When a movement demands absolute loyalty, rewrites history, and silences dissent, we’re no longer dealing with activism. Rather, it signals the rise of a dangerous cult. The global response to the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel has become exactly that: a sprawling, toxic cult masquerading as justice while hiding a deadly agenda.

Now, over 600 days later, after horrific events like the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington D.C., and the firebombing in Boulder, Colorado, we have borne witness to its lethal consequences.

A few days ago, I came across a video of one of the loudest and cruelest pro-Hamas agitators leading a group of students in a chant that defiled the Holocaust. Coldly and maliciously, she appropriated the horrors of the Shoah, declaring that the “real genocide” is happening in Gaza, while her audience echoed her words in a slow, droning murmur, as if in a trance. As if part of a cult.

The term “cult” is often tossed around loosely, but it has a specific meaning. A cult offers simple answers to complex problems. It demands extreme devotion to an ideology, blind loyalty, and enforces a rigid us-versus-them worldview. Cults reinvent history, suppress dissent, and zealously protect their ranks, often resorting to intimidation or violence to maintain control.

When protesting, students repeat slogans like “From the river to the sea” as if they were scripture, and now, when they openly support Iran’s murderous, nuclear-obsessed regime, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary movement. Convinced they are advancing justice, their refusal to scrutinize the cause they have embraced speaks of the movement’s cult-like character. They are not merely misguided social justice warriors; they form a global cult whose ultimate aim is not just control, but the annihilation of a nation, a people, and the Western way of life.

This terror-supporting, anti-Israel cult began its rapid ascent after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel’s military success transformed the country into a leftist scapegoat. Arab regimes elevated the Palestinian cause as a convenient proxy to dismantle Israel. The cause became a symbol of “resistance,” led by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. This narrative offered a binary worldview: oppressed versus oppressor, good versus evil — a worldview that appeals to those with little understanding of the conflict and even less interest in learning.

The cult did not rise in a vacuum. It was seeded by radical Islam, which long framed Jewish existence as an affront. It took root in a broader Muslim world where anti-Jewish hatred has often been normalized through education, media, and politics, absorbed unquestioningly from childhood. This is starting to change in places like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but it is a generations-long problem and still out of control in many parts of the Arab world, including all the Palestinian territories.

In the decades since Arafat’s heyday, the anti-Israel and blindly “pro-Palestinian” cult has spread globally, infiltrating institutions, NGOs, and universities. It is a malignant worldview rooted in old-school European and Muslim antisemitism, feeding on echo chambers, deliberate naiveté, and a universal need for moral validation. All this is sustained by disinformation and false moral certainty.

What makes this movement cult-like, however, is not sympathy for Palestinians, who are indeed a tormented people betrayed by their own leaders and neighboring regimes. The suffering is real, and peace remains a shared hope. But peace cannot take root while the world, led by this cult, continues to invert blame, chastising Israel while excusing or ignoring the atrocities committed by Hamas, including the ongoing hostage crisis. Such warped morality and its underpinnings clearly reveal a cult anatomy.

Cults reject facts. October 7, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, is whitewashed or denied. Attackers are reframed as “freedom fighters,” and the victims labeled “colonizers.” Students cry “genocide,” and media and politicians echo the lie. Cults divide the world into pure good and absolute evil. In this narrative, the Palestinians are blameless and Israel demonic. This binary view is fueled by billions in funding from Hamas, Qatar, and Iran, and left largely unchallenged by Israel’s weak public diplomacy. Building the cult around these lies was almost effortless.

There is no single charismatic leader, but countless clones – even US members of Congress like Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Some are grifters; others zealots. All stoke the same fire, blurring the line between condemnation and incitement, normalizing antisemitism and calls for Israel’s destruction. The cult’s symbols and rituals include the keffiyeh, encampments, chants, and performative arrests. They claim moral heroism while aligning with Palestinian terror groups that massacre civilians and oppress their own people.

Dissent is not tolerated. Jewish students are silenced. Faculty are labeled racist. Institutions either join in or fold. Governments, NGOs, and the media fan the flames. Politicians seek votes; social media outlets and influencers chase clicks; Hamas grows emboldened. Every chant denying October 7, every “resistance” sign empowers terror. This cult doesn’t just poison minds, it costs lives.

Can the curse be broken? Followers join by choice but become trapped in systems rewarding obedience and punishing doubt. While accountability is essential, so too is the need for remedies: deprogramming, public pressure, and legal consequences. But real change starts with leaders and institutions. Dismantling this cult requires bold action: prosecutions, curbing hate speech, holding institutions and the media accountable, and stopping terror funding and disinformation.

Most of all, we must call this movement what it is: a cult. Not a protest, not a peace movement, not advocacy. A cult. It took history’s bloodiest war and a Jewish Holocaust to end the Nazi cult. What will it take now? There has to be a better way. I just pray we find it in time.

Oren Bar-Ner is a writer and consultant. He advises technology startups and crafts business and marketing content for clients around the world. After more than two decades in senior roles within the software industry, he now channels his expertise into pro-Israel advocacy, a mission inspired by his late father, a lifelong Israeli diplomat and former ambassador to Turkey.

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