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One of the most absurd arguments made by anti-Semites is that you can’t criticize Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism.
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In fact, criticizing the ferocity of Israel’s response in Gaza to Hamas’ vicious terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, is not anti-Semitism.
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Calling for a ceasefire is not anti-Semitism.
Mourning the loss of innocent civilians in Gaza is not anti-Semitism.
Protesting against the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not anti-Semitism.
Calling the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians cruel and dehumanizing is not anti-Semitism.
Avraham Shalom, the late director of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence service, once compared Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians to the Nazi occupation of Europe in the Second World War.
“The future is bleak … where does it lead? Shalom observed in the 2012 Israeli documentary The Gatekeepers about the former heads of Shin Bet.
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“To a change in the people’s character, because if you put most of our young people in the army, they’ll see a paradox. They’ll see it strives to be a people’s army … involved in building up the country. On the other hand, it’s a brutal occupation force, similar to the Germans in World War II. Similar, not identical … We’ve become cruel to ourselves as well, but mainly to the occupied population, using the excuse of the war against terror.”
That’s not anti-Semitism.
So what is it?
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Historically, anti-Semitism, which goes back thousands of years, scapegoated Jews simply for being Jews (see the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, pogroms, etc.)
The newest form of anti-Semitism is to call for the destruction of Israel as the homeland of the Jews.
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As the late British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, head of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, explained:
“Whenever you hear human rights invoked to deny Israel’s right to exist, you are hearing the new anti-Semitism.”
Whenever you hear protesters supporting Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Canada, that is anti-Semitism.
It’s anti-Semitic because the goal of Hamas is to destroy Israel.
From Hamas’ founding Charter in 1988: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it … the land of Israel is an Islamic Waqf, consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day.”
It said Allah’s promise that Israel will be destroyed, would not come until Muslims “fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: ‘O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”
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Without renouncing its 1988 charter, Hamas released a new version in 2017 claiming it would (temporarily) accept the creation of a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories — captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — and that its fight was with “Zionists”, not Jews.
Substituting “Zionists” for “Jews” is anti-Semitic, because Zionism is the political expression of the belief in a Jewish homeland in Israel.
Hamas’ 2017 declaration also refused to recognize Israel or renounce terrorism.
Demonstrating against Israel outside a Jewish owned-restaurant in Toronto is anti-Semitism, because it implies Jews in Canada are responsible for the policies of the Israeli government.
Chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is anti-Semitic because it’s a call for the destruction of Israel.
While not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, all anti-Semites hate Israel and vilify Jews.
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