Two Arabic phrases have taken center stage since the Hamas massacres of October 7. The first is intifada – literally throwing off – which has echoed on campuses and on streets worldwide.

Intifada originated in the Palestinian uprising of 1987, which escalated from rock throwing to full out street battles between Palestinians and Israelis. The Second Intifada, which began in 2000, escalated into a suicide bombing campaign. Today, “globalize the intifada,” which means something like “support the Palestinians,” is screamed proudly during pogroms in Amsterdam and protests in Oakland, but it also has a broader sense of throwing off the putative shackles of capitalism and the West.

But another Arabic phrase cuts closer to the heart of October 7, its intense violence and religious intent. That term is razzia, the Arabic word for raid, literally on the model of Muhammad and his army. For believers, it signifies religiously sanctioned murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, and theft.

As pointed out by many observers, notably the French scholar of Islam Giles Kepel, razzia explains precisely the tactics and rationale of Hamas on October 7, if not the strategic intent. The continual recitation of Allahu akbar (Allah is greatest) by the attackers who proudly recorded their deeds is a key. So, too, is their almost ritualistic use of rape to degrade and defile Jewish women, and the casual theft of people and property from Israeli communities by Hamas fighters – and by the thousands of Gazans who quickly followed them into Israel.

This was precisely a religious mission in which all was possible, and all the spoils given to the community of believers. The result was more than 1,200 mostly Israelis killed and over 250 kidnapped, followed by the destruction of Hamas and much of Gaza itself.

Palestine as a buzzword

For Palestinians as a whole, as a political entity and a people, the evolution from intifada to razzia is a stark example of the Islamization of their confrontation against the Jews. This was always implicit in their political language, albeit couched for decades in trendy terms of liberation movements. Referring to Israelis in English but Jews in Arabic was a clue long ignored by outsiders anxious to cast the conflict in secular territorial terms.

But as has been so long the case, the internationalization of the conflict relegates Palestinians to the margins. The placement of “Palestine” at the center of the Islamo-leftist alliance against the West and capitalism – exemplified by the phrase “globalize the intifada” – has turned Palestinians into symbols of broader rebellions. “Palestine” is “intersectionally” used to promote a slew of other causes, such as climate rebellion, decolonization, anti-racism.

With the breakthrough achieved through hyper-violence, Palestinians reclaimed the world’s attention only for other movements to hijack the brand. Intifada and the keffiyeh (the iconic symbol that was ironically mandated by the British as a means of social control) are trademarks used by Western enthusiasts who also wave Hezbollah and Houthi flags, who throw soup on masterpieces of Western art, and by hipsters making coffee.

If anything, however, Hamas’s embrace of the Islamic concept of razzia puts Palestinians in an even worse place. Though at first the violence was touted as the breaking of Israeli shackles, an epitome of decolonization that thrilled Western academics and intellectuals, the horrific and sordid nature quickly led Hamas itself to deny what its own proud warriors had recorded.

The global Left and their Islamic allies dutifully followed suit with denials of rape in particular that are a permanent mark of shame for “feminist” organizations. Detailed investigations by news organizations and NGOs also denied what Hamas itself had recorded: murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, and theft. Meanwhile, celebrations of razzia remain among the revolutionary Left (and its many academic supporters), always thrilled by killing for a cause.

The two paradigms of intifada and razzia and the evolution from the one to the other place Palestinians in an impossible position. To follow the path of intifada means permanent low level violence and insurgency, to be met with painful counterinsurgency from Israel. Perhaps as important, intifada means a position as impotent figureheads in a global psycho-drama, Communists and Muslims raging against modernity. But to follow razzia – religious hyper-violence – is to invite punishing retaliation and permanent disenfranchisement.

This is a crippling conundrum for a patriarchal, theocratic, and authoritarian culture that has only managed (at tremendous expense to the international community) to develop kleptocratic and theocratic institutions.

The existing institutions and paradigms available to Palestinians are shockingly limited; the thievery and incompetence of the one-time secular revolutionary Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority (which was partially Islamified by Arafat before his death); the revolutionary Arabo-Marxism of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has found resonance in the West; or the Muslim Brotherhood-style and Iranian-funded Islam of Hamas. All are uniquely out of sync with the demands of the 21st century.

Whether hijacked by international movements or by a specific facet of their own tradition, Palestinians are at a low ebb. Enemies and friends alike should encourage them to break free of both since neither intifada nor razzia should have a place in the civilized world.

Alex Joffe is director of Strategic Affairs for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. 

Asaf Romirowsky is the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa.