Condemn Antisemitism. Allow Rational Discourse

Antisemitism, racism, including violence against, intimidation of and stereotyping of Jewish people, should be condemned. Criticism of the inhumane actions of the state of Israel is necessary and is not necessarily antisemitism. Claims of antisemitism are often used to deflate criticisms of the state of Israel; and these labels water down real violence and intimidation toward Jewish people everywhere, the world’s smallest minority.

If you live in specific parts of the United States, like where I do, you may not be quite as aware of how few Jews are on Earth and you may incorrectly believe that they are stronger in numbers than they are.

According to the Pew Research center:

There are about 14 million Jews around the world, representing 0.2% of the global population. This estimate is based on the number of people who self-identify as Jewish when asked about their religion on national censuses and large-scale surveys. However, the worldwide figure could be larger if a broader definition (such as having a Jewish grandparent) or smaller if a tighter definition (such as an unbroken line of matrilineal Jewish descent) were imposed.

According to Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, Jews in the United States represent just 2.4 percent of the American public, and are targets of “something like sixty per cent of all religious-based hate crimes.” This is an appalling statistic.

Over the centuries, Jewish people have been unjustifiably blamed for a lot and kicked out of many nations. Presently they live primarily in the United States and Israel, but other places as well in lesser numbers. There used to be a lot of them and now there are not for various reasons including banishment from nations, massacre, genocide and otherwise replacement such as via forced or coerced conversion to Islam and Christianity over generations. Judaism was the only Abrahamic monotheistic religion until 2000 years ago with the rise of Christianity and 1400 years ago with the Rise of Islam.

Jewish people have been reduced in numbers over time. 80 or so years ago there was a large population in Poland and the East, where the rest of Europe had pushed them over the centuries. We all know a lot of what happened there leading to the formation of the state of Israel. The Nazis committed genocide and wiped out 6 million Jews. And earlier, during WWI, Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration calling for the establishment of a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, then occupied mainly by Muslims. To gain Arab support in the Middle East, Great Britain also promised Arab independence at the end of WWI. The contradictory nature of the promises set up some of the conditions for conflict, the same land promised to both. Unfortunately, you cannot have a new state established where people are already living, expecting a state of their own. We must live in a now and future mindset, not a past injustice mindset. Acknowledge all of the pain that has happened and move forward in peace.

I criticize the actions of the state of Israel in a similar vein as to how I criticize the actions of the United States and I think that what has happened is a result of unfortunate collective trauma. Many Jews including Israelis are appalled by the Palestinian condition, the settlements, the blockade and siege of Gaza, the Netanyahu government propping up Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority etc.

Having some empathy for Jewish pain, fear and collective trauma is equally important to acknowledgement of that of the Palestinians for us to solve this conflict.

At my first Palestinian protest from the Israeli embassy to the White House 2.5 years ago, during Israel’s last, much smaller, massacre in Gaza, the vast majority of the participants were Palestinians, mainly families with children. Most of the other Caucasians present were in fact Jewish. When I attended this protest I heard a few slogans for the first time:

1. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free”. From the river to the sea sounds good and rolls off the tongue nicely, and regardless of intentions (some good some bad), it is received by many as a call to kick the Jews out.
2. “Long Live the Intifada” is an approval of armed resistance. And while sometimes that becomes necessary, the slogan is understood as consent building for events like 10/7.
3. “Israel is a terrorist state” This one is my favorite because it is true, depending upon which perspective you are viewing it from; just as the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others are terrorist states, depending on who you ask.

While 1 and 2 above might not be meant by the vast majority as a call to wipe out the state of Israel and perhaps more, that is how they are received. Reception is important when you are asking for political support.

What does a River To Sea Free Palestine look like? For this generation of children, Palestinian, Israeli etc we need peace. These populations basically live in peace here, probably not in the same communities, which is possibly not ideal, although it should be possible in the America we were told we lived in. That said, I wholeheartedly disagree with the congressional censure of Palestinian-American Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib for use of the slogan in her X (formerly Twitter) post, but making people who you want to see your side feel unsafe is not the best political strategy even if you mean it as a call for freedom and peace and a right to exist.

The thing about slogans and ideals is that they’re always more radical than what people will inevitably accept. Like me saying there can be peace in this generation probably sounds insane to some people but I think it is important to be overly idealistic in a desire for peace because if it is not achieved, there is a good possibility that we all will die.

It is really unfortunate that due to the reception of the chants people cannot go show their support for the massacre to end. It should be okay for a million people to surround the White House, demanding the killing stop, or at least the US’ part in it (which is not insubstantial). There should be some sort of assumption that every individual there has unique thoughts in their head and a unique way of seeing the world and not everybody out there wants to destroy the state of Israel, even if there are probably some who do, and they might be the ones starting the chants. It does not have to be 100% a hate march as a UK official, who actually planned opening of migrant concentration facilities in Rwanda, called it. But it’s possible to do that type of labeling, to call it a hate march, because of slogans like these, unfortunately.

With the world’s growing disapproval of Israel’s Palestinian program, there is a rise in antisemitism both real and perceived. If only 1% of the newly enraged population specifically engaged in antisemitism that would be very bad for the world’s Jews and for freedom and peace-enjoying society everywhere.

We, the American People, which includes Jewish Americans and Islamic Americans, have not been made safer these last 20 plus years of wars on terrorism. We have been made much less safe and an escalation anywhere is potential for escalation anywhere.

I have been critical of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians and for being the US Empire’s most important outpost in the Middle East allowing them to do whatever they want. As the world, particularly the West becomes more hip to these injustices that we are funding and arming on one hand and saying to stop on the other, we should condemn true antisemitism and all forms of racial and ethnic violence and intimidation. It is unwise to label criticism of a murderous government as any form of racism because that waters down real instances that should be condemned. The fact remains that this is the world’s smallest minority that should be protected and I’ll simultaneously advocate for the Jewish people and the Palestinian people as contradictory as it may seem.

The winning side is the side of peace and life.