Do You Actually Hate Jews?
A simple test to check ‘criticism of Israel’ for antisemitism
I have spent much of my adult life in the Persian Gulf and
Mediterranean regions of the Middle East. I am not Jewish,
which will somehow matter to certain readers. I am,
instead, a Roman Catholic American who has been in the
area during war and peace, with multiple military
assignments in the region.
I made many Arab friends in my service. I’ve sat in a tent
in the middle of the desert at night during Ramadan,
playing cards and drinking chai (and painfully sticking
clothespins on my ears as a penalty when I lost at those
card games, which happened a lot.) I was a regular for
diwaniya at friends’ homes in Kuwait. I sat cross-legged
with Egyptian heavy equipment transport drivers drinking
scalding hot cardamom coffee while we watched the sun
come up over the desert. I am not an Arab, and I do not
claim to be, but I have come to admire the richness of much
of Arab culture.
And yet, I would be lying by omission if I did not note
what was appalling about what I saw: women treated as
property; third-country nationals cleaning toilets in orange
jumpsuits and living as literal slaves; gay and lesbian
people as criminals; utter religious intolerance; fascist
restrictions on free speech; monarchies ruling by fiat, and
more.
Amid all of this, Israel stood apart to me, a shining light in
a region full of dark despotism—a true democracy with
guaranteed liberties, a technological wonderland carved
out of a stark desert devoid of resources, and a place where
21% of the citizenry of this ostensibly Jewish state
consists of non-Jewish Arabs. In Israel, gays are not
criminalized and women are not property. Is it without
problems? Of course not. It is a country born in violence,
and every day it deals with that reality. It has the same
internal political strife that we see in all Western
democracies. Crime happens. Extremists capture the
national dialogue. It is exceedingly easy to point out
Israel’s flaws, just as it is for any nation.
The question, especially these days, is: Given the sharp
contrasts with its neighbors, why is Israel so repeatedly
singled out as if it is the only (and worst) bad actor in that
region, whether in the media, on X, in the United Nations,
and everywhere else for that matter? And why lately do
these attacks seem to be coming from people, including
former military people, who should—no, who definitely—
know better?
These days, if you spend enough time with strangers
online discussing anything related to Israel, you will
inevitably come into contact with that person who claims,
“I have nothing against Jews, it’s Zionism I hate.” In the
past, this was usually followed by something about the
Rothchilds, or bankers controlling the world, or how
Dachau was actually an aromatherapy spa, but these days
it might just as easily be heard from someone who seems,
on the surface, to share a bunch of your own views.
These people inevitably become angry and puzzled when
they are labeled “antisemitic,” and their response is usually
along the lines of “What? Criticizing Israel doesn’t make
me a Jew-hating antisemite! How could you think that?”
If you have found yourself on either side of an exchange
like this one, let me give you a scenario that might help.
There are five dry cleaners in your town. You’ve tried
them all and are unhappy with all of them. Four of them
are owned by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East,
and all four are horrible—they overcharge you, they lose
your clothes, they never have your clothes ready on time,
they rarely get stains out and never offer a refund. The fifth
dry cleaner is owned by Orthodox Jews. That dry cleaner’s
prices are lower than the other four, they never lose your
clothes and always have them ready on time.
Last week, that Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner failed to
get a mustard stain out of your favorite shirt and would not
give you a refund. So you wrote a scathing Yelp review of
the Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner, something you have
never, ever done for the other four dry cleaners over your
many dissatisfied years of going to them with your
clothing. If that is not enough, in addition to leaving the
bad Yelp review, you also attend massive demonstrations
in your town in support of the four Muslim dry cleaners,
blaming their incompetence and failures on the Orthodox
Jew-owned dry cleaner. Also, you chant “From the dry cleaning fluid to the fur storage area”
over and over outside the Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner.
Which brings us to the war in Gaza.
Let me say some things about that war. First, in my
experience, the IDF is one of the most professional
militarys the world has ever seen. Its historic track record
of stunning victories over better-funded, numerically
superior foes is not the only reason I say this. The IDF’s
officer corps attends the same sorts of command and staff
colleges that have made the U.S. military so great. The
IDF’s enlisted forces are drawn from across the entire
society, giving it the natural diversity that U.S. military
leaders crave. Most importantly for this conversation, it
trains and practices civilian harm mitigation with the same
zeal as all professional Western militaries. I could go into
great detail here, but suffice it say that at the top of the
mitigation list is constant warnings to civilians to evacuate
tightly targeted areas before engagement with minimally
destructive munitions. This is genuine risk mitigation, and
is practiced only by the world’s most professional
militaries. Bottom line: As a matter of training and
doctrine, the IDF does all it can to minimize civilian
casualties—and in this it is as good as, and I’d argue
maybe even better, than U.S. forces.
Second, in war it is impossible to prevent all damage to
civilians. It cannot be done. Don’t believe me? Ask the
remaining family of Zemari Ahmadi, killed in Kabul by
mistake along with his seven children by a U.S. drone
strike. Ask the families of the five U.S. troops and one Afghan
interpreter killed by a U.S. B-1B laser-guided bomb in
Afghanistan’s Zabul Province in 2014. Ask fans of the Arizona
Cardinals what they know about Corporal Pat Tillman. Go
back to the Normandy campaign in World War II and wonder
why U.S. B-17 bombers killed U.S. Lieutenant General Lesley
J. McNair.
Heck, ask me about the time outside Habbaniyah, Iraq,
where I personally was seconds away from giving the
order to shoot and kill an Iraqi civilian who was trying to
sell my troops some whiskey after momentarily thinking
the bottles were Molotov cocktails; we eventually let him
go in peace, but it could have just as easily gone the other
way.
