I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about how the definition of antisemitism is being stretched and muddied, and in an irony of ironies, it’s Jewish Zionists who are responsible for it.
Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has spurred sharp criticism from around the world, as well as calls for arms embargos, boycotts and sanctions. In an attempt to forestall these criticisms, defenders of Israel have been arguing that denying the nation the right to do as it wishes is inherently antisemitic and prejudiced against Jews. In other words, they’re saying that Jewish people and Israel are one and the same. This is an old antisemitic trope called “dual loyalty”, but ironically, now being used by the people it was once wielded against.
This tactic isn’t new, but it’s sharply increased in volume since the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks. In this column, I argue that this isn’t only cynical, isn’t only false, but profoundly dangerous to Jewish people everywhere. It cheapens a rightfully serious accusation and robs it of its moral gravity. What’s worse, it plays into the hands of real antisemites, allowing them to camouflage themselves in the crowd.
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter:
Incidents like these are why it’s so important to recognize antisemitism for what it is—so that it can be effectively resisted, so people who repeat antisemitic tropes out of ignorance can be enlightened, and so the electorate won’t be swayed by it. We can and should call it out wherever it rears its head.
That’s why we have to face a painful paradox: when it comes to the continuing agony of Gaza, Israel’s most fervent defenders are the ones muddying the water. They seek to define criticism of the actions of Israel as anti-Jewish prejudice.
As an Israeli ex-pat, the average Israeli believes Israel is the only place where Jews as a people have a future, that everywhere else antisemitism is pervasive and unavoidable, and thus diaspora Jews are deluded about their safety. Of course they should prioritize loyalty to Israel, even if they choose to stay put, and only support their home countries to the extent they have to. Israelis don’t live in the same universe as diaspora Jews in Western democracies.
@ anat; if that’s the case, why are the Israelis–aided by the IDF and the Israeli government–forcibly and illegally murdering and stealing the land of the Palestinians in the West Bank? The excuse that they’re terrified of the rest of the world doesn’t hold up if they’re then forcing themselves into land that isn’t theirs and people who do not look kindly on them assassinating them and stealing the land that is the Palestinians.
I think what you said is a carefully-nurtured excuse.
I don’t think I follow you? What has belief in antisemitism abroad have to do with what Israel does locally? Israelis are not terrified of the rest of the world, not one bit. What they believe is that I should be terrified to live in the US.
Also – a large proportion of the Israeli public – the non-Haredi voters of the various parties in Netanyahu’s coalition plus voters of those right wing parties that agree with them ideologically but hate Netanyahu personally believe the land is theirs. Once upon a time they’d look for someone’s ancestor who had a 19th century land deed (one of my great-great grandfathers apparently owned some land in the Galilee at some point, but that’s not an interesting part of the country for these types), now they don’t even bother with that.
It’s one of those terrible self-fulfilling prophecies.
When you treat other people badly, you develop a (justified) fear that they’ll hate you for it, and that one day in the future they might rise up against you. To head off that possibility, you oppress them even more harshly in the present, further entrenching their hatred.
It’s an ideology that creates and perpetuates its own enemies. Once you’ve started oppressing people, you become afraid to stop. Every slave society and apartheid state falls into the same trap, and Israel has too.
@1 and @3, thank you for your replies. I am arguing in good faith here, and I am trying to understand the mindset.
To me, this is coming across as projection, just as the conservatives in the USA use projection to justify the atrocities they’re perpetrating on the American people and also immigrants (documented or otherwise). Israel has a nearly-60-year-old custom of murdering Palestinians (and now Syrians and Iranians) and then claiming they had to because everyone hates them.
Katydid @4: Hmm? Let’s separate the situation in Israel and the situation in the world at wide. In Israel plus OT there is a large faction that believes the place is theirs to do with as they wish, and others who believe that eventually most/all the West Bank and Gaza will be under someone else’s control, whether Palestinians, neighboring countries, or some other arrangement. Therefore to the extent possible the situation should be managed until such a permanent arrangement can be made.
The reasons for killing local Palestinians were over the years – because they were harboring terrorists of some kind or other (starting from PLO members in the late sixties to Hamas nowadays), because they were attacking soldiers, attacking settlers and so forth, or protesting violently. Also, if anyone from the OT were to perform an act of terrorism (eg blow up a bus, or deliberately run people over with a vehicle) that person’s home is either blown up or has its entrances blocked in with concrete bricks, leaving the person’s family homeless. This is perceived as justifiable use of force, and the only reasons people in other countries complain is because they hate Jews/Israelis or because they don’t know what is going on. Therefore public opinion from other countries can be ignored. (Recall when Reagan had a photo on his desk of a girl who lost her arms on an Israeli bombing in Beirut, in response Begin put on his desk a photo of a Jewish boy raising his hands in surrender in the Warsaw ghetto.)
As for antisemitism abroad – that is accepted as obvious and pervasive. Therefore any Jew with any brains should pack up and move to Israel, and in the meantime support anything Israel does because one day or another their safety will depend on Israel being available for them.
Conspiracy theorists also invented dual loyalty to justify hating Catholic immigrants. (This might actually be the older version, since Israel didn’t exist in the 19th century nor was Zionism very popular even among Jews back then.) Of course, those same conspiracy theorists believed in inherent Jewish disloyalty anyway, so they clearly don’t care about having rational justifications.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists largely hated Jews so as to justify the ruling class’s actions. The “Jews control the banks” idea implied that the only reason poor people suffered at the hands of capitalism was because bad actors took control of the system and sabotaged it, and everyone would be treated fairly if only WASPs controlled the banks instead. Of course. In reality bankers were vastly, vastly non-Jewish, with only a few exceptions, so that’s complete bullshit.
@Brendan Rizzo: good point. The antipathy in the USA toward the Germans, the Polish, and the Irish came out of so many of them being Catholic. Even now, I have a friend who grew up Southern Baptist but is now Atheist, and from time to time she’ll come out with the most ludicrous anti-Catholic stuff she learned as a child.