The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

When people chant “From the river to the sea,” they pair it with familiar phrases: “Palestinian” land, “occupied Palestinian territories,” “indigenous Palestinians,” and “settler-colonial Jews.”

Most people argue about the slogans and maps. Far fewer ask a prior question: Who wrote the dictionary that makes those slogans sound plausible?

For decades, Israel’s enemies have understood something many Jews and Israel-supporters have missed: if you control the language, you control the story. Define the key terms and you can turn an ancient indigenous people into supposed foreign invaders and recast repeated wars of annihilation against Israel as “anti-colonial resistance.”

To say that “Palestinian” is a political brand is not to deny that there are real Arabic-speaking people who today live under that name. The question is how this identity was framed and to what end.

During the latter half of the 20th century, “Palestinian” was carefully positioned as the indigenous victim of Zionist “intruders,” even though the Jewish people’s presence in the Land of Israel predates Islam, Arab nationalism, and the modern state system by millennia.

For centuries, under various empires, Jews and Arabs lived in the broader region that Europeans later (and briefly) called “Palestine.”

There was no sovereign “Palestinian” state and no distinct “Palestinian” nationality in the modern sense. Those constructs were shaped in the mid-20th century as part of a strategy to turn repeated Arab attempts to destroy the Jewish State into a moral story of dispossession.

“Palestinian” was not simply discovered; it was branded, a label that let Arab leaders and their allies invert reality: the side that tried, again and again, to wipe out the Jews of Israel would now be cast as the timeless victim of “foreign” Jews who supposedly have no home there at all.

How “occupied Palestinian territories” rewrites history

The phrase “occupied Palestinian territories” flows off the tongue so easily that people rarely ask what it means.

Before 1967, Judea and Samaria were annexed by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control. Neither Arab state created a sovereign “Palestinian” entity there.

Before that, the area was “owned” by the British Mandate, and before that, the Ottoman Empire. There has never been an independent “Palestinian” state whose recognized sovereign territory Israel is supposedly occupying.

Yet by repeating “occupied Palestinian territories,” these activists import a package deal: that there once was a “Palestinian” state; that the land in question is inherently and exclusively “Palestinian,” despite its deep Jewish history; and that Israel’s presence there is automatically illegal, regardless of how it came about or what the real legal debates are.

The phrase “occupied Palestinian territories” is not neutral; it is a weapon. It erases Jewish indigeneity to places whose Hebrew names — Judea and Samaria — tell their own story. It suggests that Jews crossing an invisible line on the western bank of the Jordan River are “settlers,” while Arabs are always “natives,” no matter when their families arrived. On campus and in much of the media, this vocabulary is treated as settled fact. But that’s not truth — it’s narrative.

From the seminar room to the street

Weaponized language does not stay confined to UN resolutions or academic journals. It shapes how ordinary people think and feel. When a student hears, year after year, that Israel is a “settler-colonial” project oppressing “indigenous Palestinians,” he or she is being given a moral script: Jews are the guilty party; Arab violence is an understandable reaction to “occupation”; and terrorism against Jews is justified “resistance.”

So what can be done? We cannot force hostile actors to abandon terms that serve their agenda. But we can stop doing their work for them.

First, we must recognize that words like “Palestinian,” “occupation,” and “settler-colonialism” are not neutral. They come packaged with stories about history, power, and morality. If those stories are false or one-sided, we have a responsibility to say so.

Second, we should speak accurately about the land itself. Instead of reflexively saying “West Bank,” we can talk about Judea and Samaria, or at least about disputed territories captured in a defensive war, rather than “occupied Palestinian territories.” Rather than treating “Palestinian” as a synonym for indigeneity, we can speak of Arab residents of Judea and Samaria and Arab Israelis, alongside Jewish communities with deep roots there. Third, we should unapologetically affirm Jewish indigeneity. Jews are not recent “European imports” into the Middle East. Our ancestral language, scriptures, and rituals are woven into the geography of Israel itself. The burden of proof should not rest on Jews to justify their presence in Jerusalem, Hebron, or Shiloh.

Finally, communal leaders, journalists, and educators must become more intentional about the language they use. It is not pedantic to insist on accurate terminology. It is strategic.

If we care about truth — and about the safety and legitimacy of the Jewish people — we cannot afford to keep speaking in our adversaries’ vocabulary. In every generation, Jews have had to push back against efforts to write us out of our own story. Today, that effort happens with hashtags, slogans, and selective “human rights” language, as much as with bullets and rockets.

We do not have to accept a dictionary written by those who want to annihilate us. We can tell the truth plainly: Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel, and we will not surrender that reality to anyone’s branding campaign — no matter how sophisticated their propaganda might be.

David E. Firester, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of TRAC Intelligence, LLC, and the author of Failure to Adapt: How Strategic Blindness Undermines Intelligence, Warfare, and Perception (2025).

Muhlenberg College students leaving for a Birthright Israel trip.
Photo: Facebook via Hillel: Taglit-Birthright Israel.

