Palestinism is the Problem. Hamas is only a Symptom.

By Dr. Tim Orr

Disclaimer: The image shown is one I found online that Melanie Phillips uses as the thumbnail for that video.

There are moments in history when silence is complicity. As someone who has spent years studying the intersection of theology, ideology, and geopolitics, I’ve watched the Israeli–Palestinian conflict become increasingly misunderstood in the West, not because the facts are elusive, but because the narrative has been hijacked. Popular discourse has reduced a complex civilizational and theological struggle to a simplistic tale of the oppressed versus the oppressor.

But what if we've gotten the story backward?

A striking interview inspired this article with Melanie Phillips, whose moral clarity cuts through the fog of confusion that often surrounds this issue. She dares to say what many fear to admit: that Palestinianism—the ideology driving not just Hamas, but much of the Palestinian leadership and their global supporters—is not about human rights or national liberation. It is about erasure. It is a theological and ideological rejection of the Jewish people’s right to exist in their ancestral homeland.

This is not a claim made lightly. What follows is a sober, evidence-based critique that unpacks the historical, religious, and political roots of Palestinianism. Drawing on primary texts, scholarly sources, and observed cultural patterns, I argue that Palestinianism is not a misunderstood movement for dignity—it is a modern repackaging of an ancient hatred, masquerading as a form of justice. And it must be exposed.

1. The Ideological Foundation of Palestinianism

For decades, the West has misunderstood the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, not because the facts are unclear, but because it has chosen to build a moral worldview on illusion. The West condemns Hamas for its violence, yet clings to the romanticized myth of the Palestinian people as a dispossessed indigenous group seeking justice. But this binary is false. The truth is more disturbing. Hamas is not a distortion of Palestinian nationalism; it is its most honest expression. The ideological framework that gave birth to Hamas is the same one that drives the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and millions who chant “From the river to the sea.” This is not a conflict over borders or checkpoints. It is a theological and civilizational struggle rooted in a lie, that the Jews are foreign occupiers of a land that never belonged to them, and that the Palestinian cause is a righteous resistance against colonizers (Phillips, 2025).

The central problem is not Hamas’ terrorism, horrific though it is. The deeper problem is Palestinianism, an ideology built on negation, fabrication, and religious supremacism. Palestinianism does not seek to create a just and peaceful society; it exists to destroy another people’s right to self-determination. It does not affirm human dignity but idolizes grievance, sanctifies violence, and rewrites history. Palestinianism tells its followers that Jews are not a people, that Israel is a colonial project, and that suicide bombers are martyrs. It fosters a cult of death, not life. Even the concept of a Palestinian people is a modern political invention, crafted not to uplift but to erase. The goal is not to live side by side with Jews, but to replace them and remove any trace of their sovereignty over the land they have called home for millennia (Morris, 2009; Karsh, 2010).

This ideology is evil because it begins with a lie and ends in blood. Good faith cannot coexist with falsehood, and peace cannot be built on erasing a people’s history. Palestinianism denies the Jewish people their story, their trauma, and their God-given right to return to their ancestral homeland. It is historical revisionism dressed up as diplomacy. It masquerades as resistance, but it is, in essence, religious apartheid, rooted in Islamic jurisprudence that considers any land once ruled by Muslims, known as Dar al-Islam, as eternally Islamic (Durie, 2017). The Jewish state, by its mere existence, is a theological affront to Islamists. This is why even so-called moderates in the Palestinian leadership refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. In their view, Jewish sovereignty is not only unacceptable, it is blasphemous.

Palestinianism is evil because it trains children to hate before they can read. In Palestinian Authority schools and UNRWA-run classrooms, students memorize poems about stabbing Jews, and textbooks erase Israel from maps. Summer camps teach martyrdom, not mathematics. Streets are named after mass murderers, and families of terrorists are financially rewarded through the PA’s Martyrs Fund. These are not the actions of a people yearning for peace; they are the institutionalization of evil. It is no accident that Hamas’ 1988 charter cites hadiths calling for the extermination of Jews (Hamas, 1988). Nor is it unusual for Palestinian clerics to refer to Jews as apes and pigs. Palestinianism has become a theology of hate, wrapped in the language of justice and weaponized for global sympathy.

2. Islamic Antisemitism: The One Unifying Doctrine

Suppose there is one belief that unites the Islamic world across all sectarian, political, and cultural lines. In that case, it is hostility toward Jews, in a region where Sunni and Shia wage bitter wars, where secular Arab nationalists clash with Islamist revolutionaries, and where progressive Muslim academics debate traditionalist scholars; this hatred remains a shared foundation. Islamic antisemitism is not simply a reaction to Israeli policy; it is deeply embedded in Islamic theology, literature, and cultural imagination (Lewis, 1986). The Qur’an and Hadith, when interpreted literally and selectively, portray Jews as traitors, cursed by God, and eternally at odds with the Muslim ummah. These themes have become part of sermons, political speeches, textbooks, media, and café conversations from Cairo to Karachi.

