Dehumanization of Palestinians:

The systematic erasure of Palestinian history and culture is a well-documented effort that has been ongoing since the early 1900s. This erasure has taken many forms, including the destruction of physical records and infrastructure, the suppression of Palestinian voices and narratives, the appropriation of Palestinian cultural heritage and most visibly, the dehumanization of the Palestinian populace.

From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, Palestinian records, literature, and cultural heritage faced deliberate and concerted efforts to obliterate their existence and narrative. This deliberate "archival silencing" has made reconstructing this period in Palestinian history incredibly challenging, yet the truths that remain paint a horrifying picture of the deliberate erasure and destruction of an entire population and its culture.

The dehumanization of Palestinians has been a deliberate policy, perpetuated through military operations, discriminatory laws, Israeli education and a pervasive culture that fosters prejudice. Dehumanising rhetoric, portraying Palestinians as "roaches" and "rats," lays the foundation for atrocities by stripping away their humanity in the eyes of the oppressor.

Widespread media narratives also project institutional biases ranging from depicting Palestinians solely as militants or desperate victims and erasing their normal daily life to embedding language biases around land, protests and resistance tactics. These patterns collectively indicate how public discourse within segments of Israeli society systematically dehumanize Palestinians while entrenching prejudices against them.

Supporting the IDF:

The IOF has never been a moral army, let alone the ‘most moral.’ In fact, they originate from larger terrorist groups that reigned terror in Palestine and murdered hundreds and thousands of innocent men, women and children — and continue to do so to this day.

The insidious claim that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) represent the "most moral army in the world" is a blatant affront to the Palestinian people and an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses, war crimes and the brutal suppression of Palestinian nationalism and identity.

This propagandistic myth constitutes an act of violent erasure against the immense suffering and resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of the colonial Zionist project to dispossess and displace them from their ancestral homeland. In reality, the factual record makes a mockery of this "moral army" fallacy.

The IDF and its predecessors have perpetrated horrific massacres against defenseless Palestinian villages like Deir Yassin and Al Dawayima, where women and children were raped, disembowels and burned alive. They have also repeatedly used Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields; despite claiming it’s Hamas who do this.

Furthermore, the IOF have illegally abducted thousands of Palestinian children from their homes, tortured them and then subjected to sham military tribunals - with systemic practices of child abuse, both physical and sexual, carried out by the so-called "most moral army." Any attempt to lionize the IDF as a virtuous force is an abhorrent denial of the lived reality for Palestinians under its military occupation and colonial subjugation. It erases the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of villages in the Nakba, the wanton targeting of civilian areas under the Dahiya Doctrine, the extrajudicial executions of hostages and the myriad other well-documented atrocities and violations of international law committed by Israeli forces over decades.

Those who unquestioningly regurgitate this fallacy align themselves with the historical bloc of colonial powers who have sought to dominate, subjugate, and erase the national and human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. They engage in the same rhetoric once used to justify settler-colonial projects like the Indian Removal Act, the wars of extermination against Native Americans, and other campaigns of ethnic cleansing and land theft prosecuted in the name of racial superiority and "civilizing" missions.

The enduring resilience, struggle, and activism of the Palestinian people against these criminal dehumanizing forces represent the highest moral ground. To condemn them while sanctifying their oppressors is a perverse obfuscation that can only be rooted in ideological discrimination. Any honest examination of the Israeli occupation's practices can only lead to the conclusion that the IDF's conduct has been a moral abomination, a stain upon human conscience that must be unanimously repudiated.

To perpetuate the odious lie of the "most moral army" mythology or to show the IOF support is to align oneself against the hard-won dignity and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people in word and deed. It is to abet injustice, turn a willfully blind eye to atrocity and act as an apologist for a ruthless and unrelenting campaign of ethnic persecution and dispossession in the name of racial supremacy.

It is, in essence, an egregious act of complicity in crimes against humanity and should be condemned as false propaganda at every turn.

Falsely Equating 'Intifada' with Terrorism:

Despite the egregious lies and falsehoods perpetuated around the Intifada and its meaning, the reality is the Intifadas (shake-offs) represented grassroots Palestinian rebellion against decades of Israeli occupation characterized by nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience centered around boycotts, tax strikes, protests, and other measures focused against the occupation.

