Free Palestine? A lesson in sloganeering

Having spent the first half of my life in America, I grew up on slogans and jingles. And they still stick in my mind, along with their catchy tunes. “Have a Coke and a smile!” hooked me on carbonated drinks as a child. “Snap, Crackle, Pop – Rice Krispies!” and Wheaties “Breakfast of Champions” followed me every morning to the breakfast table, while “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz; oh what a relief it is” led me to Alka Seltzer when I ate too much.

Keeping kosher, I never did “have it my way,” as Burger King promised, but I think Nike would agree that I decided to “just do it!” when I made aliyah.

Slogans not only sell products, they can also take an idea, an enterprise, a cause or even a country and synthesize it into just a few essential words. Unfortunately, Israel has never quite come up with a unique slogan of its own, despite trying hard to do so. “Israel is real” is cute but a bit too kitchy, while “Israel – just a stone’s throw away!” was destined for disaster.

Well, now the Palestinians have popularized the saying “Free Palestine,” and hordes of screaming protesters mindlessly shout it out at every opportunity all over the globe, even though the vast majority of them haven’t a clue as to where to find this so-called Palestine on a map. Nor do they understand that the name was coined by the Greeks in the 5th century BCE and forcibly imposed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, who sought to sever the connection of Jews to our historical homeland. They also conveniently ignore the fact that among the earliest authentic Palestinians are Jews who were born here before Israel became a state, including the late Yitzhak Rabin and former chief rabbis Yakov Meir, Ben-Zion Uziel and Mordechai Eliyahu, all of whom were born in Jerusalem before 1948.

“Free Palestine” is the shortened version of the threat, “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea,” which of course is code for declaring that their future state, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, will be free of all Jews. This is not my paranoia; Mahmoud Abbas and certainly the leaders in Hamas have openly told American and European interlocutors that in any future arrangement, their territory will be completely Judenrein.

So as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a decent, moral human being, I of course cannot subscribe to the genocidal ideology behind the seemingly fair-minded, but wickedly deceptive “Free Palestine” slogan. But I do find the phrase interesting, and I have a few responses to it.

The “Free” in “Free Palestine” is not only a verb, but also an adjective. Nothing – at least nothing of lasting, true value in this world – means much if it comes free. You have to work long and hard for the things you hold dear and truly want to accomplish in life; if you are handed them on a silver platter they are no more than hollow shells that will invariably crumble. Palestinians hold their hands out to any and every benefactor, portraying themselves as hapless, helpless victims who cannot stand on their own two feet. And gullible marks, to be sure, are everywhere for the taking; billions of free, unrestricted dollars pour annually into Palestinian coffers from individuals, institutions and governments around the world, freeing the Palestinians to concentrate on screaming for justice, blame everyone else for their troubles and foment acts of terror.

Guess what? We Jews had a much tougher task ahead of us when we established this country. A third of our people had been murdered, we were constantly under attack by our neighbors, and few nations were willing to gamble that we would survive. Poverty was rampant and living conditions primitive. But there were swamps to be drained, fields to be cleared of rocks and then cultivated, roads to be built, and children to be educated, and so we stopped complaining and started working. And we built – from the ground up – a magnificent country that is the envy of the Middle East, if not the entire world. Ironically, we are the role model that you Palestinians should be emulating, not demonizing. “Free” was not in our vocabulary, nor should it be in yours; more often than not, you get what you pay for when the item is free.

But I also accept that the “Free” in your slogan is equally a verb; you just are misdirecting it. Palestine indeed should be freed, but not from Jews or Israel. You should be freed from your tyrannical, self-serving despotic “leaders” who cynically keep you in endless captivity. They pen you up in squalid refugee camps so that they can display you to the world as victims, rather than allow you to live in decent housing. They bombard your brains into believing that violence and bloodshed are your only paths to freedom and dignity. They send you out on terrorist missions and convince you that the only way to succeed is by hurting others, rather than helping yourselves. They keep you captive in a psychological prison where life is denigrated and death is glorified. They exalt the shahid rather than the doctor, scientist, teacher or responsible parent you could and should become.

Your only hope is to break free of these malicious masters, to exercise your free choice and seek a course of peace and compromise rather than eternal war and hatred. But it won’t come easy, and it certainly would help you to have a powerful slogan, one that will energize your cause and direct your energy.

I recommend you borrow one of our favorites, known as the “Golden Rule” of Judaism: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow human being.”