The Spectacular Failure of #FreePalestine

Recent Leftist Movements Have Had Little Success; Nothing Has Flopped Like This

Unused protest signs in Chicago during the DNC.

It’s been almost a year since Hamas unleashed the worst terrorist attack since 9/11 on Israel, an attack that triggered a brutal war in Gaza. I have been hesitant to declare the Pro-Palestine movement that erupted as a result of the war as a failure because, very often, movements have slow burns where they seem like they aren’t going to grab the attention of the public, and then they do. The Israeli government is pretty reckless, and chances were high that they would do something that would light a fuse that could reignite the sputtering movement. However, after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, the writing is clearly on the wall. The movement has been a colossal failure.

For months, we’ve been told by activists for the Palestinian cause that the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will resemble 1968 when protestors against the Vietnam War inflicted chaos on the city during the party’s convention. That year, Democrats nominated a candidate to replace Lyndon Johnson, who had opted not to run again due to his unpopularity. The vibes were similar, and the coincidence was too delicious to ignore. We had an older president, a product of the Senate, who had once served as vice president under a young, dynamic, charismatic president. He decided he was dropping out due to his unpopularity. His vice president is the frontrunner for the nomination but faces strong headwinds from an organized Left. With no consensus on who to nominate, the party goes to Chicago where, under a hot August sun, chaos and rancor erupt inside the convention hall and outside in the streets.

One pro-Palestinian activist tweeted a few weeks before the DNC that if Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, did not bend to their wishes for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, “we’ll see her in Chicago.”

Leading up to the DNC, activists and Chicago officials planned for 50,000 or more protestors to swam the city streets. In the convention hall, about 30 delegates, elected as “Uncommitted” with the support of about 700,000 votes, most of whom wanted to express their disapproval over the Biden administration’s handling of Gaza, were expected to make a lot of noise.

On the convention's first day, though, about 15,000 protestors showed up, and that’s a generous estimation. Each day, fewer people came to protest. A viral photo spread across the internet showing unused protest signs lying on the grass in Chicago’s Union Park, waiting for demonstrators who never came.

The DNC’s decision to platform Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli-American parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage in Israel on October 7th and remains held in Gaza, sparked a resurgence from the Uncommitted crowd. On the last day of the convention, some Uncommitted delegates demanded a speaking slot for a pro-Palestinan speaker, pushing forward Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian, as a potential speaker. However, the DNC, fearful that a speaker put forward by the movement would go off script and say something that Republicans can weaponize against the Harris-Walz ticket, declined. The delegates protested in front of the United Center, which only attracted about ten people. There were more reporters at their Wednesday evening press conference than actual supporters. The delegates made demands, but none were taken seriously, and the final night of the DNC went off without any drama and ended with Harris giving her acceptance speech, where she endorsed the continued support for Israel in its defense and the self-determination of Palestinians.

The issue, for most observers, had been put to bed within the Democratic Party.

The promise of such a large and boisterous show in Chicago and the inability to deliver even a fraction of it all but killed any chance the Free Palestine folks would be taken seriously as a force for the foreseeable future.

If, after the last 11 months of war and tens of thousands of deaths, Americans have not felt moved to rank Gaza high on their list of concerns, there is not much that will get them to. How did they fail this spectacularly?

The movement's biggest failure is its activism itself. For months, protestors have tried to get attention by blocking streets, causing chaos on college campuses, or generally wreaking havoc on the everyday lives of regular Americans. They claim they were inspired by the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s, which successfully resulted in several landmark Civil Rights legislation enacted. It was a colossal misunderstanding and historical revisionism of that movement.

The Civil Rights protestors targeted Southern whites. They never convinced Southern whites to change their views on racism. For the most part, they still haven’t. The protests and acts of disobedience were meant to draw the attention of Americans outside the Deep South, who were either unaware or indifferent to the plight of black people under Jim Crow and could be persuaded to intervene politically. If we’re using the Civil Rights analogy to Palestinian protests, the “Southern whites” are not Zionists but rather regular everyday Americans. They will have just as much effect on persuading regular everyday Americans as they had with Southern whites in the 1960s – none. It might even have a negative impact. The comparison implies that, like Southern whites in the Jim Crow era, it is regular everyday Americans who are the ones oppressing Palestine and not the Israeli government. Therefore, activists should not be surprised that regular everyday Americans are reacting the same way Southern whites did to Civil Rights protests, which is to harden their opposition to them.

Suppose the central tenant of the pro-Palestine movement, which is the United States cutting off aid and funding to Israel to force Israel to bow to international pressure to liberate the occupied Palestinian lands, is ever to happen. It will require regular everyday Americans to do two things:

First, prioritize the issue high on their list of concerns. This is already a tall order when there are very few Americans, except the small number of Palestinian Americans, directly in the line of fire in Gaza. As it is, there are very likely far more Americans with stronger connections to the Israeli side of the conflict than the Palestinians.

Second, Americans will have to shift their empathy and support to the Palestinians from Israel. This is also a difficult ask when you understand the level of Islamophobia that is still prevalent in American society. If we’re being honest, while it is much better than it was after September 11th, at best, many Americans have shifted from outright disdain for Muslims to indifference.

Neither of these things has a prayer of happening if the leading voices and figures of the moment on the domestic front are antagonizing regular, everyday Americans by being disruptive to their daily lives or doing things that disgust them, like burning American flags. It seems evident to me and those I’ve casually spoken to about it, so I am unsure how it is not apparent to the activists. One factor here is that many Palestinian activists believe they are winning the war, even as Gaza is reduced to rubble. Hamas leaders are being assassinated behind the safe borders of countries like Iran, yet during the early summer protests, some activists chanted, “Palestine is almost free.”

Let me be clear: Despite the Israeli government’s missteps, Palestinians are losing this war and losing it badly, and when you’re losing, you need to shift strategies to that of the underdog. You need to make sacrifices and compromises, if not on policy, then strategy. In the early 2010s, advocates for marriage equality had to go to communities where the issue was unpopular and have frank, uncomfortable conversations with people who spoke in dehumanizing terms about LGBTQ people. They had to suck it up and bear it and find arguments that resonated. It was hard work; it was, at times, demoralizing and traumatic, but it had to be done.

Pro-Palestinian activists don’t seem interested in this. Instead, they seem interested in being arrogant, brutish, and disrespectful and then try to shame people by labeling them as evil simply for complaining about their tactics. Telling someone angry about being late to pick up their child or who was disgusted by an antisemitic remark that they are “evil” because those things bothered me more than the war in Gaza might give you a rush of moral righteousness, but it is not convincing or persuading anyone whose support you will need to shift American policy in the Middle East. It’s also not convincing them to change their views. People generally do not care what strangers think of them and don’t spend their lives living for the validation of people they don’t know. Maybe those inclined to join these movements do, but the regular everyday Americans whose support you seek do not.

Progressive activists' inability to understand this is why this movement, like so many others before it, face-planted.

Unless, of course, the cynical theory about these activists is correct, and the liberation of Palestine is not actually what this movement is about. Rather, the cause is just the latest venue for malignant narcissist activists to bring attention to themselves. Nothing could be less helpful to the people of Gaza and the West Bank.