It was only after intense oppression from Israeli forces that resulted in the brutal massacre of approximately 1,100 innocent Palestinians (many of them women and children) that protestors adopted more violent tactics, still limiting themselves to throwing stones and molotov cocktails in the face of intense military aggression and force.

Similarly, 3,350 Palestinians would also later be slaughtered by Israelis during the second intifada, with tens of thousands more gravely injured - once again showing the violent and oppressive response innocent Palestinian civilians faced when protesting for their basic human rights and liberties.

Therefore, the malicious characterization of the Palestinian Intifadas as acts of "terrorism" and "genocide" represents an insidious attempt to delegitimize and demonize the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and liberation from Israeli occupation. This purposely inflammatory misrepresentation seeks to erase the historical roots of the Intifadas as grassroots uprisings and nonviolent civil resistance movements against decades of dehumanizing oppression.

By predominantly portraying the struggle for Palestinian liberation and statehood as inherently violent and affiliated with terrorism, Israeli propaganda and its supporters engage in a campaign of vicious historical omission and revisionism. They erase the fundamental reality that the Intifadas were born of decades of dehumanizing oppression, land theft, and ethnic persecution carried out against the Palestinian people by Israel's militarized occupying forces.

To equate these cries for emancipation with "terrorism" or “genocide” is a purposeful act of dehumanization that seeks to disparage and silence the Palestinian cause and render the victims of occupation and institutionalized racism as the aggressors, while sanctifying and absolving the state that has systematically stripped them of their homeland, rights and dignity through unrelenting violence, subjugation and displacement.

Distorting 'From the River to the Sea':

The purposeful distortion of the phrase "from the river to the sea" as a call for terrorism, genocide, and the expulsion of Jewish people constitutes a malicious act of disinformation designed to diminish the Palestinian struggle for human rights and self-determination. This inflammatory misrepresentation willfully misconstrues the fundamental meaning behind the expression as a vision of comprehensive freedom and dignity for all people living between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

Contrary to these slanderous accusations, the invocation of "from the river to the sea" represents an emancipatory ideal - the aspiration that all inhabitants of historic Palestine, regardless of ethnicity or faith, may one day live in peace, justice and equality. It articulates the hope that oppression, discrimination, and subjugation will be dismantled, giving way to a society where neither colonial dispossession nor segregation determine the fates and rights of any of its peoples.

To falsely conflate this uplifting prospect with genocide is an unconscionable act of propaganda that seeks to demonize the perfectly justifiable demands of the Palestinian people. It paints their yearning to overcome Israel's racist apartheid laws, draconian military occupation, and systemic oppression as somehow tantamount to the very injustices they continue to resist after decades of dehumanizing persecution.

Those crying "genocide" at this call for universal liberties are engaging in a cynical form of projection, perhaps of their own heinous beliefs and views as evidenced in the Likud party’s charter, where they claim ‘from the river to the sea, there will only be Israeli sovereignty’ - accusing their vulnerable victims of desiring the very atrocities that have been perpetrated against them.

Under Zionist occupation, it is the Palestinian people who have endured ethnic cleansing, massacres, land confiscation, and institutionalized discrimination under Israel's regime of supremacy. Their invocations of freedom "from the river to the sea" represent an end to such crimes against humanity, not their perpetration.

This wilful smear is an act of complicity in the continued denial of Palestinian humanity, identity, and rights. It is a shameless tactic to discredit the justness and beauty of their anti-colonial and anti-racist strivings by painting a venerable cause as something untenable and malevolent. In reality, it is those perpetuating occupation, apartheid, and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people who are advancing the true forces of oppression and ethnic supremacy in the region.

To insist that this emancipatory vision equates to the expulsion of Jewish citizens is also a vicious deception that reinforces a paradigm of segregation and discrimination. The river to the sea idiom seeks the liberation of all peoples within historic Palestine - liberation that is fundamentally incompatible with any form of ethnic expulsion or supremacy.

Instead, it imagines a society where one's ethno-religious identity neither precludes their equality nor human and civil rights, regardless of whether they are Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, Christians or any other component of the diverse populace.

At its core, the river to the sea idiom gives a powerful voice to the universal yearning to dismantle all forms of racist oppression, institutionalized discrimination and denial of inalienable human rights.

To brand this righteous civic ideal as genocidal or an affront to Jewish existence is a crass attempt to invert reality and defame those demanding justice, freedom and pluralistic coexistence for all the people of the land. It is a bad-faith rhetorical strategy designed to perpetuate a status quo of subjugation and ethnic domination by falsely portraying the victims as aggressors and oppressors.

