Diversity in the Pro-Israel camp?

Is there still diversity in the pro-Israel camp like in the UK, the US or Germany? Recent developments, hunger in Gaza, the ongoing suicidal war of Israel in Gaza and aggressive right-wing activists in the Diaspora are a real problem in the pro-Israel camp. Let’s face it.

The unprecedented crimes by Hamas and the Palestinians on Oct. 7 made many anti-Zionist activist happy. In Berlin dozens of hardcore antisemitic activists (in the neighborhood of Neukoelln) celebrated the killing of Jews by Palestinians, including gang rape of Jewish women, the burning alive of babies and entire families and the abduction of 250 Israelis and other nationals into Gaza. A typical anti-Zionist activist, human ecologist Andreas Malm from the University of Lund in Sweden, said at a lecture at the American University of Beirut on April 4, 2024 about his reaction on Oct. 7, 2023:

The first thing we said in these early hours consisted not so much of words as of cries of jubilation. Those of us who have lived our lives with and through the question of Palestine could not react in any other way to the scenes of the resistance storming the Erez checkpoint: this maze of concrete towers and pens and surveillance systems, this consummate installation of guns and scans and cameras – certainly the most monstrous monument to the domination of another people I have ever been inside – all of a sudden in the hands of Palestinian fighters who had overpowered the occupation soldiers and torn down their flag. How could we not scream with astonishment and joy?

In Germany, Malm is still published with his books about climate change, society and anti-capitalist politics, which was published in 2021, but is still available in German, regardless of Malm’s antisemitic outburst after Oct. 7.

French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz attacked the anti-Zionist antisemitism by Malm in two lectures she gave in Heidelberg in Fall 2024. In 2022, Austrian daily Der Standard had already criticized Malm’s antisemitic and Holocaust distorting tropes:

His book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire,” published in 2020 by Matthes und Seitz, couldn’t be more timely, but Malm’s theses are controversial. In the book, Malm compares the struggle of radical environmental activism to the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Comparing environmental activism to the fight of Jews and Poles against the Holocaust and German genocidal war machine is antisemitic in effect, if not intent. It trivializes the genocidal nature of the Second World War, the Holocaust and insinuates that today’s eco-activism resembles the fight for survival of the Jews during the Shoah. Activists like Malm himself portray themselves as quasi Jews – fighting an overpowering army, equating capitalist policies to Nazi policies of destruction. That is antisemitic and distorts the Shoah by universalizing it. We know this from Nazi philosophers such as Martin Heidegger who said and wrote in 1949 in one of his infamous Bremen lectures:

Agriculture is nowadays a motorized nutritional industry, by nature the same as the production of corpses in gas chambers and extermination camps, the same as the blockade and the starving out of countries, the same as the production of the H-bomb

These forms of Holocaust distortion are not well analyzed even among pro-Israel activists.

Malm’s anti-Zionism, though, may not deflect our understanding of the current situation, in August 2025, when the war against Hamas has become nothing but a useless fight against an enemy we cannot entirely knock-out. However, criticism of the shocking policies of the Netanyahu government, is often not well received in the Diaspora, take the UK or Germany as examples.

Last Sunday there was a march for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, in London. Rabbis Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy spoke at the event – but they were removed from the podium after they said that in general a Palestinian state is not the problem, which is clearly a Zionist position.

But the organizers of the event from the British Jewish Community obviously did not allow voices to be heard who express both their solidarity with Israeli soldiers and of course the hostages, but also emphasized that a Palestinian state will be part of the fight for peace in the Middle East.

What happened after the two rabbis had to leave the event? They were attacked by a female antisemitic agitator with a kefiah, who recognized and defamed them as JEWS. This antisemitic and not at all pro-Palestinian activist, did not even talk to them (besides screaming “I see you!”) or asked them if these Jews agree that Hamas is a genocidal terror organization but still, not all Palestinians share Hamas’ view? Of course activists with a kefiah almost always are unable to reflect their own nasty and antisemitic ideology.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews “deplore the way a section of the crowd treated the Co-Chief Executive Rabbis of Progressive Judaism today” – but still, the masses at the rally seemed to be fine with the decision to remove the liberal rabbis as they booed them in the first place.

However, there was still the conflict with the right-wing organizers of that London march for the hostages. In an article from August 10, 2025, later in the evening after the events of the afternoon, the two rabbis  wrote:

It was antisemitism and ignorance bound together, targeting us for being visibly Jewish after a peace ritual that mourned both Israeli and Palestinian dead.

And here is the bitter truth, it is not only voices outside our community that do this.

Across our Jewish world, left and right, we have convinced ourselves that public humiliation is an effective tool. It is not. It is bullying. Bullying distracts from the real work.

Whether the cause is freeing hostages, ending starvation in Gaza, or building a just peace, turning on each other only weakens it. Shame does not strengthen movements. It paralyses them.