One of the most revealing questions you can ask a Jewish college student today is not what they think about Israel or how they view campus politics. It is whether they ever lived inside a real Jewish world before arriving at school.

Dan Senor‘s three touchstones — Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp, and a meaningful trip to Israel — turn out to be less about nostalgia than about survival. As antisemitism continues to erupt across America’s elite campuses, the students who remain confident, anchored, and unafraid are almost always those who experienced these “Jewish bubbles” long before anyone tried to tell them what being Jewish should mean.

I saw this long before I became a professor embedded in the world of higher education.

In my essay “High School Should Be Upsetting,” I wrote about attending Akiba Hebrew Academy —  a pluralistic Jewish day school outside of Philadelphia — where nothing was uniform and everything required thinking. Some classmates kept kosher; others grabbed pizza and burgers freely. Some welcomed Shabbat with reverence; others barely thought about it. These were not superficial differences. They forced us into the daily work of argument, interpretation, and meaning-making. We learned that Jewish identity can withstand disagreement — that disagreement is itself a generative part of Jewish life. That formation did not insulate me from the world. It prepared me for it.

It also gave me something deeper. As I argued recently in “The Lessons We Were Taught and the Ones Being Forgotten,” Jewish classrooms once fused the study of prophets with photographs of Auschwitz, maps of Israel, and the trembling voices of survivors.

We learned early that justice without memory collapses into performance, that Jewish survival is not just historical but moral, and that being a Jew means carrying responsibility, not merely sentiment. These lessons were not designed to make us comfortable. They were designed to make us serious. That seriousness — an identity rooted in obligation rather than performance — is exactly what steadies young Jews today when campus climates turn hostile or morally confused.

Senor’s intuition about the “bubble” is more than anecdotal. It is empirically true. Jewish day school graduates consistently exhibit higher levels of Jewish literacy, deeper ritual practice, and stronger communal commitment, according to decades of Avi Chai Foundation research.

Jewish summer camps extend that formation into adolescence; the Foundation for Jewish Camp has repeatedly shown that alumni maintain Jewish friendships at dramatically higher rates and build Jewish homes of their own with greater confidence and intention. These friendships become ballast — the quiet, steadying presence of peers who share memory and meaning.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks captured the heart of this when he wrote, “Moses and Aaron epitomize the two great roles in Jewish continuity — horim and morim — parents and teachers. A parent hands on the Jewish heritage to their children; a teacher does likewise to their disciples.” That investment — of presence, attention, and seriousness — is exactly what day schools, camps, youth groups, and Israel programs offer when they are at their best. They do not simply transmit heritage; they cultivate character. They shape conscience. They give young Jews a framework sturdy enough to meet the world without losing themselves.

Israel trips add something irreplaceable: narrative consciousness. Research on Birthright and other immersive Israel programs shows that participants return with a firmer sense of peoplehood, greater historical awareness, and a deeper understanding that being Jewish is a source of responsibility rather than defensiveness. Students who have walked the streets of Jerusalem or listened to the wind on the Golan Heights are not easily undone by slogans or distortions. They have seen complexity — and beauty — for themselves.

These experiences form a pipeline. Day schools cultivate literacy. Camps cultivate community. Israel cultivates memory. Together, they produce adults who are not bewildered by the demands of identity but strengthened by them. When students have studied texts, lived in Jewish community, and seen Jewish history with their own eyes, they carry an inner architecture that does not collapse when external pressure rises.

That was the theme running through the 2025 Tikvah Jewish Leadership Conference, where Senor spoke to a standing-room crowd. Again and again, speakers returned to the same truth: Jewish continuity will not be secured through slogans or reactive outrage. It will be secured through communities and institutions that form Jews — thickly, relationally, substantively. The future belongs to those who build Jewish life with depth, not performance.

And yet we find ourselves in a moment when the very infrastructure that sustains Jewish identity is thinning. Too many families treat day school as a luxury, camp as optional, Israel trips as politically fraught, and synagogue life as intermittent. Young Jews arrive on campus with warm feelings but thin foundations — a Judaism made of nostalgia rather than knowledge. Then the pressure comes, from peers and professors alike, and the identity that once felt easy suddenly feels fragile.

The greatest threat to young Jews today is not a lack of passion. It is a lack of preparation. Jewish identity cannot be episodic. It cannot survive on aesthetic appreciation or occasional observance. It flourishes when it is lived — daily, joyfully, rigorously, and in the company of others. If we want Jewish students to stand tall under pressure, then we must give them foundations deep enough to bear the weight.

Senor’s questions are diagnostic. They reveal whether a young Jew has ever inhabited a Jewish world strong enough to carry them through a hostile one. They show whether a student possesses not just ancestry but anchoring, not just identity but backbone.

The “bubble” is not a retreat from reality. It is preparation for reality. It is where young Jews learn who they are before others attempt to define them. And at a moment when antisemitism is rising, institutions are wobbling, and confusion is spreading, we should not apologize for strengthening these bubbles. We should expand them — boldly.

If we want confident, resilient, morally serious Jewish adults, we must give them confident, resilient, morally serious Jewish childhoods. Identity does not appear out of thin air. It is formed — deliberately, lovingly, and over time.