Smearing protestors and inciting violence:

The reprehensible act of smearing and inciting violence against pro-Palestinian protesters – even indirectly – represents dangerous attempts to silence advocacy for human rights and suppress criticism of the oppressive policies enacted against the Palestinian people. These unconscionable tactics seek to delegitimize and demonize those standing in solidarity with the struggles against occupation, apartheid, and the denial of self-determination.

By characterizing these demonstrations as violent hate-marches not only serves as an attempt to smear demonstrators in the eyes of the general public but also gaslight them into questioning their own actions. When combined with the false narrative around how these spaces are “unsafe” for Jewish individuals, played up only by inflammatory and incendiary terms like “no go zones” to further divide the movement and block meaningful mass organising between the different pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide and anti-Zionist movements.

This provides a smokescreen to justify forcibly disrupting and violating the fundamental civil liberties of peaceful protestors and conflates lawful expressions of dissent with threats to public order, falsely portraying those decrying injustice as provocateurs and aggressors in need of subjugation by state forces.

This defamatory rhetoric has routinely been deployed by authoritarian regimes throughout history to discredit challengers to their unjust systems of domination and marginalization. By cynically equating criticism of state misconduct with impending chaos, the powerful can recast efforts to hold them accountable as threats to societal stability requiring violent suppression. These divisive strategies are no different to the age-old tactics employed by colonial regimes who label the colonized as terrorists for taking up arms in their quest for liberation.

Those who peddle such dangerous rhetoric against Palestinian activists engage in an obstruction of truth and an assault on the sacrosanct rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom of conscience. They provide ethical and rhetorical cover for the repression of noble grassroots movements born of moral outrage in the face of subjugation and apartheid policies.

This results in the violent suppression of voices by police regimes, a reality we’re already seeing unfold before our very eyes across the global north. While it’s predominantly only extremist individuals committing acts of violence against their peers who are choosing to protest against the active genocide, it’s a worrying trend that should be

Any claims of such demonstrations being “inconvenient” or “not winning any hearts” only demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the core tenets of protests, civil disobedience and the philosophy behind demonstrations. Protests, in their very nature, are intended to disrupt and cause inconvenience, because at the end of the day, they’re a community’s desperate efforts to get their peers to listen, pay attention and take direct action.

By instead ignoring these calls to action and discussing how the protests affect you personally, you not only undermine the wider collective’s efforts but shift focus away from the core goal of saving lives and ensuring equality for all.Defenders of the indefensible find themselves resorting to such duplicitous vilification because they cannot counteract substantive criticism of the injustices and human rights violations they enable through truthful argument and moral reasoning. Smears and incitements become their only available tactics to obfuscate and deflect righteous condemnation.

Those genuinely committed to democratic values and universal human rights must firmly resist such ignoble efforts to denigrate and endanger pro-Palestinian demonstrators. In reality, portraying pro-Palestinian solidarity as an incitement of violence is, in itself, an incitement against the nonviolent civil resistors who represent the continued march toward universal freedom, dignity, and adherence to international law. This vilification of protestors is merely a desperate attempt to preserve an outmoded ethnonationalist order through the weaponization of misinformation and undemocratic physical force.

Conflating Zionism with Judaism:

While the Jewish faith and cultural identity not only long predate and but have no inherent connection to the racist political ideology of Zionism, the modern Israeli regime has deliberately pursued an ethnic supremacist agenda rooted in Jewish ethno-religious identity — yet built upon the demolition of Palestinian homes, the theft of Palestinian lands and the generational uprooting, displacement and dehumanization of the Palestinian people at large.

The harrowing cost of human suffering, loss of life and deprivation of the most basic liberties and security has been unconscionable and now, Zionism represents an utterly deplorable ethnic supremacist ideology that has enabled unconscionable acts of violence, displacement and subjugation against the Palestinian people for almost a century.

Its real-world impacts have been nothing short of a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure and apartheid racism - a horrific legacy that cannot be decoupled from Zionism's founding vision of creating an exclusionary Jewish ethno-state through the denial of Palestinian self-determination and indigeneity.

The forced expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes and villages during the Nakba, rendering millions stateless and exiled as refugees, was an act of premeditated ethnic purging. With the willful destruction of Palestinian property, demolition of homes, uprooting of ancient olive groves, and obliteration of cultural resources further demonstrating a systematic effort to erase Palestinian identity, history and any enduring claims to the land.

Subsequent decades have seen this brutal ethnic persecution, land confiscation and denial of human rights institutionalized through severely discriminatory policies, illegal settlements, violence by occupying forces, arbitrary detentions, torture, and most notably, systemic oppression under Israel's racist apartheid regime.

These are not mere "realities" for Palestinians who remain, but grave crimes against humanity perpetrated through Zionism's new brand of unrelenting, institutionalized cruelty. This utterly shameful legacy of calculated ethnic cleansing, apartheid governance and flagrant violations of international law is inextricably intertwined with how Zionism's racist, supremacist and anti-democratic ideology has been implemented on the ground by Israel.

Any attempt to decouple or whitewash these egregious atrocities from Zionism itself is a form of explicit denialism and complicity in oppression of the highest order. No ethnic, religious or any other group deserves an ethno-supremacist theocratic state constructed through the forcible subjugation of indigenous populations as second-class citizens stripped of all rights, dignity and humanity.

Such an abhorrent exclusionary system based on racial hierarchy is fundamentally incompatible with even the barest notion of true democracy, self-determination or universal human rights regardless of ethnicity or faith.

Statehood, sovereignty and self-determination can never legitimately emerge from such systematic violence, discrimination, forced displacement and ethnic persecution as political Zionism has perpetrated against the Palestinian population.

If a state were to arise organically through democratic processes that enshrine equality, safety and liberty for all citizens regardless of ethnicity or faith, it would have legitimacy. But any racist system of ethnic domination erected through brute force subjugation and calculated ethnic supremacy, as Zionism has done, is an egregious affront to justice and human rights that requires being dismantled - not enshrined - with a new equitable path forward established.

Amplified Zionist Lies:

This individual has used their voice and platform to echo and amplify egregious Zionist lies but also perpetuate the subjugation, torture, brutalisation and murder inflicted by the Israeli-occupation of Palestinian and its attempts to erase Palestinian identity, culture, heritage and statehood. [1] [2] [3] [4]

These egregious and dangerous lies MAY include but are not limited to: [5]

• Palestinians beheading babies [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
• Hamas Headquarters under Hospitals [12] [] [13] [14] [15]
• All Palestinians killed are terrorists [16] [17] [18]
• Israel didn’t kill its own citizens on October 7th [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
• Israel would never bomb hospitals (it ravaged almost all of them) [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
• Israel is the 'only democratic state in the Middle East' [31] [32] [33] [34]

Spreading misinformation and hateful propaganda against Palestinians is a deplorable act of dehumanization that directly enables human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing and violence against the Palestinian people. [35] [36] [37] [38]

By employing such malicious tactics to deny Palestinian realities and whitewash war crimes, home demolitions and the systematic deprivation of human rights under military occupation, this individual has provided racist cover for 75+ years of subjugation. [39] [[40]] (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/human-rights-situation-in-opt-unohchr-23feb-2024/)

This misinformation doesn't just distort the truth, it actively endangers Palestinian lives and inflames hatred, justifies atrocities like the active genocide and obstructs any path to justice through the wilful erasure of the Palestinian lived experience. [41] [42] [43]

For more information about amplified Zionist lies, please visit:

• Databases for Palestine
• Pali Answers
• October 7th Fact Check

Weaponizing the Mass Sexual Violence Hoax:

The systematic weaponization of the insidious mass rape hoax enabled by Israeli military intelligence and uncritically amplified by western media represents an egregious and systematic effort to not only slander the Palestinian resistance based on heinous misinformation but seemingly manufacture a pseudojustification for Israel's exterminatory oppression of Palestinians in Gaza that has rightly been condemned as a genocide by human rights groups.

The reality that claims of widespread, systematic rape by Hamas and other Palestinian groups on October 7th were fabricated by Israeli officials and their supporters has been extensively documented by reputable journalists, human rights groups and even the United Nations itself.
As UN Special Representative Pramila Patten admitted, her team "did not find anything like" the horrific fabrications of "objects like knives inserted in the genitalia" that were widely circulated, labeling them "inaccurate and unreliable forensic interpretations by some non-professionals." Her report stated bluntly: "In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified."

