Palestinianism as Moral Cargo Cult Part 2
Arab Nationalist Imperial Movement Masquerading As Ethnic Liberation
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VII. Redefining Jihad: From Ethical Struggle to Unbounded War
Palestinianism, as an ideological construct, has reinterpreted the concept of jihad, transforming it from a multifaceted Islamic principle into a vehicle for perpetual conflict against Jews and the State of Israel. This redefinition strips jihad of its traditional ethical constraints, recasting it as an unending, divinely sanctioned war.
7.1 Classical Jihad: Ethical Boundaries and Spiritual Dimensions
In classical Islamic jurisprudence, jihad encompasses both the internal struggle for personal betterment and the external struggle against injustice. When involving armed conflict, it is traditionally bound by strict ethical guidelines:
Combatants must distinguish between military targets and civilians.
Protection of non-combatants, including women, children, and the elderly, is paramount.
Destruction of property and harm to the environment are prohibited.
These principles aim to ensure that warfare, when unavoidable, is conducted with moral responsibility.
7.2 Palestinianism's Reinterpretation: Jihad as Total War
Contrasting sharply with traditional interpretations, Palestinianism redefines jihad as an unbounded, obligatory war against Jews, devoid of ethical limitations. This is evident in foundational documents and rhetoric:
The 1988 Hamas Charter declares that "Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes," emphasizing a perpetual struggle .
-Doctrine of Hamas - Wilson Center
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
Article 15 of the same charter states, "In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised," framing the conflict as a religious imperative
THE COVENANT OF THE HAMAS - MAIN POINTS
https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818a.htm
This ideological stance promotes an endless cycle of violence, sanctifying acts that would traditionally be considered violations of Islamic law.
7.3 Institutionalization of Unrestricted Jihad
Palestinian factions have embedded this redefined jihad into their organizational structures and educational systems:
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), influenced by the Iranian Revolution, views the destruction of Israel as a religious duty, rejecting any form of peaceful resolution .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Islamic_Jihad
Educational materials and media disseminated by these groups often glorify martyrdom and depict violence against Jews as a sacred obligation.
This institutionalization ensures the perpetuation of a narrative that equates religious devotion with militant action.
7.4 Consequences: Perpetuation of Conflict and Obstruction of Peace
The redefinition of jihad within Palestinianism has profound implications:
It perpetuates an intractable conflict, as the ideological framework leaves no room for compromise or coexistence.
It obstructs peace efforts, as any negotiation is viewed as a betrayal of religious duty.
It fosters a culture that venerates violence, impeding the development of civil society and democratic institutions.
By transforming a concept rooted in ethical struggle into a mandate for unending war, Palestinianism undermines both the moral foundations of jihad and the prospects for lasting peace.
VIII. Strategic Narrative Shifting and the Destruction of Moral Accountability
One of the most insidious features of Palestinianism is its structural fluidity: it does not operate as a stable belief system grounded in historical truth or ethical reasoning, but as a reactive ideology that adapts to preserve its self-designated moral superiority. Through strategic narrative shifting, Palestinianism immunizes itself from accountability, constructs a perpetual sense of victimhood, and reframes even the most heinous acts as justified resistance. This maneuver mirrors totalitarian propaganda strategies—especially those used in Nazi Germany—to deflect moral judgment and consolidate ideological purity.
8.1 Narrative Shifting as a Method of Immunity
Palestinianism changes its justificatory framework whenever one narrative fails under scrutiny. This isn’t a tactical weakness—it is a core strength of its ideological design:
1: Original Claim Fails: Terrorism is exposed
Shifted Narrative “Occupation justifies resistance”
Example Suicide bombings in the 2000s justified by Israeli presence
2: Original Claim Fails: Gaza withdrawal disproves occupation
Shifted Narrative “Israel controls the air and borders”
Example Post-2005 Gaza rocket attacks
3: Original Claim Fails: Apartheid label challenged
Shifted Narrative “It’s settler-colonialism”
Example Jewish presence framed as foreign invasion
4: Original Claim Fails: Genocide narrative fails (rising Arab population)
Shifted Narrative “Silencing Palestinian voices is censorship”
Example Campus Pogroms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_pro-Palestinian_protests_on_university_campuses
Each shift maintains one unchanging axis: Israel and Jews are always the cause, and Palestinians are always morally inviolable.
