The moral bankruptcy of a "Day of Rage" and the Palestinian Legacy of Blame and Destruction

This week, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters around the world have declared a “Day of Rage” on April 22. Again. Their “Days of Rage” along with “Nakba Day” are pretexts to rally support for Palestinian Arabs, my heart sinks — not out of fear, but out of a profound sadness for the moral bankruptcy it reveals. This phrase, dripping with venom and incitement, is not a call for justice, peace, or progress. It is an orgy of anger, a glorification of destruction, and a stark reminder of timeless failure of Palestinian Arab leadership to ever build anything meaningful for their people. Instead of fostering hope, they peddle blame, perpetuate and celebrate violence, and tear down what others have painstakingly created, throughout Israel and across Western campuses and cities.

This has left the Palestinian Arabs mired in suffering, and the world deceived, by a narrative of victimhood. This endless blaming of Israel as the singular source of all their problems is their legacy. Sadly, for them, these are the equivalent of their Super Bowl, the only event that distinguishes their “culture” as a distinct ethnic group.

A “Day of Rage” is not about building schools, hospitals, or infrastructure for their own long-term well-being. It’s not about creating jobs, nurturing culture, volunteering, or advancing education. It’s about channeling fury — often violently — against Israel, the Jewish people, and anyone who dares to support the Jewish state’s right to exist. The organizers, whether Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or their international gang of cheerleaders, are not rallying for Palestinian statehood or prosperity; they’re stoking hatred to distract from their own failures. This exploits genuine pain to fuel a cycle of violence, rather than offering them a path to a better future.

For decades, Palestinian Arab leadership have squandered countless opportunities to build something for their people. They have balked multiple times to create the Palestinian Arab state which they claim is their goal. Yet the truth is that they are more interested in destroying the one Jewish state than creating another Palestinian Arab state.

Billions in international aid have poured into Gaza and the “West Bank,” and the Palestinian Authority yet there are no thriving cities, innovative industries, or vibrant elements of a civil society. Instead, we see rockets launched from Gaza, tunnels dug to infiltrate and attack Israel, and a culture that glorifies “martyrdom” and death over life. The PA rewards terrorists with stipends, names streets and parks after those who murdered innocents, and indoctrinates children with hatred through school curricula and media. This is not nation-building; it’s nation-destroying. This is the product of “Days of Rage” past, and the jihadi culture that controls it.

Conversely in 1948, the Jewish people, emerging from the ashes of the Holocaust, founded a state on a sliver of land surrounded by enemies. The Jewish leadership accepted a fraction of the land that the British government and League of Nations had promise, and God deeded, in order to build a prosperous future following the world’s most horrific crime and what gave definition to the word genocide.

With grit, ingenuity, and faith, they turned desert into farmland, built world-class universities, and created a tech ecosystem that rivals Silicon Valley. Israel’s success is not a fluke; it’s the result of a people who chose to build rather than blame, to create rather than destroy. When faced with adversity — wars, boycotts, terror — Israelis responded with resilience, innovation, and a commitment to life. The Palestinian Arab leadership, by contrast, has missed every chance to emulate this, choosing instead to point fingers at Israel for their woes.

The “Day of Rage” epitomizes this mindset. It’s a spectacle designed to shift focus from the Palestinian Arab leadership’s corruption and incompetence to Israel’s existence as the supposed root of all evil. Their supporters who hijack public spaces around the world are only focused on Israel’s destruction, setting back the cause for the people for whom they allegedly demonstrate.

Never mind that Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind greenhouses and infrastructure that could have been the foundation for a Palestinian Garden of Eden along the Mediterranean. Those greenhouses were looted and destroyed, the land turned into a launching pad for rockets. Never mind that Israel has offered peace deals repeatedly — Camp David in 2000, Taba in 2001, Olmert’s offer in 2008 — all rejected or ignored. The Palestinian Arab leadership doesn’t want peace; it wants a perpetual grievance to justify its existence and rally the masses.

If there were a reason for a Day of Rage, this is it.

This obsession has real consequences. Palestinian Arab children grow up in a world where their heroes are suicide bombers, not scientists or entrepreneurs. Their economy languishes, because their leaders prioritize jihad over jobs. Their hospitals crumble, not because Israel withholds aid, but because funds are diverted to weapons and tunnels stored in and under the very hospitals whose purpose is to save lives.

And yet, the world drinks the “Day of Rage” Kool-Aid. Pro Hamas activists across Western cities and campuses chant genocidal slogans they don’t understand, waving flags of a state that has never existed. They ignore the Palestinian Arabs own leadership’s rejectionism, antisemitism, and oppression of its own people. They ignore that Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, or that the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy incentivizes terror. They see only Israel’s flaws, magnified through a lens of selective outrage while excusing or romanticizing Palestinian Arab violence as “resistance.”

This double standard is a form of moral bankruptcy. If the world truly cared about Palestinian Arabs, it would demand accountability from their leaders. It would ask why Yasser Arafat rejected a state in 2000, why Mahmoud Abbas walked away from negotiations, why Hamas fires rockets from civilian areas. It would question why billions in aid have produced no progress. Instead, it enables the “Day of Rage” mentality, giving a pass to those who perpetuate Palestinian Arab suffering while demonizing Israel for defending itself.

I don’t rejoice in this reality. I pray for a day when Palestinian Arabs have leaders who choose life, who build schools instead of terror tunnels, who teach their children to dream rather than to hate. But that day will not come through “Days of Rage” or the moral cowardice of those who cheer them on. It will come when Palestinian Arabs demand better—when they reject the bankrupt ideology of blame and destruction, and embrace the hard but rewarding work of building a future.

Until then, every “Day of Rage” is a reminder of what could have been, and a warning of the moral abyss that engulfs those who choose hatred over hope. Palestinian Arabs deserve better. So does the world. The world should demand it.

Jonathan Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation and RunforZion.com, building bridges between Jews and Christians. He is the host of the “Inspiration from Zion” podcast, and editor of the forthcoming book “Israel the Miracle.” He and his family made moved to Israel in 2004. He can be reached at FirstPersonIsrael@gmail.com.