War is ugly. The “fog of war” is a real thing. Innocents die.
Most importantly, there is a huge difference between
killing innocents by accident, and killing them on purpose
(you know, like Hamas does with its random rockets aimed
at Israeli civilians). Things like the missile strike on the
World Central Kitchen convoy happen in war—that is just
a brutal, undeniable truth. Should responsible IDF officers
suffer if negligence is proven? Absolutely. But here is the
real question: If the unintentional death of innocents is
inevitable in all wars, why does Israel get special
disapprobation when it happens with the IDF? More
importantly, why would anyone instantly (and without full
knowledge) assume that the IDF intentionally targeted
legitimately innocent aid workers?
The IDF’s efforts are as measured and tempered as those
of any Western military at war. They are simply being
singled out, amid a world of equally brutal war.
I can already hear the hue and cry—from the BDS crowd
on the left and the Protocols crowd on the right—
screaming: “They are leveling Gaza! Have you seen the
pictures? It’s Genocide!”
Listen to me, people: If you want to commit genocide, you
do not warn civilians to seek safe shelter before you
engage the combatants in their midst. You’re upset about
the pictures of a leveled Gaza? Have you seen any of what
the U.S. military did to Fallujah? Remember the “Highway
of Death” in 1991? How do you think Iran treats Kurdish
villages? Darfur would like a word too. War is ugly in the
best cases; it is even uglier when facing a demented foe
like Hamas. People who would perpetrate Oct. 7 and hide
behind human shields from their own population will not
go easy.
To quote that Seinfeld episode where Elaine’s communist
boyfriend got banned from a Chinese restaurant: I don’t
want to “name names,” but I will say there is a certain X
account where the author claims to be a combat veteran, and
he regularly posts about how the IDF is recklessly targeting
civilians as a tactic. This person does, in fact, demonstrate a
deep understanding of military history, which actually makes
this behavior of his worse, because he knows better. He
understands the fog of war. He understands the mitigation
measures the IDF takes. He understands that in all war,
certain levels of civilian death and destruction are inevitable.
So why does he say what he says?
ED: So who is this person? My guess is that it is Scott Ritter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter
If I am wrong let me know and I will immediately retract and
apologise.
In 2024, antisemitism generally evidences itself in two
forms. The first is your classic Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, “Hitler was right” sort of neo-fascist fabulism. The
second is the kind who buys every lie coming out of Al
Jazeera and the rabidly antisemitic Arab press. The thing
about both of these kinds of hate is that they have been
watered down to a level of acceptability in many circles.
The watered-down Protocols crowd accurately points to
the number of Jewish influencers in Hollywood and the
media, as if that somehow validates an unspoken blood
libel. These people are the Joe Rogans of the world—
avowedly “fair” while actually speaking from highly bigoted
assumptions.
The second crowd—the watered-down Al Jazeera crowd—
hides behind “anti-colonialism” as an excuse for quaint
chants in favor of exterminating Israel’s Jewish population.
Unfortunately, that second kind of watered-down
antisemitism is mirrored in the great majority of the mass
media in the U.S. and globally. CNN, MSNBC, NPR,
BBC, Reuters and the like will buy every line coming out
of the Gaza Health Ministry and every staged Pallywood
video without question, and will flood the zone endlessly
with stories supporting the myth of Israeli fascism and
“genocide.” When you see Jewish students on college
campuses across America being terrorized by their
Hamas-sympathizing peers, that phenomenon is fueled
almost completely by that second sort of antisemitism—
let’s call it the “media narrative of Israel.”
When someone starts demonstrating outside the Jewish
dry cleaner because of that mustard stain—whether they’re
politically on the right or the left—there are only two
possible explanations:
- They bought the media narrative of Israel.
- Consciously or subconsciously, they hate Jews.
I can almost forgive people who fall prey to No. 1,
especially if they are young and/or stupid. College
students who don’t know any better are immersed in a
nonstop barrage of the media narrative of Israel, and as
college students their brains are mush anyway, so I sort of
get how they could be so easily misled. Your average,
working, adult American who does not pay much attention
to politics or international relations can also be driven into
this belief set—their media bombards them with
unbalanced, anti-Israel propaganda, and if all those kids
are protesting on campus, there must be something to it,
right?
But it’s people like my fellow soldier on X who trouble
me more. When you know that Israel is the freest, most
liberal state in the region; when you know that war is hell
and civilians die in all wars; when you know that the IDF
engages in state-of-the-art mitigation measures to protect
innocent civilians; when you know all of these things and
still engage in the blood libelish lies of “Israel is
committing genocide,” No. 2 is the only logical
conclusion. The only stain is the one on that person’s
soul—a black stain of Jew hatred that goes back millennia.
The hate of the well-informed stands out because it’s
purposeful. Ultimately, antisemitism is a mind virus.
Any so-called influencer or self-styled intellectual who
spreads it to fellow Americans, under the guise of
informing them, is a predator.
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