Greg Bouwer
IINZ
A poster recently spotted on the Auckland University campus bears a bold headline: “Spark an Intifada.” Below it, a list of goals follows: study the intifadas, learn from solidarity actions, organise for a demilitarised world, mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living. It is signed by the Palestine Student Action Committee.
Let’s be absolutely clear: this is not a benign call to ‘study history’. This is a thinly veiled glorification of terrorism paraded as a study group. Either the organisers are ignorant of what an intifada entails, or they are knowingly calling for violent uprising. Neither possibility reflects well on their cause, or their grasp of history, morality, or basic human decency.
What Does ‘Intifada’ Actually Mean?
The word intifada literally means ‘shaking off’, but in modern political context, it has come to refer to two bloody Palestinian uprisings against Israel – both characterised by widespread violence, suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, and the deliberate targeting of civilians.
- The First Intifada (1987–1993) began with civil disobedience, but soon escalated into deadly attacks. Over 200 Israelis were killed.
- The Second Intifada (2000–2005), far more deadly, included waves of suicide bombings on buses, cafes, nightclubs and supermarkets, killing over 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians, including children.
To call for a “spark” of that legacy is not resistance. It is romanticised bloodshed. It is a rallying cry to resurrect a period of murder and mayhem. The poster may as well have read: Let’s Study Suicide Bombings and See What We Can Learn.
The Hypocrisy is Staggering
Let’s consider what would happen if a group of white students put up a poster that read: ‘Spark a Crusade – Study medieval tactics, learn from militant Christendom, organise for a purified Europe.’ It would rightly be condemned as extremist hate speech. The campus would erupt in protest. The university would apologise. The group would be banned.
And yet when it’s the Palestine Student Action Committee calling to relive a violent intifada (when the targets are Jews and Israelis), it’s met with silence, or worse, tacit approval from activist circles and faculty who ought to know better.
Why? Because antisemitism, when dressed in the language of decolonisation, is given a free pass.
You can burn Israeli flags, cheer for Hamas, and talk of destroying the world’s only Jewish state – and somehow still get invited to speak at Human Rights Week. It is the moral rot at the heart of today’s activist culture: violence is bad, unless it’s against the right people.
“Demilitarised World”? Spare Us the Farce
The poster claims to advocate for a “demilitarised world”. But the very movements it seeks to emulate (the intifadas) were anything but demilitarised. They were armed uprisings, backed by terror groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP. In fact, many of the ‘tactics’ lauded by such groups involve explosives strapped to children, and rockets hidden under hospitals.
This is not a peace movement. It is a grievance cult that sanctifies violence so long as it’s wrapped in Palestinian flags.
A Word to the Organisers
To those who created and supported this poster: either you are historically illiterate, or you are consciously endorsing the killing of Jews. There is no third option. If you believe calling for an intifada will ‘build a better world’, then your vision of that world is one where dead Jews are a feature, not a bug.
This isn’t activism. It’s stupidity masquerading as solidarity.
And if your cause requires the mass murder of civilians to stay relevant, perhaps it’s not a just cause after all.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
