Credit: Creative Commons/Wikipedia
Targeting and blaming Jews living in the United States or Europe for the actions of Israel is blatant anti-Semitism. For as a political state, albeit a ‘Jewish’ one, Israel clearly does not represent all Jews, nor does it embody Judaism.
However, many anti-Semites choose to conflate the two — Israel and global Jewry — so that they can use Israel’s actions as an occasion to target, sometimes violently, Jews around the world. This conflation is not just faulty, given the diversity of Jewish opinions on Israel, but dangerous as well.
One would expect both Jewish and Israeli leaders to refrain from championing such conflations, given their roots in anti-Semitic discourse. However, Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has done just that in a message directed to me, my family and world Jewry this Rosh Hashanah: he has conflated Jews and Israel in exactly the same way anti-Semites often do.
Now, Netanyahu’s intention is to promote Jewish unity and diaspora support for Israel. Unfortunately, what he has done is endanger Jews around the world by treading on familiar anti-Semitic ground to accomplish this. Here is how Netanyahu begins his holiday message:
Dear friends, as Jews celebrate the New Year around the world, we should take pride in all that unites us. The Jewish people indeed always unite when faced with great challenges, and the past year was no exception.
These past few months, three of our teenagers were kidnapped and brutally murdered, thousands of rockets fired at our country and too many of our bravest young men and their families made the most painful of sacrifices in Operation Protective Edge.
Of course, Israel has gone through a difficult time in the past three months, as have Palestinians, it must be noted, to an exponentially greater degree. Despite this omission, Netanyahu is absolutely right: many Jews across the globe invested in Israel, myself included, have been pained by the horrors which have occurred in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. However, many Jews across the globe, from post-Zionists to the wholly indifferent, would rightly take issue with Netanyahu conflating Israel and all Jews. Indeed, as one invested in Israel’s future, I take issue with such a conflation — with Netanyahu’s repeated use of “our” to suggest my family and Israel are not just inextricably linked, but are one and the same.
They are not.
Netanyahu knows this, and even admits as much when, remarkably, he next addresses some of the anti-Semitism outside of Israel which has surfaced as a result of Israel’s assault on Gaza:
We in Israel know it has been a difficult period for many of your Jewish communities. You face increasingly virulent, even violent anti-Semitism.
So on behalf of the people of Israel, I thank you for supporting our just campaign to defend ourselves; to provide the sustained peace and security that all Israelis deserve. I assure you that we in Israel will continue to stand by your side as you confront hatred and intolerance. Jews everywhere must be able to live proudly and without fear.
There have no doubt been a smattering of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, particularly during Israel’s Gaza operation. However, Netanyahu and many Jewish leaders have, for political purposes, exaggerated the level of anti-Semitism which exists globally by claiming that anti-Israel critiques are anti-Semitic. This is something Netanyahu has done repeatedly, even claiming that boycott measures against Israel are by definition anti-Semitic, even though they target a political state, not Jews.
In truth, the opposite is the case regarding anti-Semitism: misrepresenting legitimate criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic is, well, anti-Semitic. For it takes the exact same conflation — claiming that Israel and all Jews are one and the same — to pretend anti-Israel critiques are definitionally expressions of hatred against Jews.
Netanyahu’s conflation of Israel with world Jewry is nothing new. Since the 1970s, organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have tried to re-define anti-Semitism as anything that is anti-Israel. This “New Anti-Semitism” has been used for decades to shield Israel from critique by arguing that it is the global representation of the Jewish people, and to target Israel is to target Jews.
In 1984, the ADL’s Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter, in their book which furthered the idea that classical anti-Semitism should be replaced by “New Anti-Semitism,” went so far as to blatantly admit that those they would now call anti-Semites (those who critiqued Israel policy) were in no way actually anti-Semitic:
“Today the interests of Jews are not so much threatened by their familiar nemesis, crude anti-Semitism, as by a-Semitic governmental policies, the proponents of which may be free of anti-Semitism and indeed may well — literally — count Jews among some of their best friends.”
What all of this has done — conflating Israel and Jews with critiques of Israel becoming anti-Semitic — is to both dilute a real and persistent bigotry, ‘classical’ anti-Semitism, and provide actual anti-Semites the cover they need to target Jews for the actions of Israel in societies where blatant anti-Semitism is not tolerated.
Netanyahu’s reliance upon an anti-Semitic trope, conflating Jews and Israel, to engender unity is in reality a danger to Jews living around the globe. It is also dishonest.
Perhaps more importantly for Netanyahu, it also runs counter to Israel’s interests. For when I critique Israel, I do so out of an investment in the democratic promise of Israel, not out of any anti-Semitic tendencies. And when, as a Jew, I’m targeted for Israel’s actions — which happens — it forces me to look upon Israel’s government and ask a hard question: “Why are you using anti-Semitic conflations to defend Israel, when doing so endangers Jews everywhere?”
It’s not a unifying question.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, published recently by Oneworld Publications.
Follow him on Twitter @David_EHG.
Wow, this piece is indeed a stretch. First, Bibi did not state that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. Second, anyone who reads the news knows there have been instances of antisemitic violence both in Europe and America over the past year. And third, why are you once again making this about you, David?
Shana Tova.
