Solidarity as spectacle: When ‘Free Palestine’ became a fashion statement - analysis

Palestinian solidarity has become the currency of Western virtue, traded not in policy but in postures. Once a political cause, it has now become a fashion statement. From televised award ceremonies to parliamentary podiums, the chant of “Free Palestine” has ceased to mean anything precise because it need not: Its purpose is not to solve but to signal.

These declarations, dressed up as symbolism, are political acts of considerable consequence. They are less a product of diplomacy than of populism; less about the Middle East than about the mood in the West. And as long as moral theater substitutes for moral clarity, the real costs will be borne far from the red carpet and the press gallery: by the living and the kidnapped, in a land where this theater changes nothing.

What we are witnessing is not a triumph of principle but a crisis of seriousness. The statehood recognitions are not tethered to the reality of Palestinian governance, nor to a road map for peace, nor even to a basic standard of political accountability. They are gestures that are politically fashionable, culturally validated, and domestically motivated. And their timing, as well as their staging, speaks volumes.

The 2025 Emmy Awards, held in early September, offered a cultural mirror to this political theater. Actress Hannah Einbinder, upon accepting her award, concluded her speech with the now-familiar refrain “Go Birds, f*** ICE, and free Palestine.”

Her words of support for “Palestinianism,” delivered in the same breath as an NFL cheer and a slogan against US immigration enforcement, flattened complex and divergent issues into a single breathless performance.

Later, backstage, she elaborated: As a Jewish woman, she felt compelled to distinguish between her religion and what she termed an “ethno-nationalist state.”

Einbinder’s activism, as she described it, is inspired by her “friends in Gaza” – two sisters who run a grassroots humanitarian group called Pal Humanity. The organization presents itself as focused on perinatal care and education in northern Gaza. While little public verification exists regarding its structure or oversight, its image-driven appeal resonates strongly with Western audiences predisposed to interpret Gaza through a carefully manicured humanitarian lens presented on social media with little real detail or context.

The event, featuring musicians like Damon Albarn, James Blake, and Bastille, alongside actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Florence Pugh, wrapped politics, celebrity, and culture into a single performance of “solidarity.” The audience was offered poetry, music, and speeches, but not the slightest acknowledgment of Hamas, of Israeli victims, or of the hostages. Like the Emmys, it was theater: moral certainty as entertainment, and complexity banished from the stage.

What we are seeing is the popularization of a cause stripped of meaning. “Free Palestine” has become not a proposition to be defended but a slogan to be repeated. It is a populist mantra, a chant that signals inclusion within a moralized tribe. To oppose it is to invite suspicion, if not cancellation. And this is precisely why politicians are now adopting it with such haste.

The recognitions announced by Starmer and others did not change the facts. Gaza remains ruled by Hamas, a terrorist organization that criminalizes homosexuality, subjugates women, and censors dissent. All of these are causes that Einbinder and other luvvies used to prioritize over and above everything, but now they seem not to matter in the face of pro-Palestinian conformity.

Indeed, some of the same governments recognizing a Palestinian state simultaneously maintain that Israel is the occupying power in the very territories that state is meant to encompass. This means that the supposed new state does not, in fact, have effective governance over its territory – a Montevideo requirement for recognition. One cannot logically affirm both positions.

This lack of coherence points to the real underlying motivation of those nations now indulging the Palestinian fantasy. Like that of their Hollywood counterparts, these political leaders’ behavior is performative. Recognition has become a symbolic gesture devoid of diplomatic content. And symbolism, when uncoupled from strategic vision, becomes not virtue but vanity.

The recognitions are offered without conditions, without reforms, and without reciprocal commitments. They should be rewards for peace but are, in fact, reactions to a war ignited by Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7 and prolonged by its continued holding of hostages.

Instead of being based on the Palestinians meeting the requirements of statehood, these recognitions were actually being made out of spite toward Israel. They are not designed to advance peace but to express disapproval. And in doing so, they may actually prolong the conflict. Hamas interprets them not as repudiations but as rewards.

So, too, does the Palestinian Authority, which promises elections and reform as a pretext, not a prerequisite, for recognition.

What explains this strange, counterproductive rush? The answer lies in domestic politics. The UK’s Labour Party under Starmer faces internal unrest, accusations of hypocrisy, and declining credibility among parts of its base. French President Emmanuel Macron, too, wants to detract from domestic strife with his pretense at international statesmanship.

Among European Muslim voters, the issue of Palestine has become a litmus test. Among younger activists, Palestine functions as a symbolic rebellion against the West itself. As with so-called “progressive” celebrities, it is an aesthetic: a cause to wear on a lapel, not to study in a book. Recognition costs Western leaders nothing in policy terms. But it offers them the currency of moral applause at home.

The Emmys and the United Nations General Assembly are not as different as they appear. Both are stages. Both reward the actor who can read the room. And both reward the script that tells the audience what it wants to hear. That this script happens to be incoherent, one-sided, and strategically ruinous is beside the point. What matters is that it flatters the right constituencies.

Palestinian statehood may one day arrive, but not by these means. A real path to Palestinian sovereignty requires hard choices, which include the renunciation of violence, the reform of political institutions, and the willingness to live side by side with a Jewish state. These recognitions demand none of that and, in fact, make it all less likely to occur. They inflate the illusion of progress while entrenching the reality of conflict.

This is the populism of Palestine: a cause transformed into a fashion, a strategy replaced by sentiment, and a solution postponed in favor of performance. And until serious leaders confront this spectacle for what it is, the suffering will continue: in Gaza, in Israel, and for all those whose lives are not served by hashtags, handbags, or hollow recognitions. ■