The Dangerous Precedent of ‘Ally’ Criticism as Antisemitism
The Dangerous Precedent of ‘Ally’ Criticism as Antisemitism
Since when is criticism of foreign policy and how we spend our tax dollars not part of our American freedom of speech? And what on earth does any of that have to do with Jewish safety?
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Over the past few weeks, universities across America set up encampments in protest of the US’ continuous military aid to Israel, which is funding the murder of 35,000+ Palestinians and displacement of 2 million. Some of the largest university protests included Columbia and its neighbor, my Alma Mater, CUNY City College, both of which had their liberal administrations call the police on their primarily BIPOC students knowing full well the history of the NYPD. And the NYPD sure showed up— arresting and beating hundreds, giving many of our future leaders criminal records. All this while police and security forces across the country, including at Columbia, allowed counter protesters to inflict damage on people and property with much more restraint. But always great to see that CUNY and Columbia still embrace diversity as their strength and are in solidarity with their immigrant students.
The response from officials from President Biden to the ADL to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been clear: these protests represent antisemitism. Without any context or caveat, labeled as a whole, with a unilateral brush. Yet, the expressed purpose of these protests are not what the term antisemitism intends to signify.
We can debate the origins and proper usage of who is a Semite, but antisemitism, as primarily used today, means bigotry of Jewish people, as an ethnicity and as the adherents to Judaism, ranging from the xenophobic conspiracy theories to outright violence, destruction, and calls for annihilation and genocide.
And now the House has passed a bill that incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which includes broad criticism of Israel’s actions and founding. Jewish members of congress disagree with this measure—as do actual Holocaust survivors.
But the entire purpose of the protests and encampments is to display opposition to the occupation, the actions of the IDF and Israeli government, and the US’ unconditional funding for Israel’s current genocidal campaign against Gaza and the Palestinian people. None of these demonstrations are a referendum on the Jewish people. To fold this pointed criticism under the umbrella of antisemitism, and even codify such a characterization into law, is false and flat out reckless during a dangerous time for Jewish people.
First, it does the worst thing possible to the cause of combating antisemitism—it saturates the term, making accusations of antisemitism less credible. And this is the last thing Jewish people actually need during a time where actual antisemitism was on the rise long before October 7th, 2023. When claims of antisemitism are brought up, these accusations will constantly have the backdrop of this reckless usage, leaving Jewish people not to be believed as often. This is horrible. And, sure, in a perfect world, this would not happen; people would evaluate things on a case by case basis. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and human nature dominates. Human nature is that once a term is saturated it loses its legitimacy.
But there is another dangerous phenomenon here: the First Amendment, the freedom of speech we hold dear, is completely made irrelevant by how we treat Israel. Freedom of speech means freedom of inconvenient speech, critical speech. The ability to voice our concerns towards our own government without being seen as an enemy of the state. Ironically, the Canary Mission (linked) may constitute that definition in its own right, giving intel to Israel, a foreign government, on US citizens. Once we set that precedent, we have opened the gates to a myriad of censorship and civil rights violations. We have opened the door to a new McCarthyism.
Operating on this definition, sets a line in the sand that students protesting the Israeli government’s and IDF’s actions, and US funding their operations, are more threatening than actual violence perpetrated by racist, antisemitic, far-right wing protesters and IDF supporters and counter-protestors.
Criticism of America is inherent to the American experience—from Hamilton to Baldwin. And of course this freedom is extended to criticism of other governments as well, even in the mainstream: see Germany, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. So if we can criticize our own country and not be labeled by general consensus as anti-Christian—separation of church and state being more an ideal; make no mistake we live in a Christian-dominant nation—why is Israel different? There has never been a nation, including our own, whose military and government actions were beyond reproach. We are being censored domestically by a foreign government. Our interests at home—all the food, housing, infrastructure funds we instead send to Israel—are secondary to a foreign government.
Zionism is a word that’s thrown around a lot these days. Biblically, it means one’s right to self-determination. However, since the creation of Israel, causing the Nakba, the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians, it has almost exclusively meant that right only for Jewish people at the expense of those native Palestinians—not the right as a general principle. The AIPAC, and Pro-Zionism lobby is so entrenched in our politics, that the majority of our elected officials—of all parties—have taken AIPAC and Pro-Modern Zionism (frequently called ‘Pro-Israel’) money. Public opinion does not support Israel’s assault on Gaza and the US’ financial and military support. If it is anywhere from anti-patriot to anti-Semitic to criticize our Israel policy in line with a majority opinion, then Israel-US allyship supersedes the US’ allyship to the majority wishes of its own people.