The bubble, it turns out, is not the weakness our critics imagine.

It is the most important thing we still know how to build.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Ever since French President Emmanuel Macron recognized a Palestinian state, claiming that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas “condemns terrorism,” supports “demilitarization,” and shows a “genuine willingness to move forward,” the PA’s official and controlled media outlets continue to constantly glorify terrorists, praise violence, and present “armed struggle,” i.e., terrorism, as the core of Palestinian identity.

Nothing in the PA’s messaging has changed since France supported a Palestinian state. In fact, the months following Macron’s declaration show the exact opposite.

One of the clearest examples came when official PA TV aired a glowing tribute to poet and Fatah member Salah Al-Din Al-Husseini, the writer of one of the Palestinians’ many iconic terror-promotion songs, My Weapon Has Emerged From My Wounds.

The song, which Palestinian Media Watch has documented being broadcast hundreds of times on PA TV and Fatah’s Awdah TV, is a musical celebration of the gun, bloodshed, and “Martyrdom.”

In the new PA TV report, the song was played over archival footage of weapons training while the narrator proudly highlighted its message.

The lyrics openly endorse the ideology of permanent armed struggle and blood sacrifice, followed by Al-Husseini himself reciting another poem praising the “blood of the Martyr” as “music” and a force that “shakes the enemies”:

From my wounds, my weapon has emerged

Oh, our revolution, my weapon has emerged

There is no force in the world that can remove the weapon from my hand

There is no force in the world that can remove the weapon from my hand

My weapon has emerged

My weapon has emerged

He who offers his blood does not care if his blood flows upon the ground

As the weapon of the revolution is in my hand, so my presence will be forced [upon Israel]

My weapon has emerged

My weapon has emerged

Poet Salah Al-Din Al-Husseini: “The blood of the Martyr — O my song — shines above the peaks, the blood of the Martyr is music, the sacrifice shakes the enemies.”

[Official PA TV, The Story of a Homeland, Nov. 23, 2025]

In addition, senior PA and Fatah leaders, such as Jibril Rajoub and Laila Ghannam, have continued holding mass rallies devoted entirely to honoring convicted terrorist murderers.

These rallies are shown on official PA TV, and the terrorist prisoners are called “national icons,” “a source of pride and glory for all our people,” and authors of “an epic of heroism.”

The PA reporters frame these terrorists as “important leaders” under Israeli “aggression,” further presenting the murderers as victims and heroes simultaneously, which is a classic component of PA terror promotion.

Official PA TV newsreader: “In response to the call of the Fatah Movement… residents and family members of prisoners [i.e. terrorists] participated in several districts in rallies to express support and solidarity with the prisoners… and the prisoner leaders inside the occupation’s prisons, foremost among them leader Marwan Barghouti. In El-Bireh a popular procession took place, attended by several members of the Fatah Central Committee and the [Fatah] Revolutionary Council.”

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “[This is a rally of support] for the prisoners and their family members, as these people are national icons deeply rooted in the consciousness of all the Palestinians.”

Visual:

The poster shows terrorist prisoner Marwan Barghouti making a “V” for “victory.”

Text on poster: “Freedom for heroic prisoner Marwan Barghouti”

Official PA TV reporter: “Participants in this support rally raised banners and pictures of leader symbol Barghouti…z’

Ramallah and El-Bireh District Governor Laila Ghannam: “Marwan is the symbol of the Palestinian prisoner… The Palestinian people supports the prisoners who are a source of pride and glory for all our people …”

Official PA TV reporter: “The occupation regime is taking aggressive steps against the prisoners and their important leaders, who are writing an epic of heroism.” [emphasis added]

Visual:

The posters feature terrorist prisoner Walid Daqqa, who murdered one person and terrorist prisoner Jum’a Adam, who murdered five.

Text on poster on left: “The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club: Freedom for prisoner Walid Nimr Daqqa”

Text on poster on right: “Palestinian Prisoners’ Club: Freedom for prisoner Jum’a Ibrahim Adam”

[Official PA TV News, Aug. 20, 2025]

Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida praised a Jenin rally organized by Fatah, the PLO factions, the Prisoners’ Club, and the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs — all PA-funded or PA-aligned bodies — and celebrated the terrorist prisoners by calling them “knights” who are “awaiting the breaking of their chains”:

At the entrance to the old market of Jenin … the rally was colored with images of the symbols of the prisoners’ movement, foremost among them Fatah Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti, Fatah Secretary in Jenin Ata Abu Rmeileh, journalist Ali Al-Samoudi, and dozens of knights awaiting the breaking of their chains.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 1, 2025]

Macron and other Western leaders claimed Abbas condemns terrorism.

The ongoing glorification of terrorist murderers as heroes, icons, symbols, “knights,” and “leaders,” combined with PA TV’s public celebration of armed struggle and “Martyrdom,” shows clearly that the PA has no interest in rejecting terror and has implemented no reforms whatsoever regarding its terror promotion. It is the same terror ideology that the PA has promoted for decades.

Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.