Antisemitism is on the rise in Europe and the U.S., and the usual explanations — online extremism, economic anxiety, political polarization — don’t quite do it justice (although they do explain a lot of what is happening). The real reason is nastier: whenever Israeli government says that it represents all Jews and then commits mass killings in Gaza, Jewish identity comes into the aftermath of its violence. That connection isn’t in there by default; it has been created by the state itself.
The Israeli government keeps saying it is ‘the nation-state of the Jewish people’ and not just its own citizens. This way of putting it isn’t symbolic only; it’s used to justify military action, diplomatic pressure and international communications too. When Israeli tanks enter Gaza with the Star of David on their armour the world knows — directly or indirectly — that this is being done on behalf of Jews everywhere. When bombings level whole neighbourhoods the government says it is doing so in the name of Jewish safety. The symbol thus acts as political branding.
News outlets like Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye have shown how Israeli authorities use this claim of Jewish identity to justify their attack on Gaza. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published several warnings by Israeli scholars about the danger of linking Jewish identity with state violence (a danger not only for Palestinians but Jews around the world too). Israel’s leadership “exploits Jewish identity in order to protect itself from being held accountable” says Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz — criticism of government policy becomes allegations of antisemitism. This may help the government, but ordinary Jews are left unprotected.
The effects are clear. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said that Gaza is being bombed on a massive scale killing civilians, infrastructure being intentionally destroyed and forced displacement taking place. The anger and sorrow of the global public is then directed in the wrong direction — Jewish students, Jewish families and Jewish communities (who have nothing to do with Israeli policy) end up bearing the brunt of the criticism.
That is why the silence of Jewish leadership in Britain matters. If Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis really wanted to combat antisemitism he should have said publicly that Jewish identity has nothing to do with Israel’s military operations and that Jews as a whole don’t support bombing Gaza or violence in the West Bank; that Israel is not a religion (it’s a country) and its government doesn’t speak for all Jews. But he hasn’t — instead he has taken the Israeli government line and insisted that criticism of Israel is inherently dangerous for Jews because it attacks state power — which serves the state not the community.
Middle East Eye reports that a number of Jewish organisations in the UK (Na’amod and Jewish Voice for Peace) have asked mainstream leadership to sever this link because failing to condemn Israeli atrocities leaves Jewish communities open to more hostility. Their logic is simple enough: if leaders don’t say “Israel does not represent us” then people will continue to think Israel acts on Jewish will.
Mark Etkind (whose father was a Holocaust survivor) is saying what many are afraid to say: the fact that Israel insists on acting ‘for all Jews’ is antisemitism. Jewish leaders don’t challenge this assertion because then people think the decisions of a government determine the identity of an entire people and leave Jewish communities with the consequences of a war which they did not want.
To break this cycle one has to be honest. Leaders have to say very clearly that Jewish identity is not the same as Israeli policy and Israeli policy is not identical to Jewish identity. They have to reject the idea that a government can speak on behalf of millions of people who never agreed to its actions. So long as this distinction isn’t made public and often enough antisemitism will keep growing — not because Jews are who they are but because what a state claims to be doing in their name.
The Star of David belongs to a people not a government and it cannot be painted on weapons which are used to destroy families in Gaza.
