It is a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews.

This claim obscures the root cause of the Palestinian struggle. Palestinians are not resisting Zionists because they are Jewish; they are resisting Zionism because it is a settler-colonial project that has subjected them to ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, and genocide. At the same time, in Zionist ideology, the target is not Muslims but Palestinians, whose very existence threatens the colonial project regardless of religion, age, gender, or political affiliation.

The claim that the Palestinian struggle is a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews inaccurately portrays Palestinians as a homogenous Muslim group. For centuries, Palestine was home to religious diversity, including Muslims, Christians, seculars, and historically Palestinian Jews. It was Zionism that disrupted this long-standing coexistence through its settler-colonial project. But even if all Palestinians were Muslim, the struggle would still not be religious.

The Palestinian struggle would still have been an anti-colonial struggle regardless of the religion of the colonizer. Likewise, it would still have existed even if Palestine held no religious significance for anyone on the planet.

This narrative promotes the idea that this is a centuries-old issue, rather than an ongoing modern colonial project. Zionism emerged in late nineteenth-century Europe with the goal of creating 'a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.' Its founders were secular and framed their project in colonial terms. Early Zionist leaders like Theodor Herzl described Zionism as "something colonial," Vladimir Jabotinsky called it "a colonization adventure," and early Zionist institutions bore names such as the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association. In pursuit of an ethnonational state, Zionism recast Jewish identity as a homogenized national identity, weaponized that identity to legitimize colonization, and projected the hostility generated by colonization onto the colonized.

By portraying the Palestinian struggle as an ancient and intractable religious conflict, this narrative shifts attention away from an ongoing colonial project and enables further complicity among governments and powerholders while discouraging public action by fostering the belief that the situation is too complex to be resolved.

Portraying Palestine as a conflict between Muslims and Jews depends on conflating Judaism with Israel and Zionism. This conflation was constructed by Zionism itself. Israel defines itself as the "Jewish state," grants exclusive rights on that basis, and claims to represent Jews worldwide. This is not merely rhetorical. Palestinian life under colonial rule is shaped by Israeli Jewish soldiers and settlers enforcing dispossession and genocide. This deliberate conflation makes accusations of antisemitism easier to weaponize. Palestinians and their allies are routinely forced to declare they are not antisemitic simply for opposing occupation, colonization, and genocide. Delinking Zionism from Judaism is crucial, but the burden should not fall on Palestinians to constantly make that distinction in every word or action they take.

This claim also collapses under the weight of Jewish opposition to Zionism. Millions of Jews, alongside organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices, and Neturei Karta, oppose Zionism on moral, religious, and political grounds, refusing to allow apartheid and genocide to be carried out in their name.

The notion that Muslims and Jews are destined to be enemies is itself rooted in orientalist and colonial thinking. It portrays Arabs and Muslims as irrational religious fanatics while obscuring the political realities of empire and colonization. This framing fuels Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism while absolving colonial power of responsibility.