this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
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The problem with activist groups that spring up online is there's no leadership to keep it focused on it's goals.
There's a one-upmanship that happens where everyone is competing to get attention for themselves regardless of whether it hurts their movement. One person hates Netanyahu (understandable) the next hates the soldiers participating in the war and that gets more attention. The next hates anyone that has ever been in the IDF, gets the attention, so the next hates everyone in Israel. On and on it goes until we start seeing people hate any business that has ever had any association with Israel, and any political group with any association. Eventually gets so that only way to get attention is to express hatred of all Jews. Just have to use the word Zionist (no different to how white supremacist types use Globalist) so you can avoid association with the Nazis.
And what was this movement originally about? Helping Palestinians? How does deplorable behaviour help Palestinians? It doesn't. But it get attention, it gets internet clout which can be monetized.
The Free Palestine Movement is no longer a movement that's helping Palestinians in any way. It's just a hate group full of attention whores.
Yes. If you're part of the IDF and aren't trying to minimize your effect and get the hell out, you're a bad person.
The US has never had mandatory service in my life time, but when I was called to serve in Bush II's wars, I was proud to refuse.
If the Free Palestine Movement had a central origination, you'd just be criticizing that instead. BLM sort of had a central origination that was misusing funds, but the decentralize aspects never really lost focus.
I'm not talking about an organization, I'm talking about actual leadership. There's a difference. There's no Martin Luthor King for the Free Palestine movement, there isn't anyone that can call out the bad actors who are manipulating the movement for their own ends.
The BLM movement as you mentioned got associated with a shady organization. There wasn't a respected leader that can say "we have nothing to do with that shady organization" so it was kinda convincing to some. But since there were enough existing leaders from the Civil Rights era and politicians to explain it, the message got across well enough to many people.
The Free Palestine movement doesn't have anyone that can do that. There was no one within the movement brave enough to denouce Hamas the day after October 7, so the movement is associated with Hamas. Which means it's associated with the genocidal acts of Hamas. So the constant screams about genocide by the movement sound hypocritical to any bystanders. There were a few politicians like AOC that had sympathy for the movement that were harrassed for failing to pass the purity tests of the worst people in the movement. The Free Palestine movement is unable to form alliances with anyone. It's carcinogenic to mainstream politics because no one can trust those within the movement to not say something overtly antisemitic. And those fears are confirmed when people in the movement talk endlessly about it being the Jews preventing them speaking at an event.
It's gotten to the point where I don't think it's possible for there to be a leader of this movement now. It's not possible to pass the purity tests of the radicals that want to be more radical than everyone else.
The game of one-upmanship has made the Free Palestine movement is completely out of touch with the rest of the world. There's protests at syngogues, harrassment campaigns against holocaust museums and somehow y'all believe the rationalizations about these actions not being antisemitic. Nobody outside your little group believes those rationalizations.
You're just a hate group to the people that don't frequent your online forums.
What bad action do you think is happening? The "constant screams about genocide" are because the genocide is constant. You're throwing around the world "hypocritical" like it has no meaning. Even if you disagree with the group, what have they done that would make then hypocritical? Being the first person to call someone a hypocrite isn't an instant win for internet arguments.
Jerry, is this you?