When Self-Criticism Becomes Self-Destructive
We Jews have a far bigger problem than settler violence, yet too much of our communal leadership seems determined to focus its attention on the wrong priority. While any act of violence against innocent people deserves condemnation, regardless of the perpetrator’s identity or political affiliation, the disproportionate emphasis on isolated incidents involving a small number of Jewish extremist risks obscuring a much broader and more dangerous problem: the rising tide of antisemitism directed at Jews and the open hostility toward Israel that increasingly accompanies it.
A recent incident in Israel involved the temporary detention by Israeli authorities of volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights while accompanying Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest. The organization publicized the incident, turning it into an international issue.
Although self-criticism is a virtue, but when it becomes disproportionate, one-sided, or oblivious to the larger threats facing the Jewish people, it can become counterproductive and damaging.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks praised Israelis for their willingness to engage in painful self-criticism but added that Jews living safely outside Israel who publicly criticize it do so safely shielded in circumstances different from those of Israelis whose lives are exposed and at stake.
The problem is exacerbated today. At a time when Israel faces intense international scrutiny, highly visible criticism from Jewish organizations can become part of the public narrative about the country. Their Jewish identity and religious credentials can lend their accusations added credibility, particularly when media coverage emphasizes allegations against Israel while giving less attention to the underlying circumstances, security considerations, or competing evidence. The result can be to reinforce negative perceptions of Israel and provide its detractors with ammunition to advance a broader indictment of the Jewish state.
Too many Jewish leaders appear eager to condemn Jewish wrongdoing, often with considerable publicity, while failing to demonstrate comparable urgency when Jews are threatened, attacked, intimidated, or vilified by those who excuse terrorism, glorify Hamas, or embrace its eliminationist ideology. Where are the equally forceful statements, the public campaigns, and the sustained demands for accountability when Jewish students are harassed on college campuses, synagogues are threatened, Jewish institutions require heightened security, and demonstrators celebrate or rationalize the October 7 massacre?
Let me be clear: condemning settler violence and confronting antisemitism are not mutually exclusive. Jewish values demand that we oppose injustice, including when fellow Jews commit it. But moral consistency also requires proportion, perspective, and the courage to identify the greatest threats facing our community. Isolated acts of violence by Jewish extremists should be addressed firmly and lawfully. They should not become a convenient substitute for confronting the far broader phenomenon of antisemitism, including the growing willingness to excuse violence against Jews when the victims are Israelis.
Our enemies understand the power of this double standard. They seize upon every wrongdoing by an Israeli or a Jew and use it to portray an entire people as morally illegitimate. Meanwhile, Jewish suffering is minimized, rationalized, or dismissed as an understandable response to political grievances. The result is a dangerous inversion of moral responsibility: Jewish misconduct receives intense scrutiny, while those who celebrate terrorism or excuse the deliberate murder of Jewish civilians are too often granted the benefit of political nuance.
Jewish leadership has a responsibility to reject that inversion. We need leaders who can acknowledge wrongdoing within our own community without losing sight of the people who openly seek Israel’s destruction and the Jews who face growing hostility around the world. We need the same moral clarity, public indignation, and determination to demand accountability whether the perpetrators are Jewish extremists or antisemites marching under the banners of anti-Zionism and support for Hamas.
Our community cannot afford selective outrage. We should never excuse wrongdoing because the perpetrator is Jewish, but neither should we allow the pursuit of moral perfection within our own ranks to distract us from those who would deny the Jewish people the most fundamental right afforded to other peoples: the right to live in security, dignity, and self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
The question is not whether settler violence matters. It does. The question is whether our leaders possess the perspective and resolve to confront all threats to Jewish life—and whether they are willing to speak just as forcefully when the victims are Jews and the perpetrators are those who hate them. Our community deserves leadership that can do both, without hesitation, without double standards, and without losing sight of the threat that demands our urgent attention.
