No, Israel Doesn't "Cause" Antisemitism

The same argument keeps coming up every time diaspora Jews are attacked. It usually sounds something like this: no one supports antisemitism, no one wants Jews to be harmed, but given what Israel is doing, a rise in anger and even violence is an inevitable reaction. So let me ask a few questions.

Isn’t that just a justification with a polite disclaimer attached? When you tell the world that violence against Jews is an inevitable consequence of Israeli behavior, are you reporting on reality or are you constructing it? Because when you hand someone a grievance and tell them their anger is understandable, what exactly do you think is going to happen?

And if this is really about Israeli policy producing an inevitable outcome, why aren’t Russians being stabbed on the streets of London? Russia has committed a staggering amount of documented war crimes and is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths at a minimum. Where’s the inevitable backlash against Russians?

The Chinese Communist Party runs an authoritarian repressive system with documented abuses on a massive scale. Where’s the inevitable violence against Chinese people in London? The inevitability only ever seems to apply to Jews. So is it really about the behavior of governments, or is something else going on?

And if the violence is a rational response to Israeli policy, shouldn’t it at least be directed at people who actually support that policy? Do you think the attackers stop and ask their victims where they stand on Israeli settlement policy before they act? Do they check whether the person wearing a kippah supports Netanyahu or opposes him? Because who tends to get targeted in these attacks? Visibly Orthodox Jews. And which Jewish group tends to be among the most critical and ideologically opposed to the Israeli government? Ultra-Orthodox Jews. There are some Hasidic sects who oppose the political state of Israel entirely on religious grounds. Did the attacker in Golders Green know that? Did he care? So what exactly does Israeli government policy have to do with any of this? If this were really an inevitable political response to Israeli actions, wouldn’t the attackers at least be going after the “right Jews”?

When people say Israel is responsible for antisemitism, which Israel do they mean? The State of Israel, meaning the Jewish people governing themselves in their ancestral homeland? Or are they talking about Netanyahu specifically? Because Netanyahu can barely hold a coalition together in his own Knesset. Do you really think he speaks for world Jewry?

When people get accused of fostering hatred toward Jews, they immediately point to Jews like Zack Polanski and say Jews aren’t a monolith, they don’t all support Israel, stop painting us as antisemitic. So then why, when they want to explain away attacks on Jews, do they turn around and treat every Jew as a unified pro-Israel bloc? Which is it? Either Jewish opinion on Israel is diverse and cannot be used to justify targeting Jews, or it isn’t. You don’t get to use that argument in both directions depending on what’s convenient.

And before we even get to policy, is there any other country on earth where the debate isn’t about government policy but about whether the country has a right to exist at all? Any other country where that question is treated as a serious and legitimate one? Because that conversation only ever comes up about Israel. So when people say they’re just criticizing Israeli policy, are they being honest with themselves?

Consider Donald Trump. Arguably the most hated political figure in Europe, certainly in London. Does anyone accuse Londoners of being anti-American for despising him? Does anyone accuse Americans of being unpatriotic for disagreeing with his policies, just as nobody did with Joe Biden? Why does opposition to a government become a justification for Jews, anywhere, to bear the consequences? Why does that logic exist nowhere else on earth? Why only Israel? Why only us?

Even if you accept, for the sake of argument, the premise being pushed, that Jews broadly support the worst accusations leveled at the Israeli government, since when does holding a political opinion about a conflict thousands of miles away justify being stabbed in the street? Reprehensible views exist among British citizens, as they do in any society. They do not get hunted down for it. Jews in England are openly anxious about their safety right now, and yet nobody expects them to retaliate by attacking random people who disagree with them. No one who spends their time demonizing Jews is looking over their shoulder, worried that the Jewish community will respond in kind.

What’s really happening is a reversal of cause and effect. Does Israel cause antisemitism? Or does antisemitism, ancient and adaptable, always finding a new justification, cause these attacks? And when every Jew stabbed in the diaspora is another rung on the ladder of Aliyah, when Jews watch the government response and the public response and find it abysmal, can you really blame them for drawing the obvious conclusion? That there is one country on earth where the government is constitutionally committed to protect them? Is it really a mystery why that country keeps looking more appealing?

So what does England want to do? Does it want to keep blaming Israel, muddying the waters, treating Jewish safety as a geopolitical debate, while things get worse and worse until it isn’t only Jews bearing the consequences? Or does it want to say clearly that it will not allow its citizens to be stabbed in the streets?

If England can’t say that and mean it, then it should at least be honest with its Jewish community. Why keep them waiting in limbo for a protection that isn’t coming? Why not just tell them the truth?

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