Hiding in plain sight

A few weeks ago, Kruununhaka was plastered with posters inviting people to protest in solidarity with a free Palestine. In typical progressive language, the bottom of the posters read: “Racist, anti-Jewish, Islamophobic, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory texts and symbols are forbidden.” Not only a few meters away, other posters also called out: “Long Live the Palestinian Armed Resistance.”

Text: Shani Armon | Cover photo: Janne Leimola

This contradiction is a symptom of a chronic condition. Western liberals adopt and spread narratives rooted in the propaganda of dark totalitarian regimes disguised in progressive language. Jews, who have historically been part of these movements, have come to learn that if our experiences challenge these narratives, they simply don’t count. Stating “we oppose antisemitism” is enough to wash one’s conscience clean; no real work needs to be done.

Posters in Kruununhaka

Perhaps activists could have listened to the leadership of the people they claim to represent. Alarms should have rung at the beginning of the war when former Hamas chairman Khaled Mashal took pride in how Western university students adopted the slogan “from the river to the sea”. 

Surely advocates of human rights would not feel comfortable sharing a slogan with an Islamist terror organization that has only recently gone on a killing spree, used rape and women’s bodies as instruments of war, and is even willing to throw opposition members, fellow Palestinians, from rooftops.

Instead, Finnish academics took the stage to excuse this slogan as complicated (here): “river to the sea” could mean many things. For Mashal, however, the slogan is straightforward and literal: an Islamist Palestinian state on the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There is no ambiguity. At best, this means the forced subjugation of millions, but given what we have seen on Oct. 7th, one does not need to imagine how that would manifest.

 

The same interview provides valuable insight into how Hamas operates. According to Mashaal, for Hamas to gain a broad consensus with more moderate forces, concessions such as an independent state with the ’67 borders can be made – but only as a temporary cover that allows for building military strength. The end goal will remain forever unchanged. 

Hiding extremism behind more palatable moderate ideas is therefore a conscious strategy. It is laid out openly in simple language for anyone who cares to look, but they don’t.

 

Western governments say the Resistance Front is terrorism. This comes at a time when people flew Hezbollah’s flag in a street in the US. The people of the world are supporting the Resistance Front because they are resisting & because they are against oppression. pic.twitter.com/8nvRDlh8nw

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) April 24, 2024

So here we are, half a year later, Ali Khamenei, head of the Islamic Regime in Iran, posted a photo to ‘x’ only a week ago. In the photo, protesters waved Palestinian and Hezbollah flags side by side. The caption celebrates the demonstration’s support for the “resistance front”.

The post is referring to the Islamic Republic and its proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Huthies in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza. These proxies are tools that have been helping the Islamic Regime expand its influence in the region by raking havoc and causing instability, terror, wars, and humanitarian disasters in their prospective regions.

Khamenei is appealing to a Western audience by using terms such as “resistance to oppression.” An incredibly bold choice of words from a regime that tortures and kills its women for showing their hair. One could almost laugh if it wasn’t so tragic, but Khameini knows well what he is doing; during the Iranian revolution, student demonstrations helped install his regime in power, in the guise of anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism. It has worked before, and it is working again.

This should not be mistaken to be strictly an American problem. Scenes of Hezbollah flags waved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been documented in Helsinki’s Elielinaukio too. 

Hazbollah flags in Elielinaukio

A movement where these murderous totalitarian leaders feel comfortable is in serious need of recalibration. Palestinians and Israelis are in desperate need of a bold and genuine alternative. Western activists have the position and responsibility to uplift moderate voices who are open to dialogue and can bring an end to the bloodshed. They must work against terror, Hamas and the Islamic regime with a loud and clear voice because they are an inseparable part of the equation.

If activists look away or fail to see reality for what it is, they will end up supporting and creating much worse forms of oppression. The very people they are trying to protect will be the first to pay the price for this recklessness, and in the long term, they will also be putting their own societies at risk. Listen to the words of Abdul Ben Sayed, the UAE’s Foreign Minister, who issued a warning to the West 7 years ago, and now, following the protests in American campuses, took to X to say: “I told you so.”

 

I told you so https://t.co/Vqg3B8WOdO

— عبدالله بن زايد (@ABZayed) April 28, 2024