Israel: A Safe Haven No More?

For generations, Jews around the world have looked to Israel as a sanctuary, a sovereign homeland where they could find refuge from persecution. American Jews, in particular, grew up believing that the United States offered an even safer haven, confidently dismissing any suggestion that a Holocaust could occur on American soil. Antisemitism existed, but it lurked at the fringes, rarely surfacing in polite society. Two seismic shifts have shattered these assumptions: the rise of Donald Trump, which emboldened racists to voice their hatred openly, and the October 7th war, which unleashed a well-funded, well-organized campaign that transformed Israel from victim to villain in the eyes of much of the world. This article examines how Israel’s standing has deteriorated, not solely due to external forces, but significantly because of the actions and failures of its own government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Erosion of Israel’s Standing
The Myth of Safety
For many years, Israel was viewed as a safe haven for Jews, perhaps one of the only safe havens we have. Growing up in the US, most American Jews viewed the US as an even safer haven. When the theoretical question arose if a Holocaust could happen in the US, it was always met with the indignant “NO!” followed by “it could never happen here!” There were always pockets of antisemitism, but much of it was under the radar, and it was hard to find people outside of the fringe who would publicly claim their hatred for Jews.

Two things changed that.
The Trump Effect
First was Trump, who racists viewed as the one giving them permission to stop hiding their racist views and to go beyond by voicing them loudly and proudly. This emboldening of hate speech created an environment where antisemitism and other forms of bigotry became increasingly normalized in public discourse.

The October 7th War and Its Aftermath
Second was the October 7th war. Almost immediately, the money and organization of long-established anti-Israel forces hit the ground running. Together with Hamas’ well-oiled and well-funded PR machine, they successfully changed the narrative almost immediately. Instead of the world’s outrage at the horrendous and barbaric attack by Hamas terrorists against families, women, children, babies, the infirm, including violent and deadly gang rapes, torture, dismemberment, burning people alive, and hostage taking, the anti-Israel hate campaign began and turned the attackers into the victims.

The Failure of Israeli Public Diplomacy

The Israeli government led by Netanyahu had long before eliminated almost all of the public diplomacy apparatus that had existed for years in almost every government ministry (i.e., Hasbara). There was one excellent English-speaking public diplomat who worked directly in the Prime Minister’s Office, Eylon Levy. He was, however, fired because the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah, wanted him gone for participating in the protests before the war against the government’s judicial overthrow.

Add to this the almost complete destruction and devastation of Gaza and the creation of the world’s worst refugee crisis, of 2 million Gazan Palestinians left without homes, schools, hospitals, and almost all of their infrastructure, together with the killing of over 70,000 Gazans, the majority of whom were women, children, elderly, and infirm. These were considered “collateral damage.”

The Campaign Against Israel Grows Stronger
The campaign against Israel grew stronger by day, and Netanyahu’s government was providing all of the ammunition on a silver platter without an inkling of Israeli-sponsored public diplomacy to explain and/or defend its actions. Much of the government’s actions and statements are not defensible.

Examples include:
– Minister of National Security Ben Gvir, who unveiled a 20-page proposal for “Voluntary Emigration” of the two million Gazans. This, in and of itself, constitutes a War Crime.
– Finance Minister Smotrich, who declared that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed” and that the Palestinians would leave so Jewish-only settlements would be built throughout Gaza. Another War Crime.
– Prime Minister Netanyahu, who stated in a closed-door Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting that Israel is systematically destroying homes in Gaza so that Palestinians “will have nowhere to return,” while publicly rejecting allegations of genocide or forced displacement as false.=
– Defense Minister Israel Katz, who in the early stages of the conflict ordered the immediate cutoff of water, fuel, and electricity supplies to Gaza, and later stated that Israel sought international backing to facilitate the departure of Palestinians.
– Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who suggested early in the war that dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza was “one of the possibilities”—remarks that were disavowed by the prime minister’s office.
– Nissim Vaturi (Knesset Member/Likud), who called to “wipe Gaza off the face of the earth” and eliminate the remaining population.

The Missing Diplomatic Effort
All of the anti-Israel organizations’ attacks work vehemently to erase the barbaric attack of October 7, and still, three years later, the government’s political diplomacy effort is AWOL. Instead, the efforts of the Prime Minister’s Office are fully invested in protecting “The Boss,” defending his rewritten narrative of events leading up to October 7 and everything that has happened since, including his deliberate prevention of bringing home the hostages in a timely manner and his prevention of the establishment of an official Commission of Inquiry to investigate all that led up to the war, the hostage crisis, and the handling of the war.

