I Held Up This Sign at the Knesset as a Mirror of Truth – to Trump and the Public -
On Monday, one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of the Knesset took place.
Granted, throughout the war of destruction and the brutal abandonment of the last two years, the Knesset has ceased to function as a forum where one can speak openly in favor of a cease-fire, peace, or, heaven forbid, acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinians. But what took place this week – an obscene display of hypocrisy, sycophancy, and deceit staged for the benefit of two dictators, US. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – was unprecedented.
The families of hostages and massacre victims were pushed aside, while Likud operatives and political lackeys packed the Knesset galleries at the command of their master.
Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif is escorted out after holding a sign reading Recognise Palestine during a speech by US President Donald Trump at the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on October 13, 2025.Credit: AFP/SAUL LOEB
But can we really be surprised by the cult of personality surrounding "Bibi" when even the opposition played its part in this disgrace, clapping along for a campaign rally disguised as a state ceremony – arranged by Uncle Sam to boost the Prime Minister of bloodshed and abandonment, complete with brazen interference in his ongoing criminal trial, and all of it playing out before the President of Israel?
In the face of this nauseating imperial spectacle, my colleague Ayman Odeh and I chose to say what needed to be said: "The emperor is naked." We didn't shout. We didn't disrupt. We didn't break the rules of parliamentary conduct. We simply held up a single sign, bearing a single demand: recognition.
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Our protest was meant to provide some space for the truth in the midst of a sea of lies, deceit, and self-congratulation by those directly responsible for the bloodshed. It was a truth rooted in justice, healing, and acknowledgment, and it had to be displayed on that stage both for the sake of the past, but above all, for the sake of the future.
Given the past, the attempt to rebrand Netanyahu and Trump as peacemakers would have been laughable – pure absurdist comedy – were it not wrapped in tragic, bloody grief. The joy over the release of the hostages and their return to their anguished families cannot be complete, knowing that without the courageous public protest in Israel, Netanyahu would not have included their release among the official war aims, and Trump would not have seen it as a useful tool to boost his public image.
The thunderous boos for Netanyahu in Tel Aviv's Hostage Square – so absent from the fawning ceremony his obedient servant, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, arranged for him – still echoed in our ears. So too did the broken cries of the people in the tent erected by victims of the massacre outside the Knesset, people whom Netanyahu's poison machine incited against, violently, day and night.
But it wasn't just the boos for Netanyahu that guided us. So too did the truth of Trump's role in the bloodshed and destruction. Only when his ties to Israel became a burden, and a threat to American imperial interests, did he begin applying real pressure on Netanyahu to seek a cease-fire and stop the devastation.
What concerned Trump and Netanyahu was never the freedom and safety of the hostages – who could all have been released back in March – but their own freedom to pursue their imperialist interests in the Middle East. Had people not demonstrated in capitals around the world, demanding an end to the Palestinian genocide and the recognition of an independent Palestinian state – had those protests not moved diplomatic mountains, led to sanctions on Israel, and brought about international recognition of Palestine – the slaughter in Gaza would never have ended, and the hostages would not have been freed.
Trump sought to reap the rewards of the true warriors for peace – the very people he and our government continue to label antisemitic and persecute – for his own benefit. All while he and our government embrace right-wing, racist, fascist, and even openly antisemitic parties and activists.
But more important than any argument over past crimes is the battle for the future, a future of real peace.
Trump and Netanyahu at the Knesset last week. The families of hostages and massacre victims were pushed aside for a campaign rally disguised as a state ceremony.Credit: Haim Zach / GPO
The Trumpian slogan, "peace through strength," sounds appealing to our right-wing government because it allows them to cling to the delusion that military force and violence will bring security and prosperity – even without ending the occupation. But this is the same idée fixe that blew up in our faces on October 7. There can be no security or prosperity for Israel without ending the occupation, dismantling the settlements, and establishing a Palestinian state.
Under Netanyahu and Trump, Israel and the United States remain part of a minority of countries that still refuse to recognize a Palestinian state. In fact, they actively work to block its recognition.
The international community now stands like a fortified wall against the annexationist and dispossessive aspirations of the right-wing government and its enablers in Israel's so-called opposition, united in its demand to recognize a Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 lines.
The big fear is that Netanyahu will use the life raft Trump gave him not to make progress toward true peace – a peace based on recognizing the Palestinian people's legitimate national rights – but to continue playing for time and deepening the occupation. While Trump was speaking in the Knesset about a new Middle East of peace, settlers were busy building outposts of terror and violently expelling Palestinians from their land.
That's why we have an obligation to hold up a mirror of truth – not just to Trump and Netanyahu, but also, and especially, to the Israeli public. This same public that celebrated, lovingly and wholeheartedly, the return of the hostages and the cease-fire, still refuses to see the link between the ongoing occupation and the continued rule of this bloodstained government and its judicial coup.
Recognition of a Palestinian state is not only the fulfillment of a fundamental right to self-determination for a people living under the boot of occupation; it is also an urgent Israeli interest. When I held up that sign reading "Recognize Palestine," I did so for Israelis, too – so that the children of both peoples may one day live in a reality of freedom, security, and peace, as they deserve.
Ofer Cassif is a Knesset member for the Hadash party