Another, far-reaching impact is we are setting the precedent that our information is always subject to the needs of a foreign nation. Our intelligence, from a military and journalistic standpoint, under the US unconditional support of Israel and this new standard of antisemitism, cannot contradict that of Israel. Or else, we are allowing for mainstream criticism of Israel for using propaganda. This was evident in the instances where Biden and Blinken has blindly trusted Israel’s intel to an extent even our own military disagrees with. Our intel, at least what we release to the public, becomes secondary to Israel when it threatens the “sovereign state self defense” aspect of their country, or any other component of this broad interpretation of antisemitism—if we are to accept the IHRA’s definition.
If criticism of Israel’s military, government actions, and information is antisemitism, it means criticism of lack of history, lack of movement knowledge is antisemitism. The Nakba. That “river to the sea” started IN ISRAEL’S LIKUD PARTY. Baruch Goldstein. Breaking the Silence. The efforts of Israelis and Palestinians who actually work together. The silencing of videos displaying the atrocities of the IDF. These omissions, along with echoing Israel’s script, leaves us with only approved pieces of Israel’s ‘canon.’ And once you put those pieces together, you see the antithesis of the idea by which this country was supposedly founded. You are essentially left with a theocracy.
No, not a Jewish Nation. We would continue our existence as a Christian-dominant nation—but one under Israelism. Like the title of the prescient, impactful documentary by IfNotNow cofounder Simone Zimmerman, the nation of Israel essentially takes on a religion of itself. With text and script passed down from generation to generation—and one more generation. For, unlike the millennia old religion of Judaism, Israel has existed for 75 years. And Palestinians have passed down the keys to the homes taken from them for that same amount of time. Yet, a “bible” of Israel, is nonetheless created, and we are beholden to its verses. A religion of the nation of Israel under a regime of Christian, Jewish, and somehow, secular, supporters of Zionism.
What was the point of our education? If we suspend all research, history, and logic for one, unilateral sufficient condition: Israel’s existence and its right to defend itself. It’s as if we enter a different planet with a different set of rules. We were taught that the laws of gravity change on Mars, not that the empirical laws for thinking, research, and analysis suspend on Israel. Yes, of course, Israelis deserve the right to exist and live safely. All humans do, and no one is just born guilty based on where they were born. And there is no unilateral right to how Israel came to be, how it operates, and how it defends itself—when all of those components violate basic human rights.
Once criticism of Israel’s actions and founding, including the actions of the US and UK, are seen as antisemitism—it actually creates a dynamic for those who identify as Jewish to have to identify with Israel as well—as it is now, lest they want to be self-hating, antisemitic against oneself. Which is not even a standard we as Americans are held to.
We in the US are not beholden to supporting the government and military’s stances and practices or else risking being labeled anti-Christian by mainstream politics and media. What kind of freedom forces someone to align themselves with something they are opposed to? Regardless of opinion, this stifles the notion of debate—where an opinion on policy, which, beyond our right to free speech, Americans certainly are entitled to, given the BILLIONS in tax dollars we give to Israel every year, is lumped in the same term that supports all greatest-hit conspiracies and tropes such as Jews have horns, run all the banks, and possess a space laser they chose NOT to use on the greatest space laser candidate.
Such a definition can reframe, in American schools, world history itself. And that is BATSHIT INSANE. I refuse to have gone to school for three decades, developed my critical thinking abilities, given up on my dreams to get drafted by the Yankees, all for it to get shat on by basic ass lobbyists and MFs who criminalize daily planners.
Without freedom to criticize HOW Israel chooses to defend itself, we are literally criminalizing opposition to conflict, war, and a current genocidal campaign—as long the US believes the ally doing it is above consistent standards. This would be like protests—not even the manner of the protests—but the protests themselves of the Vietnam and Iraq wars being anti-Christian activity because it’s fundamentally against a Christian majority country’s democratic right to use its military as defense.
This would be like if I said America’s founding was unjust because of the displacement and genocide of Native Americans, as many have; if I said US drone policy has killed far too many civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan for us to believe that the US values their children’s life as much as our own, as many have; if I said that Henry Kissinger committed war crimes in Cambodia, as many have—if I said any of that, I would be anti-American and anti-Christian.
And then, let’s use that logic, and categorize calling out the IDF’s murder of American citizens, many times over, let alone Palestinians civilians, as a war crime against our own nation antisemitic, too.
The rhetoric of Netanyahu, Biden, this prospective law, and all those who defend this logic, set a precedent that analysis, research, and debate, in themselves, are associated with the specific prejudice of an ethnicity and religion. A relationship unheard of in just about any other application of scrutiny, logical reasoning, and higher education.
Without adequate space and forums to criticize Israel’s policies, the whims of an extremist foreign government influence American foreign policy more than its own citizens. Desensitization to Israel’s actions and the humans who suffer, their grief and death before our eyes, becomes the norm under sufficient “semitism.” Ultimately, suggesting tolerance of these actions is what it means to be American. What it means to be Jewish.
So, worst of all to its purpose, Jewish people and their allies are robbed of the freedom of their empathy—replaced with the constriction of our worst hate.
And that’s your American Exceptionalism.