Dec. 22, 2025 (JERUSALEM) – A week after the ISIS-inspired Bondi Beach massacre, in which terrorists murdered 15 civilians at a Chanukah celebration, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) calls on international news outlets to clearly and forthrightly report on the meaning of the “Globalize the Intifada” chant, which incites attacks against Jews across the globe.
The phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” a staple at worldwide anti-Israel demonstrations over the last two years, invokes the Palestinian intifadas in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were murdered in suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings. It is therefore a call for the targeting of Jewish communities globally. In recognition of the threat posed by this slogan, the government of the Australian state of New South Wales has moved in recent days to ban this language. Similarly, on Dec. 17, police in Manchester and London outlawed the phrase from demonstrations in those cities.
CAMERA, the world’s oldest and largest Middle East media monitoring organization, warns against news reports which seek to erase or sanitize the phrase by erasing the violent history of the Palestinian intifadas in which hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians were brutally murdered.
Only four days following the Dec. 18 Chanukah slaughter, The New York Times, for instance, failed to note the violent history of intifadas, stating only: “Palestinians and their supporters have said the phrase is a rallying cry for liberation, but many Jews consider it a call to violence invoking uprisings of the 1980s and 2000s in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The literal translation of intifada is ‘shaking off.’” But Jews are far from alone in understanding the phrase as incitement to terror. Palestinians and their supporters, too, have often made clear that they view “intifada” as a call to violence.
The Associated Press, a leading wire service which prides itself on “[a]dvancing the power of facts,” likewise spent the days after the devastating attack in Australia treating the violent history of Palestinian intifadas as a Jewish claim, and not a historical fact. Echoing the Gray Lady’s approach, AP noted: “The Arabic word intifada is generally translated as ‘uprising,’” and continued: “While pro-Palestinian demonstrators say the slogan describes the worldwide protests against the war in Gaza, Jewish leaders say it inflames tensions and encourages attacks on Jews.”
In electing for the he-said, she-said approach, AP ignored its own previous reporting on the intifadas, including a straightforward description from July 5, 2023: “In the second uprising, which began in 2000, Palestinian militants carried out deadly suicide bombings on buses and at restaurants and hotels . . . .” More than 1100 Israelis were murdered in these attacks.
In Britain, which experienced a “Globalized Intifada” with a deadly Yom Kippur attack on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, The Times (London) similarly downgraded intifada’s bona fide violent history into an unconfirmed claim by critics stating: “Intifada is the Arabic word for ‘rebellion’ and refers to Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Some consider the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ and other variations to be a call to violence against Jews.”
Agence France Presse, another leading international news agency, likewise concealed that the intifadas targeted hundreds of civilians, selectively reporting: “The phrase is a common chant at pro-Palestinian rallies and refers to past uprisings against Israeli forces in the occupied territories.” (Emphasis added.)
In a May 2025 Washington Times Op-Ed following the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C., CAMERA’s Sean Durns noted: “The first Palestinian ‘intifada,’ during the 1930s, was led by Amin al-Husseini, the founding father of Palestinian nationalism. He was a future Nazi collaborator who was gifted with fascist funds to kill Jews and British officials in British-ruled Mandate for Palestine” (“This is what ‘globalize the intifada’ looks like”).
Generations later, al-Husseini’s ideological heirs take a similar approach to Intifada, launching violent attacks. “All the signs are that the intifada is coming,” as a Hamas member in the West Bank city of Jericho told Reuters in 2023. “There is a new generation of people who believe the only solution is armed struggle.”
“Those who seek to export armed attacks targeting Jewish communities abroad aren’t even trying to conceal their aims, openly calling to ‘globalize the intifada,’” Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA’s Research and Analysis Media Department and director of the organization’s Israel office said: “Fortunately, some law enforcement and government officials are beginning to awaken to this horrifying reality, which has already come to fruition in from Washington DC and Colorado to Manchester, Bondi Beach and Amsterdam.”
“As calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ fuel attacks against Jews worldwide, journalists have a sacred responsibility to forthrightly report the chant’s violent intentions by clearly stating intifada’s bloody history of targeting civilians,” Sternthal added. “By glossing over calls for murder and failing to put this dangerous incitement on the public agenda, journalists help lay the groundwork for the next deadly attack.”
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Founded in 1982, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis is a media monitoring, research, and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA fosters rigorous reporting while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media. Because public opinion ultimately shapes public policy, distorted news coverage that misleads the public can be detrimental to sound policymaking. A non-partisan organization, CAMERA takes no position with regard to British, American or Israeli political issues or with regard to ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
For further information on our work, please visit camera.org
For the Spanish version of this press advisory, please see CAMERA Español.