The Corruption of Language and Meaning
The virtually unlimited budgets of the anti-Israel organizations, mostly funded by Iran and Qatar, did not limit their venom on Israel. They successfully equated Israel and Jews around the world to mean the same thing: Zionists. They corrupted the meaning of Zionism, which historically was the ideology and actions that the Jewish people have the right to a sovereign, independent home state in their ancestral homeland of Israel. The anti-Israel/anti-Jew movement made the term “Zionist” the equivalent of a four-letter profanity and gave instructions to verbally and physically attack anyone they chose to call a Zionist. The simple belief and decision that someone is Jewish allows anyone around the world to attack those identified as Jews or Israelis.

Netanyahu’s Role in Conflating Anti-Zionism with Antisemitism
Let’s not forget who the true founder of equating being against the actions of the Israeli government as being antisemitic is: Benjamin Netanyahu. Being antisemitic was, in most western countries, viewed as unacceptable racism. Many of these countries backed this up with laws that prosecuted antisemitic violence and categorized it as a hate crime. However, statements against Israel, which were mostly against the actions and speech of the Israeli government, were fully allowed and did not fall under the same laws.

In addition, the settler movement, in particular the Jewish terrorists who attack Palestinians on a daily basis, internally corrupted the idea and meaning of Zionism. It became a movement of driving Palestinians forcibly from their lands in order to make the West Bank free of Palestinians. They provided the fodder to equate Zionism with racism.

The Curse of Success
Due to the highly unfavorable view of the actions of the Israeli government, especially towards the Palestinians, and the government’s enabling of the Jewish terrorists, Netanyahu made it his mission to promote the equivalency of being anti-Israel with antisemitism in the years before the October 7 War. Remarkably, his success in this endeavor was overwhelming, to the point that several states in the US passed laws to this effect. Like too many things, Netanyahu’s successes became a curse to both Israel and the Jewish people around the world.

Mr. Security Becomes Mr. Abandonment
Netanyahu self-proclaimed himself both “Mr. Security” and claimed that only he could protect Israel, and went beyond by proclaiming himself the “Savior of the Jewish People”. October 7 and every day since has proven that Netanyahu is “Mr. Abandonment” and the biggest danger to both Israel and the Jewish people around the world.

His actions, statements, and deliberate blindness towards the actions of the most extreme coalition members and the Jewish terrorists in the West Bank have brought widespread condemnations and sanctions by many foreign governments—and this is just the beginning. Prior to October 7, Israel had excellent relations with the broadest number of countries than ever, and that has receded to the point of drying up and making Israel a pariah state. Israelis and Jews are being attacked in countries that have never shown any degree of antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment in the past; they are being refused service and not allowed to check in to hotels.

Of course, this is not due to Netanyahu alone, but his actions, statements, and non-actions play a role throughout.

Israel’s traditional status as a safe haven for Jews has been fundamentally compromised by two converging forces: the emboldening of open antisemitism in the United States following Donald Trump’s rise to power, and the devastating failure of Israeli public diplomacy in the wake of the October 7th war. While external enemies, well-funded by Iran and Qatar, successfully inverted the narrative of the conflict, portraying Hamas’s barbaric attack as victimhood and Israel’s response as aggression, the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu systematically dismantled its own hasbara apparatus and provided ample ammunition to its critics through inflammatory statements and policies from senior ministers.

Netanyahu is only too deserving of severe criticism, with documented statements from his coalition members and himself that constitute war crimes, calling for the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza’s population, the complete destruction of Gaza, and even suggesting nuclear options. Simultaneously, the government has prioritized protecting the Prime Minister from accountability over securing the release of hostages or establishing a Commission of Inquiry. The conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, a strategy Netanyahu himself championed, has backfired catastrophically, while the violent actions of Jewish settlers in the West Bank have further corrupted the meaning of Zionism.

The result is a tragic irony: the man who proclaimed himself “Mr. Security” and “The Savior of the Jewish people” has become “Mr. Abandonment”—presiding over Israel’s transformation from a nation with excellent international relations to a pariah state, while Jews worldwide face attacks in countries that had never before exhibited antisemitism. The safe haven has become unsafe, not merely because of external threats, but significantly because of the actions and failures of Israel’s own leadership.