If you’ve ever wondered in your darker moments what life would be like for the small minority of Jews who would remain in the Land of Israel after (heaven forbid) the destruction of the State of Israel, I’d strongly recommend watching this video from the Syrian-Canadian activist Laith Marouf. Once you’ve seen it, you may be tempted, as I was, to send him a note of appreciation for his refreshing clarity.
I should make clear from the outset that Marouf is an antisemite and all-around bad guy. The son of a Syrian diplomat who served the hated, and now ousted, regime of Bashar Assad, Marouf was a regular guest on Iranian and Russian TV channels during the Syrian civil war, justifying the massacres perpetrated by Assad across the country, including among the thousands of Palestinians who reside there. After becoming a Canadian citizen in 2020, despite this atrocious record, Marouf received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants for an “anti-racism” project he initiated. He also established the pro-Hezbollah “Free Palestine TV” platform in Beirut. Earlier this year, he was arrested and then released by the Lebanese authorities when he was discovered in a restricted zone on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Let there be no doubt, then, that this naturalized Canadian citizen wants to see Hamas and its allies eliminate Israel and kill as many Jews, whom he calls “loud-mouthed bags of human feces,” as soon as possible. So why, then, listen to anything he has to say?
Simply because, in this case, he gives an honest account of how Jewish anti-Zionists are perceived by the pro-Hamas movement and, therefore, what their role should be.
“You will never see me on the same platform as a Jewish person,” states Marouf at the outset. Why? Not because he dislikes Jews (he says), but because doing so amplifies the notion that “the viewer needs to hear a Jew say it before they will believe a Palestinian.”
He then goes on to emphasize that the only acceptable role for a Jewish anti-Zionist is to stand meekly and obediently “behind” Palestinians, rather than getting out in front of them. “And you know what?” he continued, warming to his theme. “They shouldn’t be beside us. They should be behind us. The only thing I want to hear from a Jewish anti-Zionist is parroting (my emphasis) what Palestinians say. A Jewish anti-Zionist shouldn’t have an opinion about Palestine that is in any form contradicting the Palestinian position.” The only time that a Jewish anti-Zionist might be permitted more room for maneuver is when “he is confronting his own Zionist community.”
Clearly, Marouf is not expecting much, given his evident contempt for Jewish anti-Zionists. In his view, they have failed to take the risk where it mattered—with their bodies and their lives, in direct conflict with Israel—comparing them unfavorably with those Germans who did exactly that, he believes, when it came to the Nazi regime. “Do you know any Jew on this whole planet who risked their lives to save a Palestinian?” he asked rhetorically. “People are starting to associate Judaism with Zionism not because of us, but because of the inaction of Jews that claim they are anti-Zionist.”
Such a message is little short of humiliating for the motley crew of anti-Zionists of Jewish origin—Peter Beinart, Max Blumenthal, Abbie Stein, Alon Mizrahi, the “International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network,” among others—whose ravings from the safety of their living rooms continue to disfigure the public debate on the Middle East. It’s humiliating because it places them in the same camp as the vast majority of Jews who remain Zionists, when they have tried so hard to distance themselves from this community as stridently and as hatefully as possible. It’s humiliating because it tells them that, since they are Jews, they cannot be trusted and must therefore have every word they utter scripted by a Palestinian ideological commissar.
Marouf’s speech is further confirmation that Jewish anti-Zionists (or “antizionists,” as I call them) have, as I wrote last year, increasingly outlived their usefulness. The overwhelming majority of the pro-Hamas movement is composed of non-Jews. Many, if not most, of them are Millennials or Gen Z’ers whose embrace of the Palestinian cause is very recent. They have made that solidarity an integral component of their personal and social, as well as political, identities. Partly because of the distance in time, they are, whether on the left or the right, less bothered than preceding generations by accusations of antisemitism or a sense of duty to respect the memory of the Holocaust.
Most of all, they are tired of the Jewish anti-Zionist “not in my name” shtick. They are in this game to express solidarity with the Palestinians, not engage in endless debates about Jewish identity or the fissures among Jews when it comes to Israel. For this crowd, the only good Jewish anti-Zionist is the one who drops the word “Jewish” from the descriptor.
I would like to believe that among the supporters of Jewish Voice for Peace and similar groups, there are those discomfited by Marouf’s instruction to Jewish anti-Zionists to simply “parrot” the Palestinian line. I would like to think that they have enough pride in themselves and in their Jewish identity to recognize an insult when they see one.
Critically, I would like them to understand that Marouf’s tone and words sound a warning about how a stateless Jewish minority in the Middle East would be treated by its overlords. The abolition of Zionism is not a mere slogan. It is a plan of action to be implemented in those schools and synagogues and community centers that would be permitted to exist. It leans far more towards compulsion than it does to persuasion. Its goal is subordination.
Having heard what Marouf has to say, Jewish anti-Zionists are faced with a choice. They can agree with him and accept their inferior role. Or they can use his remarks as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink their positions—and finally grasp that those who say that Jews are not indigenous to the region, are colonialists, engage in “genocide” and should be sent back to the lands where they were once murdered are the real liars and charlatans here.
