When Immigration Imports the Intifada
The Israel–Palestine conflict is no longer confined to the Middle East
Last week, tens of thousands of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded the streets of Italy, most notably in Milan, clashing with police, setting fires, blocking roads and ports, and paralyzing schools and public transit.
The reason? Italy refused to recognize a Palestinian state, a move that would legitimize Hamas’s brutal terrorist regime. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni felt compelled to justify Italy’s position, explaining that recognition of a Palestinian state would come only once Israeli hostages are freed and Hamas is excluded from any future government.
But while Meloni had the courage (for now) to stand up to the radical pro-Palestinian agenda taking root in Italy, many other Western nations did not. France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal all recognized a Palestinian state – effectively sending the message that much of the West will indeed now negotiate with terrorists, and that if a noisy, radical minority throws enough rocks at police and harasses enough Jewish students and businesses, those in power will cave to their demands.
It’s imperative that we ask how we got here – not only when it comes to tolerance and even support for Hamas terrorism, but also acceptance of a broader campaign by anti-Western subversives to systematically undermine and destroy Western civilization. Decades of imprudent immigration policies and misplaced “compassion” have now put the West on a path to cultural suicide.
Not only have Western nations imported millions of people from regions openly hostile to Western culture, but their ethnic conflicts have migrated as well, most notably the one in Gaza. These foreign conflicts are now being fought with the help of home-grown left-wing allies, reshaping the life of Western citizens in ways that are increasingly hostile to cultural tranquility, including in the United States.
Of course, people can debate Israel’s ongoing military response to the Hamas terrorist attack. They can and should discuss whether one considers the humanitarian disaster in Gaza to be a genocide or the catastrophic result of war. They can even debate President Donald Trump’s recent peace plan and the feasibility of a two-state solution.
But none of the answers to these questions changes the deeper reality: the Israel–Palestine conflict is no longer confined to the Middle East. It has been transplanted into Western cities, championed not only by some immigrant communities, but also by anti-Western elements who have been pushing mass migration policies for decades.
From the war’s outset after October 7, 2023, this was obvious. Even before the destruction in Gaza escalated, hundreds of thousands marched through New York and London under Palestinian flags. Many demonstrations went beyond solidarity with Palestinians; some openly celebrated Hamas’s massacre.
This movement cannot be explained away as concern for “human rights.” As the Capital Research Center has documented, so-called “pro-Palestinian” activist networks in America and Europe have become vehicles for a much broader agenda. In the U.S., the study found a 3,000 percent surge in violent rhetoric and a 186 percent increase in anti-American and anti-police messaging after October 7.
Chants of “globalize the intifada” and “bring the war home” are not poetic slogans. They are explicit calls to import terrorism into Western societies.
Pro-refugee groups, framed as humanitarian charities, have morphed into hubs of anti-Western grievances, fueled by mass immigration and protected by elites in government who demand “tolerance” from their citizens while excusing the intolerance of the immigrants they continue to import.
This is the very “paradox of tolerance” that the liberal philosopher Karl Popper warned about: a society that tolerates the intolerant will end by destroying itself. Yet Western leaders have turned this warning upside down, wielding tolerance not as a safeguard, but as a weapon against their own people.
Citizens who wave their own national flag or criticize anti-Semitic bigotry can expect to face police harassment in London or Manchester, while chants of “glory to the martyrs” and “from the river to the sea” are ignored. In one recent viral case, a British man was arrested for speaking out against Pakistani rape gangs – even as actual rapists walk free.
The same alarming trends are now visible in America.