In fact, the mass rape hoax weaponized by Israel is characterized by distorted witness accounts, lack of photographic/video proof, contradictory claims that unraveled under scrutiny, and the reliance on discredited sources with ties to Israeli military intelligence.

The unraveling of this insidious hoax is only further exemplified by The New York Times itself being forced to debunk one of the most horrific allegations from its own prior reporting. Video evidence revealed that claims of two Israeli teenagers being sexually assaulted were completely false, showing "the bodies of three female victims fully clothed and with no apparent signs of sexual violence."

This harrowing hoax has been laid bare by comprehensive reports from organizations like Mondoweiss, The Grayzone, and even the UN special representative on sexual violence Pramila Patten — all of whom have debunked sensational stories, highlighted the lack of any credible evidence and exposed how this propaganda was weaponized to drum up support for Israel's relentless assault on Gaza.

For more detailed reporting, please read:

• Israeli “commission” on 7 October rape claims exposed as fraud
• Israel says Hamas weaponised rape. Does the evidence add up?
• Here’s what Pramila Patten’s UN report on Oct 7 sexual violence actually said
• Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report
• Debunking “Screams Before Silence,” Sheryl Sandberg’s 7 Oct. “mass rape” film
• MEDIA MANUFACTURES CONSENT FOR GENOCIDE: How the New York Times helps Israel Weaponize Rape Allegations against Palestinians
• Israeli propagandist behind Hamas ‘mass rape’ narrative exposed as grifter, fraud
• CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt
• Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them
• 60+ Journalism Profs Demand Investigation into Controversial NYT Article Alleging Mass Rape on Oct. 7

Quotes:

1. "In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified...the mission team was unable to establish whether sexual violence occurred in Kibbutz Be'eri." - UN Patten report "New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted...the bodies of three female victims, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of sexual violence." - The New York Times, debunking its own previous reporting
2. "The report does not, in fact, reach many of the conclusions for which it is being lauded in Western media, and several of its findings undermine the Israeli narrative...The report explicitly does not find a 'pattern' of sexual violence on October 7th." - The Grayzone analysis of UN Patten report
3. "Sheryl Sandberg's film has become the latest vehicle to push Israel's claims of mass rape on 7 October – claims that Israel supporters continue to use to either distract from or justify Israel's ongoing US-armed genocide in Gaza." - EIectronic Intifada on Sandberg's propaganda film promoting the hoax

Weaponizing Antisemitism:

These insidious allegations, deployed with increasing frequency, are damaging not only the pro-Palestinians accused but also to Jewish communities worldwide. [1] [2] By weaponizing antisemitism to justify occupation and apartheid, Zionists dilute the term and weaken genuine efforts to combat antisemitism. [3] [4] [5]

Labeling anyone who opposes Israel's genocidal regime as antisemitic also implicitly assumes all Jews support Israel’s policies, a notion that’s fundamentally untrue, offensive and truly dangerous to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish individuals and scholars who actively oppose Zionism and Israel’s human rights violations. [6] Accusing anyone who stands against Israel of antisemitism is, however, a core psychological warfare strategy used by genocidal Israeli supporters to delegitimize and demonize the very valid and much needed pro-Palestinian movement. [[7]] (https://palestinelegal.org/distorted-definition) [8] [9]

Disrespecting the Memory of Jewish Suffering Weaponizing antisemitism to protect Israel’s policies disrespects the historical suffering of Jewish communities by using their trauma as a political tool. The Shoah and the pogroms preceding it were horrifying atrocities, rooted in the dehumanization of an entire people. Using the memory of such atrocities to silence critics of modern-day apartheid practices disrespects the very principles for which so many Jewish people fought after the Holocaust: “Never Again” should mean opposition to all forms of oppression, including that enacted by the Israeli state. [10]

In November 2024, for example, tensions escalated in Amsterdam when Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were recorded chanting “Death to all Arabs” and “There are no schools in Gaza because all the children are dead.” [11] These inflammatory statements, advocating violence and erasure, provoked strong reactions from various communities, including Arabs, Spaniards, and Dutch citizens. Their responses were not racially or ethnically motivated but were driven by a collective condemnation of the genocidal sentiments expressed by the fans. [12]

Instead of addressing the incitement to violence, some media outlets mischaracterized the reactions as “pogroms” against Israelis. This misuse of the term “pogrom”—historically referring to violent attacks against Jewish communities—distorts the reality of the situation. [13] By labeling the backlash as antisemitic, these narratives weaponize the trauma of Jewish history to deflect criticism from those promoting hate speech. This manipulation not only disrespects the memory of actual pogrom victims but also undermines genuine efforts to combat antisemitism by conflating it with legitimate opposition to calls for ethnic cleansing.[14]

Such distortions serve to shield individuals advocating violence from accountability, while falsely portraying those who stand against hate speech as perpetrators of bigotry. This tactic not only erases the painful legacy of Jewish persecution but also legitimizes incitement of hatred against Palestinians, Arabs and the supporters of their most basic human rights.

