Antisemitism is rising and could tip the scales among Israel’s old friends and allies. The answer could be to look beyond Gaza and think of a future for ordinary Palestinians.
Israeli popularity in Europe and the West is rapidly slipping. Old friends, including Australia, Britain, Canada, and France, will recognize a Palestinian state. The United States, bedrock and ultimate guarantor of Israeli security, shows startling polling.
According to The Economist, “The share of Americans who back Israel over the Palestinians is at a 25-year low. In 2022, 42% of American adults held an unfavorable view of Israel; now 53% do. A recent YouGov/Economist poll finds that 43% of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In the past three years, unfavorable views of Israel among Democrats over 50 rose by 23 percentage points. Among Republicans under 50, support is evenly divided, compared with 63% for Israel in 2022. Between 2018 and 2021 the share of evangelicals under the age of 30 who backed Israelis over Palestinians plunged from 69% to 34%. Pollsters think that shift has endured.”
Pro-Palestinian forces argue that Israel wants the “genocide” of Palestinians, and they can bring this message home by showing the harrowing pictures of the Gaza ruins, and for lack of a clear Israeli answer to the key point: What is the future for Palestinians?
Pope Leo has repeatedly urged Israel to care for the Palestinians, but Israel has not given any guarantees. It was an opening gesture to Israel. Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin negotiated and signed the historic establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel.
Communication also involves the lack of clear positions. If Israel doesn’t take responsibility for the Palestinians, Hamas will appear to be their only true representative. Therefore, Hamas can present itself not just as a group of extremely bloodthirsty terrorists but as the genuine representatives of about two million Palestinians who are at risk of being wiped off the map, which elicits humanitarian sympathy and potential solidarity from over one billion Muslims worldwide.
This becomes something convenient. In America and Europe, Muslim voters outnumber Jewish voters. Here, antisemitism—which was a taboo just a year ago—has resurfaced, and it’s increasingly accepted in mainstream media.
Michel Korinman, in Deutschland über alles. Le pangermanisme 1890-1945 (1999) makes a compelling case. Pan-Germanist expansionism initially relied on German-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. But Slavs were more numerous, and they were intensely antisemitic. Eventually, those Pan-Germanists decided they had to choose between the Slavs and the Jews, leading to the extermination of German-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe.
It could soon be the same in the Western world, thanks to immigration and the increasing power and sophistication of Arab states. They know they don’t have to fund terrorists for their security, but the US does. This means their voice is growing louder in Washington and reaching out to new, diverse sectors. They all might have a vested interest in becoming more influential than Israel.
An ideal shield against resurgent antisemitism could be the Vatican. But in Israel, there’s an old suspicion (Catholics were initially involved with the God-killing accusation); there’s dismissive misunderstanding (how many divisions does the Vatican have?); and there’s also a legitimate feeling of being patronized – we are fighting and dying, while you enjoy the view.
But this may only be part of the issue. The increasing pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli sentiments are sweeping through the West, undermining the tolerant and liberal fabric of society, which is gradually eroding pro-Israeli support in a vicious cycle. Nonetheless, to counter this, coordination abroad is essential. Israel might also need to pay more attention to the broader anti-Semitic landscape.
Israel has two souls: one rooted in the land, and another in an international diaspora of Jews and non-Jews who support Israel. These two nourish each other and are mutually essential. The land cannot afford to dismiss that diaspora.
The ongoing effort against Israel aims to undermine any military victory achieved in Gaza and transform it into a significant political loss.
The Soviets did it with the Vietnam War, and the anti-Israelis are doing it with Gaza. Hamas can then become a symbol even without Hamas. It could be a significant bonus for Russia, supporting the Hamas cause.
This can only happen if Israel does not provide a clear path forward for Palestinians. It should state something like: we want free, democratic Palestinians in Gaza just as we have in Israel. Additionally, it must condemn the ultra-Orthodox for attacking Palestinians and any other non-Jewish people.
This goes to the core of Israeli politics, voting, and the formation of government. But it also addresses bigger questions: the role of Jews and pro-Jews in the West, and the future of Israel in the region.
This is a somewhat simplistic article making little of the vast difference between condemning the Israeli regime and antisemitism.
I’m an atheist so it wasn’t my God who was murdered by the Jews and neither was it the God of the Muslims. After the Bar Kochba War the Jews were excluded from Jerusalem, not from Palestine. And while many Palestinian Jews converted to Christianity and later to Islam, for political, economic or even religious reasons, more did not. It were the Crusaders who murdered all Jews in Palestine who didn’t flee in time.
Antisemitism as a religious attitude is an early part of Christianity. I suppose the weakening Roman Empire, remembering three terrible Jewish insurrections, chose Christianity to gather most of the vast number of Greek speaking Jews because it had bishops who could be manipulated. To that end it would have stressed its own antisemitism and supported that of the church.
N.B. In the second of those insurrections, 115 to 118 CE, the Jews on Cyprus tried to murder all non-Jews just as now the Israeli regime is trying to drive out or murder all Palestinians in Gaza, and next from the West Bank, whether Muslim, Christian or anything else. At that time there were two Legions in the later Palestine so an insurrection was not possible in that area.
Remember from October 7 the tale of the forty beheaded babies? Ever seen a mention of one of the distraught grandmothers?
If we reject Israeli propaganda we find that nearly all Israeli civilians murdered on that day were killed by tank shells or helicopter fired missiles, weapons which didn’t feature in the Hamas armaments.
I do not think the Two State model is a possible solution, not while the Israeli Apartheid regime is one of the states. So we should aim for a single Semitic state in which all citizens – Ivrit or Arabic speaking – will be treated equally. That state can still have in its constitution a rule that it will accept any Jew which is a victim of antisemitism in any Christian country.
N.B. Remember that tens of thousands of Jews live peacefully in Iran despite Israeli enmity for that country.
Rolling back a rising tide of antisemitism - Day News