Hours after Palestinians slaughtered 1,200 Israelis during the Simchat Torah massacre of October 7, 2023, long before any Israeli response, pro-Palestinian crowds flooded streets and campuses worldwide.
They didn’t wait for facts or Israeli retaliation. They instantly branded Israel the villain, cheered the massacre, and called for Israel’s destruction. From Western quads to global capitals, these protests didn’t show courage.
They exposed the raw cowardice of Palestinians and their advocates.
In late 2025 and early 2026, pro-Palestinian groups targeted several American synagogues hosting aliyah information sessions and Israeli real estate events.
On November 19, 2025, dozens gathered outside Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue during an aliyah fair, with chants echoing through the streets.
In January 2026, activists protested a real estate investment conference at Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, focusing on properties in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. Similar disruptions hit events in other cities.
An embodiment of antisemitic cowardice
The pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted worldwide since the massacre are the embodiment of cowardice. The protesters scream horrific antisemitic chants.
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” has less to do with a free Palestine and is more a call to delete Israel.
“Globalize the Intifada” is a call to expand the violence that killed thousands of Israelis in two terrorist uprisings and extend it worldwide against global Jewry.
“Khaybar, Khaybar, Ya Yahud, Jaish Mohammed Sauf Ya’ud” (Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return) is a chant that references a seventh-century massacre of Saudi Jews by Mohammed’s Islamic army and is shouted at UK rallies.
All this noise and spectacle hides one glaring truth: beneath the volume lies raw cowardice. Here’s exactly why these actions reek of spinelessness, not strength.
Pro-Palestinian activists love hurling age-old antisemitic slurs at rallies, painting Jews as villains in some twisted narrative.
But when it comes to actually sitting down for a real debate with Zionists who know their history and facts? They vanish. Palestinians and their advocates are all bark, no bite, hiding behind crowds and chants instead of facing tough questions head-on.
Why don’t they explain their infinite intransigence? Where is their defense of pay-to-slay? Why aren’t they debating the virtues of Palestinian suicide bombings?
That reluctance to engage honestly? It’s the hallmark of cowardice, plain and simple, dodging the discomfort of genuine dialogue.
Hypocrisy and a refusal for honest debate
What’s more telling is how this cowardice stretches further to the hypocrisy of the Palestinian movement.
Palestinian protesters who refuse to engage Zionists in honest debate also stay silent on Egypt’s refusal to open the Rafah border, trapping their Gazan brothers in endless war. No rallies in Cairo, no demands for Arab refuge.
Their anger is aimed solely at the Jewish state. In that glaring omission lies the proof that their protests aren’t about justice or even the Palestinian people, but rather the safety of easy targets like Israel and the Jewish people.
Their cowardice stretches further still. Iran, the chief backer of Hamas and architect of proxy wars that have bled Gaza dry, faces no reckoning from these same voices.
No marches at Iranian embassies, no demands that Tehran halt its funding of terror or open its borders to desperate Palestinians.
Even as Iran slaughters more civilians in three weeks than Israel did over the entire Gaza war, the Palestinian protesters say nothing. Only Israel provokes their fury.
This selective outrage betrays not principled solidarity but a deeper refusal to challenge allies in the same ideological camp, a quiet surrender that speaks volumes about true courage (and lack of it).
They hide their faces. Cowards conceal identity. Keffiyehs, ski masks, and hoods have become the uniform, allowing them to scream slogans, vandalize synagogues, or assault Jewish students without accountability.
Contrast that with every genuine civil rights movement in history, where leaders proudly showed their faces and accepted the consequences.
They outsource the fighting. They chant “Globalize the intifada” and glorify “resistance,” yet zero prominent campus organizers or Western activists have flown to Gaza or Lebanon to pick up a rifle beside Hamas or Hezbollah.
They are content to let working-class Gazans and Lebanese serve as cannon fodder while they livestream from their dorms. They have no skin in the game.
Poll after poll shows the loudest voices are young Westerners with zero family ties to the conflict, no Hebrew or Arabic fluency, and no intention of ever living in the Middle East.
This is tourism activism – cheap moral preening that evaporates the moment real sacrifice (draft, relocation, and lost career) is required.
The Palestinian advocates mask themselves in keffiyehs, ski masks, and hoods, classic coward’s gear, so they can scream slurs, vandalize synagogues, or corner Jewish students without ever facing consequences.
Real civil rights fighters stood tall, faces exposed, ready to pay the price. Think about the Bloody Sunday confrontation, captured on national television, where thousands of peaceful demonstrators, led by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the face of brutal state trooper violence.
These activists? They hide, strike from the shadows, then slip away. That anonymity isn’t a strategy; it’s fear dressed up as solidarity.
They glorify “resistance” and chant for a global intifada, yet not one prominent Western organizer has boarded a plane to fight alongside Hamas or Hezbollah.
They let Gazans and Lebanese bleed while safe in dorms, livestreaming outrage with zero personal stake, no family in the region, no language skills, or no plan to live there. When pushback arrives, they melt into victimhood, demanding “safe spaces.”
They celebrate the October 7 savagery from afar, then shriek for Israel to show restraint? That’s moral cowardice, pure and simple.
Every time the personal price rises above Instagram likes, the “Palestinian revolution” evaporates. The Palestinians and their advocates aren’t truly committed. They are cosplaying courage from behind a screen and a scarf.
Palestinians should be ashamed of these protesters who claim to demonstrate on their behalf. Why would anyone want to be represented by cowardice?
At the same time, one can’t help but notice the protesters are following the lead of the Palestinians in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. They too refuse to confront the reality of their situation and show the courage to compromise and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho.