Western liberals have used the Gaza war as a cudgel against Jews and Israel. That state of affairs will not soon change.
When we grew up, my parents did not hold back their hatred for Germany. My father’s family has roots in Emreuth since at least the 1600s. My parents left with their folks when the country that they had loved no longer wanted them. I was thus quite surprised to learn, shortly after the death of the only grandparent I had ever known, that we were all going to Germany. They felt that they needed to show us their former homes and the towns from which they and their ancestors had come. I appreciated their courage in wanting to show us this important part of our family history. I also respected them for their zero ill-will towards Germans too young to have been involved in the war.
During a walk in Munich, an older man—about 80—intentionally put his shoulder into my brother’s chest. My brother was no worse for the hit, but my father was livid with what he perceived as a Nazi attack. The fellow apparently figured out that we were Jews and though 50 years had passed since the fall of the Reichstag, for him, nothing had changed.
I am afraid that we will see similar phenomena with respect to the present Gaza War. The Gatestone Institute has a worrisome article about the multipronged efforts in the West to harm Jews and Israelis. It’s hard to separate Israelis from Jews, though not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews feel a connection to Israel. When a group targets Israel and its citizens, it does not take long before its ire is directed towards Jews in general. One can see it on college campuses today. When pro-Hamas lunatics badger, punch or threaten Jews, do they ask them if they are Zionists or have visited the state of Israel? No, as it’s guilt by association: if you are Jewish, you are an evil Zionist who must be dealt with.
The specific examples brought in the Gatestone piece are highly troubling. Ayelet Shaked was a Justice Minister in a previous Netanyahu government. She applied for a visa from Australia—the country to which my father and his parents fled in 1939—to attend a Jewish conference. She was denied. It was reported independently that Australia is not giving visas to Israelis who served in the IDF. What if the guy was drafted and served as a pastry chef—and a lousy pastry chef to boot? No, he will not be allowed to see the koala bears at Taronga Zoo or pet the kangaroos at Pebbly Beach, as I did during my sole visit there.
At some point, the war in Gaza will end. I doubt that it will be concluded with Armani-clad diplomats hammering out an agreement in a Vienna hotel conference room. Rather, Hamas will more or less run out of RPGs and anti-tank weapons, while Israel will move to a more permanent defensive posture. But while Gaza will move on to a post-war period that may involve rebuilding and some change in government, the Western hatred of Israel and the Jews will not stop. Book publishers are turning down manuscripts from Israelis and Jews. Academic societies are boycotting Israeli institutions and individual professors. It is like the dark days of the 1930s where research was ignored or discounted because a Jew had performed the studies. 100 Authors Against Einstein was an attempt to undue Einstein’s correct scientific conclusions by bringing 100 Aryan professors to say that he was wrong.
The attack on Israel on October 7th perversely gave a green light for antisemites throughout the world to come out against Israel. It would be like a fellow being sucker-punched and then everyone around him blaming and attacking him for what was done to him. Academics at universities and scholarly societies saw in the pogrom against Israelis an opportunity to turn their Jew hatred into a kosher program against Israeli scientists and scholars. “Me antisemitic? Hardly! I am just holding responsible Israelis for their participation in genocide against the Palestinian people!” It would be like me wanting for a decade to punch my more successful neighbor in the face. When he is accused of some potential financial improprieties, I take the opportunity to deck him—in the name of those potentially harmed by his actions.
While the war will end or simply run out of steam, the Jew hatred unleashed by those in the West has no expiration date. Without laws similar to criminal statutes for those practicing BDS, the Jew-haters will simply keep hating. That Gaza is rebuilding and Jews are returning to their homes in the south of the country will be no reason for Australia to allow in IDF veterans. Nor will it be enough for some important conference not to deny an Israeli leader in the field from attending. Jew hatred has been around as long as there have been Jews, and like the German who tried to tackle my brother, 50 years for this hatred means nothing.
When hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers are released from their obligations to the army, where will they go on holiday? Countries like Australia will not let them in, while others might threaten arrest and prosecution for nonexistent genocide and war crimes. They will have to choose carefully and go to countries like the U.S. and Hungary where they are still welcomed and not hunted for ginned-up charges. The murder of civilians, the mass rape of Israeli women, and the torture of children and families should have put Western citizens into Israel’s camp. Instead, it served as an excuse for antisemites to hate Israel. “Israel deserved what happened to it.” “Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians is worse than what the Palestinians did.” And so forth.
The current situation parallels what former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told a Jewish crowd in England last week: the late queen considered every Israeli “a terrorist or the son of a terrorist.” She would not allow Israelis into the palace unless a formal event required their presence. She no doubt formed her views of Israelis from the period during which Jewish groups like the Palmach and Hagana fought British soldiers prior to the latter’s departure in 1948. So even the genteel queen hated Israelis, a revelation that was shocking in coming from a former president of the state of Israel.
We may see in a few years the strange sight of a top Israeli author or scientist being feted at a conference in Dubai while being denied entry to a similar event in Dublin. Israel removed its diplomats from the Green Isle, as Ireland cannot stop expressing its anti-Israeli views, even joining South Africa in the international “genocide” case against Israel. Antisemitism will never go away. The only thing that can be done by the Trump administration and others is to make its open practice illegal or painful. Large fines and potential jail sentences can put the hatred back in the bottle. There it will remain until the next opportunity presents itself for its return.