When I disseminate my articles about Zionism, Israel, the current war, German or international antisemitism, I regularly receive mainstream or right-wing remarks or comments such “you are no longer in solidarity with Israel”, “we have to close our mouth and need not to talk about famine in Gaza or Israeli war crimes” and the like.

And these comments are threatening solidarity with Israel on a new level. These people know exactly about the right-wing extremist policies of Netanyahu and his government. They reject these policies in private, but vehemently oppose to speak out. Worse, they blame those who fight for Zionism and therefore criticize Netanyahu and his ugly war in Gaza, which long ago hast lost it’s meaning as an IDF soldier reports, TOI’s Sarah Tuttle Singer on August 9, 2025, quoted this on her Facebook account and emphasized “Please read every word“:

Major Dan Maron, an Armored Corps officer who served 380 days of reserve duty in Gaza, writes:

” We moved between the houses in Gaza — or rather, what was left of them.

We were in humanitarian corridors — or, what was left of the humanitarian corridors.

I didn’t see antisemitic propaganda, not in the destroyed café in Khan Younis, not in the community center, and not in the locations we searched in Rafah.

I did clean blood from tanks, I did smell the corpses in the streets, and I did see entire streets destroyed. And when I left for a short break, I found myself attending funerals.

When I entered a residential building and prepared it for defense, I searched for weapons between the clothes and blankets — but I stopped when I found a simple black-and-white family photo.

When I commanded a tank, I met an elderly woman who could have been my grandmother. She waved the white flag she’d tied to her cane. I stopped and handed her a bottle of water.

There ARE innocent people in Gaza.

I’m not confused. I’m not naive. I’m not an idiot. I haven’t forgotten October 7th.

Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization that planned and carried out horrific war crimes because it hates the State of Israel.

It murdered, burned, and raped our brothers and sisters. And we must ensure it loses all ability to function as an organization.

But eliminating one more fighter with an RPG or Kalashnikov isn’t what will bring us security.

This war doesn’t just cost lives — it leads to a deep moral, internal, and social collapse, a crisis within Israeli society, and endless suffering for the families of the hostages.

We were raised on the sanctity of life — not on endless revenge. And our collective hearts break at the human scenes we see of people on the other side.

This isn’t a PR problem — it’s reality. And it won’t disappear if we close our eyes.

We must protect our morality, our values — camaraderie, social solidarity, faith in the justice of our cause. That’s part of defending our society.

This war has stopped being a “war of no choice” — because there is a choice:

To reach an agreement that will bring all the hostages home tomorrow, in one stage, because time is running out.

To end the war.

And to start repairing our fractured society.

That is the national interest. It is not weakness — it is courage.”

The Department of Justice declared it illegal last week for universities receiving federal funds to give “preferential treatment” to members of any protected class, including funding “safe spaces” like study spaces or dorms for specific groups or recruiting minorities by targeting institutions that they are likely to attend. ,,,

The Trump administration seems to see no contradiction between countering what it has called “illegal DEI” and protecting Jewish students, arguing that it is precisely the “woke” policies meant to help other minority groups that are fueling hostility toward Jews.

I’m a Jewish Israeli American teenager and North Carolina resident, and I was delighted to see that the North Carolina Democratic party recently approved new platform resolutions that called for an arms embargo against Israel, a ceasefire, and the release of the hostages. Very few people and organizations have managed to articulate my views of both Oct. 7 and the subsequent genocide as well as my state party’s resolutions did. Unfortunately, it seems that my perspective is not very welcome at my local Jewish Federation.

…

I have had multiple personal run-ins with antisemitism since Oct. 7. Someone close to me experienced identity-based discrimination in a local progressive organization we are both a part of because they are Israeli-American and worked as a journalist in Israel. I have repeatedly been subjected to antisemitic comments online, and was once told that I should join the Israel Defense Force after I condemned the killing of innocent civilians on Oct. 7, implying that being Israeli and opposing the killing of innocent Israeli civilians meant that I somehow enjoyed killing Palestinian civilians.

Many Jews in America have had similar experiences, and I have no doubt that Jewish Federation and Jewish institutional leaders care deeply about fighting antisemitism and keeping their Jewish communities safe. However, statements like the North Carolina Federation heads made do not keep us safe.

Of course many antisemites are eager to stop arms deliveries to Israel, including anti-missile ammunition which Israels needs like in wars against islamofascist regimes like in Teheran.

However, the current war in Gaza must end – because Hamas cannot be destroyed militarily. It has to be eliminated diplomatically, including by Arab resolutions and actions. Recent events have shown that the Arab world (including Turkey, a nasty supporter or Palestinian terrorism!) is eager to get rid of Hamas.

We need to listen to young Jewish Zionist activists and students.

We need to listen to IDF soldiers who cannot bear the war in Gaza anymore.

We need to collaborate with all kinds of Zionist activists, who fight for a safe and secure Israel and who also fight the occupation, racism against Arabs and Palestinians – without ignoring the cheers by many Palestinians and their allies on Oct. 7. We will never forget this.