Einat Wilf, The War of Return – On the use of language in Palestinian political doctrine to create moral immunization through narrative.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Return-Indulgence-Palestinian-Obstructed/dp/1250252768
8.2 Inversion of Cause and Effect
The essence of Palestinian narrative strategy is to reverse causality:
Violence becomes response rather than initiation.
Defense becomes aggression, especially when carried out by Jews.
Perpetrators become victims, especially when international scrutiny mounts.
For example, the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians was reframed within days by major protest movements and international commentators not as an act of terror, but as a legitimate “reaction to occupation,” even though Gaza has been free of Israeli settlements since 2005.
8.3 Weaponization of Emotional Narratives
Palestinianism prioritizes emotional optics over historical truth or ethical substance. Key techniques include:
Selective imagery: Images of Palestinian suffering (children, funerals, rubble) are widely circulated, while the reasons behind the suffering—such as military use of civilian zones—are suppressed.
Emotional slogans: Terms like “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “resistance” are used not as legal definitions but as emotional triggers.
Victim monopoly: Jewish pain is minimized or erased (e.g., Holocaust comparisons, slogans like “Zionists are Nazis”).
This narrative strategy feeds a global discourse where emotional intensity overrides factual or legal argument, and any rebuttal is dismissed as “hasbara” (Israeli propaganda).
See Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation – https://0ducks.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/simulacra-and-simulation-by-jean-baudrillard.pdf On replacing reality with signs that serve ideological goals, particularly in postmodern conflict zones.
8.4 Legal Instrumentalization Without Reciprocity
Palestinianism routinely invokes international law (e.g., Geneva Conventions, UN resolutions) while refusing to accept the responsibilities such laws entail:
The Palestinian Authority is not a signatory to key treaties it references.
Palestinian terror groups violate every law of armed conflict (e.g., human shields, targeting civilians) while invoking these laws against Israel.
Israel is judged by Western legal norms; Palestinian actors are judged by none.
This asymmetry is the result of a strategy that mimics the form of legality to protect behavior that utterly rejects its content.
See Eugene Kontorovich – Analysis of selective legalism in Palestinian advocacy; Northwestern University Law School lectures.
https://www.econtalk.org/is-israel-occupying-the-west-bank-with-eugene-kontorovich/
https://upward.news/p/interview-eugene-kontorovich-exposes-double-standards-israel
https://www.sfmew.org/international-law-kontorovich/
8.5 Comparison with Nazi Propaganda and Totalitarian Techniques
Like the Nazi regime, Palestinianist ideology utilizes narrative elasticity to remain unfalsifiable:
Nazi Strategy: Jews blamed for both capitalist greed and communist subversion
Palestinian Equivalent: Israel blamed for both “apartheid” (oppression) and “genocide” (elimination)
Nazi Strategy: Propaganda targeted youth with a single moral lens (Hitler Youth)
Palestinian Equivalent: PA and Hamas curricula teach a single moral narrative: Jews are illegitimate
Nazi Strategy: Laws were weaponized against Jews while claiming to uphold justice
Palestinian Equivalent: Palestinianism invokes legal norms only to indict Jews, never to restrain itself
See Jeffrey Herf, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npq5k
8.6 Conclusion: Truth as Obstacle, Not Guiding Principle
Strategic narrative shifting within Palestinianism is not a quirk of political rhetoric—it is a method of ideological warfare. It denies objective truth, reframes aggression as resistance, and sustains perpetual grievance through emotional manipulation and legal mimicry.
Wherever this narrative flourishes:
Historical evidence is discarded.
Morality becomes inversion.
Victimhood becomes a weapon.
This is not a call for justice—it is a campaign of ideological erasure. The only constant across its shifting slogans is the effort to undo Jewish sovereignty and identity, with language chosen not for truth, but for effect.
