Modern Leftist Thinking: All leftist causes converged on Antisemitism, and “Islamophobe” became the worst possible insult. By Nora Bussigny at The Free Press.
Nora went undercover to investigate feminist, LGBTQ+, and anti-racist activist circles in France.
I was curious: How would they respond to the mass murder and rape perpetrated by terrorists on October 7? What I found wasn’t just embarrassed silence, but genuine scenes of joy, expressed shamelessly to their tens of thousands of followers. “Finally, the colonized rebel against the colonizer!” “Finally, the oppressed fight back against the oppressor!”… “In the war between colonizers and the colonized, we must support (without hesitation) the side of the colonized. #FreePalestine.” …
The various lefty activist causes finally united and converged — on antisemitism!
A political and activist left that had spent years aspiring to a “convergence of struggles” was finally uniting. That convergence rested on a common enemy. A figure whose mutual hatred binds them together. That figure was the Jew — or rather, the “Zionist.”
I watched this shared hatred of the Jew bring together Islamist preachers, supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran, feminist and LGBTQ+ militants, radical ecologists, and anti-police activists—all in the name of a fight “against Zionism, the United States, the West, and imperialism.”
Something extraordinary was happening. So, I went back in. For over a year, from January 2024 to March 2025, I participated undercover in dozens of demonstrations, discussion groups, and militant actions by anti-Israel collectives in France. I visited university campuses in my country, but also L’université Libre de Bruxelles and Columbia University in New York, to understand how legitimate empathy for Palestinian civilians is being instrumentalized by militants linked to terrorist organizations and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
What I observed is how a mutual hatred for the West, the United States, imperialism, and Israel have coalesced around a cause that has become the ultimate cause par excellence: Palestine — one for which its devout followers are prepared to do anything. …
What the lefties are thinking:
I began talking with people — more than 100 over the course of the year. I discovered a wide variety of backgrounds. Many of them, often students, did not always hold particularly radical views …
They had grown up learning about and seeing images of the hundreds of French people killed by Islamist terrorism. And yet, it became clear through my conversations with them that they now considered something to be worse than Islamist terrorism: being accused, as white people, of “Islamophobia.”
For the word Islamophobe is the accusation they use most often, and the one against which they defend themselves with the greatest panic and vehemence whenever suspicion falls on one of them. Shortly after an Islamist murdered history teacher Dominique Bernard on October 13, 2023, for example, a tribute was held in his honor at one of France’s most prestigious university’s, Sciences Po. Organized by students, the tribute — in the form of posters — honored the professor, as well as Samuel Paty, another history teacher murdered by an Islamist. “A student walked past us, lost her temper, and yelled at us, calling us Islamophobes and racists,” several students, still in shock, told me.
Their desire to avoid that accusation justified all concessions — including supporting “Palestinian resistance” at all costs. This is how terrorist acts become not things to condemn, but militant commitments to be cheered on in the name of “deconstructing one’s privileges.”
I participated in conversations in which activists — who proclaimed themselves deeply committed to believing all sexual violence victims — expressed doubt about the veracity of rapes committed by Hamas against Israeli women on October 7. Worse still, some female activists claimed that “Hamas responded in accordance with its culture.” Even those who believed the victims fiercely denied the antisemitic nature of the rapes: “This is not an antisemitic rape; it is patriarchal, because it is inherent to men to rape women,” explained one activist during a feminist demonstration. …
The slogan of the event I attended was: “Algeria has won, Palestine will win.” The community hall was packed to the brim: There were about a hundred people in attendance — families proud to represent the “diversity of the suburbs,” but also white students with keffiyehs tied around their necks. The students were diligently taking notes, and one of them proudly explained that he was studying “colonial history” in college. They told me their family history was finally making sense: They were not merely children of Algerian immigrants; they were becoming “children of Gaza.” …
Fanaticism:
Then, one activist’s monologue galvanized the room: “This is the very essence of resistance: You will kill 10 of our men for every one of yours we kill, but you will be the ones to tire first! You shoot down a leader and he falls as a martyr, and we will have 10 more candidates. Ten fighter martyrs will fall; a thousand more will rise. You can kill the head, but you will not sever the resistance from its soil. The Palestinians will resist to the end! And as long as the land of Palestine is occupied, the Palestinians will rise. With or without arms. With or without legs. With or without children. With or without parents. The land of Palestine belongs to those who fight for it — the Palestinians!”
The activists’ position was clear: Empathy for Palestinian civilians is not enough. One must provide unwavering support for the Palestinian cause, which means supporting the way Palestinians have chosen to express it — and thus supporting Sinwar and Hamas. As privileged white people, the argument went, we had no right to judge how an oppressed people chooses to defend itself; we can only support them in their “legitimate” struggle for justice.
This fanaticism animated the movement. And as I swiftly learned, everything was subordinated to it — including long-standing progressive principles.
During my year undercover, I participated in a series of feminist demonstrations. Over and over again, I watched as demonstrators banned and attacked feminist activists who wanted to speak out for Israeli women victimized by Hamas. On March 8, 2024, Jewish women were pelted with broken glass and had to be evacuated for their safety from the International Women’s Day march in Paris. A year later, on March 8, 2025, Samidoun and other groups, with the approval of feminist organizations, set up a human blockade in Paris to prevent Jewish feminists and Iranian women there to support them from joining the procession. …
Originally, I tried to reason with the activists, attempting to explain to them that these women were not “far right.” “Yes, but it’s the same thing—they’re Zionists,” I was told. To avoid being discovered, I had to shout these slogans alongside my comrades: “Zionists, fascists, you are the terrorists!” “No Zionists in our marches!” …
All of this sounds — and is — baffling. But the justification is simple: Because feminism is part of the progressive omnicause, it must also be decolonial, so it must back the Palestinian resistance in its fight against Israeli colonization. Anyone who opposes Palestine is thus an enemy of the feminist cause. And so, every insult hurled at feminist activists is justified — so long as those feminists are “Zionists.” …
Palestine has become the rallying cry of the progressive left — in my country, and across the world. And the fanaticism of the movement has justified violence, rape apologia, and terrorist adulation — because, of course, “resistance is justified when people are occupied.”