Undermining Jewish Voices Opposed to Israel’s Actions Anti-Zionist Jews have consistently and courageously voiced their opposition to Israel’s policies, challenging the narrative that all Jews support the state of Israel. [15] [16] Organizations like IfNotNow and individuals like historian Ilan Pappé reject Zionism on ethical grounds, arguing that it is incompatible with human rights for Palestinians. Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, argues that the foundation of Israel as a state involved the “systematic expulsion of Palestinians,” a policy of ethnic cleansing that continues through settlement expansion and military occupation. [17] [18] [19]

Many prominent Jewish scholars, holocaust survivors and their descendants, as well as historians have echoed this sentiment. [20] [21] For example, Professor Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry, has criticized Israel’s use of antisemitism accusations, arguing that they exploit Jewish suffering for political gain. [22] Finkelstein contends that this practice is not about protecting Jews but rather immunizing Israel from criticism. This manipulation not only undermines the lived experiences of Holocaust survivors and their descendants but trivializes the grave nature of antisemitism by using it as a shield for state violence. [23] [24] [25] [26]

Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization committed to human rights for Palestinians, emphasizes that weaponizing antisemitism falsely implies that Jews are monolithic in their support of Israel, disregarding the voices of anti-Zionist Jews who oppose occupation and apartheid. [27] The organization has made its position clear: antisemitism is real, and it is on the rise, but conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel undermines our fight against actual hatred against Jews. [28]

Anti-Zionist Jewish communities continue to emphasize that weaponizing antisemitism erases their identities and beliefs. By falsely presenting Jewish identity as inherently tied to Zionism, advocates of Israeli policies erase the existence of countless Jews who fight for Palestinian rights. [29]

Affirming Israel's "right to exist":

The phrase “Israel’s right to exist” is not grounded in international law but functions as a political demand designed to erase and neutralize the foundational violence upon which the Israeli state was established. No country has an enshrined “right to exist” under international law; what is codified, instead, is the right of peoples to self-determination. Yet Palestinians — an indigenous population subject to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid — are uniquely coerced to affirm not just Israel’s existence, but its existence as a Jewish ethnostate. The demand to recognise an illegal state built on the erasure of Palestinians serves a clear colonial function: to reframe a settler-colonial project as a matter of mutual recognition, while masking the dispossession and ongoing subjugation of the native population.

Reaffirming this “right” without condition is not neutral — it is a weaponized narrative that forces the oppressed to validate the conditions of their own oppression. It silences the Nakba, the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948; it ignores the demolition of over 500 villages; it legitimizes the denial of the right of return, a right Palestinians hold under UN Resolution 194. In reality, this dog-whistle turns a settler-colonial enterprise into a moral imperative, requiring Palestinians to grant legitimacy to a state that continues to colonize their land, suffocate Gaza, fragment the West Bank, and implement apartheid policies across all territories it controls.

This language operates as a form of colonial gaslighting by shifting the global discourse from justice, land, and liberation to “recognition,” painting Palestinians as irrational or hostile if they refuse to validate a system structured on their displacement. It allows Israel to demand unconditional acceptance while giving nothing in return — not rights, not reparations, not even a meaningful recognition of the Palestinian people as equals. Internationally, it upholds a model where settler-colonialism is not only protected but sanctified, positioning Israel as eternally under threat while Palestinians are cast as aggressors for simply insisting they too have a right to exist with dignity on their ancestral land.

In this way, the assertion that “Israel has a right to exist” functions not as a principle of peace, but as a discursive tool of imperial domination, maintaining asymmetry and preventing justice. To challenge it is not to deny Jewish safety or personhood — it is to refuse the erasure of a people whose lives, land, and future have been systematically stripped under the banner of legitimacy. True peace cannot be built on the demand that the colonized affirm the righteousness of their own dispossession.