You overlook realities in the U. S. Surely you can’t deny that leading Jewish organizations have done all they can to support Netanyahu’s “our” mentality; or that Jewish money (to politicians) and votes have been a major factor in the maintenance of U. S. policy concerning Israel; or that Netanyahu could not have intentionally killed the possibility of a two state solution absent U. S. financial support. God was right when He advised the Jews (1 Samuel 8) not to appoint a “king”, as they appear to have done with Netanyahu. It is so sad that most Jews have chosen support of Israel over the values articulated by the prophets.
Netanyahu is a prime minister in a coalition government.
Yes, they have. Both Jews and Christians have ignored the words and the warnings of the ancient prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. We continue to do so at our peril. We have modern-day prophets, also ignored. What will it take to force us to wake up and heed the warnings that have been given to us – in every generation, in every time period? I fear that the answer to that may be a worldwide conflagration that not a living soul will be able to ignore. The only hope there is that there will remain a ‘remnant,’ as it was in the beginning, that may offer a second chance to get it right this time.
In the mean time, Alice ignores Islamic extremists who are head chopping through the Middle East
Well, really, If we do not blame the Jews living in the United States for the atrocities of the Israeli government, who then should we blame? In this charnel house of Gaza, where 1.8 milliion people live trapped in an Israeli ghetto. There, they are. The Jews living in the United States are the primary enablers of these Israeli atrocities, aren’t they?
Yes, indeed they are — they and AIPAC!
Damn, I am thankful you all are not in power. It would be Germany in 1938 all one again [personal attack removed]. I just really feel sick to mo stomach.
Alice, the term anti Semite developed n Europe at the time your European ancestors were party to the murder of Jews all over Europe. Work on your history….a bit., Ignorance is not bliss, it’s harmful.
Reply to Pat Clung:
My reply to your excellent Comment was too short. I meant to qualify my statement by saying that, yes, American Jews, AND ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS, are morally culpable for abetting this madness perpetrated by the present Israeli government to continue unabated. We have allowed our elected representatives, at all levels of government, to run things in the State Dept. and by paying blood money to AIPAC and other paid entities to define and to decide our Middle East foreign policy. We need to take back our nation. That begins in the voting booth. Then it continues every time and everywhere that we citizens have the courage to speak up.
Me thinks that oil has driving US foreign policy in the Middle East are more than Israel. Then again, at least one of us ash picked up a book on the topic rather that spitting out rhetoric. In the mean time, you seem to be ignoring the carnage in Syria and Iraq. It appears to be Arabs slaughtering Arabs
Mr. Harris-Gershon,
The term ‘anti-Semitic’ is a misnomer. Will you please clarify the accurate background of this term?
It is my understanding that the word ‘Semite’ was originally used to identify a specific ancient language group and is not meant to define an ethnic or racial group. Semites were originally descendants of Southwest Asia and included Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
Thank you.
Once again, an excellently incisive analysis, Harris-Gershon ! Thank you !
As the writer, editor, and publisher of the Argentum Post (www.argentumpost.com) I deal with this conflation phenomenon continually, as I write critically about the Zionist history and the Zionist power structure of Israel, and as expose the history of Zionism and its damage it does to decent, rationalist, humanist Jews everywhere, particularly, but not exclusively by the utterly egregious misleadership of Netanyahu.
I am signatory of the August 23, 2014 NYTimes advert by survivors and direct descendants of survivors of the Holocaust, denouncing the Israel’s crimes against the humanity of Palestinians and Israel’s international law violations, and I reject the Zionist ideology as categorically as the Neturei Karta Jews do, and hence I critique the historical and legal legitimacy of Israel’s portrayal as the nationalized embodiment of the Judaic religion, which was used to dispossess the autochtonous legitimate Palestinian inhabitants of Palestine on the basis of the Hebrew bible.
My father was forced to leave Germany by the Nazis, escaped after being declared stateless and managed to board a freighter which took him to Callao, Peru and once there, he was detained and told that the due to the Zionist community’s opposition to his entry he would have to be returned on the same freighter to Marseilles. The Zionists had global political clout and since my father had to give up everything he owned to escape he was literally moneyless and hence of interest to the Zionists who wanted to force Jews, particularly those financially challenged ones, to be used for the Palestine colonization project.
Due to sheer luck did my father found a way to be smuggled out of Callao on a hay wagon of a freight train to La Paz, Bolivia where he finally found security and a job and where I was born and eventually moved to São Paulo, Brazil.
In other words, had either the Nazis or the Zionist ideologues had their way, I probably would not have written this note, since I would not exist, because this occurred close to 1940 and my father would have probably been in France when the Vichy government would have had him shipped to a concentration camp.
Israel or not, anti semitism will still find some reason to hate Jews. It was around a long time before 1948. Surprised you haven’t figured that one out yet!
When push comes to shove and militant Islam takes over the US who will you call on – Ghostbusters?
A strong Israel would be preferable, methinks
The article intentionally glosses over the constant demonization of Israel and the extreme anti semitism inherent in those who wish to eliminate Israel entirely like JVP, Mondoweiss, Judith Butler and many other racists who self righteously consider themselves humanitarians. There is no outcry for the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria who are now most likely dead or sold into slavery. There is no manifestation or outcry for those being beheaded by ISIS. There is no outcry for the gay men executed in Iran nor for the women subjugated by Sharia Law. The only country deserving special punishment is Israel and of course PM Netanyahu.