Blog

Quoting a university poster from many years ago written by the Jewish (student) society. Which is not quite what this is about but close enough.

In recent weeks it has become the trend to accuse those who criticise Israel’s policies in Gaza, as antisemitic. It is possible of course – the dumber out there are genuinely antisemitic. But there’s a whole other bunch of reasons :-

1. They’re anti-zionist and anything that Israel does can be condemned.
2. They’re anti-certain kinds of government policies and Israel uses those policies.

Always accusing critics of Israel of antisemitism is essentially saying that Israel cannot be criticised no matter what they do. Is that right?

Sure Israel has to defend itself from Hamas terrorist attacks, but it has to be done right without breaking international law. And even if you think Israel’s response is “reasonable”, you can’t reasonable silence criticisms of Israel by using the antisemitism label – it’s dishonest.

Ultimately what Israel wants is to be in a privileged position where none dare criticise them because any criticism will be seen as antisemitic. It’s equivalent to the British claiming that anti criticism of the British Empire is just anti-British.