Before you tell me to “Free Palestine,” I have a few questions.
Dear Americans, when are you freeing the United States and returning it to its Indigenous peoples?
Dear Canadians, when are you returning Canada to the First Nations?
Dear Australians, when are you giving Australia back to its Aboriginal peoples?
Dear New Zealanders, when are you returning New Zealand to the Māori?
Dear Spaniards, before lecturing Israel about colonialism, when are you giving up Ceuta and Melilla, your territories on the African continent?
Dear Turks, when are you freeing Northern Cyprus?
Dear Moroccans, when are you freeing Western Sahara?
Dear Russians, when are you leaving the Ukrainian territories you invaded?
Dear Chinese activists, when are we discussing Tibet?
Dear Indonesians, when are you freeing West Papua?
Dear British activists, when are you decolonizing Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands?
Dear French activists, when are you freeing New Caledonia and French Polynesia?
Dear Americans, one more time, what about Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands?
Dear Danes, have the people of Greenland been asked what they want?
Dear Dutch activists, when are we discussing the remaining Dutch territories in the Caribbean?
Dear Chileans, when are you returning Indigenous lands in Patagonia?
Dear Argentinians, same question.
Dear Brazilians, when are the Indigenous nations of the Amazon receiving their ancestral lands back?
Dear Mexicans, when are you returning Mexico to its many Indigenous nations?
Dear Europeans, when are you returning the land, wealth, and cultural treasures your empires took from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East?
Oh, you are not?
Interesting.
Apparently, decolonization is incredibly simple, as long as the only country being dismantled is Israel.
Now, let me make something very clear.
I am not suggesting that modern countries should be emptied of their populations.
That would be absurd.
And that is precisely the point.
History is complicated. Borders are complicated. Almost every country on Earth was shaped by migration, war, conquest, empire, and displacement.
Yet only one people is constantly ordered to “go back” somewhere else, even though we returned to the land where our identity, language, faith, history, and civilization were born.
The Jewish people are not foreign tourists in Judea.
We did not name ourselves after this land.
This land was named after us.
Our kingdoms stood here.
Our language was born here.
Our holiest places are here.
Our history is buried beneath every road.
For two thousand years, Jews prayed toward Jerusalem, mourned Jerusalem, dreamed of Jerusalem, and ended their prayers with the words, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Then we finally returned to Jerusalem, and suddenly the descendants of empires began calling us colonizers.
The irony would be hilarious if it were not so dangerous.
You may criticize an Israeli government.
You may debate borders, policies, and the future of Palestinians.
But you do not get to erase thousands of years of Jewish history while standing on land shaped by your own country’s conquests.
You do not get to enjoy the outcome of your country’s history while demanding that the Jewish people dismantle theirs.
And you certainly do not get to lecture an Indigenous Middle Eastern people about returning to its ancestral homeland.
So before you shout “Free Palestine” at me, take a quick look at the history beneath your own feet.
Because if your solution to every historical injustice is to dismantle the country that exists there today, then please show us how it is done.
You first.
I’ll wait.
