Antisemitism Revisited

This post is written just a few hours before the opening of the lawsuit of South Africa against Israel in the International Court of Justice (Hague), for the allegation of genocide of Gazans in the present war. During the war and especially in the last few days, the claim of antisemitism is very frequently raised by most Jews all over the globe, especially in Israel. Long post.

Antisemitism is misused and overused.

Lingually, antisemitism is the animosity towards Semite peoples that Jews are among them. But Arabs are Semite people, and believe or not, I do not feel threatened when a Jewish cemetery is desecrated. I feel disgusted, I feel sympathy with Jews but not threatened. So, the right term that should be used is Anti-Judaism or Anti-Jewish, not antisemitism. This is the misuse.

Practically, the term of antisemitism is extremely overused especially by Israeli Jews. Here are some domestic examples. Haredi MK Moshe Gafni says that MK Yulia Malinovsky, both Jewish, is antisemite. Former Justice minister Ayelet Shaked named MK Ofer Cassif, both Jewish, as auto-antisemite, meaning practicing intra-Jewish-nation antisemitism.

But before moving to the international arena, here is a personal confession: my admiration in these days goes for three young female athletes and two young female singers. American college basketball player Caitlin Clark, Chinese volleyball player Yingying Li and Tunisian tennis player Ons Jabeur. I really hope that one of my future posts will be about these phenomena. As for the singers, they are Dua Lipa (here with another four amazing artists) and Taylor Swift, the one and only.

Dua Lipa was accused to be anti-Israeli for her support of the Palestinian cause. One of the recent claims against her was that she reposted a post by one of her friends which claimed that an Israeli soldier wore a shirt with the writing: “1 Shot two kills”. This was considered by the World Israel News website to be clearly anti-Israeli and antisemite. But this is very true: this shirt is used by Israeli snipers, unless CBS News are also antisemites and faking shirts. Dua Lipa, like many other celebs signed a letter calling for de-escalation and ceasefire. What exactly antisemite in this? Dua Lipa is highly sensitive to human suffering wherever it occurs. Watch her visit the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and dedicating her visit to child refugees. Watch her refusing to perform in the opening ceremony of the last World Cup held in Qatar, because in her (and my) opinion, Qatar severely violated human rights while building this contest facilities. Dua Lipa (and me) is simply agonized by the killing of Gazan children by the Israeli Army.

Megyn Kelly of “Page Six” called for boycotting Taylor Swift after attending fundraising event for Palestinians in Gaza. Kelly claimed that the group that benefited from the fundraising is antisemite and advised Taylor Swift to “do some googling”. I found her screams sadly funny since David Schuster, a Jew, did that googling mainly for Megyn Kelly, not for Taylor Swift. He calls Kelly “an idiot” and proves two things. One, the organization that benefited from Swift’s donation is by no means a terror supporter or linked to the terror organization of Hamas. It is a pure human aid organization. Second, that Megyn Kelly’s history raises some psychological questions.

I have never heard of Megyn Kelly before this, so, to complete my view of her, I did “some googling”, and the results are astonishing. First, her Wikipedia page proves what David Schuster said about her. Second, she screams to mainly but not only to Arab protesters against American policy in the Middle East “Go home … We don’t need you here”. Is it forbidden to criticize one’s country policies? I was in the USA in June 2018, during the Trump presidency, when immigrant children were separated from their parents. Please watch the whole video and pay attention to the photo on 4:28. This is Nazi. Many Americans have protested against this inhumane separation, including many celebrities. Are they to be expelled out of the USA after “Get Out!” screams of Megyn Kelly? It is most likely that she will not read this post, but in case she does, it is worth it for her to pay attention that 10% of Jews in Israel consider Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein a national hero. This Jewish ISIS terrorist murdered 29 Palestinians while they were praying. And if 10% consider him a national hero, it reasonable to assume that much more approve what he did. Does that mean that all Israeli Jews support terrorism? No.

It must be clearly stated: Hamas is a brutal terror organization but the killing of Gazan children is a crime against humanity that must be stopped now. This mass punishment goes far beyond human considerations.

A great deal of “antisemitism” is imaginary, or in the words of Shulamit Aloni: “the hatred of the world towards us is just our psychological complex”. Then she goes on: “If a Jew criticizes us, we confront him with claims of Jewish self-hatred, and if he is a Goy (non-Jewish) – he is antisemite”. And in a more recent statement, Jewish Benny Sanders says: “It is not antisemitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist”.

When Ons Jabeur cries for Gazan children, this is NOT antisemitism, it is the purest, noblest human emotional sympathy.