Thus, Palestinianism must be understood not as a liberation theology, but as a system of narrative warfare—a propaganda regime that wages war on reality itself.
IX. Globalization of Palestinianism: Exporting Antisemitism Through the Language of Justice
Palestinianism, though rooted in the Arab world's rejection of Jewish sovereignty, has evolved into a global ideology that extends far beyond its local origins. It now functions as an international vehicle for rebranded antisemitism, cloaked in the language of justice, liberation, and human rights. The movement has strategically embedded itself in academic institutions, human rights organizations, social justice movements, and global media — exporting its ideological framework as a universal cause while maintaining antisemitism as its core organizing principle.
This global reach mirrors the way Nazi ideology internationalized antisemitism in the 1930s and 1940s — spreading Jew-hatred across sympathetic regimes and movements, particularly in the Middle East. But while Nazism used racial pseudoscience and eugenics, Palestinianism uses postcolonial theory and civil rights rhetoric to mask the same goals: the delegitimization, isolation, and eventual elimination of Jews as a sovereign people.
9.1 Palestinianism as a Global Political Identity
What began as a localized Arab rejection of Zionism has been exported as a global political identity:
Activists in the West now adopt Palestinian flags and slogans as emblems of broader ideological opposition to the West, capitalism, and perceived power structures.
Palestinianism becomes a moral credential: support for the cause serves as proof of anti-racism, anti-imperialism, and political virtue.
Simultaneously, it functions as a litmus test — failure to condemn Israel is treated as complicity in oppression.
Palestinianism becomes not just a cause, but a political personality trait, one increasingly required for inclusion in progressive spaces.
9.2 Campus Activism and Academic Entrenchment
Nowhere is the export of Palestinianism more evident than on Western university campuses:
Academic departments endorse boycotts of Israeli scholars and institutions (BDS).
“Decolonize Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” become slogans of identity politics.
Jewish students are harassed, physically attacked, and silenced under the guise of anti-Zionist protest.
In these settings, support for Palestinianism becomes more than political — it becomes performative allegiance to a worldview. Zionism is cast not just as nationalism, but as white supremacy, settler-colonialism, or fascism — despite its anti-colonial and indigenous nature.
See AMCHA Initiative; ADL Campus Antisemitism Reports; The New Antisemites, edited by Bari Weiss — documenting case studies of campus hostility.
https://amchainitiative.org/database-search/
https://amchainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Assault-on-Jewish-Identity-Report.pdf
9.3 The BDS Movement as Institutionalized Antisemitism
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a key tool of Palestinianism’s global influence:
It targets Israeli academia, commerce, and culture, attempting to isolate Jews as a collective entity.
It ignores far greater human rights violations in China, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere — proving its antisemitic selectivity.
BDS proponents often admit their ultimate goal is the end of Israel as a Jewish state, not merely the end of the occupation.
The BDS campaign mirrors the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in the 1930s — replacing economic exclusion based on race with economic exclusion based on political identity.
See Kenneth Marcus, The Definition of Antisemitism; NGO Monitor on BDS Campaign Coordination.
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9.4 Hijacking of Human Rights Discourse
Palestinianism thrives by co-opting human rights language and weaponizing it:
“Genocide” is used to describe military operations with civilian safeguards — even as actual genocides in Sudan, Syria, and Xinjiang are ignored.
“Apartheid” is redefined to fit an invented legal standard that applies to no other ethnic conflict on earth.
“Decolonization” is twisted to mean expelling the indigenous Jewish population.
This hijacking of moral terms robs them of meaning and turns them into ideological instruments — much like how Nazis used “justice,” “purity,” and “national health” to cloak exterminationist policies.
See Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor; Anne Herzberg, Hijacking Human Rights.
https://jcpa.org/article/israel-under-fire-ngo-warfare-from-human-rights-watch-to-campus-mobs/
https://ngo-monitor.org/topics/human-rights-watch/
https://ngo-monitor.org/academic-publications/
https://geraldsteinberg.com/academic-publications/the-politics-of-civil-society-and-human-rights/
9.5 Islamist Radicalization and Diaspora Violence
Palestinianism is increasingly used as a rallying cry for jihadist recruitment and Islamist radicalization:
Islamist groups such as Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas frame the Palestinian struggle as a pan-Islamic duty.
