The Intifada Is Already Globalized. Its Victims Must Unite

"Globalize the Intifada" has long since come true. And now it is coming to America.

First appeared in Newsweek.

In Colorado on Sunday, a man shouting, "Free Palestine!" attacked a Jewish gathering and set elderly victims on fire. Eleven days earlier, another man shouting, "Free Palestine!" executed a young couple in cold blood as they were leaving a Jewish event in Washington, D.C.

Americans are asking: Does this mean the slogan "Globalize the Intifada" is coming true?

Our answer: "Globalize the Intifada" has long since come true. And now it's coming to America.

The world often associates the Intifada with the Israel-Palestine conflict. But the same ideology also targets Hindus, Nigerian Christians, other Africans, Yazidis, Druze Arabs, Alawite and Ahmadiyya Muslims, Kurds, Copts, Maronites, Assyrians, Amazigh, Iranians, Sikhs, Samaritans, Baha'is, Armenians, and so many others. And that ideology is gaining a disturbing level of influence in Western societies.

The victims of the Globalized Intifada are a natural coalition that's waiting to happen. And it will happen once we all realize how each of our conflicts is connected.

The horrific massacre in India in April, where 24 Hindus and one Christian were murdered by Islamists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, gave many Jews flashbacks to Oct. 7, 2023. It wasn't just because of how cruelly the victims were slaughtered. It was because the immediate reaction in some quarters was to demonize the victims.

Many pounced on the tragedy as an opportunity to vilify India for its policies in its Muslim-majority region of Kashmir. Former Al Jazeera journalist Sana Saeed characterized Kashmir as an "occupied" territory where India was "brutally repressing its Muslim population." Others accused India of committing "genocide" in Kashmir and engaging in "apartheid" and "settler-colonialism" there. Kashmir was characterized as an "open air prison" where Hindus were committing "land theft," giving Muslims the right to "resist."

The anti-India terrorists and their apologists clearly use the same propaganda playbook as their ideological brethren in Hamas. They make the same accusations to justify atrocities against innocent civilians—Globalize the Intifada, indeed.

Terrorist narratives aside, Hindus in Kashmir—like Jews in Israel—have a continuous history that dates back thousands of years. Kashmir became majority Muslim through invasions, forced conversions, persecution, and periodic expulsions. Most of the remaining Kashmiri Hindus, primarily from the scholarly Pandit community, fled after a wave of religious attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Islamists gave Hindus an ultimatum to "convert, leave, or die." One of the many Hindus killed during that period was Girija Tickoo, a teacher who was gang raped by terrorists. When they were finished with her, they cut her in half with a mechanical saw while she was still alive.

While the Pahalgam massacre triggered Jews with flashbacks to October 7, October 7, in turn, triggered Hindus with flashbacks to the sadistic butchery in Kashmir over three decades ago. Same ideology, same playbook.

Pahalgam also triggered flashbacks in Kenya. Victims in Pahalgam were asked to recite the Islamic declaration of faith. If they couldn't, they were executed on the spot. The Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab used the same method to identify non-Muslims to kill during a series of terrorist attacks in Kenya. These included a shopping mall siege in 2013 that killed over 60, a bus hijacking in 2014 that killed 28, and a 2015 college massacre where 148 people—predominantly Christian students—were killed. Same ideology, same playbook.

And so it goes, all around the world, conflict after conflict linked by a shared ideology. What the communities under attack share is that their plight is mostly unknown to the outside world. You could call them the "Coalition of the Ignored."

Jews, both in Israel and in the diaspora, are the outlier. They are constantly getting attention throughout the world, most of it negative. Since the October 7 attacks, Jews have been buried under an avalanche of propaganda. This has really driven home to Jews how outnumbered they are.

As long as the world remains fixated on the Jews and Israel, Islamists and their allies can use their overwhelming numbers (and, yes, their financial superiority) to flood the zone with demonizing propaganda and portray themselves as the good guys. Meanwhile, the members of the Coalition of the Ignored are each left to struggle in isolation and obscurity.

Jews have the world's attention but not the numbers. The Coalition of the Ignored has the numbers but not the world's attention. The solution is for us all to come together, to amplify one another's stories, and to lend our support to one another with our voices, numbers, and moral authority.

We must form a Coalition Against Terror. Not against any culture or faith. But against an ideology that seeks dominance by intentionally targeting non-combatants with violence.

It's time for every community struggling against this ideology to unite. We are the ones who must resist. The survival of our civilizations depends on it.

David Cohen is an attorney who served as head of the Office of Insular Affairs and deputy assistant secretary of the Interior during the Bush administration.