What makes this even more dangerous is how Palestinianism has become the most effective vehicle for exporting Islamic antisemitism into the secular West. The suffering of Palestinians has been weaponized not to advance peace, but to justify ancient hatreds in modern political terms. ISIS and Hezbollah, who kill each other in Syria, both agree that Israel must be wiped off the map. Hamas and the Iranian regime may differ in practice, but they share this theological obsession. Even many secular or culturally Muslim individuals, when asked about Israel, often express views rooted in centuries-old antisemitic tropes. And tragically, these same ideas have found a home among Western progressive movements, which have absorbed Palestinian grievance into their ideology without realizing they are amplifying the only hatred that truly unites the Muslim world (Phillips, 2025). Islamic antisemitism is not a side issue; it is the spiritual engine driving Palestinianism and sustaining its global reach.

3. The Western Embrace of Palestinianism

The evil of Palestinianism extends far beyond its borders. It has become a moral contagion in the West, infecting universities, media, churches, and political institutions with a complete inversion of reality. Western progressives have adopted the Palestinian cause as a symbol of justice, imagining themselves on the side of the oppressed, while ignoring that Israel is the only functioning liberal democracy in the Middle East. This embrace has little to do with justice and everything to do with the West’s growing moral confusion. In lifting up Palestinianism, Western societies reveal their inability to distinguish truth from propaganda, self-defense from aggression, and covenantal purpose from chaos. Supporting the Palestinian cause today is no longer a geopolitical preference; it has become a badge of surrender to postmodern delusion. It signals not solidarity with the oppressed, but a capitulation to an ideology that thrives on grievance, deception, and death.

Even worse, Palestinianism has become a new form of cultural antisemitism. It does not merely oppose specific Israeli policies; it denies the Jewish right to exist as a people with a story, a state, and a moral legitimacy. It is the only so-called liberation movement in the world that demands the annihilation of another nation as its starting point. No one calls for Jordan to be dismantled or for Egypt to be erased from the map, but the destruction of Israel is treated as a legitimate goal. Palestinianism does not want a homeland; it wants to destroy the only Jewish homeland that has ever existed. That makes it not just misguided, but diabolical. To affirm such a cause is to abandon the moral foundations of justice, peace, and truth that every civil society depends upon.

4. The Moral Clarity We Need

In a world where moral clarity is rare, the Israel–Palestinian conflict offers one of the starkest contrasts between good and evil. This is not a war over disputed land; it is a war over whether the Jewish people have the right to exist in the land from which they come. Hamas carries Palestinianism to its violent conclusion. If Hamas is the flame, Palestinianism is the fuel. And Western support for this cause is not compassion, it is complicity.

We must stop pretending that Palestinianism is a misunderstood cry for dignity. It is a strategic deception, a theological rebellion, and a political movement committed to erasure. Individual Palestinians may desire peace, and many suffer under the weight of their own leaders' corruption, but the ideology in their name is wicked. It must be named, it must be opposed, and it must be dismantled by truth. Palestinianism is a lie. Palestinianism is evil. And it is long past time we said so without apology.

Conclusion

It is no longer enough to “stay informed” or “see both sides.” The moral high ground is not found in neutrality. Palestinianism is not merely a political miscalculation; it is a spiritual crisis that has metastasized into the bloodstream of Western thought, cloaked in the language of human rights and justice while actively denying those very principles to the Jewish people.

Yes, we must grieve the suffering of all people in the region, including Palestinians, whose leaders exploit. But grief must not blind us to truth. And the truth is this: Palestinianism is not a dream of liberation—it is a theology of negation. It thrives on grievance, glorifies martyrdom, and aims to annihilate rather than coexist.

To affirm such an ideology, knowingly or not, is to abdicate the values of human dignity, historical integrity, and moral coherence. It is to embrace illusion over reality. And that, I believe, is a betrayal not only of the Jewish people but of truth itself.

As scholars, citizens, and people of faith or conscience, we must say clearly what too many only whisper: Palestinianism is a lie. Palestinianism is evil. And it is long past time we said so, without apology.

References

Durie, M. (2017). The third choice: Islam, dhimmitude and freedom (2nd ed.). Deror Books.
Hamas. (1988). The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas Charter). Retrieved from https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
Karsh, E. (2010). Palestine betrayed. Yale University Press.
Lewis, B. (1986). Semites and anti-Semites: An inquiry into conflict and prejudice. W. W. Norton & Company.
Morris, B. (2009). One state, two states: Resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict. Yale University Press.
Phillips, M. (2025, July 7). Why the West fell for the Palestinian lie [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua9rkluaXRQ&t=331s

Who is Dr. Tim Orr?

Tim serves full-time with Crescent Project as the assistant director of the internship program and area coordinator, where he is also deeply involved in outreach across the UK. A scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant, Tim brings over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six academic degrees, including a Doctor of Ministry from Liberty University and a Master’s in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London.

In addition to his ministry work, Tim is a research associate with the Congregations and Polarization Project at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis. His research interests include Islamic antisemitism, American Evangelicalism, and Islamic feminism. He has spoken at leading universities and mosques throughout the UK, including Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Tehran. He has published in peer-reviewed Islamic academic journals. Tim is also the author of four books.