- Is criticizing Israel antisemitic?
It's a question that confuses many well-meaning people.
Some assume that an attack on the Jewish state
must also be an attack on Jews.
For instance, evangelical leader Franklin Graham
once dubbed criticism of Israeli settlers
"an assault on God's chosen people."
At the same time, others justify their attacks
on Jewish people around the world
by pointing to Israel's actions,
claiming that they are only being anti-Zionist,
not antisemitic.
- "They are the enemies of humankind.
"The Zionist system is a cancer on humanity."
- So what's the deal?
Is criticizing the Jewish state anti-Jewish?
Not quite.
In fact, it happens all the time in Israel itself
and among Jews everywhere.
Just as someone can oppose the policies
of the United States, France, China, or Saudi Arabia,
they can oppose the actions of the Israeli government.
Doing so doesn't make them a bigot.
Objections to Israeli domestic policies, settlements,
occupation, or treatment of the Palestinians
are political positions, not antisemitic slurs.
This is true even when the criticism is harsh,
controversial, or makes some people uncomfortable.
Israel is a country like any other,
and it deserves criticism like any other.
If that were the end of the conversation,
it would make our lives a lot easier.
But unfortunately, it's not.
That's because criticism of the Jewish state
sometimes masks animosity toward Jews, and as a result,
anti-Israel movements often attract anti-Jewish bigots.
Just look at the website, AntiZionism.org,
which is actually run by neo-Nazi white supremacists.
This is pretty predictable if you think about it.
After all, Israel is home to half the world's Jews.
Having that many of them in one place
is naturally going to draw the anger
and attention of the millions of people who despise Jews
and want them to disappear.
For this reason, antisemites are obsessed with Israel,
and it's one of the biggest excuses
they use to rationalize their prejudice.
In many places, it's not respectable to openly hate Jews,
but it is respectable to criticize the Jewish state,
and so bigots will say their problem is with Israel
when their real problem is with Jews.
What does this look like in practice?
First, there's the obvious stuff.
Around the world, antisemites assault Jews
and vandalize Jewish schools, synagogues,
campus institutions, and even Holocaust memorials
over alleged Israeli actions thousands of miles away.
- [Reporter] "When this began, mid-May, in Gaza and Israel
"antisemitic incidents in the US spiked.
"Jewish diners attacked in Los Angeles when a pro-Palestinian motorcade stopped,
"men got out, and--" - [Woman's voice] "started running toward the tables,
"and asking indiscriminately 'who's Jewish?'"
This is just the usual harassment
and violence that Jews have experienced for centuries.
Israel is simply the flimsy cover story
that the perpetrators of these crimes invoke
to justify their classically antisemitic actions.
Then you have traditional antisemitic lies
that are repurposed as anti-Israel lies.
For example, back in the Middle Ages,
Jews were repeatedly accused
of murdering gentile children for perverse purposes.
Some antisemites still make
this bizarre medieval accusation,
known as the "Blood Libel", today.
But others have adapted it for the 21st century,
with some twisting it into the claim that Israel
is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people.
In actuality,
according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics,
the Palestinian population in Israel, the West Bank,
and Gaza has skyrocketed since Israel's founding in 1948.
Whatever one thinks of Israel,
that's obviously the opposite of genocide.
This false allegation isn't a legitimate argument,
it's a blood libel on a national scale,
an ugly update of an ancient slander.
- "The Israelis concentrate on killing children.
"I believe that this is engraved in the
"historical Zionist and Jewish mentality, which has
"become addicted to the killing of women and children.
"We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians,
"in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos."
- This is not the only antisemitic conspiracy theory
that has received an anti-Israel face-lift.
Take the mother of all anti-Semitic myths,
the idea that Jews secretly run the world.
Because it's frowned upon to say that
the Jews control the economy or government these days,
antisemites instead insist that Israel
or its Zionist supporters do.
Robert Bowers, the white supremacist who massacred Jews
at a Pittsburgh synagogue, claimed that ZOG,
"Zionist Occupied Government",
was in control of America's political parties.
So did the Supreme Leader of Iran.
All of these antisemitic ideas
rebranded as merely anti-Israel
are revealing in that they just replace the word "Jew"
with "Israel" or "Zionist".
- "We need to end Zionism, which is huge,
"and it's probably the biggest problem
"that we have in this country today and around the globe,
"which is a few people controlling pretty much everything.
"All the money, all of the business.
"I mean, brainwashing all the people
"from the education systems, everything."
- "Israel is losing out.
"They are losing the media war,
"despite their connections."
- [Anchor] "What are their connections?" - [Qureshi] "The tide is turning."
[Qureshi scoffs]
- [Qureshi] "Deep pockets."
- "What does that mean?"
- "Well, they are very influential people. They control the media!"
- Other instances of anti-Jewish prejudice
disguising themselves as anti-Israel arguments
are more subtle.
These often involve the Jewish state
being subjected to criticism
leveled at no other non-Jewish country.
Consider the United Nations, whose Human Rights Council
has condemned Israel over 70 times in its 14-year history,
more than all other countries combined,
including vastly worse regimes
like China, North Korea, and Russia.
- "It is also appalling that The Council has
"one standing agenda and that's: Israel."
- "Here is a bit of context that you might not know.
"The United Nations from 2012 and 2015
"has adopted 97 resolutions
"specifically criticizing an individual country,
"and of those 97, 83 of them have focused on Israel.
"Is Israel truly deserving
"of 86% of the world's condemnation?
"Or possibly is something else afoot?"
- To be clear, the point here is not that Israel
has never committed human rights violations
that deserve criticism,
it's that Israel's violations deserve to be treated
like those of any non-Jewish country, but they are not.
- "The simple truth is that for as long
"as Israel has been a member of this institution,
"Israel has been treated differently
"from other nations at the United Nations."
- Any unbiased observer understands
that this is not because Israel
is more evil than all other countries,
but because it is more Jewish.
This disparate treatment was so egregious that in 2017,
the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the U.N. secretary-general,
calling on him to combat the institution's bias
against Israel.
It was signed by all 100 U.S. senators,
from Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
So what's going on here?
Why is Israel, a country that certainly merits
reasonable criticism like any other,
attracting so many unreasonable attacks?
Here's an analogy that helps untangle this.
Criticizing Barack Obama doesn't make someone racist,
but as the first black president,
he naturally attracted vicious critics motivated by racism.
Similarly, criticizing Israel doesn't mean that someone
is antisemitic, but as the world's only Jewish state,
Israel naturally attracts many critics
motivated by antisemitism.
Keep in mind that sometimes a claim can be offensive
and wrong without being anti-Semitic.
A person might just be repeating something misguided
they heard from friends or social media,
and be speaking from ignorance, not hatred.
The inconvenient truth is that there's no simple test
for determining whether someone is anti-Israel,
anti-Zionist, or just plain antisemitic.
Anyone who tells you that criticism of Israel or Zionism
is always antisemitic, or never antisemitic,
doesn't seriously understand antisemitism.
What's important is that we be aware
that antisemites are drawn to Israel debates,
that we are vigilant about rejecting their bigoted baggage,
and that we prevent them from corrupting
the critical conversation about the Jewish state
and its conduct.