Antisemitism shapes your view of Israel
Perhaps one of the most important things to understand as an outsider
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Antisemitism has a significant impact on how you view Israel and the conflict. Allow me to explain.
People underestimate how deeply engrained antisemitism is in our society. How many news channels and humanitarian organizations have long taken antisemitic stances, and how deep antisemitic tropes are woven into the fabric of history. This bias influences the way that you view Jewish people as well as Israel and the conflict.
Multiple people have asked me “Could all the humanitarian institutions and liberation scholars be wrong?”
It’s a laughable question to Jews because we’ve seen these institutions fail us time and time again.
Over the past few months, I’ve watched as time and time again people look stunned when I tell them that the Red Cross visited Auschwitz and said they didn’t see any “extermination installations.” They visited Theresienstadt, too, with no complaints. They even helped Nazis escape after the war. It wasn’t until 1996 that they publicly admitted knowing about what was happening during the Holocaust, saying they felt “powerless.” Sounds eerily similar to today, when they say they can’t do anything about visiting the hostages that have now been held in Gaza for nearly 100 days, or provide them with their necessary medication. One family member of a hostage shared in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that he pleaded with the Red Cross to deliver his sister her medication, and he was told that he should be focusing on the Palestinians and their needs. Some things never change.
As for the UN, Zionism was voted to be racist, without defining what it was, in 1975, making it the only nationalist movement to ever be condemned by the UN. Pushed by the Soviets to conflate Zionism with Judaism to make it more palatable, it repealed in 1991 because it was wrong (much of the way the Soviet Union positioned Jews and Israel is being parroted today). A released hostage shared that she was held in the home of a UNRWA school teacher, which UNRWA denied and called defamation. Just this week it was exposed that in a telegram group chat with 3,000+ UNRWA employees, one of the participants told others not to evacuate and follow IDF safe routes, many celebrated the 10/7 massacre and mass rape, and one person encouraged “executing settlers” (why is it so hard to believe that one of these folks held a hostage, all things considered?). These are employees of the UN. The USA contributed over $350 million to UNRWA (which is important, for humanitarian aid, but we also know Hamas steals humanitarian aid and even this week said it was for “the resistance”). Currently, Iran chairs the UN Human Rights Social Council—yes, you heard that right. The same Iran that imprisons, tortures, and lynches women for showing their hair in public, or people for being queer. As well as the same Iran that funds terror proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis), and others—many of whom have a mission to annihilate Israel and the Jews. Ansar Allah’s slogan is “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” The UN even had a Secretary General who was a Nazi.
It’s obvious how deeply rooted antisemitism is on American college campuses, especially with $4.7 billion of Qatari funding (which also funds and houses Hamas) since 2001 (after 9/11).
And if you know what to look for, it’s clear that most of the major news outlets are anti-Israel as well. Remember when the BBC said that the IDF went into Al Shifa hospital targeting doctors and Arabic speakers, and then later corrected that to say that they went in with doctors and Arabic speakers? By the time they had corrected themselves, the message had spread like wildfire causing global outrage and putting Jews in harm’s way. Same with the hospital bombing BBC (and the NY Times) blamed Israel for, later admitting it was PIJ, and reporting that Israel was executing Gazans only to apologize later and say it was not vetted. (Find all these corrections here).
When you’re judging Jews and Israel based on the “facts” shared by these institutions, it’s to come to conclusions that aren’t favorable to Israel. That’s why it’s necessary to understand the skewed nature in which “facts” are presented.
The truth is, for as long as we’ve existed, Jews have always been seen as the problem.
If you don’t understand how deeply enmeshed that concept is in the fabric of the world, you won’t understand the angle at which you are receiving information. Jews have always been deemed untrustworthy, nefarious, and liars. There have been countless antisemitic conspiracy theories crafted around our extraordinary ability to thrive despite all odds. Surely we can’t just be resilient, we must be evil and extorting others for our gain?
Conspiratorial thinking is central to antisemitism, and we see that happening in every aspect of this war. From people speculating Israel went into Gaza to steal and settle the land (they didn’t, it is a defensive war, and they’ve made it clear they are not trying to annex the land), to the accusations of genocide and stealing organs from dead Palestinian bodies (a modern-day blood libel, an age-old antisemitic trope saying Jews are out for blood), to believing everything Israel does is evil and nefarious. It’s all rooted in the same antisemitic tropes that Jews have been persecuted for millennia.
Without considering the influence of these tropes, you’ll always view the Jews, and Israel, through the lens being painted by these institutions. And by a genocidal terrorist group who wants to wipe Israel, and Jews worldwide, off the map.
