon Musk, who wrote on his X account with a poll: “Proposed law: if someone tears down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place, that person should get a free (but mandatory) one-way trip to that flag’s country.” The proposal won with 79.9% yes. Other movements have been drawn to what’s happening under the slogan “Support the country you live in or live in the country you support.”

Pro-Palestinians’ blocking of Jewish professors and students from university campuses highlights anti-Semitism in these movements. A video of a Jewish professor at Columbia University being denied entry due to his religion has circulated on social media. Many stories of Jewish professors have been reportedly narrating that they have retired early “due to anti-Semitism.”

All of this has provoked the ire of many politicians’ in the west who are from the right-wing and conservative parties. Demonstrations allocating sides with Palestine and its people have shifted to other documents on immigration from third-world countries, which are heavily supported by the Leftists in the west, and this is now posing a threat to their nations’ culture and power.

Some demonstrations have drifted away from calls for Palestine. In Germany, some were reported to have called for Germany to become a caliphate, according to the DW article. Participants held banners carrying messages that included “Germany—a dictatorship of values” and “The caliphate is the solution.” The rally, accompanied by a heavy police presence, passed off peacefully.

“There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of a lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct or assuming that they know the Middle East and Islam, and they know others far better than we do,” UAE Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said at a press conference in 2017. “I am sorry, that’s pure ignorance.”

His video has been roaming the social media platform extensively and was even shared by many conservative politicians, pro-Israelis, and Elon Musk. The minister even re-shared this on his X official account on April 28, 2024, with a “I told you so” tweet.

Who are the pro-Palestinian protestors?

In the U.S., a YouGov poll found that more people ages 18–29 sympathised with Palestinians than with Israelis in the current conflict (28 percent expressed more sympathy with Palestinians vs. 20 percent for Israelis). Older groups were more likely to sympathise with Israelis than Palestinians, particularly those 65 and older.

Because older people witnessed the Holocaust in their early teens, they see that Israel is their only refugee place, according to a Washington Post article. This is in contrast to the younger generation, who is regularly viewing the sufferings of people in Gaza through social media posts.

Besides these explanations, there have been more intensive investigations conducted to trace the backup to the queers in the universities. There are two campus groups in particular: American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), according to the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD) report.

The report pinpointed that these groups fund and train their members to systematically threaten or intimidate Jewish and pro-Israel students at universities across the country. This testimony, as described in the report, presents an updated snapshot of the pro-Hamas network in the US.

LGBTQ were quite seen in the roar as well. Videos of protests on social media waving the Palestinian and LGBTQ rainbow flags have been spotted. This triggered many critics, as Palestine doesn’t allow LGBTQ rights and Hamas has executed any gay or lesbian in Gaza. Hassan Nasrallah, a Hezbollah leader in South Lebanon who supports Hamas, has explained in a video that LGBTQ is prohibited and a death sentence is carried out on those who are from this community.

In response to the university’s surge in protests, some students have faced criminal charges, suspensions, and even expulsions for participating in pro-Palestinian protests and encampments.

Now that the west is revising the immigration laws and negotiating actions to expel some, like in the UK, they are discussing forcibly sending many migrants to Rwanda.