By Yuval David
The wave of anti-Israel protests that exploded across the globe did not emerge in a vacuum, and they did not emerge in response to Israeli military action in Gaza. They began before Israel launched a single airstrike — before one soldier crossed the border. While the blood of Israeli civilians wasn’t even dry after the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The slogans were pre-printed. The rallies were pre-planned. The rage was ready. That wasn’t grassroots activism; it was a global campaign of antisemitism, unleashed the moment Jews were slaughtered.
Here is the question I now pose to every so-called activist: Where is your outrage when real atrocities happen around the world?
Where are your protests for:
Armenians, ethnically cleansed by Turkey and Azerbaijan?
The Druze, who are being slaughtered across the Arab world?
Kurds, bombed and silenced by the Iranian regime?
Christians massacred in Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt?
LGBTQ+ people publicly flogged and executed under Sharia law?
Women imprisoned and tortured for refusing forced hijab?
Uyghurs, starved in Chinese labor camps?
Palestinians denied citizenship in Arab nations such as Lebanon and Syria?
The silence is deafening. Selective outrage is not justice. It’s hypocrisy.
And when that selectivity always targets the Jewish state, it is antisemitism, plain and simple.
The lie repeated most often is that Israel is a colonialist enterprise. But any honest person knows this is false. Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. We Jews are indigenous to that land — our language, our holidays, our history, our holy sites, our identity are all rooted there. We have lived, prayed, died and returned there for more than 3,000 years.
Modern Israel isn’t a monolith. It’s a multiethnic, pluralistic democracy where Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin, African asylum seekers, Middle Eastern refugees and atheists live, work, protest and vote together. It is not ruled by a foreign empire from across the sea. By definition, Israel is not a colony.
Those who chant otherwise either don’t know the definition of colonization — or they don’t care.
Meanwhile, these same protesters romanticize Hamas, a genocidal Islamist regime that commits daily human-rights violations by using civilians as human shields; forcing Gazans into harm’s way; stealing and stockpiling humanitarian aid; taking hostages; and still holding Israeli and foreign nationals nearly a year later.
Israel has said clearly: Free the hostages, and we will agree to a cease-fire.
But Hamas doesn’t want peace. They want leverage. And the world enables their cruelty.
So I ask again: Where are the protests for those crimes? Why do these “activists” go silent when Jews are the victims?
Here’s a hard truth we all need to confront: The global anti-Israel movement is not about Palestinian rights. It’s about erasing Jewish rights.
If it were about human rights, they would condemn the dozens of oppressive regimes in the world. If it were about land, they would condemn the real occupations across the globe. If it were about justice, they would call for peace and coexistence.
But that’s not what we hear.
Instead, we see Jewish students assaulted on campuses. Jewish businesses vandalized. Jewish flags torn down. Antisemitic agitators invited to speak at graduations and rewarded with fellowships.
#ZionismIsGenocide is trending higher than #FreeTheHostages.
This isn’t activism. It’s open season on Jews.
To my fellow Jews — and to our true allies — I say this: Now is the time to be clear-eyed and unapologetic. To challenge those who spread lies and mask their hatred as moral virtue. Ask them the hard questions. Demand they explain their silence on global atrocities. Watch how quickly their “values” crumble when confronted with facts.
And to those who cannot handle these truths, who cling to emotion and propaganda, who parrot slogans without understanding — know this: You are not resisting oppression. You are enabling it.
You have been seduced by ideologies that would crush your own freedoms. You are fighting for regimes that would silence you, erase your identity and criminalize your speech. That is not justice. That is self-delusion.
As for me, I am proudly, publicly and unapologetically Jewish. Unapologetically Zionist. And I will not be silenced.
I stand with Israel. With democracy. With truth. With all people who believe in human dignity and freedom.
And I call on every Jew, every ally, every moral person to join me not just in resisting antisemitism, but in confronting the lies that fuel it.
Yuval David is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, filmmaker and actor.
