Justifying Israeli deaths is antisemitic. Yet many of my progressive peers are doing just that
Family and friends of May Naim, 24, who was murdered by Hamas militants at a music festival near the Israeli border with Gaza, react during her funeral on Wednesday in Gan Haim, Israel. Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images
Natalie Roisman October 11, 2023
I have been unable to stop crying since Saturday over reports out of Israel: Of the indiscriminate, violent deaths of families including young children; babies murdered; grandmothers taken hostage.
But across my social media networks, and even in email exchanges with acquaintances and friends, I have seen repeated over and over the message that this was a fair price to be paid, and that it does not warrant explicit condemnation because a military response by Israel would be even more devastating.
The idea, in short: Depraved violence is acceptable if it targets the right victims.
The unwillingness of people around the world to see the humanity of Israelis tells me volumes about how they see me, a Jew. If you believe it is not just possible, but necessary, to protest the government of Israel, I agree. If you believe it is not just possible, but necessary, to speak out against the injustices endured by the Palestinian people, including through Israeli policies and actions, I agree.
I also believe it is possible, and necessary, to do both without being antisemitic.
What I wonder, after this attack — which has led to the deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis, most of them innocent civilians — is why anyone who believes the above would not also find it necessary to speak out against the unprecedented terror perpetrated by Hamas.
It is essential to decry any such behavior. And it’s possible to do so without disavowing support for human rights and the Palestinian people.
When something that in any other context would shock the conscience is met with bothsidesism, or completely ignored, because people won’t acknowledge the humanity of Jews or the right of the Jewish people to live in their ancestral homeland — that is antisemitism.
When an entire population is implicitly held responsible for the sins of its government, even as tens of thousands have been protesting daily in the streets in opposition to that government — that is antisemitism.
When those old enough to have survived the Holocaust and those younger than 2 are slaughtered or kidnapped — in their houses or at a music festival — and people shrug their shoulders and say, “What did Israel expect?” That is antisemitism.
Why do so many people I otherwise respect find it so challenging to call out terrorism while still advocating for both peace and the humanity and autonomy of the Palestinian people? What should be shock and disgust at murders and kidnappings is diluted — because the victims are Jews.
It is not difficult to call out Hamas’ actions as terrorism while still criticizing the government of Israel for its settlements and its treatment of Palestinians, or while mourning that many more innocents, Palestinian and Israeli, will likely die in the war to come. These are all realities; why do only the ones that fit a certain narrative get recognized?
Don’t tell me about context. I don’t lack context. I have so much context I rarely write about this issue because it feels like there is nothing I could say that would properly acknowledge all the people and all the pain. I have so much context that I don’t know whether to be optimistic or give up. I have family and friends in Israel. I also have friends who can speak to their own history and connection to Palestinian suffering. I know that they feel attacked and unsupported, and I know that the history of Islamophobia in the United States and Israel alike means there is an agonizing truth to those feelings.
And at the same time: If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
I see with striking clarity that what happened on Saturday is terrorism. I see that the continuing threats Hamas has issued against the 150-some Israeli hostages in Gaza constitute terrorism, too. I see that if I myself were taken hostage to be used as a bargaining chip or a human shield, people I might otherwise feel close to have shown me that they would view my plight as entirely predictable, detached from my humanity, and ultimately irrelevant — because I am Jewish.
When I think about how this is true for my three children, too, my heart breaks.
These families in the anguishing social media posts about the dead and the missing and the taken hostage — they are every Jew, and they are me.
But for my great-great grandparents leaving Eastern Europe at the end of the 1800s to flee pogroms, the Jews killed in the Holocaust could have been me. The Jews oppressed in the Soviet Union could have been me. The Jews blamed for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be me.
And the Jews who found their way from World War II displaced persons camps to the promised land, who built lives in Israel, always knowing that they were unwanted by their neighboring nations, they could be me. And so, too, those who were brutally attacked and whose whereabouts are still unknown and those who cry for them — they could be me. Because for centuries, it has been true that to be Jewish is to be hated and persecuted. That pain is harsh and deep no matter where you are located.
Around the world, antisemitism is on a sharp rise. Yet people somehow simultaneously blame all Jews for the actions of the government of Israel, and minimize the truth that Jews have a thousand-year connection with the land of Israel.
Vox neatly framed the events of this weekend as follows: “It took Hamas’s deadly attack today to remind Israel, the United States, and the world that Palestine still matters.” Really? Because I am reminded of the primacy of the Palestinian cause almost every single day by progressive left-wing organizations; because I generally support their missions, I try to overlook the antisemitism that often comes with those reminders. (And, in any event, how would incomprehensibly violent cruelty be an acceptable “reminder”?)
We can condemn war, brutality, and the endless cycle of violence and inequitable power dynamics. We can wish away Israel’s current right-wing government, which has escalated the oppression and pain experienced by Palestinians. We can pray for peace and self-determination. I do.
But we don’t have to address complex questions to know that what happened to Israel — to Jews — is terrorism. If we don’t ever draw a line and say, no matter our background, this is too far — it warrants mention, it warrants witness — what are we even doing as human beings?
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