Diaspora Muslims in Europe and North America are incited to act violently in the name of Palestine — leading to synagogue attacks, street riots, and antisemitic vandalism.
Palestinianism gives theological and political justification to violence, especially in Western democracies where it is framed as “anti-racist” resistance.
See Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God; U.K. Home Office Radicalization Reports
https://books.google.com/books/about/Hezbollah.html?id=yTJeAQAAQBAJ
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1657v8z
9.6 Social Media and Propaganda Warfare
The digital sphere has become a battlefield for the spread of Palestinianist propaganda:
Viral images of war casualties — often decontextualized or staged — circulate to portray Jews as genocidal aggressors.
AI-generated or recycled footage is used without verification to spread lies (e.g., hospital bombing claims).
Antisemitic tropes — Jews as global puppet-masters, child-killers, colonizers — are normalized through repetition.
Much like Nazi propaganda in newspapers and radio, social media allows Palestinianism to construct an alternate moral universe, where Jews are uniquely evil and resistance to them is inherently righteous.
See: MEMRI reports on Arab-language propaganda: https://www.memri.org/
CAMERA.org : https://www.camera.org/
C-SPAN hearings on antisemitism and digital misinformation:
9.7 Nazi Parallel: Globalization of Hate in Moral Wrapping
Palestinianism’s global spread mirrors the Nazi strategy of embedding Jew-hatred in a universal cause:
Nazi Strategy: Export antisemitism to Middle East
Palestinianist Equivalent: Export antisemitism via BDS and academia
Nazi Strategy: Use racial science to justify Jew-hatred
Palestinianist Equivalent: Use postcolonial theory to justify Jew-hatred
Nazi Strategy: Glorify violence as national purification
Palestinianist Equivalent: Glorify terrorism as liberation
Nazi Strategy: Frame Jews as global conspirators
Palestinianist Equivalent: Portray Jews as the source of oppression worldwide
This is not mere rhetorical similarity — it is ideological continuation, adapted to new social and political contexts.
Jeffrey Herf, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npq5k
Bassam Tibi, Islamism and Islam https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npxq0
9.8 Conclusion: Antisemitism in the Guise of Liberation
Palestinianism has become the central conduit through which antisemitism is reintroduced into the mainstream under the banner of justice:
It is morally contagious, spreading in schools, protests, art, and diplomacy.
It is ideologically adaptable, capable of fusing with Islamism, socialism, and postmodern progressivism.
It is structurally dangerous, because it dismantles the ethical framework of human rights by using its own tools against itself.
Just as Nazism internationalized its Jew-hatred through a racial ideology, Palestinianism globalizes Jew-hatred through a moral ideology — one built on inverted ethics, denial of history, and sacralized violence.
To tolerate this movement in the name of inclusion or justice is not moral pluralism.
It is moral suicide.
X. Conclusion: Palestinianism as a Rebranded Ideology of Rejection and Revenge
Palestinianism is not a grassroots struggle for self-determination, nor a coherent movement for peace or justice. It is a modern ideological framework constructed to mask the Arab world's long-standing rejection of Jewish sovereignty, and to transform that rejection into a global moral cause. Like Nazism, which arose out of a sense of wounded national pride and existential resentment, Palestinianism is a reactionary ideology forged in the crucible of military defeat and cultural humiliation — and it is animated not by a vision of coexistence, but by the dream of erasure.
Where Nazism wielded the language of science, eugenics, and law to justify genocide, Palestinianism appropriates the vocabulary of decolonization, human rights, and resistance. Both movements construct totalizing narratives: singular enemies (Jews), moral purity for the in-group, and sacralized violence against the out-group. Both invert causality, erase historical truth, and exploit legal systems and emotional imagery to hide their true ambitions. And both destroy the possibility of reconciliation by rendering the existence of the Jew — as neighbor, as citizen, as sovereign — inherently illegitimate.
