Is it always antisemitism?

There is no justification or legitimacy for violence based on racism, Islamophobia or antisemitism. The use of violence against civilians for political purposes, including hate crimes, is terrorism. The perpetrators of those acts of violence are terrorists. What happened on Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday is an unforgivable terrorist act of hatred against Jews.

These kinds of acts of terrorism may be defined as antisemitism, but they may have been acts of terrorism not motivated by antisemitism but motivated by hatred towards Israel and Zionism – and the two are not the same.

I know that this argument will anger many because governments of Israel and the Jewish establishment, mainly in the United States, have equated antisemitism with criticism against Israel, including the use of boycotts and divestments from companies that work in the State of Israel or in the occupied territories.

I have stated many times, antisemitism is illegitimate at all times, in all places, always. Criticism of Israel is legitimate. There are those who criticize Israel who are also antisemites. But criticizing Israel’s policies in the West Bank, calling what Israel did in Gaza war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even acts of genocide, are legitimate. Israelis and Jews around the world may not like to hear that criticism, but they must know that it is within the realm of being legitimate. Even calling to boycott Israel, Israeli companies in Israel or in the West Bank, is a legitimate form of non-violent protest.

Does anyone really believe that Israel’s total destruction of Gaza, making Gaza unlivable for its more than 2 million people, killing more than 70,000 people, the majority of whom were non-combatants, including more than 20,000 children would go by without consequences for Israel?

We Israelis are only just beginning to face the consequences of what our government and army did in Gaza. Wait until Gaza is opened up to the international media – then Israelis will face the consequences even more harshly. The world will become very small for Israelis, who love to travel, as they find more and more places around the world where they are made to feel unwelcome. The warrants for the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague may be just the beginning of legal actions against Israeli leaders. Legal actions may be taken against IDF officers as well, and maybe even against the criminal and stupid Israeli soldiers who posted videos of themselves committing war crimes in Gaza.

It is tragic that Jews around the world may be paying the price for what the State of Israel did. I want to emphasize that I am not in any way justifying violence against Jews, but I am pointing out that the killing of 15 Jews in Sydney may not have happened just because they were Jews. It is more complex than that. The media in Israel and Jewish media sources keep repeating, as a mantra, that they were killed only because they were Jews. They are all calling it antisemitism, which as I have stated is illegitimate always in all places at all times. The fact that Jews were killed in Sydney by Muslim fanatics does not automatically mean that this terrorism was motivated by antisemitism.

It is possible that the terrorists make no difference between Jews in Australia and Israelis, or representatives of the Israeli government or the Israeli army. It could be that they were purely antisemites – I don’t know. But I would like to challenge the Israeli and Jewish narrative that all acts against Jews around the world or in Israel are acts of antisemitism.

There may actually be consequences for the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, in Jerusalem and even against Palestinian citizens of Israel. That does not justify or legitimize the use of violence against civilians – but it is part of the reality that we as Israelis and as Jews live. The victims could be supporters of peace with the Palestinians or be those who oppose peace with the Palestinians. The nature of terrorism is that it does not distinguish between the victims.

But it does return me to what I believe to be true and perhaps even more so today: Israel (and Jews around the world) will never have security until Palestinians have freedom; and Palestinians will never have freedom until Israel has security.