Antisemitism? Yes, but is it also a result of Israel’s acts?

I, along with many others, expressed my condolences last week to the family and friends of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a Messianic Jewish couple, who were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum after attending a community event hosted by the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. 

The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, who is not Palestinian, shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” and “I did it for Gaza.”

This raises the question as to whether this attack was a denunciation of Jewish people or the state of Israel for its acts of violence against the Palestinians, or both. 

Either way, of course, I denounce the violence. As I have noted repeatedly, the way of Jesus is the way of non-violence: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword'” (Matt 26:52).

Was the attack last week an instance of antisemitism?

The attack was quickly widely denounced as antisemitic in the mainstream US media. And though I continue to denounce antisemitism and condemn the murderous attack, the question arises as to whether or not the murders were motivated by antisemitism or if they constitute a response to Israel’s campaigns against the Palestinians.  

The answer to this question depends on how we define “antisemitism.” 

NB: I sent this post to several colleagues for review before publishing it. Included in my correspondence were several Jewish and Israeli voices. I have taken their comments into account in the final form of this post. I acknowledge that I cannot fully understand the depth of pain that our Jewish friends are experiencing as a result of antisemitism. In fact, it is love for the Jewish people that in part motivates this post. At the same time, the level of suffering among Palestinians is also high. And it is out of love for them that I speak as well. 

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has issued a controversial definition: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The definition is problematic because, on the surface, it appears to make any act of violence against a Jewish person an instance of antisemitism. But shouldn’t the definition of antisemitism be more nuanced? 

If, for example, we accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism as any attack against a Jewish person because they are Jewish, then there is little question that the murders were motivated by antisemitism.

But are we to conclude that all attacks on Jewish persons constitute antisemitism? Is it also true of attacks against a person of another ethnicity or religion? And, if so, would not every crime committed against another be categorized as an act of bigotry, racism, or, in the case of a Jewish victim, antisemitism? And, if so, wouldn’t this render such categories as meaningless?   

I think we might all agree that motivation should play a key role in what constitutes bigotry, racism, or antisemitism.  

The difficulty here is that in 2018, the state of Israel passed the Nation-State Law, which officially declares Israel to be a state for the Jewish people. This law affirms that only Jewish people in Israel have the right to self-determination. This, of course, is problematic since 20% of the citizens of Israel are Arab-Israelis. 

NB: This seriously questions how Israel can be a democracy when non-Jews are by law excluded from certain rights and privileges that are granted to Jewish Israelis. This is also one of the bases for which Israel has been declared by major human rights organizations (such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem) to be an apartheid state. But these are topics for another day.

As a result, many people associate a Jewish person with Israel. This is where the fine line of antisemitism comes in. 

We must recognize that crimes against a person simply because they are of a particular ethnicity, which identifies or associates that person with a state actor, is not necessarily an instance of ethnic hatred. We must distinguish, then, between just protests against Israel and acts of violence against a Jewish person, just as we do between protests against Russia and acts of violence against a person of Russian descent. 

But because the IHRA definition of antisemitism claims that any act of violence against a Jewish person is antisemitic, then, in the case of the young couple in Washington, D.C. last week, this attack was by definition antisemitic. 

However, we do not know whether the murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim was motivated by their Jewishness or if it was because their Jewishness associated them with the state of Israel, or both.

In other words, we know that this attack was politically motivated–based on the alleged shooter’s expressed statement. But was it also ethnically, racially, or even religiously motivated? At this point, there is no evidence that it was. 

This is the problem, in my estimation, with using the label “antisemitic.” Namely, that it obscures, or completely erases, the fact that the attack was a response to Israel’s acts of injustice against the Palestinians. 

To my Jewish brothers and sisters, I agree that we must stand against hatred and violence directed at any Jewish person. At the same time, we must call attention to the fact that this attack, and many like it, whether or not we label them antisemitic, are a direct result of the injustices done against the Palestinians by the state of Israel, with the aid and support of the US. 

In saying this, I do not intend to diminish the evil behind the attack. As I noted above, I condemn all acts of violence. I only wish to call attention to the fact that the state of Israel’s actions are complicit in the rise of antisemitism. 

America is not invincible either

The US does the same thing. After an act of terror, they immediately blame it on Islamic terrorists. They fail to note, however, that virtually every instance of Islamic terrorism has been motivated by the US actions against Muslims globally.  

NB: See Scott Horton’s Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. 

As Americans, we must also come to understand that the US is not invincible. The multiplicity of acts of terror committed by the US, which our government masquerades as defensive attacks against terror, will inevitably bring harm, as it already has, to the people of the US. 

The US’s recent “war” on Yemen is a prime example. The US spent $1 billion, without congressional or UN approval, bombing mostly civilians in Yemen. (That civilians were the primary targets of these attacks is clear from this article by The Guardian and this one by Amnesty International.) 

Of course, the 9/11 attack and others like it should be enough of a warning. Unfortunately, our government is quick to spin these attacks as motivated by radicals bent on the destruction of our country because they are envious of our freedoms, instead of acknowledging that they are most often reprisals for our acts of violence and terror against them. 

There will most certainly come a day, maybe soon, when the US and its people will pay for their acts of global terrorism. Sadly, Israel’s acts of terror against the Palestinians have led to acts of terror against Jewish people around the world, like the murdering of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.

We may call this antisemitism, but we must not allow this label to overshadow the fact that the state of Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians are primarily to blame. 

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