I’ve never thought of myself as antisemitic. I don’t want to be antisemitic. I don’t want people to think I’m antisemitic.
It doesn’t mean I’m not antisemitic. It’s possible I may be without realizing it.
I grew up in Virginia in the 1970s. I know all about people who “aren’t prejudiced” or “aren’t racist” who always followed up with this statement:
“Some of my best friends are Black.”
I know implicit bias exists, and I understand I may have it.
Several years ago I read a book titled Jews Don’t Count, written by David Baddiel. His premise is that when it comes to anti-racism, progressives often leave out Jews, writing,
A sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren't in it.
I’m glad I read the book. Baddiel gives examples of racism committed against Jewish people that never occurred to me. I think this may be his point—I wasn’t thinking of Jewish people as an oppressed minority.
Why is that? I’ve been asking myself this question ever since.
It’s not like I’m unaware of the existence of antisemitism. I have run into it headfirst online. A group of antisemitic trolls wrote some appalling comments to me on Twitter almost a decade ago. One asserted that because I was a journalist (his word) I was almost certainly Jewish, writing,
I bet her real last name is Grau.
I was physically shaken from the experience. I remember thinking if this could happen to me, what was it like for people who were actually Jewish?
I knew of antisemitism. But I wasn’t thinking about it. Since reading Baddiel’s book, I’ve tried to be more mindful.
I was drawn to the Jewish religion as a child, and considered converting after reading the opening line of the Shema,
Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
To my 12-year-old mind, all trouble in the world boiled down to arguing about whose God was The God. This sentence appealed to me. There’s one creator, we’re all stuck here together on the planet. Could we please stop worrying about its name?
I knew nothing about being Jewish, and even less about Israel.
I grew up in the Christian tradition. I’ve since ditched it. But Christianity is both a religion and a choice. You choose to be Christian.
Being Jewish is different. It can be religious, cultural, and ancestral. Many of my Jewish friends are atheists.
I certainly cannot define what it means to be Jewish. I’m in no way qualified. And for a long time I incorrectly defined being Jewish as primarily religious.
My biggest problem with religion is most are exclusionary. Do this, get to heaven, do that, go to hell, no, you can’t take communion in the Catholic church, yes, you’re Jewish if your mother is, no, you’re not if only your father is.
Nothing confused me more than Israel, and I’m still confused by Israel. In large part, it’s why I’m writing.
And does it even matter what I think about Israel? Does my opinion mean anything?
I’ve had to consider that it may not. If I apply anti-racism to Jewish people as I apply it to any other ethnic group, I don’t get to tell Jews what’s racist and what’s not.
But some Jewish leaders are now equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And under pressure from the current administration, Harvard University has now adopted the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism of settlements in the West Bank as antisemitic. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism does not.
Not all Jews are Israelis. Furthermore, there are organizations of American Jews in direct opposition to the Israeli government. Most notably is Not In My Name, who call the actions of Israel genocidal.
I’ve been careful of what I say, which means I’ve said very little. I walk around with thoughts of Gaza on my mind, too afraid to speak up.
Meanwhile, children are starving to death as I worry about offending someone.
I’m an American. The United States is Israel’s staunchest ally. Where American dollars go, and what is done with those dollars, does concern me.
World War II ended just twenty years before my birth.
If I think of the Holocaust in the context of time, it’s still right here. It is in the present. As of last year, it’s estimated 245,000 Holocaust survivors are still living.
Half of them reside in Israel.
I am an American WASP who knew of only a couple of Jewish families in my small, southern hometown. It was only when I moved to New York that I made Jewish friends. One had parents who survived the camps.
The nation of Israel was created in 1948 as a safe harbor for Jews, including those who endured the worst of what humans can do to each other. To survive the Holocaust, to have parents who survived the Holocaust—or to simply be Jewish—and then watch Israel be attacked is an unimaginable trauma.
What happened on October 7, 2023, is horrific. There are still Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, 600 days later.
And.
Amnesty International has concluded the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza in their response to October 7th.
This is the most painful example of dialectics I’ve ever considered. Netanyahu’s government seems to believe no atrocity is too terrible if it means protecting Israel.
Israel is not above international law. I have a terrible suspicion there is some moral blind spot, as if they can’t see their own actions.
Because what does it mean if they can? What does it mean if this Israeli government wants to erase the Palestinian people?
The Israeli people have suffered an unimaginable trauma. The Israeli government is waging a campaign of unspeakable atrocity. Gazans are in danger of starving to death, right now.
The starvation of civilians is a war crime, and it’s not the only war crime Israel has committed in response to October 7th. The list is long and horrifying.
On May 6th, The Guardian reported that Israeli government minister Bezalel Smotrich declared “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli victory, and the Palestinians there will “leave in great numbers to third countries.”
Hamas perpetrated the October 7th attack, and calls for the destruction of Israel. Hamas has not been defeated, and the Palestinian population of Gaza is being obliterated.
If I use the word genocide to describe what’s happening in Gaza, there may be people who accuse me of ignorance and even antisemitism.
The United States Department of State quotes the IHRA at the Plenary in Bucharest in 2016 to define the word. Included in the supposition is if I draw comparisons of current Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, I may be guilty of antisemitism.
I find myself wondering if this means the Israeli government can commit ethnic cleansing and still have the support of the United States government.
It seems both impossible and likely.
Since the attack, I feel like I’m living in a particularly terrifying funhouse, the kind where dread pools down my throat and into my gut. It’s an inescapable nightmare.
Everything I thought I knew before October 7th is in question.
I don’t recall criticism of Israel being deemed antisemitic before October 7th. This doesn’t mean the point of view didn’t exist; it just means I wasn’t aware of it, and certainly had no fear of speaking freely about Israel’s policies.
