America’s joining with Israel to wage war on Iran is raising an old, contentious question: Can you hate the Jewish state without hating Jews?
The answer should be yes. Israel is far from perfect, and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is widely reviled by his own countrymen. Israel and its leadership should be fair game for criticism of tactics and leadership.
But opponents of the war, and of Israel, are finding it tough to avoid crossing the line into antisemitism as they look for someone to blame for the fall-out of the conflict. Gas prices are soaring. Stock markets are falling. American soldiers are dying. It’s all Israel’s fault. And by that, they mean the Jews.
Hatred of Jews is history’s great unifier. Both the right and left are seizing this opportunity to mouth ancient tropes and push familiar libels disparaging not just the nation of Israel, but the Jewish people, no matter where they live.
Voices as varied as conservative commentator Megyn Kelly to Michigan’s own Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and her congressional Squad are pushing the canard that Israel forced America into this war, and Netanyahu is manipulating President Donald Trump’s puppet strings.
It feeds into a central dogma of antisemitism, the belief that a wealthy Jewish cabal controls the world’s finances and politics and that even a president as stubborn as Trump is helplessly under its spell.
Variations of that talking point are now embedded in mainstream discussions of the war, and it’s putting Jews in peril.
It’s true that most Israelis are Jews, but not all Jews are Israelis. Jews in America do not dictate the actions of Israel.
Jews in America also didn’t hold their Muslim neighbors accountable after Hamas carried out its atrocities against Israeli citizens on Oct. 7, 2023. Jews in this country didn’t respond to the massacre by attacking mosques.
The reaction was far different when Israel moved into Gaza to root out the Hamas terrorists responsible for the murders.
In the days following Oct. 7, Pro-Hamas groups on American campuses made life hell for Jewish students, who were forcibly banned from college buildings and had to hide symbols of their faith to avoid harassment. Temples were vandalized, and Jews were murdered as they worshipped.
After it was learned that the Dearborn Heights man responsible for the attempted terror attack on Temple Israel earlier this month had lost family members (some of whom were Hezbollah terrorists) in an Israeli air raid on Lebanon, there were those in this community who found an eye-for-an-eye explanation for his actions.
But how does attempting to murder American children in West Bloomfield avenge the deaths of children killed by Israeli bombs in Lebanon? It only makes sense to those steeped in a hatred of Jews.
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, whose officers responded to the Temple attack, is now the target of an Internet meme featuring a Star of David on his forehead. How could that be anything other than the work of a Jew hater.
The Anti-Defamation League reports aggression against Jews in the United States has spiked massively since the Gaza invasion, matching global trends, and now stands at a 46-year high.
Blaming Jews everywhere for grievances committed by Jews anywhere is classic antisemitism.
The left often masks its antisemitism as anti-Zionism, seeing the Jewish claim to the right to a homeland in the Middle East as the root cause of the suffering of the Palestinians.
But when anti-Zionism is accompanied by calls for the elimination of the Jewish state ― “From the river to the sea” ― the distinction with antisemitism disappears.
Jewish hatred is on the rise for the same reason it has risen throughout history. When things go wrong in the world, Jews are the most convenient scapegoat.
Nolan Finley’s columns appear in The Detroit News. Sign up for the Nolan Out Loud report.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Finley: Can you hate Israel without hating Jews?
Reporting by Nolan Finley, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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