What I Witnessed Wasn’t Protest — It Was Hate

I Stood Behind the Natick High School Walkout for Palestine. What I Heard Wasn’t Activism — It Was Antisemitic Madness

I was there.

I stood just feet behind the students on a side of the road near Natick High School on Wednesday, April 30 — the very day of Israel’s Independence Day — as they walked out of class in what was promoted as a demonstration for peace and human rights. But what I witnessed was something very different. It wasn’t activism. It wasn’t courage. It wasn’t even coherent. It was a disturbing, hate-filled, ignorance-driven spectacle that could only be described as a moral collapse.

One after another, students took turns speaking, passionately — no, ferociously — screaming at the top of their lungs: “Free Palestine!” Over and over. As if they were auditioning for a Hamas rally in Gaza, not standing in the middle of suburban Massachusetts.

Let’s be clear: when these students chant “Free Palestine,” they aren’t talking about coexistence, compromise, or even a two-state solution. They are chanting the same slogan used to justify the murder of Jews on October 7 — the slogan that means “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is not a call for peace, but a call for the erasure of Israel and its seven million Jewish citizens.

And yet — astonishingly — the MetroWest Daily News article covering the walkout completely glossed over this. They reported, with a straight face, that “students also made clear that they opposed any form of antisemitism.” As if simply saying the words “I oppose antisemitism” is enough to wash away the chants, the libels, and the blood libel rhetoric that filled the air.

Let me be perfectly clear: the agenda of this protest was antisemitism.

https://vimeo.com/1080722315/d3f444eb64

Screaming “Free Palestine” while ignoring Hamas’s atrocities, calling Israel a genocidal, homophobic, apartheid state — that is antisemitism. It is antisemitism when you demonize the only Jewish state while turning a blind eye to Palestinian corruption, terrorism, and societal oppression. It is antisemitism when you claim moral superiority while parroting lies crafted by those who celebrate the slaughter of Jews.

These uneducated morons — yes, I will use the term — have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

One of the most jaw-dropping moments came when a student, with full confidence and not a hint of irony, declared that in “1948, European Jews occupied the free country of Palestine,” and that October 7 was a direct consequence of that supposed injustice.

The country of Palestine? Where exactly is this mythical state she’s referring to?

There was no country of Palestine in 1948 — or ever. It was a British colonial territory with no sovereignty, no capital, no currency, and no government. This wasn’t just a historical mistake — it was dangerous propaganda, because it framed the massacre of Jews by Hamas as righteous revenge.

Where did this BS come from? TikTok. Instagram. Reels. Radical campus culture. And activist teachers who are either too cowardly or too indoctrinated to correct such blatant falsehoods.

Then came the absurdity of a speech praising LGBTQ+ rights “in Palestine,” delivered passionately by a teenage girl who clearly thought she was making a bold humanitarian statement.

Gaza — a territory where Hamas has literally thrown gay men off rooftops — being held up as a progressive safe haven? I felt like I was watching satire. It would have been funny, if it weren’t so horrifying. These lies are not just being said — they’re being believed, internalized, and weaponized against Jewish students.

Another student kept repeating the outright lie that Arabs in Israel have no rights and that thy are treated like dirt, like second class citizens and are being constantly exterminated. This was not a mistake — it was a deliberate attempt to paint Israel as an apartheid state, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. He conveniently forgot to mention that Israeli Arabs serve as Supreme Court judges, Knesset members, doctors, lawyers, professors, and high-ranking officers in the Israeli military. They vote in national elections, they hold public office, they run businesses, and they contribute meaningfully to every sector of Israeli life. There are Arab heads of hospitals, Arab journalists on national TV, and Arab justices who rule on the highest legal matters in the land. The idea that they are second-class citizens is not only false — it’s a grotesque distortion of reality, a slander against a democratic society, and a willful insult to every Israeli Arab who is proud of their dual identity.

As if that wasn’t enough, these smart asses also took it upon themselves to demonize Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — elected officials in a sovereign democracy. While it is fair in any democracy to criticize political figures, what I heard wasn’t political critique; it was delegitimization. They weren’t attacking policy — they were dehumanizing individuals for being unapologetically Jewish and Zionist. Their venom wasn’t aimed at governance, it was aimed at Jewish identity.

To hear these lies and attacks repeated by students, with conviction and without challenge, reveals a level of ignorance and arrogance that is not just shocking — it is dangerous. A vague reference to a two-state solution was also made by one of the student speakers, again stated without even the faintest understanding of the reality on the ground. If Palestinians truly wanted to live peacefully side by side with a Jewish state, they’ve had multiple opportunities to do so — in 1947, 1967, 2000, 2008, and even under the Trump peace plan. Each time, they rejected the offer. The more Israel has given — land, autonomy, economic aid — the more violence it has received in return. And what was the result of all this misguided generosity? October 7. That was our reward for being “nice.”

These are not simply misguided teens; they are being molded into foot soldiers of hate. If this is what passes for activism, we are witnessing the intellectual and moral collapse of the lowest tier of our society.

If this weren’t so dangerous, it would be laughable. But it is dangerous — deeply so.

Because these students are not operating in a vacuum. They are reflecting what they are being taught — or more accurately, what they are not being taught. They have been failed by their educators, their school boards, and by every adult who stood silently and allowed this public display of ignorance, hate, and moral confusion to go unchallenged.

And let’s not forget the double standard.

If students had stood up and made hateful generalizations about Black people, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, or any other group, there would be national outrage. There would be investigations, emergency assemblies, and media condemnation. But because the target was Jews — again — it’s tolerated, excused, even praised as “progressive.”

I walked away from that gathering chilled to the bone.

If this is what the next generation believes — if this is the level of discourse in our public schools — then America is in deep, deep trouble.

These kids are not freedom fighters. They’re not rebels with a cause. They are useful idiots, groomed by a culture that has lost its moral compass and an education system that has failed to teach even the most basic truths about the Middle East, the Holocaust, or Jewish history.

We are not obligated to remain silent while our people are vilified.
We are not required to tolerate antisemitism simply because it wears a new mask.
And we are not going to sit back while Jewish students in American schools are demonized, marginalized, and endangered.

We’ve seen this movie before.

It doesn’t end well.

Wake up, America.