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For decades, the Palestinian cause has found its most receptive audiences on the political left. Progressive movements, human rights organisations and anticolonial traditions have offered language, solidarity and moral clarity. That alignment made sense. It still does. But in today’s political landscape, it cannot on its own shift policy.
If policy is shaped in spaces dominated by security thinking and conservative power, then advocacy must reach those spaces too.
Across much of the West, decisions on military aid, diplomatic positioning and protest law are shaped less by activist pressure and more by security-driven political calculations. The language that dominates these arenas is not primarily moral or historical. It is strategic, legal and institutional. In that context, a strategy that confines engagement largely to sympathetic spaces may preserve solidarity, but it does little to alter the centres of decision-making.
The Palestinian movement has achieved unprecedented visibility, particularly since the start of Israel’s latest genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and reduced much of the Strip to rubble. Public awareness has grown. Legal scrutiny has intensified. International institutions have been drawn into the debate. Yet visibility has not translated into leverage. Arms continue to flow. Diplomatic cover persists. Restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests have expanded in several Western states. Moral clarity alone has not been enough.
Recent developments across Western capitals illustrate this gap between visibility and influence.
In Germany, local authorities have outright banned or heavily restricted pro-Palestinian demonstrations on security grounds. In parts of the United States, student encampments have been cleared by police, and state legislatures have penalised institutions seen as tolerating boycott campaigns. In the United Kingdom, large demonstrations have been framed primarily through the language of extremism and public order. In each case, the debate has centred less on international law or occupation and more on domestic security and counter-extremism, the terrain on which governments feel most confident.
Part of the challenge lies in how engagement has been structured. The Palestinian cause is not marginal, extremist or morally ambiguous. It is rooted in international law, the principle of self-determination and the right of a civilian population to live free from occupation and collective punishment. Those principles are not inherently left-wing. They speak to law, sovereignty and the limits of state power, concepts that resonate across political traditions.
And yet, Palestinian advocacy in Western capitals has often been framed primarily through anticolonial and human rights language, registers that resonate strongly on the left but less so within conservative political cultures. As a result, the cause is frequently perceived as ideologically aligned rather than universally grounded. That perception narrows its reach.
When Palestinian claims are not articulated in the security and legal vocabulary that underpins much of right-leaning political discourse, others define them instead. The dominant framing becomes one of terrorism, instability or civilisational conflict. Occupation is recast as security management. Collective punishment is rebranded as deterrence. In such an environment, silence or limited engagement does not preserve principle. It leaves the field uncontested.
Engaging the right does not mean diluting demands or moderating language about occupation, apartheid or civilian harm. It does not mean legitimising racism or Islamophobia. It carries risks of misrepresentation, hostility or bad-faith engagement, but disengagement carries the greater risk of irrelevance. It means recognising that political persuasion requires translation as well as conviction. Arguments must be made in terms that intersect with the priorities of those who hold power.
That may mean briefing conservative legislators, publishing in right-leaning policy forums, or framing arguments in parliamentary and security committee settings rather than exclusively in activist spaces.
This might mean arguing that indefinite occupation undermines Israel’s own long-term security by entrenching permanent instability. It might mean demonstrating that selective enforcement of international law weakens Western governments’ credibility in Ukraine, Taiwan or elsewhere. It might mean showing that impunity for one ally erodes deterrence globally. These are not left-wing talking points. They are questions of consistency, order and state interest.
History suggests that political change often requires engagement beyond one’s natural allies. The African National Congress did not limit its outreach to sympathetic audiences; it engaged governments that had long branded it radical or subversive. Irish republican leaders eventually negotiated with conservative administrations deeply opposed to their aims. In each case, engagement did not signal endorsement. It reflected an understanding that political change requires dialogue beyond one’s natural allies.
There is also a generational dimension. The contemporary right is not monolithic. It includes nationalists concerned with sovereignty, libertarians sceptical of foreign entanglements and conservatives wary of unchecked executive power. None of these constituencies is an automatic partner. But none is inherently unreachable. Some may remain unmoved, particularly where ideological or religious commitments are deeply entrenched. Treating them as permanently hostile ensures that the most extreme narratives dominate their internal debates.
The discomfort surrounding such engagement is understandable. Many supporters of Palestinian rights fear that speaking in conservative forums risks normalising hostile frameworks or compromising moral clarity. But politics is not a test of moral insulation. It is a contest over outcomes. If policies are shaped within security institutions and conservative-led governments, then arguments must reach those spaces as well.
The alternative is a form of self-containment: a movement that grows louder within its own echo chambers while policy remains unchanged. The experience of the past year makes this risk visible. The devastation in Gaza prompted global outrage and unprecedented protest mobilisation. Yet key Western governments did not fundamentally alter their positions. Sympathy without access proved limited.
None of these diminishes the importance of solidarity on the left. That solidarity remains essential. But it cannot be the outer boundary of engagement. If the Palestinian cause rests on universal principles of law and justice, then it should be argued as such everywhere those principles are debated, including in rooms that feel politically inhospitable.
The Palestinian struggle does not suffer from a lack of moral grounding. It suffers from restricted political reach. Expanding that reach does not require concession. It requires confidence, confidence that a just cause can withstand scrutiny in any ideological setting, and that justice need not be confined to one side of the political spectrum.
In the end, refusing to enter difficult conversations does not protect principles. It protects existing power structures. If Palestinian rights are to move from protest slogan to policy consideration, the movement must be willing to speak not only where it is welcomed but where it is resisted.
Justice should not depend on ideological comfort. It should depend on the willingness to argue, clearly, consistently and without fear, wherever power is exercised.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
