Pro-Palestinian Activists: Why the Silence?

To Pro-Palestinian Activists: Why the Silence on Hamas Executing Palestinian Protesters?

If you say you care about Palestinian rights — this is your moment to prove it.

Last week, something extraordinary and dangerous happened in Gaza. Ordinary Palestinians — students, workers, young people — risked everything to protest  against Hamas. They marched in the streets chanting “We want to live!” and “Hamas out!” knowing full well that such defiance could cost them their lives.

And it did.

22-year-old Odai Nasser Saadi Al-Rubai, a peaceful protester, was kidnapped, tortured for hours, and left dying on his family’s doorstep. Witnesses say he was publicly humiliated, beaten with metal rods, and dragged by a rope through the streets.

I have seen the photos of his tortured body. I wouldn’t share them — out of respect for his dignity and his family’s grief. But I hope we don’t soon forget the images of the brave Palestinians who stood up to authoritarian power knowing exactly what might happen.

And here’s where the silence becomes deafening.

Many who speak loudly — and often — about Palestinian liberation, human rights, and resistance have had nothing to say about Odai. Not a word about the peaceful protesters risking their lives in Gaza. Not a whisper about the violent repression they now face.

You cannot claim to support Palestinian liberation while ignoring the fact that Hamas murdered Palestinians who dared to imagine a different future.

You cannot post slogans about free speech and justice, then ignore the death of a young man who was literally executed for using his voice.

You cannot build entire identities around activism, solidarity, and justice — and then fall silent when those values are being crushed by the hands of the powerful Palestinians, simply because those hands don’t fit your narrative.

That’s not solidarity. That’s selective outrage. And selective outrage isn’t justice — it’s hypocrisy.

To truly stand with Palestinians means standing with Palestinians — not just when it’s politically easy, but when it’s morally necessary.

To stand with Palestinians means acknowledging that Hamas has maintained its power through violence and ruled Gaza by silencing dissent with fear, imprisonment, and death. That’s not democratic rule; it’s authoritarianism.

Selective outrage is easy. Moral clarity is harder. But the people risking their lives to imagine a better Gaza deserve nothing less.

Odai’s dream was simple: to live with dignity and of living free from Hamas’ rule. That dream cost him everything.

Because silence right now isn’t just hypocrisy – it’s complicity in violence, in oppression, in the destruction of hope. Silence is not passive – it’s permission.