Muslim leaders are showing a lack of moral courage on Palestine

Palestine is not a solely Muslim issue, but it is definitely a Muslim issue. Setting aside the holiness of the land in Islamic tradition, standing against injustice and oppression is foundational to Islam itself. For Muslims, the Palestinian liberation movement is undoubtedly rooted in our faith. Yet, from college campuses to mosque gatherings, Muslim leaders in America have displayed a disheartening lack of moral courage to speak out in support of Palestine. 

When pro-Palestine student groups published statements of support for the Palestinian resistance’s escape from Gaza’s prison walls, they inevitably received backlash from their Zionist peers and administrators. Almost immediately, several university Muslim Student Associations (MSA) – including the Harvard Islamic Society – withdrew their signature of support from these statements and published apologies to their campus community. Many MSA’s refused to publicly make a statement on the genocide – those that did released dismayingly neutral statements that condemned violence on “both sides.” In conversations with students at my alma mater Yale University, I learned that the Muslim chaplain’s office complained about Muslim student organizers being too inflammatory and disruptive with their pro-Palestinian activism. 

Beyond college campuses, mosques across the U.S. and Canada refuse to publicly “pick a side” and push for peaceful “dialogue” that is nothing more than thinly veiled normalization with Zionists. The dissonance between Muslim leadership and the masses couldn’t be more blatant than at a Toronto mosque that hosted Justin Trudeau during Friday prayer: as the crowd booed and humiliated Trudeau, a mosque leader at the podium implored the audience to “listen and engage in dialogue” with the Israel-supporting PM. 

From politicians like Ilhan Omar, who published a statement vilifying the Palestinian resistance, to journalists like Mehdi Hasan, who pushed Israel’s misinformation campaigns – Western Muslim leaders, academics, and public figures have been bending over backward to ensure that the language of their solidarity does not offend Israel’s apologists. 

This overly diplomatic tone adopted by Western Muslim leaders is situated in the political landscape created by the War on Terror. Muslim communities who live under the post-9/11 panoptical white othering gaze have often been forced to navigate between two dichotomous modes of citizenship: the “good Muslim” and the “bad Muslim.” In a world in which racist notions of Islam shape how people think about what’s happening in Palestine and who the “terrorists” are, Muslim leaders across the Global North are eager to distance themselves from “terrorism” to prove that they are good, peace-loving Muslims.

So, they mastered the art of condemnation. They prefaced their prayers for the people of Palestine with vilification of Palestinian resistance. They compromised our beliefs, moderated our practices, and diluted the principles of our faith in an attempt to mold an Islam and a political alignment deemed acceptable to the West.

This cowardice only entrenches the subjugation of our community. The obsession with condemning anti-colonial resistance relies on the racist strategy to delegitimize the Palestinian struggle as one waged by irrational, religiously crazed Arab barbarians. Condemning the resistance in every breath that we talk about Palestine only serves to fortify and legitimize the Islamophobic framing of the Palestinian struggle. 

Even after adopting the liberal, both-sides framework of the “conflict” – Mehdi Hasan’s show was still canceled. Ilhan Omar was still accused of being antisemitic. No amount of liberal appeasement will change the Islamophobic perception of our community’s public figures as terrorist sympathizers.

As Muslims, we are already subjected to the same imperial system that traps Palestinians under occupation. Why, then, are we diluting our politics to maintain the sympathy of upholders of this oppression? Why are we couching our support for Palestinian revolution in rhetoric meant to coddle the ideologies of genocide apologists? By pandering to the imperialist, Western gaze, Muslim community leaders are reducing their communities from agents of their own political power to passive subjects that reinforce Western stereotypes about our community.

Unlike the early years of the War on Terror, this is a moment in time in which the Western Muslim community yields great influence over foreign policy. Thus, it is more imperative than ever that we hold our community leaders accountable to their Islamic duty of defending the right to Palestinian resistance. We cannot allow them to cower and remain apolitical. Our leaders should reflect the Ummah’s belief in collective liberation and resistance against injustice – these are, after all, core values of Islam. 

Our community’s support for Palestinian liberation should not just be ideological but also material. Every Muslim leader – from MSA board members to Imams to Sunday School teachers – must mobilize their community in unapologetic support for Palestinian liberation. Educating and shaping the political consciousness of our Muslim youth is perhaps one of the most powerful roles that our faith leaders can assume at this moment.

Muslim community leaders have a responsibility to build political coalitions that work alongside Palestinian solidarity organizations, protect community members from Zionist targeting and law enforcement, and uplift the pro-Palestinian student movement. They must mobilize our communities to disrupt civil society, organize protests and boycotts, withhold our votes, and pressure our legislators to oppose Israel’s war crimes. As Muslims living in the diaspora, our actions should reflect the resilience and fortitude that we witness in the Palestinians and ensure that business in the West cannot return to normal until Palestine is liberated.

This is not the time for caution or compromise. As Muslims, we have an obligation to unconditionally support the liberation of the Palestinian people – but this does not end with making dua for Palestine at Friday prayers. Our faith requires us to take principled political action and mobilize in opposition to injustice. It is not our responsibility to make our pro-Palestinian beliefs palatable to people who do not even see our humanity – rather, it is to remain unabashed in our support for and articulation of the Palestinian right to liberation and self-defense.