At this year’s Emmy Awards, actress Hannah Einbinder ended her remarks with the chant of the season: “Free Palestine.” Then, in a follow-up interview, she added: “As a Jew, I feel I need to separate Jews from the State of Israel.” 

The line was neither original nor courageous. It was predictable — almost compulsory. In today’s “progressive” Hollywood and academic culture, denouncing Israel has become the price of admission. The applause is automatic. The acceptance guaranteed. And the irony is staggering: in the name of “peace,” a Jew is expected to separate themselves from Jewish freedom and sovereignty.

This moment is revealing. For much of the activist left, and parts of the conspiratorial right, “pro-peace” no longer means anti-war. It does not mean demanding Hamas release hostages, Hezbollah dismantle its missile arsenals, or Iran stop exporting terror across the Middle East. It does not mean compromise, coexistence, or recognition. “Pro-peace” has been hollowed out into a single, shallow position: being anti-Israel.

Selective Outrage

The first irony is the selective outrage. No one at the Emmys shouted “Free Tibet,” “Free Uyghurs,” or “Free Western Sahara.” No actor declared, “As a Muslim, I feel I need to separate Muslims from the regime in Iran.” Only Jews are asked, expected, and rewarded for separating themselves from their people’s homeland.

Even more telling is the near-total silence about wars with far higher death tolls — often fought with US weapons and by US allies. Wars in Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar, or even Afghanistan draw only passing notice. Israel alone animates the passions of celebrities, academics, and activists. That obsession reveals less about Israel than about the standards and expectations uniquely placed on Jews.

The Burden on Jews

Einbinder’s statement was not a private musing, but a public performance of loyalty to her cultural milieu. In the arts and academia, Jewish voices increasingly feel pressured to add disclaimers: I am Jewish, but I reject Israel. It is the modern equivalent of conversion — not to Christianity, as in Spain during the Inquisition, but to anti-Zionism, which has become the entry-fee to polite progressive company.

This is not solidarity with Palestinians. It is self-disarmament. It is a way of saying: “I denounce my people’s national project; therefore, I should be safe among you.”

A Hollow Definition of “Peace”

This ritual underscores how “peace” has been redefined. If peace were the real goal, activists would call on Hamas to stop using civilians as human shields, or on Palestinian leaders to stop rejecting every peace proposal since 1947. They would demand an end to the indoctrination that teaches Palestinian children that Jews have no right to exist in any part of the historical land of Israel, or that Jews are a unique evil in the world. Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas promote these deeply antisemitic themes (and many others) in their “educational programs.”

Instead, slogans like “Free Palestine” are unmoored from reality. They are not calls for compromise or coexistence. They are applause lines, serving one purpose: to demonize Israel’s very existence.

The Echo of History

This is not new. For centuries, Jews were told that belonging required abandoning their peoplehood. In Spain and Portugal, it meant baptism. In Enlightenment Europe, assimilation. In Soviet Russia, it meant the abandonment of religion and Zionism. In today’s Hollywood, campus, and art worlds, it means denouncing Israel.

That this demand now comes from self-styled progressives is a bitter irony. The rhetoric of liberation has become a mechanism of exclusion. Once again, Jews are told their safety and acceptability require severing themselves from their people and homeland. 

What It Means for Israelis

For Israeli Jews, this cultural pressure is not just insulting, it is — first and foremost — irrelevant. Almost all Israelis understand that their enemies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran — are not negotiating partners, but movements explicitly committed to Jewish eradication. Israelis understand, in their bones, that no amount of celebrity posturing will soften that intent.

And so Israelis will not accede to the demands of Western elites who find Jewish sovereignty distasteful. They will not return to the role of perpetual victim simply because it is easier for Hannah Einbinder and her peers to mourn powerless Jews than to confront the reality of Jews defending themselves. Israelis will always endure global disapproval before they accept extinction.

Reclaiming Peace

This leaves us with a challenge. If “pro-peace” is to mean anything, it must be reclaimed. It must mean rejecting ideologies of annihilation, not accommodating them. It must mean supporting coexistence, not rewarding rejectionism. It must mean defending Jewish self-determination as legitimate, while also insisting on dignity and hope for Palestinians.

That is hard work. It is not fashionable. It cannot be captured in a faddish red-carpet slogan. But it is the only way that peace will ever move from mindless chant to reality.

Einbinder’s comment was not simply about her personal politics. It reflected a culture that demands Jews disavow their nation and their peoplehood to be accepted, which are just old patterns of exclusion dressed in new language.

Israelis, meanwhile, live with the reality that their enemies want them dead. They will not die for the comfort of privileged actors in Hollywood. They will not trade sovereignty for applause. They will defend their families, freedoms, and democracy — even if that means being maligned abroad.

True peace will never come from silencing Jews or separating them from Israel. It will come only when the world stops demanding Israelis disavow their survival, and starts demanding that those who have sought their destruction for nearly a century abandon their war. Israelis are here to stay — no matter how much more comfortable our departure from existence would make the Hannah Einbinders of the world.

Micha Danzig is a current attorney, former IDF soldier & NYPD police officer. He currently writes for numerous publications on matters related to Israel, antisemitism & Jewish identity & is the immediate past President of StandWithUs in San Diego and a national board member of Herut.