For Jews around the world the events in Israel and Gaza are particularly disturbing.
It is as if something deeply unpleasant has been unleashed, something, I would argue, that most Jews, even those most supportive of Israel, should be concerned about: soldiers relating stories and videos of casual violence; government ministers driving a policy that they call "from the river to the sea": the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank; a stated policy of collective punishment of Palestinians; settlers attacking and destroying food trucks headed for Gaza; the pictures we see of a Gazan population traumatised and the infrastructure destroyed; and, highlighted in both Ha’aretz in Israel and the Jewish Telegraph in Britain, Zionist youth rampaging through Jerusalem on "Jerusalem Day" in early June chanting racist slogans and attacking journalists and Arabs. All of this justified as revenge for the horrific Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
But the horror has its corresponding hope: large demonstrations in Israel every week by hostages' families, anti-Netanyahu protesters, Peace Now activists and Israelis against Apartheid; the largest-ever protests by Jews around the world against the actions of Israel - including a large, wide and varied collective in Scotland, many of whom are members of synagogues; the Israeli Jewish/Palestinian group Standing Together defending the aid convoys from the settlers; unprecedented large demonstrations, including peace camps, across the world demanding an end to the war; unease amongst Israel’s supporters of its development into a pariah state, with many people holding that Israel’s policy is genocidal or at least has genocidal implications.
Israel and its western supporters around the world argue that critics are guilty of anti-Semitism. March against Israeli violence in Gaza, chant Free Palestine or Ceasefire Now or Democratic Palestine or develop an argument that the root cause of the conflict did not start on October 7 and you are being anti-Semitic. Indeed, and this is tragic and dangerous, the definition of anti-Semitism has shifted from hatred towards Jews to condemnation of Israel. And this has profound consequences.
"Previous" anti-Semites, such as Victor Orban, who peddles the dangerous and anti-Semitic "replacement theory", beloved of the far and neo-fascist right, are suddenly friends of the Jews as they support Israel. Anyone criticising Israel though, including tens of thousands of Jews, is now labelled anti-Semitic. The anti-Semitic list goes on: the ICC, the UN, the UN General Secretary, UNRWA, the student peace camps, Western universities, Human Rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem in Israel. All antisemitic.
If the pictures and dialogue seem too depressing, we need to remember that at one stage it would have seemed impossible to dismantle apartheid in South Africa. The debate will need to be had about whether a two-state solution is feasible, given the 700,000 hostile settlers in the West Bank, or whether a democratic state of all the peoples (Jews, Palestinians, Christians, no religion) is a better option. The sooner the war ends, the hostages released, and this starts, the better. I fear, as Ha’aretz has reported, the Netanyahu government and its supporters are a block to this.
Henry Maitles is Emeritus Professor of Education, University of the West of Scotland
Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@theherald.co.uk
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