Opposing Israel is not “Jew Hate”, though it can be

Opposing the actions of the Israeli government, driven by the obsessive Netanyahu, is not, in itself, antisemitic. The point is that it can be. The problem is a combination of malice and ignorance. Antisemitism is maliciously vile and, often, based on ignorance

Not every attack on Israel, be it verbal or actual, can be factually characterised as an attack on Jews. “Jew Hate” as Times correspondent Stephen Pollard calls it. But most of us do not oppose Israel because it is predominantly a Jewish state nor Netanyahu because he is a Jew. 

Israel’s barely disguised ambition to expand the state permanently into what are predominantly currently Palestinian areas is wrong and grotesquely so. But to say this can invite the charge of being an antisemite. 

What is needed is education. Focus not on Israel’s legitimacy as a homeland for Jews, which is what it was and is, but on its status as a democratic state – the only one in the region. Then ask how such a state can be so abusive of human rights to destroy Gaza and to seek Lebensraum on such a scale. And show how this is not because it’s Jewish but because its leadership is currently so malignant.