(Co)resisting the repression of Palestine: Mobilizing factors for transnational solidarity in complicit European countries

Over the past decades and increasingly in recent years, governments, media, and cultural institutions across the Global North have repressed expressions of solidarity with Palestine through censorship, bans, and delegitimization (Amnesty International, 2024; Index of Repression, 2025, 2026). This repression reveals that even countries that are labelled as democracies, and thus emphasize freedom of speech and claim to represent their populations’ interests, engage in repressive tactics typically associated with authoritarian regimes (cf. Ayanian et al., 2025). However, this repression is rarely recognized because the emphasis on freedom of speech sustains the illusion that repression does not occur in established democracies. As a result, many citizens remain unaware of the extent of this repression and thus, also the injustices happening abroad. Nevertheless, we have witnessed people around the world resisting this repression by showing transnational solidarity for Palestinian liberation. We asked: What motivates people to resist the repression of other people's struggles? And who might be most effective in mobilizing resistance under perceived repression? We aim to give first insights into these questions with two studies. The first study draws on semi-structured interviews with activists for Palestinians in Germany (n = 16) and the UK (n = 20) to identify key motivators for third parties to co-resist the oppression of Palestinians. Activists described a range of motivations for becoming involved, from personal experiences such as witnessing injustice firsthand in Palestine, perceived personal relevance such as one’s government's complicity, and to broader political commitments, such as anti-colonialism and collective liberation. Moreover, perceived repression itself acts as a catalyst: in many cases, witnessing or experiencing repression motivated individuals to resist and show solidarity in the first place. The second study builds on these insights with a cross-national experiment (Germany: N = 723; UK: N = 601; Italy: N = 696) testing how perceived repression — occurring after an advocate speaks out against injustice — influences transnational solidarity among advantaged group members. Findings show repression increased solidarity when the advocate was from the ingroup, for some actions reduced it when the advocate was Palestinian, and had no effect when the advocate was a Jewish Israeli ally. Together, these studies reveal how repression in democratic contexts both shapes who becomes active for Palestinian liberation and how effective different advocates are in mobilizing resistance.