Israel-Gaza crisis tests our ability to distinguish between legitimate criticism and outright prejudice

The crisis in Israel and Gaza has revived the perennial controversy about when criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism — and when the backlash against terrorism by extremist Muslims turns to general anti-Muslim prejudice.

For years, we’ve heard complaints, mainly from the progressive left, that critics of Israel and of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories are routinely labeled antisemitic. Pro-Israel pundits have countered that it’s one thing to be critical of specific Israeli policies and governments; it’s another to deny Israel’s right to exist. Whether one can be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic has been the subject of heated polemics.

Recent events starkly demonstrate that the distinction is often irrelevant. The crisis began with a horrific attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists during which more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians — including babies, people in their 80s, and entire families — were slaughtered and more than 200 were kidnapped. Yet many blamed Israel itself for the massacre, or even celebrated the attack as an act of Palestinian resistance. The slogan “Glory to the martyrs,” referring to fallen terrorists, was projected onto a building on the George Washington University campus in Washington. Meanwhile, posters with photos of kidnapped Israeli children have been ripped down or defaced in numerous locations, including New York City.

Nearly always, the activists claiming to be pro-Palestinian explicitly regard Israel, not just the occupation of recognized Palestinian territories, as illegitimate and evil.

Does this animus stem from hatred of Jews on religious or ethnic grounds, or hatred of perceived Western imperialism and colonialism? Again, it is ultimately irrelevant. Historically, antisemitism has often been entangled with other kinds of animus. Thus, Jews have been hated both for being communists and for being capitalists. The end result is that people are excusing, or downright cheering, atrocities against Jews.

What’s more, in practice, anti-Zionist activism in the West very easily crosses the line into antisemitic hate and bullying. Synagogues, Jewish community centers, and Jewish-owned businesses have been harassed and sometimes vandalized during the recent anti-Israel protests. At Cooper Union College in downtown Manhattan on Wednesday, a group of Jewish students huddled in the library while protesters yelled and banged on the locked doors; the protesters later claimed they were targeting the college, not the students. In advance of a protest for Gaza outside the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, Jews have been warned to avoid the area. In New York City in 2023, this is intolerable.

Amid this wave of antisemitic hate, some have said that talk of anti-Muslim bigotry feels like whataboutism. Certainly, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took some deserved heat when she responded to a question about antisemitism with an apparent non-sequitur about Islamophobia. But the truth is that, with Islamist terrorism and extremism highly visible at the moment, collective hate against Muslims is a real danger. We have already seen the horrific incident in the Chicago area in which a 6-year-old Muslim boy, a Palestinian-American, was stabbed to death by a 71-year-old landlord seized with anti-Muslim rage. (The boy’s mother was also wounded.) We have seen some rhetoric that dehumanizes all Palestinians and all Muslims, or equates Hamas’ extremist ideology with all of Islam.

In times of crisis, especially a crisis that seems to pit some ethnic and religious groups against others, it is especially important not to lose sight of humanity — our own, and that of the people caught inside the conflict.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.