Several of my friends—granted, most are progressives, and if I look back to Jews Don’t Count I’m reminded I could have a blind spot here—were committed to the BDS movement, calling for the boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
I was not a member of the movement. But I understand why it existed.
There is no question that Palestinians lived under apartheid. There is no question that Palestinian land has been taken by Jewish settlers. Gaza did not have adequate water before October 7th. Gazans could not travel freely. The unemployment rate was over 45% and subsequently poverty was very high.
I have a friend who worked in the Middle East in the nineties, and he told me when he drove within a few kilometers of Gaza, he could smell it.
There is a shared torment between Israelis and Palestinians: the very real fear of their mutual annihilation. I’ve read many accounts by Jewish people who think the world barely shrugged after the horrific attack by Hamas.
But fear of annihilation is one thing. Being annihilated is another.
About 1200 mostly Israeli people died on October 7th at the hands of Hamas, and 251 hostages were taken. Fifty-seven have yet to be released.
Estimates are that over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, and 1/3 of those killed were children under the age of eighteen.
There are at least sixteen dead Palestinian children for every person killed October 7th.
Last week, a beautiful, young Jewish couple were murdered outside the Israeli embassy in an act of terror.
On one of my social media feeds, someone wrote that they wanted everyone to condemn this terrible act, without reservation.
I do.
But this request makes me ask other questions.
Why aren’t we condemning the slaughter of children without reservation? Why aren’t we condemning open sewage in Gaza’s streets, and Gazan hospitals forced to do surgery without anesthesia?
Why must every Israeli death be mourned while tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths ignored?
How can we continue to support Israel without reservation, when Israel is committing war crimes?
I’ve written before about being in a class I took at the local university after my brother was recalled to active duty in 1991. It was called Islamic Political Philosophy.
One day someone mentioned Arafat and terrorism by the PLO. And my professor said calmly,
“If you have a nation, it’s war. If you have no nation, it’s called terrorism.”
And suddenly, I saw Arafat in a different light. When your nation is taken away, and when forced to live more like an animal than human, what recourse do you have?
We talk a lot about there being no excuse for terrorism, no excuse for the murder of civilians. We are told war is different than terrorism.
What is the difference in Gaza? One side has a nation. The other does not.
Do I believe the Jewish people deserve a nation where they can be safe, secure, and prosperous, free from the threat of annihilation?
Yes I do. And Israel exists no matter what I think. Israelis are not giving up their nation to the Palestinians, no matter what anyone thinks.
Do I believe Palestinians deserve everything Israel has?
Yes I do.
I want a two-state solution. If I believe human lives have equal value, how can there be no home for Palestinians to call their own?
The Palestinian Authority controls 39% of the West Bank, and wants to work toward a two-state solution. Today, it was reported that 22 new Israeli settlements would be built in the Left Bank for the express purpose of preventing a two-state solution.
What is this if not ethnic cleansing? Where do Palestinians go if they’ve no home anywhere?
I don’t know what it’s like to be Jewish, and I know the world is rife with antisemitism.
I do know cruelty when I see it.
In 1948, in the direct aftermath of the Holocaust, the United Nations approved a resolution defining genocide.
Bold type is mine, in consideration of the Israeli campaign in Gaza:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Writing this essay is an impossible task.
I can’t fit my empathy for what Jews all over the world are experiencing in light of October 7th.
I can’t fit my outrage over how Israel has responded to the attack, and how it continues to persecute, torture, and kill Palestinian civilians.
I believe Palestinians deserve their own home. I believe the murder of 50,000 citizens, over 16,000 of whom are children, is an atrocity so grave history books will struggle for words to describe it.
I do not believe Palestinians should be starved to death or drink salty water.
I want Israel to stop building on Palestinian land.
By the definition of my own government, I may be antisemitic.
There is blood on so, so many hands. One thing is a horror (October, 7), which is then responded to with a level of atrocity beyond the brain’s ability to comprehend.
This is the most divisive of topics and one that is difficult to write or talk about with clarity. When I grew up America was awash with pro-Israeli news and frankly, propaganda. Israel was portrayed as the underdog surrounded by hostile enemies - the 'Arabs'. There were no Palestinians then. I never heard the word. The native population were made out to be cunning evil doers, intent on Israeli destruction. Then when I lived in Athens in the 70's I met Palestinians for the first time and heard something of their side of the story. I also met young Israelis who were fed up with the country that had been created and wanted nothing to do with it. I've read a fair bit of history from Israeli historians as well as Palestinians. Most of the land of the area of Palestine was literally stolen from the people who owned it. Then those owners were forced out of this new country and into refugee conditions in Gaza, the west bank (which was Jordanian) and to other nearby countries. What happened was not fair, if we can consider anything fair. It was not something that most of us who own property would consider alright, if some group of people stole our property. People often say Israel was created as a haven for the Jewish people. But we shouldn't forget that it was also created so that Jews would not settle in the US Britain and Europe. Just take a look at the anti semitism that existed in the US before WWII and even after boatloads of refugee Jews were tuned away. And it was a military outpost for America in one of the oil richest areas of the world. Now that outpost has become more like the main base. It is massively over armed and totally militarized.
As I'm sure you're aware, October 7 was not the beginning of this story. Time and time again Israel has attacked and killed thousands of civilians. The have assassinated community leaders, writers and anyone who dared to oppose their authority. They do not respect international law or UN resolutions, beginning with resolution 181 which grants right of return to Palestinians. Israel has many times rejected offers of a settlement. Palestinian leaders were willing to settle for 21% of historical Palestine, but instead they have proceeded to steal even that land and to harass the people who live there.