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10.1 Palestinianism Is Arab Nationalism in Moral Disguise
At its core, Palestinianism is not a genuine identity but a political maneuver. It is the latest incarnation of pan-Arab nationalism, redirected and concentrated into a permanent anti-Zionist stance. It was never designed to produce a functioning state — it was designed to deny one. It does not define itself positively, but negatively: by what it opposes, what it hates, what it seeks to eliminate.
It is therefore not surprising that:
Palestinian leaders rejected statehood offers in 1947, 2000, and 2008.
The PLO Charter defined its goal not in terms of governance, but of Israel’s destruction.
Every political milestone has been followed by increased violence, not compromise.
See Benny Morris, 1948; Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Peace-Inside-Story-Middle-ebook/dp/B0057QUS8G
10.2 Structural Similarities to Nazism: A Summary
1
Feature: Core grievance
Nazism: Post-WWI humiliation
Palestinianism: Post-1948 Arab defeat
2
Feature: Constructed myth
Nazism: Aryan racial superiority
Palestinianism: Indigenous Palestinian identity
3
Feature: Scapegoat
Nazism: Jews (global menace)
Palestinianism: Jews/Zionists (occupiers, colonizers)
4
Feature: Ideological language
Nazism: Racial purity, nationalism
Palestinianism: Decolonization, human rights
5
Feature: Use of law
Nazism: Nuremberg Laws, “legal” disenfranchisement
Palestinianism: UN resolutions, ICC selectively invoked
6
Feature: Sacralization of violence
Nazism: SS as holy warriors
Palestinianism: Shahids/martyrs glorified
7
Feature: Inversion of morality
Nazism: Extermination as purification
Palestinianism: Terrorism as resistance
8
Feature: Global propaganda
Nazism: Der Stürmer, Berlin Radio
Palestinianism: Al-Jazeera, BDS, academic activism
9
Feature: End goal
Nazism: Judenrein Europe
Palestinianism: Erasure of Israel and Jewish sovereignty
10.3 Palestinianism Destroys the Foundations of Moral Reasoning
Palestinianism is not merely immoral in its goals — it is corrosive to morality itself. It:
Erases the distinction between defense and aggression.
Treats facts as optional, and emotion as absolute.
Uses civilian suffering not to reduce conflict, but to perpetuate it.
Substitutes symbolism for accountability, and grievance for truth.
Just as Nazism could not coexist with democracy or liberalism, Palestinianism cannot coexist with ethical reciprocity, historical integrity, or peaceful coexistence.
Its slogans are not calls for dialogue — they are instruments of war. Its legal citations are not commitments to law — they are shields against judgment. Its narratives are not paths to understanding — they are traps of inversion and denial.
10.4 The Moral Mandate: Clarity Over Confusion
In the face of such an ideology, the only moral response is clarity:
To name it — not as a liberation movement, but as a rejectionist cult of grievance.
To expose it — not as a cry for justice, but as a weaponization of justice’s language.
To resist it — not with equal hatred, but with unflinching honesty and ethical courage.
Just as postwar Germany required de-Nazification — the rooting out of the ideology at all levels — so too must Western societies resist the normalization of Palestinianism’s tropes, its tactics, and its rhetorical camouflage. This means confronting the antisemitism embedded in academic theory, protest movements, and diplomatic bodies that have adopted the Palestinian cause without examining its foundations.
10.5 Final Reflection: Justice Requires Distinction
Justice, if it is to mean anything, must distinguish between victim and aggressor, truth and propaganda, survival and domination. Palestinianism deliberately obliterates these distinctions — replacing them with emotional blackmail and ideological absolutism.
It is not a mirror of Jewish identity. It is a negation of it.
It is not a force for peace. It is an engine of permanent war.
It is not an answer to oppression. It is a sophisticated mask for hate.
To treat it as legitimate is to abandon the very ethics it pretends to invoke. To appease it is to embolden the ideology that has made antisemitism respectable again — from Gaza to Paris to New York.
Palestinianism is not the path to justice. It is the collapse of justice into performance, grievance, and holy war.
History has seen this script before. It should not be allowed to run again.