And that’s the conclusion I see people take every day: every single step Israel does must be evil. Every move they make is spun through this web. Every comment an extremist right-wing jerk in the Israeli government makes is blown out of proportion to be “official policy” (it’s not, these people have no influence over war policy). Imagine we did that with every unhinged thing that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert said? There was a rendering created by a real estate firm in Israel showing how they wanted to build Jewish homes in Gaza. It was one small company sharing something I found offensive, and of their own opinion, and it went viral as “Israel’s plan to resettle Gaza.” It was a small business. it had nothing to do with government policy or public interest. It was one person. But these small details are held up to a magnifying glass and projected to a status that just isn’t true. And then they spread to paint the picture of Israel’s nefarious plans in this war.
Every day I see this deep distrust lead to the perpetuation of misinformation and disinformation including the blind trust in everything an influencer in Gaza or pro-Palestinian account shares (like Israel bulldozing sick Palestinians at a hospital, using a video from Egypt 10 years ago), rewriting, oversimplifying, and erasing parts of Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian history, rape denial, half-truths (“Israel is awful because they bombed a school!”—leaving out that the school was evacuated and it was targeted because it was used as a military base by Hamas), and so on. All of it makes Israel look worse, and so the cycle continues. The fact that the mere mention of Israel makes people unreasonably angry and disgusted and that its existence is consistently questioned (though I’ve never seen the existence of any other country questioned—many of which are committing awful atrocities that aren’t defensive responses to a genocidal attack) says something.
We know from psychology that when something validates, aligns with, or confirms our worldview, most of the time we don’t think to question it. So when your worldview is influenced, perhaps unknowingly, by oppressive systems and beliefs, it’s hard to spot. As humans we’re subject to the anchoring bias—once an idea is planted in our head, we judge things based on that benchmark— and confirmation bias—we focus on things that confirm our beliefs. So you’re quick to jump on the bandwagon that surely everything Israel does must be evil.
Many of us saw this in action as white folks in America in 2020. We understood that we benefitted from systems built by white people for white people, and that, perhaps unknowingly, informed our worldview. How we saw the cops, for example, as trustworthy and protective when Black folks saw them as the complete opposite—for good reason. In that moment we realized that there are so many elements to the country we live in that we do not see as people who the system benefits. Same with any marginalized group—unless you’re experiencing the world in that body, you can’t truly understand.
Jews are no different. We learned from a young age who has our backs and who doesn’t. And the truth is, most of the major institutions in the world don’t. They never have. They have turned their back on us time and time again when we needed them, just as they are now, and even helped to perpetuate our oppression.
The antisemitic rot that’s embedded in these institutions, and global culture, shapes the entirety of how you perceive the conflict and what you choose to believe about it. When blatant misinformation is posted, or Israel is singled out for something many other countries do, you believe it because it aligns with the worldview that’s been sold to you. It’s easy to not question it because you’ve already built up a case in your head as to why Israel can’t be trusted, or that these institutions are trustworthy and reliable. Therefore it’s validating to believe everything Israel does is wrong. For example, why do people fighting for a free Palestine (Palestinian sovereignty) deny Zionism (Jewish sovereignty) as supremacist, flawed, and racist? They are the same concept for two different groups of people, yet one is deemed acceptable and one is deemed fatally flawed.
I don’t expect you to know all of this. Someone asked me “How did you know that about the Red Cross visiting Auschwitz and giving it a glowing review?” And I said, “Because I’m Jewish.” This is our history. This is what were taught. We need to know who to trust and who not to trust. While I don’t expect you to know the history of the Jewish people and antisemitism, I do expect you to take time to learn so you can see clearly. It is crystal clear to me and many of my Jewish friends the way antisemitism distorts your view, but when you’re in the delusion, it’s hard to get out of.
This is why Jews are saying so much of what people are sharing about Israel is antisemitic. Because it’s rooted in bias, double standards, and hypocrisy. Things you won’t see if you don’t know what to look for.
Once you understand this, everything shifts. Your distrust of all Jews or anything Israel says or does is because of messaging influenced by antisemitism. If you can untangle yourself from it, you can start to understand the reality of the situation. But if you’re only trusting the institutions responsible for perpetuating this bias, including the genocidal Jihadist terrorist group calling for the annihilation of Israel and the extermination of Jews worldwide (and trust me, they do a really good job planting people who you deem trustworthy to spread their messages). In that case, you’re putting our lives at risk and operating from a place of deeply seated antisemitism.
Please listen to us, learn from us, we beg you. Our lives depend on it.
I recorded a version of this essay in video form, which you can find here.
If this information is new to you, and/or you’d like a deeper dive, I highly encourage you to take the time to do these additional readings from Roots Metals*:
Exposing the Red Cross, Teaching hatred, When NGOS look the other way, Institutional antisemitism, United Nations, UNRWA, Antisemitism in academia
*I share Debbie’s work because it is all highly researched and sourced—find sources on the corresponding Instagram post or via her Patreon.
Well written, Sara. Thank you for all the work you are doing.